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Old 05-21-2013, 09:29 PM   #341
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And just where did I claim that it was "all" text critical scholarship?
Umm ..here.

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When I pointed out that all of critical scholarship, based on the manuscript evidence, regards Luke’s Last Supper words as limited to “This is my body” and therefore he could not have served as the source of Paul’s Lord’s Supper words, do you even acknowledge that, let alone counter it by some kind of attempted rational argument of your own?
Jeffrey
Thanks for calling that to my attention, Jeffrey. Obviously a slip of the tongue.
Yes, of course it was! We all know that we must take most of what you say -- especially when it's been shown that you've put your foot in it - this way -- which also means that we can't take you at your word.

I suppose what you write on p. 49 of JNGM on there being a general consensus among mainstream scholars that the shorter reading is original etc. was a slip of the tongue, too.

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Although the proper way to have done it would have been to actually quote some critical scholar you were familiar with who, though acknowledging the state of the manuscripts, nevertheless felt that he could override the principle that the shorter text is likely to be the original and declare that the longer version was original. Without that, for all we know my statement could actually be correct!
Leaving aside the fact that you do no such thing on p. 49, you need not lecture me in what is proper, especially since I already did here the very thing you now say I should have done. I take it that your eye as well as your tongue slipped and missed he texts from Metzger, Marshall, and Talbert that I posted.

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Old 05-21-2013, 10:50 PM   #342
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Hi Earl

The differing positions in Greek and Syriac of both the passage about the origin of the Jews and the passage about the origin of the Christians seem related.

The Syriac has a set of brief introductions to the different ethnic groups followed by a more detailed discussion. In the Greek these brief introductions are abbreviated with some of the material moved from the introductions into the detailed discussions.

Andrew Criddle
And this tells you what? Can you be a little more analytical and make a more substantive case for whatever you are suggesting?

Earl Doherty
Hi Earl

I thought the implication was clear.

The Greek text is a rearrangement of the Syriac, (or posibly but unlikely the other way round). The different position of the passage about Christian origins is not evidence that the passage is a later addition, anymore than the different position of the passage about Jewish origins is evidence that that is a later addition.

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Old 05-21-2013, 10:55 PM   #343
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First of all, Jeffrey, don't make it sound like the phrase "major portion" means a "majority."
OK. So what does it mean? 10 percent? 20? More? Less?

And the claim of yours that there is a "major (and not a minor) portion" of scholarship, however that is to be defined, still implies that you have acquainted yourself with the bulk of scholarship on this issue, doesn't it? How otherwise could you know what the portion was?

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I make no such claim and never have. In fact, I don't know what the exact proportion is.
So even your claim that it is a "major" portion is bogus?

Jeffrey
You're still trying to define "major" as majority. Major speaks to significance or importance.
No, I'm demonstrating that you are buggering yourself.

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Are you trying to say that a theory held by Rudolf Bultmann, Werner Kelber and Burton Mack (to mention only three), is not significant or "major", worthy of being appealed to?
No, not at all. But that's not the original issue.

What I'm actually trying to not note is how you are now engaged (again) in equivocation, since you didn't previously say anything about major scholars, but spoke instead (your words) of a "major portion of scholarship".

And even if it were otherwise, the question would be whether you have accurately represented what their position is.

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Can you at least quote any one of those three mentioning that he stands in isolation, with no one else holding to that theory?
Umm, no. But not because I'm not familiar with their work -- as you evidently are not with the commentaries and articles I listed. It's because they don't take the positions you attribute to them.

I note with interest that the quote of Bultmann (a historicist) from his HST that you give on p. 716 of JNGNM has nothing to do with anything found in Paul. It's concerned with what's found in the Synoptic Gospels. So too your citation of Mack, who is intent in n. 7 on P. 87 to dispute Boring's and Kloppenborg's thesis that much of the prophetic speech in Q that is attributed to Jesus really comes from inspired Q prophets and not of Jesus, and of Kelber (another historicist) who does not say anything about 1 Cor 11:23, but is discussing the oral function of Chrstology. So to appeal to these scholars not only as "a major portion of scholarship", but as major scholars who say that Paul believed that “words of the Lord” that he mentions in his epistles were communications he received from a heavenly Christ is to misread and misrepresent and misapply what Bultmann, Mack, and Kelber say at the places you cite.

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And if you expect me to be familiar with all the content of your text wall of commentaries, why should I not expect that of you, and that to back up your criticism expect you to quote a "major" portion of them rejecting a position like Bultmann's and thereby demonstrate that I am utterly wrong in referring to that interpretation within scholarship as major or significant and appealing to it?
Leaving aside the continued equivocation, I note that you are the one who claimed to be familiar with what "a major portion of scholarship (not major scholars) has held on the matter at hand. Your claim, your burden.

Secondly, since you haven't shown that Bultmann took the position with respect to Paul and what he wrote that you say he did, there's nothing for the scholars whose works I noted to reject. In fact, in his discussion of 1 Cor. 11:23 found in NTT 1 145-152, Bultmann explicitly sides with those take 1 Cor 11:23 to be words of the historical Jesus.

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When, in 1 Cor. 11:23 he [Paul] introduces the liturgical words with the sentnece "For I received from the Lord ..." he is not appealing to a personal revelation from the Lord, though this is frequently assumed, but to a tradition that has been handed down to him, being ultimately derived from the Lord [i.e. the historical Jesus]. Our comparison of 1 Cor. 11:23-25 with Mk 14:22-25 [p. 146] has shown that Paul's text represents an older one which has undergone editorial smoothing; and the analysis of the liturgical sentences showed that they imply a development in the course of which the various motifs combined. Another indication that Paul found the liturgical words already in existence is that they speak of a "communion" with the (body and the) blood of the Lord. Can Paul, for whon "flesh and blood" are excluded from the reign of God (1 Cor. 15:50), have created this text? He also speaks in 1 Cor. 10:16 of sacramental communion as something self-evident for Christians; the "we" of these sentences is evidently the same as that of Rom. 6.2ff. (150-151).
So quite contrary to what you claim, and would have us believe, Bultmann takes the exact opposite of the position that you attribute to him.

I note that you have been accused by Bart Ehrman not only of misquoting scholars, but of enlisting them as saying things they did not say, and attributing to them positions they do not hold, in order to make it appear that you have these scholars on your side. Here's very solid proof of his claim.


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But then, that's the sort of thing you never supply. It's always done by unbacked innuendo.
Leaving aside the matter that your claim is obviously false, is there such a thing as backed innuendo?

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Old 05-21-2013, 11:46 PM   #344
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[snip Jeffrey's "text wall", which is another of his old tricks
I wonder if you could be a bit more specific about why and how listing and asking if you have read works which you imply you are familiar with is a "trick" -- i.e., An act or procedure intended to achieve an end by deceptive or fraudulent means; a crafty procedure or practice meant to deceive or defraud.

What act of deception does it involve? How does it, even potentially, defraud you?

Calling it a trick hardly makes it so. But it does involve a dodge on your part. It's a way of avoiding having to say that aren't as familiar with scholars have said with regard to 1 Cor 11:23 that you claim you are.

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Old 05-22-2013, 07:27 AM   #345
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... I referred to a common scholarly thread which regards Paul as having believed that he was in receipt of communications from Christ in heaven.

I see that this is a paraphrase of your claim on p. 30 of JNGNM that there is "a line of scholarly thought [that] identifies these passages" [i.e., I Thess. 4:16-17; 1 Cor. 7:10-11; 1 Cor. 9:14; and 1 Cor. 11:23] not as things that Paul took to be, and offered as, "pronouncements of the earthly Jesus that [he] knows through others who heard Jesus' own instructions" but "as reflecting a phenomenon common in early Christian preaching [before Paul?], namely, the belief that words of the lord could and often did come "directly from the spiritual Christ in heaven" and that what Paul is up to in these verses is "passing on to his readers directives and promises he has received through revelation".

May I know where with respect to these particular verses this "line of scholarly thought" may actually be found? Contrary to what you try to adduce in your footnote to this claim, it is not found in anything Bultmann says -- at least with respect to 1 Cor. 11:23. Quite the opposite! Bultmann explicitly declares that this is material that comes from the historical Jesus and that Paul knows through others who herd and transmitted Jesus own instructions. Nor is it found in Mack's Myth of Innocence or Kelber's The Oral and the Written Gospel, as you try to claim it (indirectly) is.

Is it found in any of the commentaries on 1st Corinthians that I listed previously. If so which ones? In Conzelmann's commentary? In Thiselton's? In Plummer's? In Kistemacher's? In Thralls's? In Fitzmyer's? Barrett's? (just to name a few of those in English).

Is it found in any of the standard commentaries on 1 Thessalonians? Bruce's? Wannamaker's? Best's? Dibelius's Beale's? Malherbe's?

Please note that my asking you to tell me this is not a trick. It is, as you yourself have noted, what should be done when anyone makes claims about what what is and is not being upheld by scholars to see if one really knows what he is talking about.

And please don't reply by telling me what Paul's own language tells us about this matter or that he says elsewhere that he's heard Jesus voice or that there is reference in other Christian writings to direct revelation from "the spiritual Christ".

The issue is whether or not there is any validity to your claim that there is "a line of scholarly thought" that identifies the four passages listed above as things Paul thought were directives and promises that he received directly from the spiritual Christ in heaven, and where in scholarly works on 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians it can be found.

So only actual bibliographical citations of, if not actual quotations from, commentaries on 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians (and then more than one citation or quotation -- if we are to establish that there is a "line of scholarly thought") will do.

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Old 05-22-2013, 08:18 AM   #346
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