Ship of Fools: Kerygmania: Can we really say 'Jesus said...'

Thread: Kerygmania: Can we really say 'Jesus said...' Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by thegreent (# 3571) on :

A friend of mine has been looking into the whole Jesus Seminar stuff, and also wondering about how the bible was put together, how it was edited and how it was put together over time.

My question then is, can we really say, 'jesus said x,y,z' or should we really say, 'Jesus is likely to have said'. or 'this is the type of thing Jesus would have said', or 'this is matthews angle on what jesus said,' or even 'this is what someone wish jesus would have said.'

I realise this might overlap with other threads - tho i really am curious........

[ 30. March 2004, 12:31: Message edited by: Moo ]

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

Whilst we cannot guarantee that everything in the Bible is word perfect, I can still see a lot of internal consistency between the 'sayings' of Jesus, which lends credibility to the overall sentiment being original.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

OK.

First thing: On the "Q" thread in Limbo, there's a discussion about the Jesus Seminar.

Their problem is that they're a bunch of theologians trying to do literary stuff with the Gospels and getting out of their depth.
The whole red/pink/grey/black thing with Jesus' words is pretty arbitrary actually (and was, IIRC, decided by vote).

Ultimately, the only really good (as in, there are other sources, but they're not much cop, frankly) source we have for the words of Jesus is in the Gospels, so either we take what's there as a source, or we don't, thus admitting that there is no way of knowing what He actually said.

One point though: don't ever think that the Gospels give us the exact verbatim words of Jesus. They give us a distillation of his most important points. He probably didn't say *exactly* what was in the Gospels.

Posted by thegreent (# 3571) on :

Ta Wood for the Q thread link.

I think my question, more specifically, wasnt really to do with the Jesus seminar guys, but in recognising that Jesus obviously didnt say vebatim, what is in the gospels, is it misleading to use phrases such as 'Jesus said...' or 'when Jesus said...'?

I will go and check the other thread too....

Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

In fact I'm sure He didn't. I imagine the gospel writers putting in authentic sayings of Jesus where it suited their purposes.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
In fact I'm sure He didn't. I imagine the gospel writers putting in authentic sayings of Jesus where it suited their purposes.

That's awfully cynical. What possible reason would the Evangelists have for twisting His words around? I know, we don't know. But seriously, if I thought the only source for Jesus' ideas was actually flase and/or tampered with, I wouldn't be a Christian.

"Not verbatim" doesn't necessarily equal "inauthentic".

So, it's OK to say "Jesus said", because the essence of what He said was, I feel, intact.

Posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wood:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
In fact I'm sure He didn't. I imagine the gospel writers putting in authentic sayings of Jesus where it suited their purposes.
That's awfully cynical. What possible reason would the Evangelists have for twisting His words around? I know, we don't know. But seriously, if I thought the only source for Jesus' ideas was actually flase and/or tampered with, I wouldn't be a Christian.

"Not verbatim" doesn't necessarily equal "inauthentic".

So, it's OK to say "Jesus said", because the essence of what He said was, I feel, intact.

You read too much in, ascended Master.

My point is that, for example I doubt there was a sermon on the mount. But it is a useful vehicle for stringing together some sayings of Jesus.

The sayings themselves are I think largely authentic. Just as you say - non-verbatim.

Posted by Conrad (# 4644) on :

It is most likely that Jesus did his teaching in Aramaic. Since the Gospels were written in Greek, very few sayings will have been verbatim, although the occasional phrase has been passed down, Abba and talitha kumi and like that.

Having said that, the Greek is likely to be very very close to being word for word what Jesus said. Ancient people were much better with memory than we are, this is clear throughout the ancient world, but especially in the Hebrew tradition of pupils memorizing the teachings and arguments of their rabbi. And Jesus seems deliberately to have taught using memorable stories and phrases.

The historical critics, in the end, have delivered us a wonderful methodology for finding reason to trust the Gospels. As the tools have been refined and become better understood through the modernist era, it's become clear that things like Luke's restraint in the "child in the Temple" episode (Lk. 2) and Mark's willingness to allow Jesus to say that although the Father has set the Day of Judgement, Jesus himself doesn't know when it is (Mk. 13:32 // Mt. 24:36) demonstrate that we have reliable testimony here, rather than propagandists writing what's convenient for the movement.

Yes, you can say, "Jesus said..." But if you still have reservations, the obvious qualification is to say "In the Gospel of X, Jesus said, ..."

Conrad

Posted by chukovsky (# 116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Conrad:
Ancient people were much better with memory than we are, this is clear throughout the ancient world, but especially in the Hebrew tradition of pupils memorizing the teachings and arguments of their rabbi. And Jesus seems deliberately to have taught using memorable stories and phrases.

This is a commonly held view which I don't think is particularly justified. Obviously we cannot test the memory of people who were alive in the 1st century AD so we have no direct evidence. In a less literate society, the evidence from current-day societies is not that illiteracy (of the individual or the group) means that verbatim memory is better - it is not. For example, epic poetry singers/reciters who perform for a living but do not write down their poems, do not remember them word for word but remember schemata (overall frames for the poems) and fill in the details as they perform.

It is true that in some religious groups membership of a teacher's school involves memorising portions of the scriptures/teachings word for word. However in modern-day groups that do this (especially orthodox Jewish, and Muslim groups) the school is geographically fixed and attended for many hours a week from early childhood. The scriptures and teachings to be memorised will be repeated multiple times. This does not sound much like Jesus' itinerant, apparently spontaneous ministry.

I suppose it is possible that multiple versions of the same parables etc. mean that he taught the same thing in slightly different words in different places and people took the trouble to repeat it multiple times immediately after hearing it, but I think it is more likely that his words were shared non-verbatim and discussed by his followers without a literal memory of the words.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote from chukovsky

quote:
For example, epic poetry singers/reciters who perform for a living but do not write down their poems, do not remember them word for word but remember schemata (overall frames for the poems) and fill in the details as they perform.

Are these people who are literate and choose not to write it down, or are they illiterate?

I know of an experiment that was carried out in the 1930s in a remote area of Croatia. There were storytellers who travelled around telling their stories. A researcher equipped with a recorder went to a storyteller and told a new story. He recorded his narration. The next evening the storyteller told the new story to a group. Again the researcher recorded it. The storyteller had given it back verbatim.

Moo

Posted by chukovsky (# 116) on :

The empirical studies of ballad-singers worked with literate singers - they did not repeat ballads verbatim. However the changes (and the features preserved) made to ballads by these literate singers were very similar to the changes/preservations made across the years to ballads by singers in largely illiterate societies (it's hard to know if an individual C18 Scottish ballad singer was literate but if the majority of the population was illiterate it's a fairly safe assumption.)

Memory for the features of coherent stories does not differ between illiterate and literate adults. Memory for arbitrary lists is worse in illiterate adults (especially if the members of the list are categorically - e.g. vegetables - rather than functionally - e.g. things associated with gardens - related). It's a myth that illiteracy leads to better memory.

If you have a reference for the study you're talking about, Moo, I'd be interested to hear it - there have always been individuals with especially good memories, and given equal memory for stories in literate/illiterate individuals, there's no reason why a mnemonist shouldn't be illiterate.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Conrad:
Yes, you can say, "Jesus said..." But if you still have reservations, the obvious qualification is to say "In the Gospel of X, Jesus said, ..."

Thank you, Conrad, I think that about covers it.

Another angle on this is that official church teaching, as well as the simple understanding of most Christians, is that the Gospels are the revealed Word of God. As such, when they say "Jesus said" it is not unreasonable to believe that Jesus said this.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chukovsky:
It's a myth that illiteracy leads to better memory.

If you have a reference for the study you're talking about, Moo, I'd be interested to hear it - there have always been individuals with especially good memories, and given equal memory for stories in literate/illiterate individuals, there's no reason why a mnemonist shouldn't be illiterate.

I don't have a reference, but I have complete faith in my source for that story. It was told me by my professor of Old Icelandic at Yale. My professors of Greek and Sanskrit had an equal faith in the accuracy of oral tradition in societies where few, if any, people write things down.

Homer's poems were passed down for quite a while before anyone wrote them down. We know that they were passed down accurately because at the time when they were set down, some of the grammar and vocabulary were archaic.

In Iceland, there was a legislature. They passed laws which were not written down. It was one man's job to remember the entire law and quote relevant passages when asked. Once a year he had to recite the entire law. It took two days.

The Vedas in India were composed a very long time before they were written down. They were sacred texts, and thus had to be handed on verbatim. Again, the accuracy of the transmission is shown by the presence of vocabulary and grammar which were no longer in use by the time the Vedas were finally written down.

I was taught to have enormous respect for the accuracy of oral tradition. I think my professors knew what they were talking about.

Moo

[ 07. July 2003, 18:05: Message edited by: Moo ]

Posted by Wm Duncan (# 3021) on :

Oral tradition works when you have a piece of tradition that's considered canonical by a community; whether it's Icelandic law or Homeric epic or the Law and the Prophets, there's a community that functions to check the accuracy of the recitation. (I think of my years of reading bedtime stories to my children; if I tried to shorten a story, or accidentally altered a word, I would be corrected in emphatic chorus by my illiterate preschoolers.)

With the stories of Jesus, we have the shared experience of a relatively small community, evolving four ways by the time it gets to the four evangelists, and not held as a canonical set of four distinct gospels for several decades. I think it's not justified to trust in strong Oral Tradition to keep the story precisely straight.

Wm Duncan

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wm Duncan:
Oral tradition works when you have a piece of tradition that's considered canonical by a community; whether it's Icelandic law or Homeric epic or the Law and the Prophets, there's a community that functions to check the accuracy of the recitation.

If oral tradition depends on a community that checks the accuracy of the recitation, how does any oral tradition get started?

Moo

Posted by David (# 3) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
If oral tradition depends on a community that checks the accuracy of the recitation, how does any oral tradition get started?

Moo

That's pretty much how it works. How it starts is a different matter - in this case, Jesus used bog-standard mnemonic teaching methods, which are another discussion altogether. How it spread is open to all sorts of conjecture, most of it wrong.

With regard to oral tradition generally, it's important to note that the literate/illiterate divide is not really relevant. It has far less to do with whether members of a group can read than whether oral or written is the primary method of transmission. Being able to read doesn't affect a persons memory for orally transmitted material; it's a learned skill, like anything else, and one that we've mostly lost.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote from David

quote:
How it starts is a different matter - in this case, Jesus used bog-standard mnemonic teaching methods, which are another discussion altogether.

Would you be interested in starting a thread on this in Purg? I think it would be very interesting.

Moo

Posted by Sleepyhead (# 3862) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I don't have a reference, but I have complete faith in my source for that story.

Hey, isn't that begging the question? [Wink]

Posted by David (# 3) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sleepyhead:

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I don't have a reference, but I have complete faith in my source for that story.
Hey, isn't that begging the question?

Would you like to explain how you get that?

Posted by Sleepyhead (# 3862) on :

quote:
Originally posted by David:
Would you like to explain how you get that?

No, but I thought the thread itself was about the accuracy of oral tradition - how would you have phrased the joke?

Posted by David (# 3) on :

My mistake - didn't get the joke.

Moo - not at the moment, v.busy. Jeremias and Reisner are good sources for that, I'm told.

Posted by golden key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:

My point is that, for example I doubt there was a sermon on the mount. But it is a useful vehicle for stringing together some sayings of Jesus.

Hmmm...I don't *know* if the sermon actually happened, but it doesn't seem unlikely to me. Kind of a classic way of teaching.

I went to a daylong workshop with a Buddhist teacher. It was held outside. He sat at the bottom of a hill, and we were spread out on the hill. I kept thinking of the Sermon on the Mount.

Posted by Wood (# 7) on :

quote:
Originally posted by golden key:

quote:
Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:

My point is that, for example I doubt there was a sermon on the mount. But it is a useful vehicle for stringing together some sayings of Jesus.
Hmmm...I don't *know* if the sermon actually happened, but it doesn't seem unlikely to me. Kind of a classic way of teaching.

I believe personally that there was a sermon on the mount.

It may not have been that there was just the one sermon on the one mount, of course.

Posted by perceval (# 4742) on :

quote:
What possible reason would the Evangelists have for twisting His words around? I know, we don't know. But seriously, if I thought the only source for Jesus' ideas was actually flase and/or tampered with, I wouldn't be a Christian. [/QB]

Since I am a cynic, I believe (!) it to be consistent with what I know about human nature and human politics that the evangelists rigged the Gospels. At the same time, miraculously, the spirit of Jesus shines through.

I agree with you, Wood, though, in that it is very dangerous to pursue such a line of thinking. It has lead me to substantially question many beliefs, including the divine nature of Christ. [Disappointed]

percival

Posted by Amanuensis (# 1555) on :

quote:
Originally posted by perceval:
Since I am a cynic, I believe (!) it to be consistent with what I know about human nature and human politics that the evangelists rigged the Gospels. At the same time, miraculously, the spirit of Jesus shines through.

And you, Sir Perceval, are clearly gifted with great discernment, being able to read the Gospels and accurately discern the "spirit of Jesus" in the midst of all that rigged stuff ...

Welcome, BTW. [Wink]

Posted by perceval (# 4742) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amanuensis:

quote:
Originally posted by perceval:
Since I am a cynic, I believe (!) it to be consistent with what I know about human nature and human politics that the evangelists rigged the Gospels. At the same time, miraculously, the spirit of Jesus shines through.
And you, Sir Perceval, are clearly gifted with great discernment, being able to read the Gospels and accurately discern the "spirit of Jesus" in the midst of all that rigged stuff ...

Welcome, BTW.

Sigh! Were I that discerning, I would have found that stupid Grail much earlier. [Not worthy!]

You are absolutely right: once you start assuming that part of the Bible was rigged, then the question is how to discern between the divine and the all-to-human. I am lazily relying on scholars such as Geza Vermes to make these distinctions for me [Help]

I don't really trust either my intuition or my prayer to help me with this task.

What I meant by "Jesus's spirit shines through" was that by contemplating any part of the Bible, you can attempt to get in touch with the Divine Power behind it. [Not worthy!]

Finally, thank you for the welcome! [Smile]

percival

Posted by Amanuensis (# 1555) on :

A fair answer, Good Knight.

I don't know the geeza Vermes, but I had in mind Thomas Jefferson (American President) who published his own version of the Gospels, having identified and removed all the "inauthentic" bits! The high point of enlightenment self-confidence.

quote:
Originally posted by perceval:

What I meant by "Jesus's spirit shines through" was that by contemplating any part of the Bible, you can attempt to get in touch with the Divine Power behind it.

I guess this is not too far from my own view. However, I would see it not so much in terms of us "tuning in" to God, but of God communicating to us. I personally believe that the potency of the Gospels to be God's voice to us arises from their basis on the historical words and deeds of Jesus. Not a verbatim account, but a faithful (in various ways) reflection.

Posted by Spong (# 1518) on :

Vermes writes good stuff. Quite a lot in the area of the Quest for the Historical Jesus; but he's probably best known as a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. Fairly central, I think. Perceval - have you read EP Sanders too? As Amazon says, if you liked Vermes you'll like Sanders, probably.

Posted by David (# 3) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Spong:
As Amazon says, if you liked Vermes you'll like Sanders, probably.

And Barbara Thiering. [Help]

Posted by J. J. Ramsey (# 1174) on :

quote:
Originally posted by David:

quote:
Originally posted by Spong:
As Amazon says, if you liked Vermes you'll like Sanders, probably.
And Barbara Thiering.

What about John P. Meier?

Posted by David (# 3) on :

Meier is to Theiring as Da Vinci is to a toddler with a packet of crayons.

Posted by petunia (# 4773) on :

re the sermon on the mount: "[Jesus] went up on a mountainside" Mt 5:1, "When [Jesus] came down from the mountainside.." Mt 8:1

Reminds me of a story I heard once. This Egyptian bloke went up a mountain. When he got to the top there was this other bloke there who spouted a load of stuff. Then the Egyptian bloke came back down. Oh, and I think the chatty one was some sort of chemist (pharmacist to our American friends), because he gave the Egyptian a couple of aspirin.

But seriously folks, I'm confident that Mathew is drawing an allusion here to Moses at Sinai. He is comparing Jesus to Moses - and to God. And I think it's not unlikely that Jesus did go up a mountain to make this point himself. It's one of the many implicit rather than explicit references in the gospels regarding Jesus' nature that one can miss if one is not familiar with the OT (bearing in mind that's the only scripture that Jesus would have known).

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by petunia:
re the sermon on the mount: "[Jesus] went up on a mountainside" Mt 5:1, "When [Jesus] came down from the mountainside.." Mt 8:1
<snip>
I'm confident that Mathew is drawing an allusion here to Moses at Sinai. He is comparing Jesus to Moses - and to God. And I think it's not unlikely that Jesus did go up a mountain to make this point himself. It's one of the many implicit rather than explicit references in the gospels regarding Jesus' nature that one can miss if one is not familiar with the OT (bearing in mind that's the only scripture that Jesus would have known).

Don't you think Jesus could have had a practical reason for preaching on the mountain? He could be heard by a larger group if he stood on a higher place.

If his preaching on the mountain is important, are the other locations where he chose to preach equally important?

Moo

Posted by petunia (# 4773) on :

Yes, I think the acoustics could have been an additional advantage. If you look at Mt 5, 6 and 7 however they are a long list of Jesus giving moral teaching, there is no narrative in there about what he is doing. Whereas the rest of Mathew, while telling us what happens and what parables Jesus teaches has reatively little moral teaching. This increases my confidence in the idea that Mathew is making a definite point in the Sermon on the Mount.

You've caught me out with your second question, I'm not knowledgeable enough to give a long answer right now. I've just had a quick flick through and it seems his confrontation with the religious leaders heightens when he arrives in Jerusalem in ch21 and it is after this that many of his parables regarding the kingdom of heaven are listed. In most other places Mathew tells us what towns he was in, and a couple of times that he taught from a boat because of the size of the crowds. I will have to look into that.

As an aside, I don't consider Mathew's structuring of his writing evidence that he rigged things. You can read any one of the gospels in a couple of hours. I don't think it unreasonable that over 3 years of the disciples being with Jesus, hearing him speak in public and having private 'seminars' with him that they could have ammassed 2 hours worth of material that accurately represents what He said and did. And I think the 'did' is very important. I am not ashamed to believe that they saw the significance of what he did as much as what he said, and that they structured their writing to highlight this. It's most noticeable in Mark's gospel.

What do you think? P.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

petunia, I should have welcomed you to Kerygmania in my first post. We're glad to have you here.

I am very wary of symbolic explanations for Jesus's actions, unless the symbolism is extremely obvious.

In the case of the sermon on the mount, I don't think it is. Moses went to Mt. Sinai to receive the commandments from God. He gave them to the people after he had come off the mountain.

I think Jesus preached on the mountain because it was a convenient location. There was also an occasion when he preached from a boat to a crowd on the lakeshore. In both cases he needed a spot where he could be seen and heard by a large crowd.

Moo

Posted by petunia (# 4773) on :

Dear Moo, thanks for the welcome. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

I'm afraid this is a short hello. I have decided not to take part on the Ship any further.

Best wishes, P.

Posted by Amanuensis (# 1555) on :

Sheesh!

And she didn't even give me time to think of a gag along the lines of "oh no, not again".
(we get lots of bowl of petunia moments in Kerygmania - you should stick around).

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Don't you think Jesus could have had a practical reason for preaching on the mountain? He could be heard by a larger group if he stood on a higher place.
If his preaching on the mountain is important, are the other locations where he chose to preach equally important?

Certainly there were practical reasons for doing what He did.

But if you start from the assumption that this is the Word of God, every detail that is mentioned ought to be important. The locations would be just one part of it.

It seems to me that the importance of many of the locations are fairly obvious:
A mount - Lots of OT imagery centers around God's Word coming down from mountains and hills.
A boat - He is fishing for people, as He said to His disciples.
The wilderness - What better place to suffer bitter trials?
The temple - The proper and obvious place to teach the Word of God.

The names of the places are also important. For example, Bethlehem means House of Bread. He was born there because He would feed the whole world.

If you start from the assumption that this is God speaking, and that every word is holy, some kind of interpretation like this is unavoidable.

If, however, this is not God speaking directly, of course, none of that would apply. These kinds of details would have no more significance than other inspiring bits of history, myth, or philosophy.

Since Christianity has traditionally assumed the former, I would think that petunia's assertion would be plausible enough. It makes sense to me anyway.

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