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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Who wrote what.
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
I've been reading the various theories about the writing of the Synoptic gospels. Who had read whom, Q, pro-Mark/Luke/Matthew, ur-gospels and so on. Read all about it here if you feel you should.
I have no problems with such ever burgeoning theories. "Universities", a fellow academic says, "are a way of keeping clever people from making a mess of anything important" and I tend to concur.
But information please - if any of these hypotheses were proved irrefutably true would it make any difference to Christianity and if so what?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
Your understanding of how the text arrived at its present form is bound to affect your interpretation. If you think Mark is earlier than Luke, when you read a passage that's in both, but where they disagree about certain details, you might think that Mark, being earlier, is 'better'. That is, more likely to be faithful to what actually happened. You might believe that Luke has changed Mark, and that Luke often changes Mark, maybe that reading another passage, not in Mark, you could 'clean it up' by subtracting the characteristic Luke-isms.
So, if your concern, given the variations between gospels, is 'what really happened?' then you have to discriminate between them, and the order will matter.
Of course, you may not really care what actually happened, and enjoy much more the variations and personalities of the gospels, as if they were a sort of jazz band. Who cares what Jesus actually said, let's see where Luke's take on the Beatitudes takes us.
At least as important as the synoptic problem solutions - sources, order of writing - is the question of what happened in the transmission of the material. How was the material first shaped? Was it held in memory? Word of mouth? Written fragments? Was it used in gatherings of believers, perhaps in worship or teaching sessions? Were there little, disconnected stories or longer narratives?
People talk about pericope, or little units - a parable, a healing story, an argument - which might have circulated like a joke does, changing in the retelling. Is that true? How long was this period of oral transmission? Did it have characteristic effects on stories? Can we allow for them?
What about the effect of geography? The different gospels may have been written in far distant cities, for 'churches' of very different cultures and needs and theologies. Can we tell? Does it make a difference?
Who were the gospel writers? Were they individuals working at a desk, or was a gospel more like a frequently consulted folder in an office to which many people might make additions or changes?
Were any of the gospels, or sections of them, translated from Aramaic or Hebrew into Greek? Were any of them subject to a major revision? Some scholars think that they can detect a day when Luke had nearly finished his book and someone gave him a copy of Mark and said 'I thought you might be interested in this'. What a day that would have been! When and where were they written, and with what end in mind were they written?
So, yes, I think it makes a difference, at least if you give evidential authority to the text. If you do, when you come across variations in the Synoptics, you're inevitably going to want to ask which reading is 'better' meaning earlier, closer to Jesus, less accommodated to particular circumstances.
But you might approach the gospels as you might look at paintings of the Crucifixion. Of course there are differences, and it might be helpful to be able to put Gauguin, Velasquez, Sutherland and Grunewald in chronological order, but if you can't it's not going stop you getting a great deal from them.
[ 24. September 2016, 10:35: Message edited by: hatless ]
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My crazy theology in novel form
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
But information please - if any of these hypotheses were proved irrefutably true would it make any difference to Christianity and if so what?
Why should it make any difference?
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Hallellou, hallellou
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why should it make any difference?
I'm a pragmatist, if doing something makes no difference, why do it? Unless of course it's something you do just because you enjoy doing it.
I asked because, not being a Christian, I don't know. (To which there is an obvious circular response.)
"the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body". (Ecclesiastes 12:12)
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Humble Servant
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# 18391
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
would it make any difference to Christianity?
It would make no difference whatsoever. I have studied the Bible in various churches and groups and it's very rare to find any lay person who is interested in how, when or by whom the books were written. All most of us care about is that they are "scripture" and therefore we need to work out how we respond. We tend to take the truth (or otherwise) of the texts on faith. I tend to see the absolute truth as in "would I have witnessed these things, had I been there?" kind of truth as relatively unimportant. The truth in scripture is far deeper than that.
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cliffdweller
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# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
I have no problems with such ever burgeoning theories. "Universities", a fellow academic says, "are a way of keeping clever people from making a mess of anything important" and I tend to concur.
Since you attribute the remark to "a fellow academic" I assume you and s/he are both academics. And taken that way, it sounds like a typically self-depricating remark made by those in fields that value humility and the appearance of modesty. In reality, academia is pretty cutthroat and built on a heavy dose of self-promotion, so that those who have achieved success in that arena are not really as modest as the quote would suggest-- and we all know it. It's an inside joke.
While I appreciate the nod to humility, in reality, if we take it seriously (as many outside of academia may be prone to do) it would and does lead to the sort of anti-intllectualism that has made Christianity unpalatable to many modern thinking persons, including some on this board. It leads to fundamentalism: unreflective, insular thinking that harms our witness and our ministry in very real and important ways.
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
I've been reading the various theories about the writing of the Synoptic gospels. Who had read whom, Q, pro-Mark/Luke/Matthew, ur-gospels and so on. Read all about it here if you feel you should...
But information please - if any of these hypotheses were proved irrefutably true would it make any difference to Christianity and if so what?
A valid question. And the answer is: yes & no. To some degree it is of "academic interest"-- the sort of thing that spins doctoral dissertations that end up collecting dust in the basement of university libraries (I like to run a cloth over mine periodically).
But it does become part & parcel of the larger academic conversation about these books-- their purpose, intent, backstory, history. The story of how they became canon. All very important to the overall interpretation and application of these texts to our very real lives today.
The same is true of any field, really. eg: You have academics in microbiology who are studying obscure microscopic entities that seem very arcane and unrelated to RL. We may avoid these eggheads at parties because of their tendency to drone on about something so obscure and meaningless. And yet-- their work will become part of medical science in a way that can lead to cures for very real diseases that cause very real suffering, and for that we are thankful.
So the average lay Christian might not want or need to get involved in every arcane academic discussion going on in biblical scholarship, but they will benefit from the overall conversation and what it tells us about how to understand these texts contextually.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Since you attribute the remark to "a fellow academic" I assume you and s/he are both academics.
I was, he is.
That Academia is pretty cutthroat and built on a heavy dose of self-promotion is true. I think it's displayed differently in the UK's middle-ranking 'new' universities where I worked. Many colleagues, for whatever reason, seemed to find working with others particularly difficult and fiercely guarded their courses and research - which is one reason I felt they would struggle in the 'real world'.
I agree with you about the low status of intellectual work though I don't think it's made only Christianity unpalatable - the distrust of all intellectuals (construing the term rather widely) seems increasingly common and has led to almost any attempt at nuance being seen as deliberate equivocation.
they will benefit from the overall conversation and what it tells us about how to understand these texts contextually.
I hope so.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
An academic theory about something that happened 2000 years ago "proved irrefutably"?
I know what all those words mean separately, but I can't make any sense of them when put together in this fashion.
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
the day when Luke had nearly finished his book and someone gave him a copy of Mark and said 'I thought you might be interested in this'.
If it was 'nearly finished' it would have been a big job to edit Mark's stuff in. Or are we assuming an ur-gospel or that there's more in Q than we think or that he hadn't seen Matthew's gospel or ... it makes my head ache!
Perhaps he got Mark when he was working on the parable of the minas (19:12-27). It starts with ten servants and at the end it seems like there are only three (as in Matthew) and has a rather bloody ending. Caused by the shock?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An academic theory about something that happened 2000 years ago "proved irrefutably"?
I know what all those words mean separately, but I can't make any sense of them when put together in this fashion.
If someone found a copy of Q ...
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My crazy theology in novel form
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An academic theory about something that happened 2000 years ago "proved irrefutably"?
I know what all those words mean separately, but I can't make any sense of them when put together in this fashion.
If someone found a copy of Q ...
Would that prove that Matt and Luke cribbed from Q, or would it demonstrate that somebody pulled out the bits of Matt and Luke that were similar and bound them together? Or some third possibility? Or fourth? It proves nothing.
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It proves nothing.
Well preserved letters found together, reliably dated to late 1st century:
1) Matthew my boy. Well done! I'm so glad you put my modest gospel to such good use (and avoided all that dubious stuff which seems to be around these days). I'm proud of you.
Yours, Mark.
2) My Dear Matthew, Good News! I've just heard from Theophilus and he is very pleased. Thank you so much for letting me use your work and alerting me to Mark's.
Yours, Luke.
But seriously, if a hypothetical irrefutable proof would not have significant impact on Christian practice or belief as Hatless, Humble Servant and cliffdweller are, I think, agreed, then more dubious evidence would have even less.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
que sais-je:
Those would merit a, "Well whaddaya know!"
Although it occurs to me that a few years back we had a bona-fide, irrefutable, 100% certain ossuary that contained I think St. James' bones. Except it wasn't and it didn't.
[ 24. September 2016, 18:40: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
que sais-je:
I'm not sure what you are on about.
If there was an original account that everyone else copied or they wrote as a collaboration or if they independently wrote; there is no resultant problem.
They all agree as to the purpose and message of Jesus. Their basic POV is the same, so why should a verified gospel change anything?
I'm all for hypothetical discussions, but there should be a bit more of a purpose. IMO.
[ 24. September 2016, 18:44: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
No point of Christian doctrine rests on the details of the authorship of the gospels. The church has long believed that the apostle Matthew wrote the gospel we have that bears his name, and so on for the other 3 gospels. But that is not a matter of dogma. Hell, the Orthodox Church affects to believe that Paul wrote Hebrews. But nothing rests on this at all.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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cliffdweller
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# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
But seriously, if a hypothetical irrefutable proof would not have significant impact on Christian practice or belief as Hatless, Humble Servant and cliffdweller are, I think, agreed, then more dubious evidence would have even less.
That isn't quite what I was saying...
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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hatless
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# 3365
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Posted
Nor me. There's very little irrefutable proof in life. Even things we think are relatively certain can be drastically revised in the light of new evidence, evidence which normally suggests rather than proves. We don't build our knowledge of the world on individual facts, but on the fit of bits of evidence that are individually ambiguous.
How we read the gospels, and how we think they handled their material strongly affects our picture of Jesus. How could it not?
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
Hatless, Humble Servant and cliffdweller - my apologies if I misrepresented your views. My brain was obviously particularly befuddled yesterday.
In the end my problem is probably that I am, at heart, still a mathematician and want research to lead to an answer which has a use (not all mathematicians feel that way of course). Some subjects are inevitably not like that.
Mark Goodacre's book suggests applying Occam's Razor and losing Q (p156-160 for a summary of his reasons). I'll also stick with the Venerabilis Inceptor's method and await the discovery of any of Q, proto-Luke/Mark/Matthew, deutero-Mark, the two documents assumed by the Logia-Translation or the two others of the Jerusalem School Hypothesis or ur-Gospel before reconsidering the evidence.
More practically, I'll go and dig up the last of this year's potatoes!
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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*Leon*
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# 3377
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Posted
I think I'd look at things the other way round. The bible leads us to want to understand how it was put together.
The early church has decided to use 4 gospels, and has also decided to stamp down on any attempt to write a gospel harmony. So the reason why it's important that we have all 4 gospels extends beyond having the particular episodes that some miss out; we need the entire gospels intact and un-merged.
To me this means that the Good News is too wonderful and exciting for one person to write down correctly, and we should be interested in the unique message of each gospel, in order to appreciate that alongside the others. What was it about the gospels that Matthew knew about that he felt wasn't good enough, requiring him to go to all the effort of writing his gospel? Insofar as we know that, we can know what Matthew was distinctively trying to add to the Good News. It must go beyond just the missing stories as if it's just missing stories then the church could have created a gospel harmony and done away with 4 confusing gospels.
To me, that creates an imperative for Christians to want to know as well as they can how the gospels came together.
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
I have no problems with such ever burgeoning theories. "Universities", a fellow academic says, "are a way of keeping clever people from making a mess of anything important" and I tend to concur.
Since you attribute the remark to "a fellow academic" I assume you and s/he are both academics. And taken that way, it sounds like a typically self-depricating remark made by those in fields that value humility and the appearance of modesty. In reality, academia is pretty cutthroat and built on a heavy dose of self-promotion, so that those who have achieved success in that arena are not really as modest as the quote would suggest
Having done my degree in theology quote late (Only done when I was 49, I have to say that academia with all its 'peer reviews' is also pretty incestuous.
They only like what they already agree with and everyone has to agree with one another or they dismiss the maverick. I was horrified - or perhaps bemused - to sit in a lecture (more like a tutor group) where the speaker dismissed Jurgen Moltmann.
It was a bit like when I heard a conductor criticise Mozart because 'when you've heard one, you've heard it all."(!!)
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
I think I'd look at things the other way round. The bible leads us to want to understand how it was put together.
The early church has decided to use 4 gospels, and has also decided to stamp down on any attempt to write a gospel harmony. So the reason why it's important that we have all 4 gospels extends beyond having the particular episodes that some miss out; we need the entire gospels intact and un-merged.
To me this means that the Good News is too wonderful and exciting for one person to write down correctly, and we should be interested in the unique message of each gospel, in order to appreciate that alongside the others. What was it about the gospels that Matthew knew about that he felt wasn't good enough, requiring him to go to all the effort of writing his gospel? Insofar as we know that, we can know what Matthew was distinctively trying to add to the Good News. It must go beyond just the missing stories as if it's just missing stories then the church could have created a gospel harmony and done away with 4 confusing gospels.
To me, that creates an imperative for Christians to want to know as well as they can how the gospels came together.
I might suggest that we ask not 'how' the Gospels came together, but 'why'?
For me, the basic starting point must be that the history of Jesus; actions and words, wherever and whatever the sources, are factual, reliable and accurate.
What we need to do then is ask what did the 4 writers do with it and why?
Matthew, I always thought, took the life of Jesus and turned it into a manual of instruction for new converts from Judaism.
Luke, as in his Acts, took the history and wrote a defence of the Christian faith for a Gentile reader - either an individual or a group.
John, very poetic and theological wrote a defence against Docetism and Gnosticism.
I can't accept that they wrote what Jesus might have said in a given situation - that's dishonest and would lead us to say that we can discount it as far as its being truth is concerned.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I think this is an example of what happens when we recognise that current findings may affect our appreciation of the past. History did of course only happen one way. Yet our perceptions of what actually happened are affected by limited information. By the data we have. Add more data and that may change things.
As I was reminded on another thread, the gospels are a record of prior records, not least of which are the memories of those who were there. Their combined memories produced oral histories (not all of which would be in agreement on detail) and then written copies of those early memories. It seems likely that there was subsequent editing of those original manuscripts, plus a few copying errors. Then I guess you have the issues of translation, of cross-cultural semantic misunderstandings etc. So there is loads of scope for argument over both "what actually happened" and "what does it mean anyway".
The church was - and is - the guardian of these processes and historically has made authoritative pronouncements about them. Some of these (e.g. the Catholic view on the primacy of Matthew) are in fact very difficult to sustain any more because of detailed analysis of the Synoptic problem. I don't know personally why the Catholic church doesn't put its hand up and say, "you know, maybe we just got that wrong. In any case, the primacy of Mark looks a lot more likely now we've looked closely at the data."
And that's just one example. Among many. I suppose the dizziness this sort of fluidity produces is more caused by the importance folks give to the doctrines of the authority and inspiration of scripture. Or the doctrines about the authority and responsibility of the church. "If the reality is this fluid, what can we really trust? What basis do we have for this trust?" I think such questions bother some people a lot more than others. Personally, I think it's just the way things are and in our journeys of faith, both individually and collectively, we have to try to make the best of it.
[ 03. October 2016, 09:25: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Just to add my two penn'orth to the unanimity, which pisses off the atheist sophomores all the way up to and including Dicky Dawkins, let's assume that the most highly edited paths possible are so from some ancestral back of an envelope written by none of the above, a nobody who wasn't there and knew nobody who was.
It can change nothing about the claim of Incarnation.
If they made it all up it's still true.
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Love wins
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
Barnabas62 wrote: quote:
The church was - and is - the guardian of these processes and historically has made authoritative pronouncements about them. Some of these (e.g. the Catholic view on the primacy of Matthew) are in fact very difficult to sustain any more because of detailed analysis of the Synoptic problem. I don't know personally why the Catholic church doesn't put its hand up and say, "you know, maybe we just got that wrong. In any case, the primacy of Mark looks a lot more likely now we've looked closely at the data."
I think - if I understand it correctly - that the Catholic view on the primacy of Matthew is a bit more nuanced than just a question of which was written first. In fact, when I read it a couple of years ago, I came to the conclusion that it is possible to hold to the primacy of Matthew on their basis, yet still follow the evolution of the gospels on the basis that Mark was the first written down. Or something like that. (The priority of Matthew relates to a putative proto-Matthew, not the Greek one we have, which would also explain the various church fathers comments). There's a page or more on all this in the NJB study notes, if you want to grab a copy of that.
Not that I'm advancing it - I simply don't know. The Wiki note here probably covers the evolution of the idea, though whether it is absolutely up to date I can't say.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I spent quite of bit of time on this as a lay person in the past. I came away with the understanding that people talked a lot back in the first century. That Christians tended not be drawn from the educated, literate elite. That some of the educated people began to write things down as the story tellers aged, and as they wanted to propagate the message more broadly and as there was demand to do so. So we see letters and pamphlets getting circulated and recopied. Which all means that variation in stories and versions and details are part of the thing. Once I had that understanding, it became of much less concern about details missing from what story, rearranged details, and even pious fiction in some of the stories. The gospels are a story of faith, and so are the gospels/stories/pamphlets that never made it into the bible.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Honest Ron
You are right that the position is more nuanced than it was, but I think the belief that Matthew came first and was written in the language of 1st Century Jews is the Traditional belief and is still considered supportable. It was placed first in the Canon for a reason. The evidence that the Matthew text that we have is amended compared with the Mark text is very impressive.
My point was that opinion has generally changed on this question (and on others) as a result of a detailed examination of the data. It has some impact on the understanding of the gospel material and on answers to various issues of doctrine. My other point was that such evolutions in understanding are just normal.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
I think I'd look at things the other way round. The bible leads us to want to understand how it was put together.
The early church has decided to use 4 gospels, and has also decided to stamp down on any attempt to write a gospel harmony. So the reason why it's important that we have all 4 gospels extends beyond having the particular episodes that some miss out; we need the entire gospels intact and un-merged.
To be picky-picky about it, they didn't stamp down on Gospel harmonies; we have the Diatesseron from Tatian which is, I gather, second century.
What the church did refuse to do was to trash the original four and substitute a single harmony. I'm glad they chose as they did.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
Just a few of the alternative theories.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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