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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
Cliffdweller, thanks - the term doesn't seem to have come up on this thread before. At first glance, I'd go along with much of that.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So my personal "red-letter" rubric is: the closer a text is (chronologically and otherwise) to the Christ-event, the more authoritative it can be understood to be.

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So in your scheme of things do the epistles trump the Gospels, or not?

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Ah, harder to say, at least with the Pauline epistles-- which are chronologically closer to the Christ-event, but are not (with a few exceptions) the words of Jesus. So there it comes down to how accurate you think the gospels are in recording the words of Jesus. As an evangelical, I've got a high view of inspiration, which I think also fits with a scholarly understanding of the transmission of oral traditions in preliterate societies, so I'm going to say the gospel writers got it right. So, while chronologically they were written later than the epistles, if they are the authentic words and acts of Jesus they are "closer" to the Christ-event.

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
The common difficulty I see with Martin's approach, and to a lesser degree with your "red rubric" approach (for slightly different reasons), is that it seems to be broadly acknowledged that the epistles pre-date the Gospels, so as a minimum they were chronologically closer to Jesus, which is genuinely held to be A Good Thing in terms of authenticity/reliability.

And if the epistles do predate the Gospels, then it's a fair assumption that the Gospel writers were aware of and/or had access to the epistles.

Claiming "superior" or "more authentic" content for the content of the gospels over and above the epistles therefore seems to require a degree of special pleading.

It's my perception that in recent times Paul in particular has come "unglued" from the Gospels, rightly or wrongly, largely because of a whole herd of Dead Horse issues ranging from inerrancy to homosexuality. I'm not sure if these are a cause or an effect.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
The common difficulty I see with Martin's approach, and to a lesser degree with your "red rubric" approach (for slightly different reasons), is that it seems to be broadly acknowledged that the epistles pre-date the Gospels, so as a minimum they were chronologically closer to Jesus, which is genuinely held to be A Good Thing in terms of authenticity/reliability.

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I see this as an issue but not an overwhelming one. The gospels are - apparently - written from within the constituency that experienced the incarnation first hand. The epistles are largely written to communities away from this constituency.

Of course, it is a faith claim that where the gospels disagree with points in the epistles, we'll go with the gospel, thanks-very-much, but then it is also a faith position that all of it is as valid and useful as the rest.

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And if the epistles do predate the Gospels, then it's a fair assumption that the Gospel writers were aware of and/or had access to the epistles.

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Well I think in one sense you're arguing against yourself here. If you are saying that there is an observable difference between (some of) the thinking in the epistles and the gospels, then if the epistles were always considered to be as valid as the oral gospel tradition, then why don't the gospels look more like them?

It seems to me to be a fairly reasonable position that either a) the gospel writers didn't particularly rate (all or some of) the epistles or b) they were not familiar with them. The idea that they knew and liked the epistles may be true but I'm not sure how it is supported by the gospel text.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
The common difficulty I see with Martin's approach, and to a lesser degree with your "red rubric" approach (for slightly different reasons), is that it seems to be broadly acknowledged that the epistles pre-date the Gospels, so as a minimum they were chronologically closer to Jesus, which is genuinely held to be A Good Thing in terms of authenticity/reliability.

And if the epistles do predate the Gospels, then it's a fair assumption that the Gospel writers were aware of and/or had access to the epistles.

Claiming "superior" or "more authentic" content for the content of the gospels over and above the epistles therefore seems to require a degree of special pleading.

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Again, the "red letter rubric" could be applied either way-- and has been by those who advocate it. My argument for gospels over Paul (to the extent you need such a rubric-- see below) is based on my belief that the gospel writers, while later than Paul, are providing an authentic record of what Jesus truly said & did. Which would make the gospels "closer to the Christ event" in terms of content if not chronology. Of course, if you don't share my assumption you're not going to share my conclusion.

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And if the epistles do predate the Gospels, then it's a fair assumption that the Gospel writers were aware of and/or had access to the epistles.

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Originally posted by Mamacita:
is there a basis to assume that Paul's letters were being reproduced and carried to at least some destinations in the Roman Empire within a few years of their writing.

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And if the epistles do predate the Gospels

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The Gospels and Epistles serve different purposes. The Gospels ensure that an authentic record of the words and actions of Jesus survive. The Epistles build upon those stories to develop the structure of the Christian faith.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
You initially quote cliffdweller and her evangelical high view of inspiration. I have a post-evangelical low view, which is of course higher

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I think "high view" and "low view" are misleading.

To me a "high view" of Scripture does not equate to a literalist or inerrantist view, but to the respect one accords to the texts that have come down to us regardless of how one interprets them.

I hang out with some people who are much more theologically liberal than my evangelical brethren who take the content of the Scriptures much more seriously than the former, even if they come to different conclusions.

Not least, by not making blanket statements such as "Paul was WRONG" or "it's ALL got to go"

I concede that some purportedly "high view" evangelicals are as dismissive the other way, though.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Originally posted by Martin60:
They ALL privately think that Eutychus.

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"Do not judge another man's sevant..." Or is that one of the bits of Paul that's got to go?

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The truth of the Incarnation is inviolate. Everything else is Iron Age reaction.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
The truth of the Incarnation is inviolate. Everything else is Iron Age reaction.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
The common difficulty I see with Martin's approach, and to a lesser degree with your "red rubric" approach (for slightly different reasons), is that it seems to be broadly acknowledged that the epistles pre-date the Gospels, so as a minimum they were chronologically closer to Jesus, which is genuinely held to be A Good Thing in terms of authenticity/reliability.

And if the epistles do predate the Gospels, then it's a fair assumption that the Gospel writers were aware of and/or had access to the epistles.

Claiming "superior" or "more authentic" content for the content of the gospels over and above the epistles therefore seems to require a degree of special pleading.

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Again, the "red letter rubric" could be applied either way-- and has been by those who advocate it. My argument for gospels over Paul (to the extent you need such a rubric-- see below) is based on my belief that the gospel writers, while later than Paul, are providing an authentic record of what Jesus truly said & did. Which would make the gospels "closer to the Christ event" in terms of content if not chronology. Of course, if you don't share my assumption you're not going to share my conclusion.

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It's not at all obvious to me that the Gospels preserve an accurate, unbiased record of the actual historical Jesus free from the embellishments and glosses of intervening oral tradition, and Paul's letters seem more concerned as a general rule with establishing how believers should gather and behave in community than with recording authentic memories of Jesus (whom, after all, Paul had never himself met). However, asking whether Paul or the Gospels offer a more unvarnished and accurate picture of the historical Jesus may also be something of a red herring. I do think the Gospels offer a more mature and fully-developed witness than Paul does to how the early Church came to understand Jesus -- which, for members of the 21st-century Church today, is probably a more appropriate criterion anyway.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

The Gospels and Epistles serve different purposes. The Gospels ensure that an authentic record of the words and actions of Jesus survive. The Epistles build upon those stories to develop the structure of the Christian faith.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I think I would start with two observations.

First, the Gospels appear to have been written at a time when the original witnesses were passing on, and it was felt to be important to record their accounts of what Jesus said and did. If this is the case, then there must have been a recognition that these accounts were important, and therefore they were almost certainly being repeated orally when the church met, and may have been written down in now lost documents.

Second, as noted, with a few exceptions the Epistles do not repeat stories of what Jesus said and did. On the few occasions they do (eg: Paul reporting the events of the Last Supper or witnesses to the resurrection) these correspond to the Gospel accounts. The purpose of the Epistles, evidenced by what they actually contain, is different from passing on the stories of what Jesus said and did. Given the evidence above that these stories were important, I think it's a reasonable conclusion that the Epistles didn't need to repeat these because they were already well known by the recipients of these letters.

The Gospels and Epistles serve different purposes. The Gospels ensure that an authentic record of the words and actions of Jesus survive. The Epistles build upon those stories to develop the structure of the Christian faith.

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

The Gospels and Epistles serve different purposes. The Gospels ensure that an authentic record of the words and actions of Jesus survive. The Epistles build upon those stories to develop the structure of the Christian faith.

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Can you expand on this? What do you mean developing the structure of the Christian faith? You don't think the gospels do this?

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Originally posted by Sarah G:

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And if the epistles do predate the Gospels

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
As far as I'm concerned at least, you're going to have to make your point with more than single letters of the alphabet...

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Originally posted by Moo:

Studies have shown that in such a society, stories are handed down with far greater accuracy than they would be nowadays.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
That's part of the Incarnation.

The still, then (by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Junia, James, Peter, Jude, Jesus) and now, held sacred texts that the epistles begin to transcend mark the end of the Iron Age. So their thinking is embedded there. As it still is for most Christians to one degree or another.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Moo:

Studies have shown that in such a society, stories are handed down with far greater accuracy than they would be nowadays.

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This is a popular belief, especially among amateur scriptural apologists, but recent scholarly anthropological research suggests it is not true.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
The written texts exist and they inform the oral transmission of a story; they tend to prevent it from changing as much as it probably would if no written texts existed. And yet the written texts themselves are likely to be descended from oral texts, and they are themselves intended for oral performance, and they may suffer corruption/cross pollination from oral sources.

Purely oral societies have certain safeguards such as formulas they use repeatedly in the same situation (e.g. Homer's "wine dark sea"). They also tend to have better trained memories. Literate societies also have safeguards such as the Jewish strictures on how one copies the Torah. The early church is likely to have had safeguards on the stories from both sources, being an in-between craft-literate society with deep Jewish roots. I really would not assume the text altered very much.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
The written texts exist and they inform the oral transmission of a story; they tend to prevent it from changing as much as it probably would if no written texts existed. And yet the written texts themselves are likely to be descended from oral texts, and they are themselves intended for oral performance, and they may suffer corruption/cross pollination from oral sources.

Purely oral societies have certain safeguards such as formulas they use repeatedly in the same situation (e.g. Homer's "wine dark sea"). They also tend to have better trained memories. Literate societies also have safeguards such as the Jewish strictures on how one copies the Torah. The early church is likely to have had safeguards on the stories from both sources, being an in-between craft-literate society with deep Jewish roots. I really would not assume the text altered very much.

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I disagree that the earliest Christians enjoyed such protections. The early church was comprised entirely of converts -- and more pagans than Jews, thanks to Paul, who couldn't help bringing vestiges of their old pagan religious ways of thinking into their new faith -- almost all of whom who had no direct personal contact with or knowledge of Jesus during his lifetime. The biographical information about him was being passed around entirely by word of mouth, in piecemeal fashion, and had not yet become fixed, much less collected and written down (the Gospels represent the earliest surviving result of the efforts to construct a written record), and the church communities that were being established were too new and immature to have developed the kind of formal mnemonic structures and practices that protect against alteration of critically important orally communicated information. The purpose of Paul's epistles was to provide guidance on the most challenging issues for the governance and operation of these newly planted churches, so the absence of any such instruction in the epistles about the transmission of biographical information about Jesus is further evidence that no such protections existed.

Moreover, the existence of non-canonical literature such as the "New Testament Apocrypha" and the Nag Hammadi library clearly demonstrate that that many contrasting -- and often contradictory -- stories and legends and theologies were circulating among the early Christians at the same time as the canonical Gospels. The non-canonical documents draw from the same oral source traditions as the canonical ones, but they demonstrate how diverse rather than consistent those traditions in fact were.

We do see the more pronounced effect of such protections in transmission of written documents after they were set down. The many surviving early manuscripts of the same documents are relatively consistent; for example, copies of (say) Mark or Luke separated by several hundred years in age are nevertheless more consistent with each other than with the other Gospels. Yet the numerous discrepancies among early manuscripts also show that even the more formal written scribal traditions were not foolproof safeguards against inadvertent or even intentional alteration.

The orthodox written canon did not begin to coalesce until the late 2nd century and did not take its final form until the 4th. The Gospels are not necessarily accurate factual biographies of Jesus, but they are an accurate witness of the mature 4th century Church as to which of the late 1st century (and subsequent) beliefs about Jesus were deemed to be most consistent with 4th century consensus theology.

Which, it may be argued, in any event is a more meaningful criterion of authority for the 21st century follower of the "Christ of faith" than an accurate factual biography of the "historical Jesus" would be.

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Originally posted by Moo:

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Moo:

Studies have shown that in such a society, stories are handed down with far greater accuracy than they would be nowadays.

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This is a popular belief, especially among amateur scriptural apologists, but recent scholarly anthropological research suggests it is not true.

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I would like to know the details of this recent scholarly anthropological research. Were they researching present-day societies? If so, I doubt that the few modern societies that are illiterate are nearly as sophisticated as that of ancient Palestine.

If they are trying to reconstruct the conditions that prevailed two thousand centuries ago, I want to know in detail how they reached their conclusions.

Moo

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm going to have to wait until a more leisured moment to reply to most of your post, but I'd like to note now that the early church was not in fact composed entirely of converts--at least, they certainly would have disputed that with you vigorously. The earliest church was composed entirely of Jews who believed their Messiah had come and therefore considered themselves to be following precisely in the path their fathers began, following the God of Israel. They continued to take part in the corporate worship of Israel (witness Acts) and did not consider themselves to have converted to anything. Moreover, the Gentiles didn't come into the earliest church for quite a long time--and it was Peter, not Paul, who (humanly speaking) opened that door decisively with the conversion of Cornelius and his household.

Given these facts, the earliest church no doubt DID inherit all the Jewish safeguards against the corruption of sacred texts, whether Old or New Testament, written or oral. They would have been their ordinary and habitual mode of operation. And being convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, and in fact God incarnate, they would certainly have taken great care with the oral transmission of the facts about his life and work--these were, after all, the basis of their own salvation. Once these were written down (first century, judging by the historical evidence), they would have applied the same written-text safeguards they were accustomed to applying in the case of OT material. That was just how they rolled.

More about canon and variants later, but for the moment I'll just note that there is an astonishing degree of uniformity among the manuscripts of the New Testament books--and yes, I am a (very minor) textual scholar.

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Originally posted by Moo:

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Moo:

Studies have shown that in such a society, stories are handed down with far greater accuracy than they would be nowadays.

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This is a popular belief, especially among amateur scriptural apologists, but recent scholarly anthropological research suggests it is not true.

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I would like to know the details of this recent scholarly anthropological research.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Moo:
I would like to know the details of this recent scholarly anthropological research. Were they researching present-day societies? If so, I doubt that the few modern societies that are illiterate are nearly as sophisticated as that of ancient Palestine.

If they are trying to reconstruct the conditions that prevailed two thousand centuries ago, I want to know in detail how they reached their conclusions.

Moo

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The chairs of the anthropology department at the U. of Kansas and the folklore department at the U. of North Carolina are both college classmates and personal friends of mine. They haven't pointed me to specific research articles, but they have assured me that it is has been the consensus opinion of anthropology scholars over at least the past 50 years that there is no difference between literate and illiterate societies in the communication of oral information, except in cases where formal social structures exist for the preservation of especially revered cultural histories and legends.

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Originally posted by Moo:
What makes you believe that there were no formal social structures in the early church for the preservation of revered cultural histories? People who had been present when Jesus taught or healed would have told their fellow Christians about it. These stories would immediately have become especially revered cultural histories.

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Originally posted by Moo:
I still want to know what specific cultures were studied.

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Originally posted by Moo:
My field is linguistics, and this topic is an area where linguistics and anthropology overlap.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Moo:
My field is linguistics, and this topic is an area where linguistics and anthropology overlap.

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Okay, so one of Ehrman's simpler points is that Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, but the Gospels were written in Greek by Greek speakers. That all by itself is an argument against, rather than for, care for precision and accuracy within the early Church.

A specific example of linguistic evidence against accurate historicity that he cites is the dialogue in John 3 between Jesus and Nicodemus concerning being "born again". The Greek word translated into English as "again" is anothen, which (Ehrman says) can ambiguously mean either "again" or "from above". In John's telling, Nicodemus is confused by the ambiguity and Jesus clarifies it. However, in Aramaic the word for "again" has no such double meaning. Since Jesus and Nicodemus were both Jewish rabbis who would have spoken to each other in Aramaic rather than Greek (Ehrman argues), the ambiguity and need for clarification would not have arisen; and the tale must therefore have originated as a later legend among Greek-speaking Christian converts, rather than as an authentic memory of an actual event in Jesus's life.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by Moo:
My field is linguistics, and this topic is an area where linguistics and anthropology overlap.

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Okay, so one of Ehrman's simpler points is that Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, but the Gospels were written in Greek by Greek speakers. That all by itself is an argument against, rather than for, care for precision and accuracy within the early Church.

A specific example of linguistic evidence against accurate historicity that he cites is the dialogue in John 3 between Jesus and Nicodemus concerning being "born again". The Greek word translated into English as "again" is anothen, which (Ehrman says) can ambiguously mean either "again" or "from above". In John's telling, Nicodemus is confused by the ambiguity and Jesus clarifies it. However, in Aramaic the word for "again" has no such double meaning. Since Jesus and Nicodemus were both Jewish rabbis who would have spoken to each other in Aramaic rather than Greek (Ehrman argues), the ambiguity and need for clarification would not have arisen; and the tale must therefore have originated as a later legend among Greek-speaking Christian converts, rather than as an authentic memory of an actual event in Jesus's life.

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But Nick's confusion wasn't about the meaning of the word. He doesn't ask, "do you mean from above or again?" He asks, "How can a man enter into his mother's womb a second time?" -- He KNEW Jesus meant "again" and wondered how it was possible. Your "evidence" is no such thing. It's manufacturing a difficulty where none exists.

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
And, even if it did exist, why would the specific reference be no more than a Johannine insertion by way of explanation? One doesn't have to reject the entire story as "legendary".

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I fail to see how an ambiguity in Greek means Jesus was ambiguous in Aramaic. Are you saying that there is am unambiguous Greek word the translator might have used, but thru foolishly used the ambiguous one? Or is it just unfortunate that there was no way in Greek to unambiguously translate the unambiguous Aramaic word?

The problem with all such analysis is that it is quite clear from context which of the two possible meanings of the Greek word is meant. Nicodemus' follow-up question makes it crystal clear what and what Nicodemus took Jesus to mean.

tl;dr--What's the problem?

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
All of which tends to suggest, to me at least, that this is a story that originated from Aramaic, and hence is based on actual words of Jesus, but has been adapted to expound a theological message. John is much more obvious in this than the Synoptics, but I believe that all the Gospels adapt the stories to clarify and expand on the theological message rather than simply record events.

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Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
All of which tends to suggest, to me at least, that this is a story that originated from Aramaic, and hence is based on actual words of Jesus, but has been adapted to expound a theological message. John is much more obvious in this than the Synoptics, but I believe that all the Gospels adapt the stories to clarify and expand on the theological message rather than simply record events.

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I'd go along with that.

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Originally posted by fausto:
As to 1 Peter, most scholars today do not think it was actually written by Peter, but rather, that it was written some time later ...
it seems unlikely that Peter himself would have known how to write, much less in Greek.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by fausto:
As to 1 Peter, most scholars today do not think it was actually written by Peter, but rather, that it was written some time later ...
it seems unlikely that Peter himself would have known how to write, much less in Greek.

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Though, within the context of a thread discussing how the Epistles and Gospels relate the exact authorship of any document (whether Epistle or Gospel) is not directly relevant. Though, a late Epistle may be expected to draw upon a larger number of stories of Jesus (assuming that over time each community slowly learnt more and more stories), and for very late Epistles may even draw on the Gospels themselves. So, timing of the Epistles relative to the Gospels may be relevant.

It is, of course, totally irrelevant whether or not a given author could write Greek. He simply needed to be able to speak Greek inorder to dictate to a scribe (and, any of the people who preached outside Judea would be able to speak Greek, otherwise they wouldn't be able to communicate the gospel). It is evident that Paul was only marginally able to write, making a point on the few occasions in his letters that he writes with his own hand how bad his handwriting is.

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