Gospel Sources Partly Written and Contemporary with witnesses?

[Thomas]

When someone keeps repeating “no evidence, no evidence,” it doesn’t mean that there aren’t any good reasons for thinking what I’m thinking.

It does rather mean there might well be no substance to what you're thinking.

It means that there definition of “evidence” excludes any reason that anyone might have for thinking what I’m thinking.

Not really. It simply means the lack of evidence excludes any reason for accepting what you're thinking as anything more than speculation.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Not really. It simply means the lack of evidence excludes any reason for accepting what you're thinking as anything more than speculation.

That is not my experience..
I find that people who continually ask for evidence are normally people who
dislike what G-d has revealed to mankind.

They claim that if good evidence is provided, they would become believers..
..easy to say that .. particularly when they disqualify any evidence that is provided.

 

[Longfellow]

Notes written by disciples are part of a larger story that I’m imagining about how the gospels were written.
• Jesus didn’t give a sermon only once or twice. He taught the same lessons many times in public talks and private lessons, in different words, different orders, and different settings.
• His disciples wrote notes, just as disciples of other teachers did.
• After his death, belief in his exaltation motivated followers to recopy those notes whenever needed, until the gospels were written.
• Late in the first century or early in the second, as overseers faced competition and challenges to their authority, some chose skilled storytellers (or called for submissions) to write stories that supported their claims: one for Antioch, one for Rome, one for the wider diaspora, plus Acts to show Paul’s deference to Peter and James.
• Possibly someone close to John—or John himself—produced a gospel for Greek audiences, which may have inspired the others.
• These stories arranged and seasoned parts of the disciples’ notes differently for different interests. Some parables may even have been misunderstood as physical events.

Examples of what this explains:
• Similar sayings worded differently, similar events with different details.
• Papias’s references to notes and collections.
• Overlaps between gospels that are not well explained any other way.

 

[Thomas]

That is not my experience..
I find that people who continually ask for evidence are normally people who
dislike what G-d has revealed to mankind.

Oh, I agree ... we see examples of it here.

But I'm not asking for evidence of the Divine, I'm asking for evidence of human activity.

 

[Thomas]

Double post

 

[Thomas]

Notes written by disciples are part of a larger story that I’m imagining about how the gospels were written.

OK.

But there are other, simpler solutions, that are more demonstrable and don't rely on imaginary scenarios.

 

[Longfellow]

OK.

But there are other, simpler solutions, that are more demonstrable and don't rely on imaginary scenarios.

I’d love to see an example.

 

[Longfellow]

OK.

But there are other, simpler solutions, that are more demonstrable and don't rely on imaginary scenarios.

Never mind about an example. I see that you’re just repeating slogans, and not thinking for yourself.

 

[Thomas]

I’d love to see an example.

Are you aware of the various source hypotheses? I currently favour the Farrer Hypothesis, although flavoured by more recent streams of scholarship.

And I keep repeating, no-one is denying people were literate in Jesus' day. I've said I reckon the literacy among the Twelve was higher than the national average. I reckon there were 'written materials' probably from the days of the first Apostles (I mean, Paul is evidence of that, and traditionally the John of the Apostles is the author of the Gospel that bears his name), but the stories of Christ would have been narrated by them, and spread by word-of-mouth – written down later, but those materials are lost to us.

What we cannot say, with certainty, was that material in the Gospels was directly copied from something written down at the time.

 

[Longfellow]

This is for anyone who might be interested in the possibility that some of the sources for the gospels and for Acts might have been accurate reproductions of notes written by disciples of Jesus during the time when He and His apostles were teaching. I’m preparing a list of authors who have written about the pieces of that puzzle without putting them together, summaries of what they’ve said about it, and arguments against it, so you can judge for yourself.

 

[wil]

I find that people who continually ask for evidence are normally people who
dislike what G-d has revealed to mankind.

The old but what if it is true stance is back.

 

[Longfellow]

For anyone who might be following, the Farrer hypothesis explains similar but not identical passages in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark by imagining that Luke copied from Matthew, rather than both copying from Q. “Simpler” means “no Q”. It’s actually more complicated because it requires speculation about Luke’s motives and state of mind, with disagreements about that between scholars. “Demonstrable” doesn’t mean what it means in everyday language, and diametrically opposed views are called “demonstrable” by their promoters. “Not requiring any imaginary scenarios” means “no Q.” Everything in it is an imaginary scenario about what Luke did and why, including an undocumented assumption that Luke had a copy of Matthew.

 

[Longfellow]

I’m imagining that some disciples of Jesus wrote notes about what they saw and heard, and those were accurately recopied as needed, until they were used as sources for writing the gospels. Michael Bird does not say that in those words, but in a post on Patheos he lays out the puzzle pieces that I’m putting together to make my picture.

The Jesus Tradition And Notebooks

He says:
“The tradition known to source critics as ‘Q’may have started out as a note book of Jesus’ sayings.”

He quotes C.H. Roberts saying:
“No doubt the oral tradition was reinforced as it was in Judaism, with notes.”

From the writings of other authors, listed below, he concludes:
“Thus, it is highly probable that notebooks were used by Jesus’ own disciples and by later adherents in the early church to assist in memory retention by functioning as an aide-mémoire.”

Authors cited:

• Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity
• Riesner, Jesus als Lehrer
• Graham Stanton, Jesus and Gospel
• James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels
• Keener, Historical Jesus
• Paul Barnett, Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity
• Ellis, “The Synoptic Gospels and History”
• Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
• George A. Kennedy, “Classical and Christian Source Criticism,” in The Relationship among the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue
• Martin C. Albl, And Scripture Cannot Be Broken: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections
• Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth
• Jacob Neusner, Method and Meaning in Ancient Judaim
• Harry Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts
• Alan Millard, Reading and Writing at the Time of Jesus
• C.H. Roberts, “Books in the Graeco-Roman World and the New Testament,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible I: From the Beginnings to Jerome

I’ve read that in “Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus,”Alan Millard argued that it’s likely that notes about the teachings of Jesus were written very early, possibly in his lifetime, and later used in writing the gospels. In another post I’ll list all the criticisms of that book that I can find and respond to them.