It does rather mean there might well be no substance to what you're thinking.
Not really. It simply means the lack of evidence excludes any reason for accepting what you're thinking as anything more than speculation.
Gospel Sources Partly Written and Contemporary with witnesses?
- Thread starter Longfellow
- Start date
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
Well-Known Member
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.
• 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.
Oh, I agree ... we see examples of it here.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.
But I'm not asking for evidence of the Divine, I'm asking for evidence of human activity.
OK.
But there are other, simpler solutions, that are more demonstrable and don't rely on imaginary scenarios.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
I’d love to see an example.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
Never mind about an example. I see that you’re just repeating slogans, and not thinking for yourself.
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
Well-Known Member
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
UNeyeR1
The old but what if it is true stance is back.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
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.
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Longfellow
Well-Known Member
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:
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
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
Imagining that none of the followers of Jesus wrote notes about what He and His disciples said and did, or that those notes were not recopied until after the gospels were widely distributed, is an imaginary scenario, as much as imagining that notes were written and recopied. As far as evidence is concerned, no one has any more or better evidence for Q or for their theories about Luke’s motives and ways of thinking, than Millard’s hypothesis that the disciples wrote notes that were recopied and later used as sources for the gospels
Consider which is more reasonable to imagine for disciples of Jesus, writing notes or not writing notes, when people all around them were writing notes for various purposes including disciples of master teachers, and they were calling themselves disciples of someone that other people were calling a master teacher. Which is more reasonable to imagine, that they wrote notes or that they did not write notes? Which is more reasonable to imagine, that those notes were soon recopied into collections on more durable materials, or not? Which is more reasonable to imagine, that those notes were recopied as needed as long as they were needed, or not?
Consider which is more reasonable to imagine for disciples of Jesus, writing notes or not writing notes, when people all around them were writing notes for various purposes including disciples of master teachers, and they were calling themselves disciples of someone that other people were calling a master teacher. Which is more reasonable to imagine, that they wrote notes or that they did not write notes? Which is more reasonable to imagine, that those notes were soon recopied into collections on more durable materials, or not? Which is more reasonable to imagine, that those notes were recopied as needed as long as they were needed, or not?
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
Millard proposed that the disciples of Jesus wrote notes about what their master teacher said and did, just like disciples of other master teachers did. No scholars have disagreed that it was a common practice. The only disagreements from scholars are about the literacy rate, and lack of evidence that disciples of Jesus actually did do what disciples of other teachers did.
The literature rate is obviously not an argument against the disciples of Jesus doing what disciples of other teachers did, because no one is disagreeing that other disciples wrote notes, in the same society, with the same literacy rate, whatever it was. No one has given any reason for thinking that during his lifetime his disciples would be any less motivated to write notes than any other disciples were.
From what I’ve read, what people mean by lack of evidence is that there are no mentions in the tradition of people writing notes, which is not actually true. What might be true is that there are no mentions of people *not* taking notes. Not writing notes would be unusual for disciples of master teachers, and something people would be likely to mention, so if they did not write notes, it would be surprising that no one mentioned that, not even when they were talking about differences between disciples of Jesus and disciples of other teachers.
The literature rate is obviously not an argument against the disciples of Jesus doing what disciples of other teachers did, because no one is disagreeing that other disciples wrote notes, in the same society, with the same literacy rate, whatever it was. No one has given any reason for thinking that during his lifetime his disciples would be any less motivated to write notes than any other disciples were.
From what I’ve read, what people mean by lack of evidence is that there are no mentions in the tradition of people writing notes, which is not actually true. What might be true is that there are no mentions of people *not* taking notes. Not writing notes would be unusual for disciples of master teachers, and something people would be likely to mention, so if they did not write notes, it would be surprising that no one mentioned that, not even when they were talking about differences between disciples of Jesus and disciples of other teachers.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
All other theories about how the gospels were written are trying to explain why the same sayings and events are reported differently in different gospels, which I think is starting from an absurd premise, that each saying was only said once and each event only happened once. I started a separate thread about that. I’m imagining that they all happened more than once, and that the differences between gospels are from using notes from different occasions.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
Everyone who is promoting a theory about gospel authors copying from each other or from other sources is proposing an imaginary scenario, with no documentation for it. In one theory it’s imagining a story or a collection called “Q,” without any documentation for that. In another theory it’s what was happening in the mind of Luke when he changed what he copied from Matthew, and imagining that he had access to a copy of Matthew, without any documentation for that. In my theory, it’s imagining that disciples of Jesus wrote notes about what their master teacher said and did, and that those were compiled and recopied until they were used as sources for the gospels, with very little documentation for that. Other theories require convoluted explanations for differences between the gospels in how they report sayings and events which are absurdly imagined to have happened only once. Mine doesn’t.