Reasons for thinking that no notes were taken while Jesus and apostles were teaching?

[Thomas]

I’m saying that almost certainly there were witnesses to Jesus and the apostles teaching who wrote notes about what they saw and heard, and that those notes were recopied as needed, until the gospels were written.

OK. I'm saying that:
1 – even allowing that there may have been, we have no idea what they might have contained.
2 – even allowing that there may have been, we have no evidence that they were copied and passed on.
3 – even allowing that there may have been, to what degree the copies were edited in the process would have to be factored in.

What we would dearly like to find, but currently do not have, is any materials we can date to prior to the crucifixion.

We have Paul's letters, all of which are his own Gospel. He mentions the Eucharist, the Crucifixion, and post-Resurrection sightings as being common knowledge. That Jesus was born of a woman and of Davidic descendant, according to the flesh (Romans 1:3; Galatians 4:4); that Jesus had a brother named James (Galatians 1:19; 1 Corinthians 9:5); He had twelve apostles (1 Corinthians 9:5) and He was betrayed during the Last Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23).

Then we have the Four Gospels. Nothing there proves beyond the existence of source materials contemporary with the ministry of Jesus – all of it could be from later traditions, a record of oral and written transmission. We're sure Mark, Matthew and Luke were not eye-witnesses, and pretty sure that the final John was the product of his followers.

The Q-source, if it actually existed – and as a collection if sayings or logia, most probably did – might contain some fictitious as well as authentic sayings, but again there's nothing to say that this logia was not collected well after the time of Jesus.

Not authors. What I’m discussing here is not about people writing stories.

OK. But Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were writing stories ...

I’ll ask you again, do you honestly, sincerely think that it’s possible that there weren’t any witnesses writing notes?

I think that's a possibility, yes. I see not reason to assume someone must have been making notes.

Do you honestly, sincerely think that it’s possible that those would not have been recopied as needed, until the gospels were written?

I honestly and sincerely think that were that the case, then there would have been some reference to them, even if the materials themselves were lost.

What have you read about writing practices at the beginning of the first century?

I'm not questioning writing practice. I'm even proposing above a broader literacy standard than most would allow, but that does not mean in this particular instance that someone must have been writing.

 

[Thomas]

You keep demanding evidence, and saying that there is none, which I take to mean that you have not done any reading about writing practices at the beginning of the first century.

Again, I'm not disputing writing. I'm disputing the assumption of particular writings.

Is there some evidence that you would expect to have, that we don’t have, for a few witnesses to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles writing notes about what they saw and heard?

I would hope for some reference to such ... and in the absence of that, I must assume that no such writings ever existed.

At best, if they did, they're lost, we have no idea what they said, and so can deduce nothing of any use or relevance to the debate.

 

[Thomas]

Me thinks archeologists will tell you there is more evidence of women reading and writing 2000 years ago than there is anyone bringing wax tablets and metal styluses (taking notes) with them to Jesus's speeches or crucifixion.

Oh, for sure.

By 'men only' I meant reading in the synagogue.

 

[Thomas]

I’ll ask you again, do you honestly, sincerely think that it’s possible that there weren’t any witnesses writing notes? Do you honestly, sincerely think that it’s possible that those would not have been recopied as needed, until the gospels were written?

Let's say, for the sake of clarity, that I accept that there were witnesses writing notes.

I have no idea what those notes said. Do you?

And assuming the answer is 'no', where does that leave us?

 

[EricPH]

What I’m discussing here is not about people writing stories. It’s about witnesses to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles writing notes about what they saw and heard. Yes, they could have heard it wrong, or remembered it wrong when they expanded their notes later.

If there is no God, then I can understand why your questions are important. If there is a God and God is in charge, then the human elemant becomes less important.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If there is a God and God is in charge, then the human elemant becomes less important.

Don't you believe that God has made mankind vicegerents on earth?
i.e. in charge of planet earth

 

[Longfellow]

I started debating, which I don't want to do. Originally I wanted to find all the arguments that I could against what I was thinking. I still want to do that, but I'm thinking now of discussing our disagreements as much as you're willing to do so.

OK – Paul studied under Gamaliel the Elder in Jerusalem. There were philosophical schools in Athens, Alexandria and elsewhere – but one can't assume a correspondence between them and an itinerant preacher in Galilee-Judea. You have to admit it's a bit of a leap?

Not much of a leap if people called Jesus "rabbi" and His followers called themselves "disciples." Unfortunately for my case, the only sources for that are the gospels and Acts, which would make my argument circular. Is there any ground to stand on in community memory studies for saying that people actually did call Jesus "rabbi," and His followers actually did call themselves "disciples"?

Is it, or is that how you choose to interpret it?

It's an interpretation. I'm interpreting "written memory aids" as reproductions of notes written by witnesses to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. From my reading I'm getting a feeling that well-informed scholars have long accepted them as being such. If it looks like a duck ...

OK. I'm saying that:
1 – even allowing that there may have been, we have no idea what they might have contained.
2 – even allowing that there may have been, we have no evidence that they were copied and passed on.
3 – even allowing that there may have been, to what degree the copies were edited in the process would have to be factored in.

What we would dearly like to find, but currently do not have, is any materials we can date to prior to the crucifixion.

We have Paul's letters, all of which are his own Gospel. He mentions the Eucharist, the Crucifixion, and post-Resurrection sightings as being common knowledge. That Jesus was born of a woman and of Davidic descendant, according to the flesh (Romans 1:3; Galatians 4:4); that Jesus had a brother named James (Galatians 1:19; 1 Corinthians 9:5); He had twelve apostles (1 Corinthians 9:5) and He was betrayed during the Last Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23).

Then we have the Four Gospels. Nothing there proves beyond the existence of source materials contemporary with the ministry of Jesus – all of it could be from later traditions, a record of oral and written transmission. We're sure Mark, Matthew and Luke were not eye-witnesses, and pretty sure that the final John was the product of his followers.

The Q-source, if it actually existed – and as a collection if sayings or logia, most probably did – might contain some fictitious as well as authentic sayings, but again there's nothing to say that this logia was not collected well after the time of Jesus.

Okay, thanks.

(In response to asking if you think it's possible that no one was writing notes)

I think that's a possibility, yes. I see not reason to assume someone must have been making notes.

Thank you.

I honestly and sincerely think that were that the case, then there would have been some reference to them, even if the materials themselves were lost

There are references to them. One of them is in Papias, according to Eusebius. I don't remember the others. I see a very good explanation for having so few references, but that's where my theory starts being unfalsifiable.

I'm not questioning writing practice. I'm even proposing above a broader literacy standard than most would allow, but that does not mean in this particular instance that someone must have been writing.

Agreed.

Again, I'm not disputing writing. I'm disputing the assumption of particular writings.

Understood.

I would hope for some reference to such ... and in the absence of that, I must assume that no such writings ever existed.

Papius. I remember reading about a few others, but I don't remember what they were. Is there any other evidence that you would expect, that we don't have, for the disciples of Jesus writing notes about what they saw and heard?

At best, if they did, they're lost, we have no idea what they said, and so can deduce nothing of any use or relevance to the debate.

If after the death of Jesus His disciples believed what I think they believed about HIm, at least some of them would be highly motivated to recopy the notes long before they became unreadable, and they would be used as sources for the gospels. If they were the kinds of notes that other disciples took, then we have some very good ideas about what was in them.

Let's say, for the sake of clarity, that I accept that there were witnesses writing notes.

I have no idea what those notes said. Do you?

Yes. They were the same kinds of notes that other disciples wrote, including for example lists of sayings, and maybe answers to questions, which were later used as sources for the gospels.

And assuming the answer is 'no', where does that leave us?

I'll respond to that later.

 

[Longfellow]

Let's say, for the sake of clarity, that I accept that there were witnesses writing notes.

I have no idea what those notes said. Do you?

And assuming the answer is 'no', where does that leave us?

I haven’t actually thought much about what practical difference it might make.

Asking myself why it matters to me, I see two possibilities: 1. I like it because after I thought of it, I found out that it explains some things that I didn’t even know needed explaining. 2. It annoys me how scholars use the idea of decades without any writings to excuse discounting whatever they want to in the gospels and Acts as later fabrications or false memories. I would get some satisfaction if I could do a little to help stop people from being fooled by that.

 

[Longfellow]

… where does that leave us?

I’ve been thinking about what practical differences it might make.
- It brings Jesus as a person in the world closer to us. What he and his apostles say and do in the gospels and in Acts might be what some disciples saw and heard, in their own words.
- It might help stop people from being confused, distracted and distressed by scholarly debates about alleged contradictions between the gospels, and scholars discounting whatever they want to as later fabrications or false memories.

 

[Longfellow]

It gives people a reason to actually read the gospels, and to read them in the right spirit, because part of what they read will be the words of Jesus as they were written by people who actually saw Him, and not only as they were remembered years later by nobody knows who, divinely guided or not.

 

[Thomas]

I’ve been thinking about what practical differences it might make.
- It brings Jesus as a person in the world closer to us. What he and his apostles say and do in the gospels and in Acts might be what some disciples saw and heard, in their own words.

For the Christian, contemplating Scripture brings one closer to Jesus. danciful ideas about who wrote what down when and how are irrelevant.

Reading Scripture can be a living dialogue with the Divine.

- It might help stop people from being confused, distracted and distressed by scholarly debates about alleged contradictions between the gospels, and scholars discounting whatever they want to as later fabrications or false memories.

Are you suggesting it's better to keep people in simple ignorance?

I agree that there is a lot of confusion, distraction and distress in the world, but imaginary solutions is no real help. It's a house built on sand.

 

[Thomas]

It annoys me how scholars use the idea of decades without any writings to excuse discounting whatever they want to in the gospels and Acts as later fabrications or false memories. I would get some satisfaction if I could do a little to help stop people from being fooled by that.

You're listening to the wrong scholars! I rarely even bother with mythicists like Robert Price or Richard Carrier.

 

[Thomas]

In short ... I accept that notes may have been taken in Jesus' day.

But even so, postulating the existence of contemporary notes doesn't resolve the questions discussed under the banner of The Synoptic Problem.

 

[Longfellow]

You're listening to the wrong scholars! I rarely even bother with mythicists like Robert Price or Richard Carrier.

Richard Carrier is the one who dragged me into all this, including diaspora cosmology, and the imaginary oral-only bubble. There I was, rolling merrily along, minding my own business, when up in my face popped "Richard Carrier has proven mathematically that the probability of the existence of Jesus is between 0 and 1/3." With my B.A. in math and my infallible proofs of the existence of Jesus, I couldn't resist that. I followed it down a rabbit hole into a looking-glass world of a trivial identity elevated into "the only rational way to update beliefs," historical methods, and the history of the word "probability" and of Bayesian and frequentist statistics and epistemology. At one point I was trying to find out if there could be a seed of truth in Carrier's theory about a diaspora belief in a cosmic Christ, and discovered a full-grown forest of heavenly redeemers and intermediaries. At another point I was trying to find out if there could have been any writings from the time of Jesus that survived long enough to be available to the authors of the gospels, and you know the rest of that story.

 

[Longfellow]

In short ... I accept that notes may have been taken in Jesus' day.

But even so, postulating the existence of contemporary notes doesn't resolve the questions discussed under the banner of The Synoptic Problem.

Different collections of notes written by different disciples, at different times when Jesus was saying and doing the same things in different ways, explains all the similarities and differences between the gospels, without imagining any copying between them, and consequently without any need to try to explain why the copying is partly word for word and partly not, or partly in the same order and partly not. What else is the Synoptic problem about?

(later) Actually it doesn't have to be either/or. Even if one gospel was copied from another, different collections of notes from different disciples and different occasions, being used alongside the gospel being copied, would help a lot to explain the differences.

 

[Longfellow]

You're listening to the wrong scholars! I rarely even bother with mythicists like Robert Price or Richard Carrier.

Mythicists are not the only ones who use oral-only mythology as an excuse for discounting whatever they want to in the gospels and in Acts. Historicists do it just as much in stripping all divine authority and power from Jesus. The mythicists have just taken that to its logical conclusion: If they can call anything they want to in the gospels and Acts a later invention or false memory, then why bother with a historical Jesus at all? Why pretend any more that their "historical Jesus" is the Jesus of Christianity? In fact, what consequential difference is there, really, between Carrier and the New Quest?

(later) To be honest I should say that the Jesus that I think really existed, the one that I see in the gospels, does not look to me like the Jesus of Christianity of today, maybe not since it became the state religion of the Roman Empire. On one side He is reduced to an imaginary role model, on the other side He is reduced to a ticket to heaven.

 

[Longfellow]

I got sidetracked again. What I’m discussing in this thread is the imaginary scenario where the disciples of Jesus did not do what disciples of others teachers did. In asking and searching for reasons for people thinking that, what I found reduces to:
1: No one ever said that the disciples wrote notes, which is not actually true.
2. The literacy rate was low. Disciples of other teachers lived in the same society, with the same literacy rate, but they wrote notes, copied them into compilations, and recopied them as needed for their purposes.

 

[Thomas]

Richard Carrier is the one who dragged me into all this, including diaspora cosmology, and the imaginary oral-only bubble...

OMG. You have my sympathies.

Have you looked into scholarly refutations of the Jesus mythicist movement?

I followed it down a rabbit hole into a looking-glass world ...

Been down those in my time.

 

[Thomas]

Different collections of notes written by different disciples, at different times when Jesus was saying and doing the same things in different ways, explains all the similarities and differences between the gospels, without imagining ...

Stop right there. You are 'imagining' a situation of note-taking and transmission.

So you are accusing the other party of imagining, and yet your whole thesis rests on a supposition.

and consequently without any need to try to explain why the copying is partly word for word and partly not, or partly in the same order and partly not. What else is the Synoptic problem about?

So you think some imagined set or sets of notes solves the problems? It doesn't.

How well are you versed in the various hypotheses?

Even if one gospel was copied from another, different collections of notes from different disciples and different occasions, being used alongside the gospel being copied, would help a lot to explain the differences.

Well clearly Mark had at least one source, which most likely was a collection of materials – he'd research before he wrote.

Matthew had Mark and at least one other source.

Luke had at least Mark and one other source that Matthew also had, and his own materials.

But then we'd have to inquire about the provenance of those notes.

If we use 'Notes' as a solution to the Synoptic Problem, then there's a whole new set of problems.

At how many steps remove were the notes the evangelists were working from?
How many stages of copying, editing and redacting did those notes undergo, across a 40-plus-year period, assuming those notes were passed from one to the next, and assuming they were made during Jesus' ministry.
What about notes made after His ministry?

See? Same kind of problems, all over again.