The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a.God

[neilgodfrey]

can scarcely be explained unless it was composed by a single creative mind.

.

The guy doing the actual writing and compilation? Maybe so.

Does not discount a communities effort though. Its hard to say with a straight face a compilation is composed by a single person.

Many people make the mistake that 7 of Pauls attributed Epistles, were just Pauls writing alone. Its not the case, they were a community effort. We don't know how much Tim was involved or the others noted in each Epistle header. yet it looks like it was composed by a single creative mind.

Mark was not a compilation. Its literary structure is too neat and complex for that. That compilation theory was the default assumption of scholars who had never addressed the literary arguments.

[outhouse]

can scarcely be explained unless it was composed by a single creative mind.

.

The guy doing the actual writing and compilation? Maybe so.

Does not discount a communities effort though. Its hard to say with a straight face a compilation is composed by a single person.

Many people make the mistake that 7 of Pauls attributed Epistles, were just Pauls writing alone. Its not the case, they were a community effort. We don't know how much Tim was involved or the others noted in each Epistle header. yet it looks like it was composed by a single creative mind.

Mark was not a compilation. Its literary structure is too neat and complex for that. That compilation theory was the default assumption of scholars who had never addressed the literary arguments.

That would be your unsupported personal opinion, that firmly remains unsubstantiated.

The same could be said for Matthew, if we did not have Mark and was reading only that book, you may have made the same conclusion by that methodology.

The fact the others were compilations, gives more plausibility to Mark being the same, besides all the textual evidence used to support the compilation position with conflict, apocalyptic stories and sayings.

We will have to agree to disagree.

[outhouse]

By the way, Henaut’s doubts may be well founded yet in context only apply to some of Kelber's methodology, not the foundation of traditions.

In some cases I agree. Kelber's work is not the end all and in the end only one opinion.

[neilgodfrey]

Mark was not a compilation. Its literary structure is too neat and complex for that. That compilation theory was the default assumption of scholars who had never addressed the literary arguments.

That would be your unsupported personal opinion, that firmly remains unsubstantiated.

The same could be said for Matthew, if we did not have Mark and was reading only that book, you may have made the same conclusion by that methodology.

The fact the others were compilations, gives more plausibility to Mark being the same, besides all the textual evidence used to support the compilation position with conflict, apocalyptic stories and sayings.

Bollocks.

It is the demonstrated conclusion based on the analysis of a raft of scholars (do you want me to give you another list as long as your arm?) and very evident to anyone who takes a little trouble to learn a few things about literature of the day.

The idea that Mark is a loose and serendipitous patchwork compilation stems directly from the assumption that it could not possibly have literary structure because it is all formed from an awkward stitching together of oral traditions.

Those who argue this simply ignore the studies of literary composition.

It has the same type of literary structure as the Fables of Aesop and epic poems and prose narratives and "popular fiction" and dramas of the day. Bookend structures, multiple bookend structures, at the total compositional level and within, do not happen without careful design and planning by a single creative mind in control. Chiasmic structures do not happen by chance and Mark is full of them. The beginning and ending and middle share the same types of literary unifying devices as we find in the classical narratives.

None of that is "my opinion". It is the agreed upon structure, evident to dozens of scholars and a source of scores and scores of scholarly publications and conferences.

[neilgodfrey]

By the way, Henaut’s doubts may be well founded yet in context only apply to some of Kelber's methodology, not the foundation of traditions.

In some cases I agree. Kelber's work is not the end all and in the end only one opinion.

?

Henaut's discussion goes well beyond Kelber. It is the roots and origins of the traditions that he addresses right from the beginning.

Looks like you read just half of one post. Good start. Keep going. (By the way I have only covered the early pages of Henaut so far; still have the bulk of the book to address. So you should check out the book itself from a library.)

[outhouse]

None of that is "my opinion". It is the agreed upon structure, evident to dozens of scholars and a source of scores and scores of scholarly publications and conferences.

Your making the vast minority seem like it has a whole leg to stand on, when it does not. I can see apologist fighting for it, for obvious bias. But more secular sources with this position have not really been taken seriously yet.

I think, and I don't have proof, that mythicist need this, and is more a specific path that has to be taken, so they are cherry picking the few that have gone that way, more so then credible research into the topic as a whole.

I have only researched this vaguely at the foundation with some Vansina, a little Dunn, Sanders and that was a while ago. You have me at a disadvantage here.

[arnoldo]

Does Luke 1:1-3 indicate it was a compilation?

Luke 1:1-3

1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,

[neilgodfrey]

I think, and I don't have proof, that mythicist need this, and is more a specific path that has to be taken, so they are cherry picking the few that have gone that way, more so then credible research into the topic as a whole.

This has nothing to do with mythicism. Those scholars who make this case have not the slightest interest in mythicism or the question of Jesus' historicity. That's all irrelevant to them. That a single person authored Mark's gospel is irrelevant to the question of the historicity of Jesus.

[neilgodfrey]

Does Luke 1:1-3 indicate it was a compilation?

Luke 1:1-3

1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,

This is a very strange prologue that is very unlike pretty much nearly every other prologue written by historians of the time. It leaves us with no clue as to who was writing the gospel, who or what the sources were, -- in other words it leaves everyone in the dark. How can we know we can trust this author or his sources? We can't know, but establishing that trust was the usual reason historians wrote a prologue. They explained who they were (why we should trust them or why their work was better than that of others) and how they acquired their sources and what they consisted of.

(e.g. they tell us who they were, where they traveled, the sorts of people they spoke to, their relationship to events, documents they consulted or other things they read, etc)

In other words it's a fictional prologue to make a story sound like history.

Further, John Collins has argued that several of the awkward expressions in this prologue are best explained if we have a closer look at the original meaning of the word translated "eyewitnesses". See “Eyewitnesses” in Luke-Acts: Not What We Think

Joseph Tyson has argued that our canonical Luke was created by someone taking an earlier and shorter "Ur-Luke" and padding it out to use it as an anti-Marcionite tract. (Those who find dating Luke so late too hard to swallow reject this thesis.)

Scholars today who are questioning Q, I think, are favouring the idea that Luke was created by someone adapting Mark's gospel to a revision of Matthew's.

Luke's style, I understand, strongly imitates that of the Septuagint (something appropriate if one is writing a work intended to be a new Scripture), and several of his unique stories appear to be literary adaptations of Old Testament stories: e.g.

---- The origin and meaning of the Emmaus Road narrative in Luke
and
---- More on Luke’s use of Genesis

The author has compiled Mark, Matthew and various stories from other sources to create a neatly coherent and well-organized structured narrative.

[outhouse]

and various stories from other sources to create a neatly coherent and well-organized structured narrative.

Now there was a very talented author who used his rhetorical form to the utmost. This was not the first thing this author ever wrote. Im surprised more has not turned up from this fella.

It leaves us with no clue as to who was writing the gospel

Common for the theology from this time period.

At least its not pseudepigraphal.

How can we know we can trust this author or his sources?

The rhetoric so deep, who trust him?

he was very skilled to keep people turning pages once started.

In other words it's a fictional prologue to make a story sound like history.

All of these authors were trained to write headers/greetings, rhetorically to persuade the audience, to give it the utmost credibility. Its not as much fiction as rhetorically placing himself in this position of authority.

Now its not true in any sense, bur it also gives us a more clear view of his real intent, and values.

. They explained who they were (why we should trust them or why their work was better than that of others) and how they acquired their sources and what they consisted of.

They were greetings brother Neil. If we look at Pauls epistles, his headers were also like Luke, rhetorical greetings in context. What we have 3 parts, Greeting, body and conclusion, do we not?



Sorry didn't mean to be nit picky, im just bored.