Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:27 amThank you for the kind words. I am content that the blog series might raise an unpopular hypothesis to a level where it is taken seriously. Persuasion may be too much to hope for in a informal setting.
I think you made some interesting observations. Given the assumption that the LE is indeed a single coherent unit and the Freer logion a later addition, we might note that the author/compilator of the LE made a big mistake.
At the end it seems clear that he saw the 11 as true believers because the promised signs followed them.
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
But this goes against what he wrote about the 11.
11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
Luke solved that problem when Jesus „opened the minds“ of the disciples. There is a full conversion.
24:44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
If the Freer logion is a later addition to the LE, then the author of the logion might have seen this problem too.
Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:27 am
On signs, I think concern with that sort of thing is very early: Paul talks about the charisms that are available to believers (
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and 27-31 - even if the next line implies that love is better than powerz, foreign to the sense of 16:15-20). He also writes about the signs of apostleship (
2 Corinthians 12:12), not specifying what those are.
I found it interesting that the LE did not mention the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, at first glance it seems that the disciples are not empowered and did not work the "signs". It is rather the Lord himself who worked and "confirmed the message by accompanying signs".