Review of Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism

[JoeWallack]

What Conditions My Conditions Are In

Either way, then, Mark's contribution to anything foundational for later Christian doctrine is achieved within 16:1-8, and sits comfortably beside Paul. Joe's issue was what 16:9 ff. would add to that. Nothing happens in 16:9-14 that is inconsistent with Jesus having acquired a non-physical spiritual body in the style of Paul's explanation to his Corinthian followers. But nothing there is inconsistent with his having an entirely physical new body, either. Mark doesn't say, not in uncontested Mark, nor in the contested portion.

JW:
Regarding how the Ending of GMark compares to the Rich Corinthian blather of 1 15:3-11 (which I have faith is unoriginal) the book generally adopts generous conditions for arguing that Christian beliefs/assertions are met but on occasion sets a tougher condition when it thinks it can afford it. The book notes the chink in the Christian armory of the usual assertion that whatever GMark lacks without the LE is substantially covered in the other Gospels by confessing that would be a difficulty due to GMark being first. The book thus defends with 1 15:3-11, claiming it was before. But how exactly does the resurrection evidence claim of Paul compare to the subsequent Gospel of GMatthew?

Resurrections are of course impossible, so trying to argue for the evidence for/against is not a historical exercise because you first have to have a condition that resurrections are possible. It is thus like a video game or fantasy TV series. Everyone would agree though that within this make believe (so to speak) scenario, in order to make resurrection at least likely, your evidence would need to be pretty, pretty good. So just how good is the evidence? Let the games begin!

Back in the Real World good evidence has credible, independent, well located confirming sources. What do we have here:

Matthew 28

1 Now late on the sabbath day, as it began to dawn toward the first [day] of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it.
3 His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
4 and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men.
5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, who hath been crucified.
6 He is not here; for he is risen, even as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples, He is risen from the dead; and lo, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
8 And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his disciples word.
9 And behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and took hold of his feet, and worshipped him.
10 Then saith Jesus unto them, Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me.
11 Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that were come to pass.
12 And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave much money unto the soldiers,
13 saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.
14 And if this come to the governor`s ears, we will persuade him, and rid you of care.
15 So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying was spread abroad among the Jews, [and continueth] until this day.
16 But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
17 And when they saw him, they worshipped [him]; but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
20 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

Verses:

1 Corinthians

3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures;
5 and that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve;
6 then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep;
7 then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles;
8 and last of all, as to the [child] untimely born, he appeared to me also.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
11 Whether then [it be] I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.

And, as George famously said when he found out Jerry had sex with Elaine, "I want details and I want them now!":

Category of Evidence	Paul	GMatthew
Who	Cephas, The Twelve, 500 brethren, James, all The Apostles, Paul	Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, eleven disciples (but some doubted)
What	Jesus	Jesus
Where	Unknown	Jerusalem and Galilee
When	After resurrection. How much later unknown except for Paul, about 15 years.	For the women, about a day after resurrection and for the men however long it took them to go from Jerusalem to Galilee.
How	Appears (so to speak) to be via vision/revelation since no physical details are given and Paul appears to equate Jesus' appearance to him as the same as Jesus' appearance to others and presumably Paul never met Jesus so he would not have known what he looked like (or acted like) anyway.	Post dead Jesus looks and acts the same as pre-dead Jesus.

If you want to be successful at this game and argue that Jesus was resurrected you would need really good evidence and the above ain't it. Generally the book can be forgiven for not consistently going into detail like the above because if you do you turn a book into a Bible. But the combination of just how important this issue is to Christian assertion and the details that don't agree indicates that the Book does not want to go into detail here even though it should because the details magnify the "difficulties".


Joseph

Skeptical Textual Criticism

[Paul the Uncertain]

Howdy, Joe

Yes, it is interesting to think of these works as "evidence." To do that, we need a small shift in the ground rules.

Resurrection isn't impossible, it's just something that doesn't happen often. There is no such thing as evidence of the impossible (a triangle with four sides), but there might be evidence of something you'd previously thought never-ever happened (a Plinian volcanic eruption).

Even today, plenty of people believe in ghosts. Within those beliefs is a wide range of claims about the extent to which the supposed revenant is able to interact with objects and events in time and space. Logically, such claims are usually fine and dandy. What defeats them (for non-believers) is the abundance of competing alternative hypotheses which explain the evidence presented without disturbing the dead.

Mark doesn't much seem to be a work of evidence or argument. It tells its story and documents a diversity of views about Jesus along the way. The audience is invited to enjoy the ride. Maybe operators were standing by after the show to take their calls, but as for the work itself, it is a very soft sell if it sells at all.

Its chapter 16 is the earliest we hear of an "empty tomb," perhaps prompted as a natural development of Paul's claim of burial and then resurrection, read in light of the suggestion that making a mature plant consumes the seed. That "explanation parable" needn't be authentic Paul in order to be available to Mark. Any storyteller might ask themselves "what happened to Jesus' corpse?" and offer an entertaining scenario as an answer.

Discovery of an empty tomb is an arresting plot development, but it's not evidence for any particular explanation of why the tomb is empty (even if we were meant to believe that actual events are being narrated, which is nowhere on the page in Mark). The speech of Mark's young man in white might be read as an argument against the obvious grave robbery hypothesis, but his very presence and his implausible fast-talking excuses can only count as evidence in favor of body snatching.

Matthew shows awareness of the weakness of the empty tomb as evidence for a resurrection event. His laughable explanation of the origin of the "disciples stole the body" hypothesis is bad enough, but as rhetoric is itself an instance of the genetic fallacy. The maneuver also backfires, since it reminds the reader that the disciples would hardly be the only suspects in the disappearance of the mortal remains of a famous magician who died violently. There was a market for such things back in the day.

Anyway, it's all interesting. Good talking with ya, and Merry Christmas.

[robert j]

In the spirit of the thread title, I think one of the ‘Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism’ is the identification of 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 as a later interpolation along with the assumption that what the persons had “seen” in 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 were post-resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ.

Regarding how the Ending of GMark compares to the Rich Corinthian blather of 1 15:3-11 (which I have faith is unoriginal) ...

But how exactly does the resurrection evidence claim of Paul compare to the subsequent Gospel of GMatthew?

I think what you have demonstrated with your comparisons with GMatthew is how little correspondence exists with 1 Corinthians 15:3-9. A similar lack of correspondence with this Corinthians passage could be said of the post-resurrection appearances in GLuke, GJohn, and the long ending added to GMark.

The author of GMark, as a dedicated Paulinist, likely knew way more about Paul and his system than any of us ever will. Mark knew better than to dramatize the events in 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 as post-resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ --- because they were not post-resurrection appearances. I think Mark knew darn well the events presented in formulaic, outline form in 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 did not fit at the end of the story he constructed about an earthly Jesus set in recent times, but rather he knew the events in that passage were the beginning of Paul’s story. It was Paul’s backstory.

Paul reminded the Corinthians that he had told them the story before (1 Corinthians 15:2-3). Paul likely told a similar story to all his congregations during his evangelizing visit. For example, in Galatians 1:13-14, Paul provided a reminder about how he had told them before of his harassment of early believers. A similar reminder to the Corinthians is found in the passage in question (1 Corinthians 15:9), and Paul also provided a brief reminder to the Philippians (Philippians 3:6).

When the events in 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 are paired with Paul’s backstories in chapter 1 of Galatians, the two fit together like lost puzzle pieces and together provide a wider window on the backstories Paul told his congregations. Paul’s backstories provided very significant benefits for him by providing the perception of traditions, of a wider spiritual movement taking place in far-away Judea. However, there is no evidence in Paul’s letters that anyone in his congregations had ever met any of those mentioned in his backstories nor had any independent knowledge of those persons beyond what Paul had told them.

I have outlined how 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 fits like a missing puzzle piece with the backstories Paul told in chapter 1 of Galatians. And significantly, how much Paul used Numbers 12, and Jeremiah 1 to craft his backstories --- “Visions, Lepers, and Numbers 12” ---
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2396


About 1 Corinthians 15:3-9 ---

Appears (so to speak) to be via vision/revelation since no physical details are given and Paul appears to equate Jesus' appearance to him as the same as Jesus' appearance to others ...

Yes. But I would more clearly describe your vague “vision/revelation”.

The events do not represent post-resurrection sightings nor spiritual visions, but rather the passage describes Paul's story of the initial discovery of Jesus Christ in the Jewish scriptures and the chronological sequence in which the recent discovery of the heavenly Christ spread (then, then, then, then, and last). These events represent gaining knowledge and understanding of the long-secret mysteries of Christ, as revealed in the scriptures by means of creative and generative readings.

“… Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and … he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures” --- those events were all “seen” (ὤφθη), that is, came to be understood from the scriptures --- by Cephas, and all the rest listed.

The death and resurrection were clearly found in the scriptures, but Paul does not say that the death and resurrection were foretold in the scriptures. Paul did not characterize the salvific death and resurrection of his Jesus Christ as a scriptural foretelling. The concept of a scriptural foretelling of the death and of the activities of Jesus Christ only became necessary when the author of GMark wrote his tale and imagined how a story of Paul’s Christ might have played-out if set in relatively-recent-day Judea.

I have previously elaborated in greater detail on the nature of 1 Corinthians 15:3-9. The discussion includes how the Greek terms fit the solution proposed. And I have speculated on what sort of possible details that Paul might have used during his evangelizing visits when he first told the back-story to his congregations --- “The Most Important New Testament Passage” ---
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=674


robert j