Stuart wrote: ↑Sun Jun 14, 2020 1:21 pmI really like the quality of your posts.
Thank you very much for that. I "grew up" Philosophically with A J Ayer and he is a tough act to follow. Extreme clarity in writing. I was told by a friend to put everything, every note and scrap, into the book and my Posts and sometimes that clutters things up exponentially. "It all makes sense to me." Thnx.
But I am going to disagree that Peter was the original story of walking on water.
Yes, and I don't know if we could bridge this chasm between us.
I know it is fashionable to follow Robert Price and his Brand X theory of baptism
Robert Price who?...
Matthew and Mark are working from a common source, and John chapter 6 drew from this common sequence in Matthew and Mark (I argue he only saw Matthew, which I'll give an example of below). Neither the gospel of Mark nor of John has any hint of the Peter's water walking story.
'N here is where GJohn is fascinating:
John 6: 1 - 2 (RSV):
[1] After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiber'i-as.
[2] And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased.
Verse 1 leads me to believe that the Authors of John knew everything. Later, I start to think, "They didn't know anything!" Verse 2 leads me to believe that "the diseased" was a common theme in the early Construction of the NT. Compare with the last verses of Mark 6 again. Mark details the aftermath of the Slaughter at the Temple in 4 BCE - Transvalued in Symbolism.
[3] Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples
GJohn is completely on board with the Symbolism. They are in Antonia.
[4] Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand
Passover. Here is an alien hand at work. No mention or knowledge of what follows Passover. This is astounding considering that later, we will hear from John that the first Day of the Feast is a High Sabbath. Mark thinks that Passover is the first day of a seven day Passover Week. Astonishing.
[6] This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
Internal States Alert!!! Teeple has this verse as coming from an Editor and I believe him. See Again: "But he was talking about the Temple of his body". Someone has to "Explain Away" Textual Problems. This is the best the Editor could come up with.
[10] Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
After the Set-Up for the feeding, we find an interesting Marker: There is a lot of grass on which people may sit. There is a drought beginning in the middle of Herod's reign and thereafter Jerusalem may not have much of anything growing, especially for a NT composer. Yes, there is much time between the recorded event and the writing about the event. BTW, writing from Rome or Jerusalem?
[13] So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten.
Symbolism is an acquired taste and the best I can do with 5 Nourishing Loaves and 2 Fish is the Pentateuch and the 2 who axed the Eagle over the Temple. As for the 12 baskets...I suspect a Roman Note addition here, foreshadowing the Legions who will minister the New Word. YMMV.
[15] Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Here is confirmation - "to me" - of the Analysis I have offered:
Josephus, Ant..., 17, 9, 3:
"And as Archelaus was afraid lest some terrible thing should spring up by means of these men's madness, he sent a regiment of armed men, and with them a captain of a thousand, to suppress the violent efforts of the seditious before the whole multitude should be infected with the like madness; and gave them this charge, that
if they found any much more openly seditious than others, and more busy in tumultuous practices, they should bring them to him..."
The Kingship and HIgh Priest Apparatus has been stripped from the Mishmarot Priesthood. At this Passover, they will take it all back. Only, the Counter-Revolution has been started. The Priest will make a run for it. He leaves the Temple. Evidently the Tunnel has been blocked off. He begins to look at Antonia, trying to find an entrance. There is none. The next that should happen is that the Priest will be murdered. There is No Way Out.
Mark 6: 48 - 50 (RSV):
[48] And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about
the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.
He meant to pass by them,
[49] but when they saw him walking on the sea
they thought it was a ghost, and cried out;
[50] for they all saw him, and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear."
Are Mark and Matthew writing from Source? YES!!! "From the fact that the "Jesus Stories" were written from Source, it does not follow that the Source Stories were written about "Jesus".
Matthew 14: 27 - 32 (RSV):
[27] But immediately he spoke to them, saying, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear."
[Note the duplicated verse from Mark here]
[28] And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water."
[29] He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus;
[30] but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."
[31] Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?"
[32] And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
HOW DO WE KNOW THAT PETER IS NOT A SECONDARY PART IN THIS TABLEAU???
Luke 13: 23 - 25 (RSV):
[23] And some one said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them,
[24] "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
[25] When once the householder has risen up and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, `Lord, open to us.' He will answer you, `I do not know where you come from.'
Matthew 18: 1 - 4 (RSV):
[1] At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
[2] And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them,
[3] and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[4] Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
[Edit Note] I should put this Passage in as well. It is 12 years later, after the Conflagration. The Priest - It is the Priest here and not Peter himself, yes? - is looking back:
Mark 9: 36 - 37 (RSV):
[36] And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them,
[37] "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me."
The Story of the New Testament is the Story of Peter, a child in this first Iteration of the Story, who saved a Priest "by a MIracle" only to see him crucified 12 years later at a duplicated Passover. Jairus begins the Second Story by asking the Priest to make one more call to Glory. The Priest goes to his death. The Absurdity is appalling to the Author of the Beatitudes. If it is Peter here, he goes back to the Mishmarot Priesthood and finishes his days. He knows nothing else to do. It is a Hollow Happiness but that is all that there is.
[Edit Note: "The Prodigal Son" goes somewhere in here...]
And the evidence I think is strong that John did not know Mark, nor need to. He only needed know the Marcionite gospel and Matthew.
Great stuff and an area from which I know little. Enlighten us.
In this sequence we see a reference in John 6:2 to Jesus doing signs to those with diseases, while Matthew 14:14 mentions Jesus healing the sick, as also the Marcionite version preserved in Luke 9:11, although John is following Matthew. This element is not in Mark's version. Also σταδίους is in Matthew 14:24 and John 6:19, but not found in Mark, who uses what I think is more original ἐν μέσῳ "in the middle" of the Lake, which is all one need say. Matthew's specifics here are added, answering that snarky guy in the 3rd row how said "how far exactly, I mean, if it's just a small Lake you could easily swim for it; I think he's just being a wuss" by saying, "uh, well, they were like, uh, around 600 meters" another voice "three to four stadia", back to the respondent, "it's deep out there and the water swirly" -- visions of Monty Python skit in action.
If you are rewriting a Story to make it the story of a savior/god, you will be presented with Logic Problems. John has Authors who come up with laughable solutions but it's the best they could come up with "on the fly". Mark writes smoothly but he intentionally hides - The hiding is in all of the Gospels but Mark doesn't seem to care. He may be writing for a much different Intent, writing perhaps as a Novelist of today would. The religion stuff came later.
So if John is following Matthew, and Mark is using a common source shared with Matthew, why would these lines be missing? This points to Peter's walk on the water being a later element added by either Matthew himself or by a scribe in a revision of the text. And Matthew has a number of elements, such as guards at the tomb, which seem to be scribal additions to the original, some answering questions that arose in later eras. But this is no surprise, as all the gospels were Catholicized to some extent before the text was Canonized. Peter's walk is certainly a candidate to be one of those additions.
I believe the Symbolism came first with the additions made to explain away the oddities of the Texts - See Also: "The Grafted Story of the Empty Tomb",
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2207&hilit=grafted+story .
I would also argue that you are attempting to argue that a later element represents a reflection on an earlier version of the story, and that Matthew picked up this early version having Peter save a disciple on the water from some lost apocryphal Acts and incorporated it.
Ummm...Yes, I guess. You make it sound like a bad thing.
Diversity is present in the earliest texts of Christianity. That has consequences. I came to my view on the gospels, that is their composition, by asking the question, why would you spend the time and resources to write another gospel? And it's not cheap in time or money. You only do so if the existing one(s) are so offensive to your sect you can't explain away the differences.
'Zackly.
Stealing a Story from the debris of a leveled Temple and a collapsed Culture shows the advantage of theft over honest toil. Paraphrasing Atwill, "How do we get the Jews to worship Caesar without them knowing it?" You do it by taking an important Text that is viscerally Anti-Roman and rewrite it into the story of a savior/god who asks followers to give Loyalty to the Roman Overlords.
Mission Accomplished.
What seems most likely to me is a great teacher, who in legend is named John, taught "the way" in a proto-Christian sect, and that his message had great resonance in Asia Minor especially.
That would be found in the Priesthood. John was of Bilgah, the "Jesus character" was from Immer and Immer follows Bilgah in Mishmarot Service. Bilgah committed an Offense against the Priesthood. Hence:
John 1: 15 (RSV):
[15] (John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'")
The evidence for Peter in this role of Savior is scant, far less than John.
Unless you know where to look
Thanx for all of this, Stuart. Keep filling in the blanks on John Correcting Matthew.
CW