The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

One of the takeaways from my dinner with Trobisch is the question of the agreement of the synoptic gospels. My son was there so Trobisch has a great way of simplifying things for laypeople. But I was left wondering, how can the agreement between Mark, Matthew and Luke be taken as intentionally false. In other words, if Matthew and Luke were forgeries of Mark, according to Trobisch's theory the forger(s) wanted to make a "set" - a New Testament canon - where the agreement of multiple sources to the "basic facts" of Christianity was established. As such, it wasn't simply as if Mark had an order that Matthew and Luke "just happened" to imitate. The agreement between the three and the four gospels was made to establish the timeline. It wasn't an "accidental" or "incidental" agreement. All of which raises the question, why should we believe that other gospels (i.e. the Marcionite gospel) had the same order as Mark, Matthew and Luke? John clearly shows that different chronologies likely existed (cf. the Passion narrative). Why should we believe that the universe outside of the synoptics confirmed the synoptic ordering of events? The ordering of events was established through the falsification of the synoptics.
lclapshaw
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by lclapshaw »

You know, we absolutely know that there was a thriving publishing industry in the Mediterranean during the time that the NT material was being written. This is a fact that is supported by numerous primary sources. Also, fiction was very popular, we absolutely know this for sure. The problem with our current view of the NT material imo is that it is being touted as being only in the purview of religion instead of simply being a form of popular literature for that time. The Gospel stories et all were obviously popular enough for the publishing industry to jump on to. The market became flooded with knockoffs, what we have now is simply the best of that run, the best of. This can be seen in the form of all the Acts and Martyr stories that never made it into the Cannon but were obviously very popular none the less.

When viewed this way, the overall picture looks a lot clearer. The NT stories and letters made a profit so publishing houses cranked them out. Simple. Until the market for them cooled that is.
lclapshaw
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by lclapshaw »

Add to this the absence of copyright and flagrant plagiarism and you are good to go.

Hell! The anonymous nature of the material should be a huge clue here.
vocesanticae
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by vocesanticae »

Secret Alias wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 8:53 am One of the takeaways from my dinner with Trobisch is the question of the agreement of the synoptic gospels. My son was there so Trobisch has a great way of simplifying things for laypeople. But I was left wondering, how can the agreement between Mark, Matthew and Luke be taken as intentionally false. In other words, if Matthew and Luke were forgeries of Mark, according to Trobisch's theory the forger(s) wanted to make a "set" - a New Testament canon - where the agreement of multiple sources to the "basic facts" of Christianity was established. As such, it wasn't simply as if Mark had an order that Matthew and Luke "just happened" to imitate. The agreement between the three and the four gospels was made to establish the timeline. It wasn't an "accidental" or "incidental" agreement. All of which raises the question, why should we believe that other gospels (i.e. the Marcionite gospel) had the same order as Mark, Matthew and Luke? John clearly shows that different chronologies likely existed (cf. the Passion narrative). Why should we believe that the universe outside of the synoptics confirmed the synoptic ordering of events? The ordering of events was established through the falsification of the synoptics.
The sequence of Marcion's Evangelion is fairly well established by Tertullian's running commentary, which only varies slightly at certain points from that in canonical Luke, despite the heavy canonical redaction of the latter. The Mt1 compiler definitely loved to reshuffle content around, and so should not be taken as a reliable basis for the order of the earliest Aesopian stratum (Qn), a combination of logia/fabulae and pharmakos (romanticized/cultic martyr death). As I've detailed meticulously in my open science book on The First Gospel, that earliest Greek stratum makes up about 60-70% of the content in Marcion's Evangelion, and is both stylistically and topically distinct from the early Markan (Mk1) subsections.
StephenGoranson
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by StephenGoranson »

If you have a public book, why not give your real name here?
vocesanticae
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by vocesanticae »

lclapshaw wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 9:49 am You know, we absolutely know that there was a thriving publishing industry in the Mediterranean during the time that the NT material was being written. This is a fact that is supported by numerous primary sources. Also, fiction was very popular, we absolutely know this for sure. The problem with our current view of the NT material imo is that it is being touted as being only in the purview of religion instead of simply being a form of popular literature for that time. The Gospel stories et all were obviously popular enough for the publishing industry to jump on to. The market became flooded with knockoffs, what we have now is simply the best of that run, the best of. This can be seen in the form of all the Acts and Martyr stories that never made it into the Cannon but were obviously very popular none the less.

When viewed this way, the overall picture looks a lot clearer. The NT stories and letters made a profit so publishing houses cranked them out. Simple. Until the market for them cooled that is.
Completely in agreement. To explore some of the connections drawn between canonical and non-canonical gospels and acts with the earliest Greek novels, as well as the Aesopian romance, check out:

Brant, Jo-Ann A., Hedrick, Charles, and Chris W. Shea. Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 32. Atlanta: SBL, 2005.

Hock, Ronald F., Chance, J. Bradley, and Judith Perkins, ed. Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative. SBL Symposium Series. Atlanta: Scholars, 1998.

Litwa, M. David How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths. Synkrisis. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. esp chp 11 on Pharmakos

Walsh, Robyn Faith. The Origins of Early Christian Literature. Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. (especially the chapter on Aesop)
vocesanticae
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by vocesanticae »

StephenGoranson wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 9:09 am If you have a public book, why not give your real name here?
Mark G. Bilby is my real name, vocesanticae is a handle I use on Wikipedia, Patreon, blogs, and other sites.
Secret Alias
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

The sequence of Marcion's Evangelion is fairly well established by Tertullian's running commentary
No don't agree.
Secret Alias
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

It is commonly accepted that Tertullian has in front of him the Marcionite gospel and is going line by line through it. It is commonly accepted by humanities professors and students who, let's face it, are a lazy bunch of people. Is there evidence for this proposition? I feel fairly confident that I am as intimately familiar with Against Marcion Book Four that I can competently put forward a case that Tertullian (a) never had the Marcionite canon in front of him and (b) that Against Marcion assumes that Marcion corrupted Luke and, given that Luke is the "true Marcionite gospel" is simply going through Luke "as if" it were the Marcionite gospel.
Secret Alias
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Re: The Naivete of Scholarship on the Gospels

Post by Secret Alias »

I think Luke was put forward to be the Marcionite gospel. I see evidence from Syriac texts and other sources that the Marcionite gospel was unlike Luke. I think Against Marcion was developed from an early text written by Justin Martyr which wasn't a line by line gospel commentary. It became such under the influence of a secondary source before Tertullian likely Irenaeus. I think Against Marcion shaped the development of Luke.
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