Manuscripts: The Problem with the Synoptic Problem (Brent Nongbri)

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
User avatar
maryhelena
Posts: 2884
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:22 pm
Location: England

Re: Manuscripts: The Problem with the Synoptic Problem (Brent Nongbri)

Post by maryhelena »

mlinssen wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 2:39 am
maryhelena wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 2:07 am Well said. Rather than back and forth over Marcion's gospel being the first gospel, perhaps it would be more profitable to attempt to fit it in with the gospels we do have. And that, I would suggest, requires giving more weight to the gospel story rather than the words conveying the story. All this debate over words is like discussing the many trees instead of viewing the forest. While the words may change or be removed, the bare bones of the gospel story stand, today, as they stood when whoever first put pen to papyrus. A human figure crucified. A figure immortalized in prayer, in ritual, in painting, in movies - and in gold or silver chains hung around the neck of millions of believers in the story's historicity. The cross is the very symbol of christianity - and yet some NT scholars like to spend their time counting trees.....
For sure!!!

Let's completely ignore the words that form the story and instead conjure one of our own instead

A historical story at that, even

:lol:
:rofl:
Ignore the words - never said that.....

The words are the vehicle that delivered the story. Prominence should be given to the story and let the words (the trees) fall where they may. Laugh your head off by all means - it's the story that has survived, survived nothwithstanding the word changes, the additions, the deleations. Play word games by all means, the story itself plays no games. It is what it is: a human figure crucified. It's that figure, not word games, that struck a cord - and continues to do so - whatever the word changes scholars might come up with. And anyway, as every advertising manager knows - it's the story that sells, the image that captures the imagination, the symbol of recognition.

And this image - known world wide as the foundation from which christianity springs. The words delivered the story well - but the story is far bigger than the words that delivered it....

Image

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437172
andrewcriddle
Posts: 2817
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: Manuscripts: The Problem with the Synoptic Problem (Brent Nongbri)

Post by andrewcriddle »

The minor agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark are IMO particularly vulnerable to issues about possible later harmonisation of the texts.

Andrew Criddle
User avatar
Leucius Charinus
Posts: 2817
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:23 pm
Location: memoriae damnatio

Re: Manuscripts: The Problem with the Synoptic Problem (Brent Nongbri)

Post by Leucius Charinus »

maryhelena wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 2:07 am
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 12:40 am The last paragraph of the conclusion, paragraphed further here, makes good points:


Finally, a work like the Vaticanus-Bezae parallels also helpfully reminds us that the earliest surviving manuscripts of the Synoptic Gospels that preserve extensive parallel passages date to the fourth and fifth centuries, meaning that our critical synopses are based on manuscripts that are the result of at least two centuries of textual transmission and intermingling.33 What we can know with confidence about the text(s) of the Gospels in the period before the fourth century is, I think, more limited than we have sometimes imagined.

Conflicting trends in composition and transmission in those prior centuries pull in different directions. The creative re-writing of Mark by Matthew and Luke in the first or second century suggests a willingness to freely change, cut, and expand gospel material.34 But developments in the second and third centuries, such as the emerging argument for a four-Gospel canon and the production of gospel harmonies, suggest an impulse toward harmonization in the period before our earliest surviving manuscripts.35 This should probably make us humble about any and all conclusions we make about issues of “dependence” among the Synoptic Gospels.


Well said. Rather than back and forth over Marcion's gospel being the first gospel, perhaps it would be more profitable to attempt to fit it in with the gospels we do have. And that, I would suggest, requires giving more weight to the gospel story rather than the words conveying the story. All this debate over words is like discussing the many trees instead of viewing the forest. While the words may change or be removed, the bare bones of the gospel story stand, today, as they stood when whoever first put pen to papyrus. A human figure crucified. A figure immortalized in prayer, in ritual, in painting, in movies - and in gold or silver chains hung around the neck of millions of believers in the story's historicity. The cross is the very symbol of christianity - and yet some NT scholars like to spend their time counting trees.....
In the Gospel of Peter the cross walked and talked. In the Gospel of Mary Peter is peeved.
There are many gospels. Many of the manuscripts involved in Brent Nongbri's article are not too much earlier than the NHL. He writes: "the Gospels in the period before the fourth century is, I think, more limited than we have sometimes imagined."

There are a few strange gospels in the Nag Hammadi Library. What do they tell us? The NHL is a time capsule which has been dated to around the middle of the 4th century. What was happening then? Codex production was the high technology of the Hellenic civilisation.
Post Reply