The other rich man.

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Peter Kirby
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Re: The other rich man.

Post by Peter Kirby »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 7:20 am I think the Christian ascetic ideal was original and was threatening to the Imperial government and the "worldly order of things." So the Gospels were changed away from asceticism.
This reference, from Galen's lost summary of Plato's Republic (180 CE), is found in Arabic quotations.

"Most people are unable to follow any demonstrative argument consecutively; hence they need parables, and benefit from them...just as now we see the people called Christians drawing their faith from parables [and miracles], and yet sometimes acting in the same way [as those who philosophize]. For their contempt of death [and its sequel] is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation..."

So "restraint in cohabitation" was a key and obvious feature of Christians to an outsider.
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Re: The other rich man.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 1:25 pm
The fact is that, whereas there is a rich man in the second story, there is not really a rich man in the first or in the third; rather, in those stories, the rich man is part of a parable being told. Those rich men, the first and the third, are not part of the narrative of the gospel; they are part of stories within that narrative. And it does not seem very natural to me to narrate Jesus telling a parable about a rich man and then to say that "another rich man" has approached him.
Why are you using Luke 12:13-21? Those are two stories, as can easily be seen via looking at their source:

72 said a human to him: say it to my brothers So-that they will divide the things of my father with me
said he to him: o! human who? he-who have make-be myself divider
did he go-round his to his Disciples said he behold : "Ain't" I be-existing divider

63 said IS : was there-be a human Wealthy has he therein many the Needs
said he : I will make-be use of my Needs in-order-that I will sow and/or mow and/or plant and/or fill my(PL) treasure of Fruit
So-that : not myself make-be in-want of anyone
these are his thoughts as-regards them in his heart/mind and in the(F) night which therein did he die
he-who there-be ear within he let! he hear

Logion 63 is the one you need, the first part of Luke 12:13-15 is a rather embarrassing copy of one of the biggest jokes of Thomas: a "human" telling IS to divide the things of the father. And IS, who in logion 16 told that he hasn't come to bring peace, but rather to sow division - now cheekily says that he is not a divider, yet only after he "goes-round" to his disciples, the same verb as in logion 60 and 74 where Samarian struggles with lamb and man struggles with Separation - that, on a side note

The man there is plousios, Wealthy. Thomas uses the Greek word, so does Luke. What is there to look for?
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Re: The other rich man.

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I have considered that perhaps the "first" rich man was not supposed to be the fellow in the parable, but rather the man asking Jesus for help getting a share of the inheritance. But that man is not characterized as rich; to the contrary, he may well be desperate for a share of the inheritance precisely because without it he is poor.

I'm thinking that the "man asking Jesus for help" could be rich because Jesus replies to him with the parable about a rich man and not someone who wishes to be rich. And since Jesus ends his reply to the man by saying, "This is how it will be for anyone who stores up treasure for himself," I gather he was rich and that his inheritance would give him even more money or property (i.e., more than he needed or enough to "put away"/"store up"/"lay aside"; https://biblehub.com/greek/2343.htm).

So my guess would be that Luke used a translation of the gospel of the Hebrews and edited out the parable about the "other" rich man and this is why it stood out to (pseudo)-Origen.
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Re: The other rich man.

Post by John2 »

Or if the parable followed something that is in the NT Matthew, I would guess the same thing, that the NT Mathew used a translation of the gospel of the Hebrews and edited out the reference to the "other" rich man.
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Re: The other rich man.

Post by John2 »

What I mean is is that maybe there was something about an "other" rich man in the gospel of the Hebrews that was edited out by the NT Matthew or Luke, leaving only one rich man in the latter instead of "another."
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Re: The other rich man.

Post by John2 »

Ben,

I've been thinking that the gospel of the Hebrews could be "Q" and thus that it (in Greek translation) was used as a source for the NT Matthew and Luke. And I stumbled upon this paper by Sloan that argues for this and which I'm still digesting ("What If the Gospel According to the Hebrews Was Q?"), but I thought you might find this excerpt interesting since it addresses the "another rich man" passage from Pseudo-Origen.

This leaves only the story of the rich man, which is the most interesting of the five because (1) GHeb’s
reading is in many ways more primitive than Mark’s; (2) Matthew seems to reflect the GHeb reading at a few points; and (3) Luke’s arrangement of his material may suggest his awareness that Q contained this story. Let us consider these points in order. First, looking at the handout [last page of this pdf], we can see that the GHeb version is shorter than the Markan version and is missing several secondary elements that are found in the Gospel of Mark.

1. In Line B, whereas in Matthew, Mark, and Luke the man addresses Jesus as “teacher” or “good teacher,” in GHeb he addresses him as Lord. This difference is exactly what we would expect if Matthew and Luke are following Mark here but there is a parallel in Q. In Mark, Jesus is addressed with the vocative διδάσκαλε ten times (4:38; 9:17, 38; 10:17, 20, 35; 12:14, 19, 32; 13:1) but with the vocative κύριεonly once (7:28). In CritEd, we never see the vocative διδάσκαλε, but κύριε is used nine times (Q 6:46 [2x]; 7:6; 9:59; 10:21; 13:25; 19:16, 18, 20).

2. In Line D, Mark and Luke have Jesus respond to the man calling him good, and Matthew even preserves this line but rewords it since Matthew did not have Jesus addressed as “good teacher.” GHeb omits this entirely.

3. Line E: Whereas Mark has, “You know the commandments,” GHeb has, “Man, do the Law and the Prophets.” The word ἐντολή occurs six times in Mark and never in the double tradition, whereas the expression “the Law and the Prophets” occurs in Q 16:16, but never in Mark. The word ποιέω, found here in GHeb but not in Mark, is also a characteristic Q word. So we are seeing that the differences between the GHeb version and the Markan version are characteristic differences between Q and Mark.

4. GHeb does not list the commandments as Matthew, Mark, and Luke did (Line F).

5. GHeb and Mark are similar on Jesus’ response to the man in Lines I–L, but Mark includes the
words “you will have treasure in heaven,” whereas GHeb does not (Line K). The fact that there is a separate saying about storing up treasures in heaven in Q 12:33 suggests that Mark has merged together two sayings that were originally separate, whereas GHeb preserves these two sayings as being distinct.

6.At Line N, we find a place where Mark is more primitive than GHeb. Interestingly the language here is very Q-like. “Sons of Abraham” recalls Q 3:8 and several Lukan verses that are in my more expansive Q (Luke 13:16; 16:19-30; 19:9), and the condemnation of the rich man is similar to that in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which is also in my more expansive Q.

7. Jesus “turning” to Simon (Line O) is significant, for we see this in the Lukan version of three double tradition passages, where Jesus addresses one audience, we find the word στραφεíς, and then Jesus addresses another audience (Luke 7:9; 10:23; 14:25).

8. In Line Q we see the amazement of the disciples in Mark but not in GHeb. This is, of course, a Markan theme (Mark 1:27; 2:12; 5:20, 42; 6:51; 9:15; 10:24, 32; 12:17; 15:5), and so it would not be surprising if Mark has added it to his tradition. Once again, GHeb is more primitive than Mark.

9. In Line S, GHeb is also more primitive than Mark in using the Semitic expression “kingdom of heaven” rather than “kingdom of God.” Matthew surprisingly agrees with Mark on the latter expression here, so it cannot be said that GHeb has picked this up from Matthew.

10. GHeb appears to be missing the equivalent of Mark 10:26-31 (Lines T–W), which Collins argues is Markan elaboration on the original saying that ended with verse 25, where GHeb appears to end. This is striking evidence that GHeb gives us an independent version of this story, and we have already seen that some of the language in this version represents the language of Q. We should also note that some of the ways Matthew edits Mark’s text suggests his awareness of this version.

1. In Line B, Matthew agrees with GHeb against Mark and Luke in speaking of doing good rather than in referring to Jesus as “good” and in omitting the word “inherit.”

2. In Line E Matthew may have been influenced to change Mark’s “You know the commandments”to “Keep the commandments” on the basis of GHeb, which says, “Man, do the law and the prophets.”

3. Most importantly, in Line F, Matthew adds the love command to Mark’s list of commandments.Matthew may be influenced here by the presence of this command in Line N of GHeb (this is the only commandment given in the GHeb version). It is more likely that Matthew has moved the commandment up to Line F to place it with the list of commandments in Mark’s version than that the author of GHeb has seen Matthew’s version, decided to remove from Matthew theMarkan list, but kept Matthew’s one redactional commandment and moved it to a different location in the passage. Matthew here is merging Mark and GHeb.

So we have seen that the GHeb version is independent of Mark. We have also seen evidence that Matthew’s changes to Mark were inspired by the GHeb version. Unlike Matthew, Luke does not tend to conflate his sources, so it is not surprising that GHeb leaves less of a trace on Luke, but in the longer version of my paper I argue that Luke’s switching of sources here suggests his knowledge of this Mark-Q overlap and that there is good reason based on the outline of Q to think that Q contained this story here.

So having considered the five triple tradition passages in GHeb, we have seen that there is no reason to think they could not have been in Q, and there is very much reason to think that in the story of Jesus’ encounter with the rich man we have a Mark-Q overlap.


https://www.academia.edu/34193339/What_ ... rews_Was_Q
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