http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/20 ... -anacreon/
In that blog post Hoffmann raised the issue of a master-copy of the Jesus story.
There is no good reason why an anonymous copyist would have done what he did because he thought the copy he was working from was “authoritative”—and indeed it probably came to him without a titulus , that is to say, attribution. Similarly, as with the ancient tradition in letters, some copyists felt moved to add detail, story, to alter, to correct—things that biblical scholars have known to be true about the gospels for a long time–indeed have developed critical methods to cope with them–but have linked to a different set of motivations based not on what we know to be true of classical letters but what we think to be true of a sui generis form of sacred literature..
I find it more probable that we possess four of the exercises, and that these exercises have to be submitted to an analysis based not on “redaction” and tendency—fidelity to or departure from a long-gone plumb-line–as much as on the more or less purely artistic intention of the writer in terms of the story he is telling.
For all we know one such copyist may have been named Mark and another Luke. But if that is so, it is only accidentally so and they were men of no significant personal distinction. They were men who took it upon themselves to imitate, “restore” or amend the lost (or nearly lost) prototype, the master-copy of the Jesus story.
I find it more probable that we possess four of the exercises, and that these exercises have to be submitted to an analysis based not on “redaction” and tendency—fidelity to or departure from a long-gone plumb-line–as much as on the more or less purely artistic intention of the writer in terms of the story he is telling.
For all we know one such copyist may have been named Mark and another Luke. But if that is so, it is only accidentally so and they were men of no significant personal distinction. They were men who took it upon themselves to imitate, “restore” or amend the lost (or nearly lost) prototype, the master-copy of the Jesus story.
Is the wonder-doer story, and birth narrative, that are now in Slavonic Josephus that master-copy?
Thomas Brodie has suggested three models for literary investigation; quotation, allusion and transformation. If these methods are applied to the Slavonic Josephus material, it becomes apparent that this material is earlier than the material that is now in the NT gospels. This thread will seek to demonstrate the connection between the gospel story and the material in Slavonic Josephus.
The variations between these three models (quotation, allusion, and transformation)
are like the variations, when moving house, between ( l ) keeping
the old name plate or name; (2) keeping some key furnishings and some
photos of the old house; and (3) taking the old house itself, and using its
materials as one component, major or minor, to help build the new, even if
the stones in the old sandstone walls are reduced to gravel for the driveway
so that, at first sight at least, they are unrecognizable.
The issue is pivotal. Many biblical researchers tend to reject literary
dependence if the dependence is not easily recognizable, if the hearers would
not detect it. However, what counts for the investigator is not easy recognition,
but whether, with due inquiry and patient work in the laboratory of
literary comparison, in other words, in meticulous application of appropriate
criteria, the hidden connection can be established. And the hidden connections
are vast -far, far greater in number and volume than connections that
are easily recognizable. Recognizable connections are like the few fish that
occasionally break above the surface of the ocean. The overwhelming majority
of the fish are out of sight, in the depths. The time has come for biblical
research to move out into the deep.
The concept of transformation is not alien to the New Testament. It occurs at
a key point in Mark's Gospel, at the literary centre, in the account of the
Transfiguration, where it says that Jesus meta-morphothe, literally 'was
transformed ' (Mk 9.2; cf. Mt. 1 7.2).
What is important is that within the ancient world the general concept
of transformation was familiar, so it is relatively easy to understand why
processes of transformation were so acceptable within literary composition.
Instances occur across virtually the entire range of ancient literature, nonbiblical
and biblical, Old Testament and New, and the evidence of processes
of transformation is increasing rapidly.
So, to summarize. Three of the main methods of using existing texts are:
quotation, allusion and transformation. Among these three, biblical research
has gone far in articulating one and two - quotation, and (narrative) allusion.
The third method, insofar as it involves major transformation, is still largely
unexplored.
One of the features of recent biblical studies is that several researchers,
including those concentrating on the presence of allusion/echo, have begun
to spell out the criteria for claiming that one document depends on another.
In my own case it took me several years to go from strong suspicion and
scattered evidence to being able to lay out the evidence in a reasonably
orderly way.
Thomas Brodie: Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Pages 130-133
are like the variations, when moving house, between ( l ) keeping
the old name plate or name; (2) keeping some key furnishings and some
photos of the old house; and (3) taking the old house itself, and using its
materials as one component, major or minor, to help build the new, even if
the stones in the old sandstone walls are reduced to gravel for the driveway
so that, at first sight at least, they are unrecognizable.
The issue is pivotal. Many biblical researchers tend to reject literary
dependence if the dependence is not easily recognizable, if the hearers would
not detect it. However, what counts for the investigator is not easy recognition,
but whether, with due inquiry and patient work in the laboratory of
literary comparison, in other words, in meticulous application of appropriate
criteria, the hidden connection can be established. And the hidden connections
are vast -far, far greater in number and volume than connections that
are easily recognizable. Recognizable connections are like the few fish that
occasionally break above the surface of the ocean. The overwhelming majority
of the fish are out of sight, in the depths. The time has come for biblical
research to move out into the deep.
The concept of transformation is not alien to the New Testament. It occurs at
a key point in Mark's Gospel, at the literary centre, in the account of the
Transfiguration, where it says that Jesus meta-morphothe, literally 'was
transformed ' (Mk 9.2; cf. Mt. 1 7.2).
What is important is that within the ancient world the general concept
of transformation was familiar, so it is relatively easy to understand why
processes of transformation were so acceptable within literary composition.
Instances occur across virtually the entire range of ancient literature, nonbiblical
and biblical, Old Testament and New, and the evidence of processes
of transformation is increasing rapidly.
So, to summarize. Three of the main methods of using existing texts are:
quotation, allusion and transformation. Among these three, biblical research
has gone far in articulating one and two - quotation, and (narrative) allusion.
The third method, insofar as it involves major transformation, is still largely
unexplored.
One of the features of recent biblical studies is that several researchers,
including those concentrating on the presence of allusion/echo, have begun
to spell out the criteria for claiming that one document depends on another.
In my own case it took me several years to go from strong suspicion and
scattered evidence to being able to lay out the evidence in a reasonably
orderly way.
Thomas Brodie: Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Pages 130-133
