Jesus is not the Son of Man

[DCHindley]

Personally I accept that Luke and Matthew used Mark and a common source(s) which is known as Q? Do you not accept this?

I am not sure that “Luke's gospel makes a special theme of the distinctiveness between the lowly Jesus who comes to suffer and die as a human martyr and the exalted Jesus who is rewarded for his suffering witness with glory and exaltation”.

In Mark, Luke and Matthew there are three types of sayings – eschatological ones, suffering ones and “claims of authority” ones (these are problematic as these “authority claims” could refer to Jesus, or Jesus and his followers, or the whole of mankind). It is highly unlikely that early Christianity created all of these sayings. I am not aware of any scholars who believe in an historical Jesus who believe that all Son of Man sayings were created by early Christianity.

I'm afraid that with regard to the synoptic gospels both Markan priority and Q as the common sources for Matthew & Luke are "out of vogue" nowadays, but the reasons why folks doubt these common sense solutions are mystifying. It started in the 90s (at least that is when I first noticed it) with posts on Crosstalk2 (XTalk) that seemed intent upon validating the early Christian traditions about the gospel of Matthew having been written in Hebrew (or so says Papias) as the first of the synoptic gospels.

By means of tortured logic a few "minor agreements" between Matthew and Luke against the text of Mark have overturned all that common material between Mark and Matthew & Luke, and the Q hypothesis to explain the other common materials in Matthew and Luke that are not in Mark, to get Matthew being (wait for it) the first written synoptic gospel, from which was derived Luke, and Mark becomes a rump gospel cut down from Matthew. If one were to ask me, I think that this alternate universe still has lots of loose ends to tie up, and ends up being an even more complicated solution than what it "improves".

Offhand I do not know where Neil stands on this. To me the Matthian priority hypothesis is a fad, like Jesus Christos being derived from a Marcionite Chestos is a fad. Fad fad fad fad ... and Fad is bad bad bad ...

DCH

[Secret Alias]

German's don't start fads. Modern scholarship on early Christianity is all about Marcion. Not a fad. There's literally nowhere else to go. It's also the future of mythicism.

[DCHindley]

German's don't start fads. Modern scholarship on early Christianity is all about Marcion. Not a fad. There's literally nowhere else to go. It's also the future of mythicism.

Marcion's a fad, Secret. I watched this train wreck from the first wheel hopping the track. This fad started with Daniel Jon Mahar's English translation of his Greek Interlinear reconstruction of Marcion's version of Galatians, done sometime between Dec. 28, 2000 (interlinear, which is dated) and Jan. 9, 2003, the date of my copy of the E.T.

Here he plainly admits:

This translation was generated from the Greek-English Interlinear of the reconstruction. Some notes of possible interest are provided. The English translation itself is admittedly conjectural in places, as also are the notes.

One such creative liberty is the name for the Marcionite Savior, "Isu Chrestos" - "Isu" derived on the designation of Syrian Marcionites, the spelling for "Chrestos" (=the Good one ) derived from an ancient inscription to a Marcionite synagogue.[formatting is all mine]

Strangely, his proposal to call Jesus "Isu" rather than the usual "Jesus," which is at least supported by a tradition preserved in writings, has not got any traction. Of these Syriac writings, I am sure you are fully aware.

But "Chrestos," based he says on his awareness of one ancient church inscription

The meeting-house of the Marcionists, in the village of Lebaba, of the Lord and Saviour Jesus the Good -Erected by the forethought of Paul a presbyter, in the year 630 [Seleucid era = 318 CE]

is supported by nothing but smoke and mirrors.

From this humble start, the snowball has grown and grown as it rolled merrily down the hill.

C'mon.

DCH

[Michael BG]

I thought I had read ‘The Origin of the Designation of Jesus as Son of Man’ by Adela Yarbro Collins in The Harvard Theological Review 1987, which I refer to in the OP. Tonight I have read it, and I am not sure I had read it all before, perhaps I just speed read it looking for the reference to Vielhauer given by her husband.

I am not aware of any scholars who believe in an historical Jesus who believe that all son of man sayings were created by early Christianity.

I am now aware of Norman Perrin and Philipp Vielhauer who according to Adela Yarbo Collins, both “argued that none of the Son of Man sayings goes back to Jesus” (sic). I haven’t read either and so I don’t know their views on an historical Jesus.

Personally I accept that Luke and Matthew used Mark and a common source(s) which is known as Q? Do you not accept this?

I'm afraid that with regard to the synoptic gospels both Markan priority and Q as the common sources for Matthew & Luke are "out of vogue" nowadays, but the reasons why folks doubt these common sense solutions are mystifying. It started in the 90s (at least that is when I first noticed it) with posts on Crosstalk2 (XTalk) that seemed intent upon validating the early Christian traditions about the gospel of Matthew having been written in Hebrew (or so says Papias) as the first of the synoptic gospels.

Offhand I do not know where Neil stands on this.
DCH

I was taught the two-source hypothesis over 20 years ago, with the addition of M and L. One of the strongest pieces of evidence for a Q source is that sometimes Matthew and sometime Luke have what appears to be the older tradition.

Hopefully Neil will let us know where he stands.

[neilgodfrey]

Another perspective is to read references of Jesus to the Son of Man through the lens of their author's christology. If Luke's gospel makes a special theme of the distinctiveness between the lowly Jesus who comes to suffer and die as a human martyr and the exalted Jesus who is rewarded for his suffering witness with glory and exaltation, do we not have a ready explanation for the question raised and one that does not need to construct pre-gospel events, sources and scenarios?

It is possible to think that Luke created everything in his gospel from scratch. But I think it is very, very, very unlikely.

Most certainly Luke did not "create everything in his gospel from scratch". But the christological or theological perspectives of the final redactor of the Gospel of Luke steered the direction in which he retold old tales.

Personally I accept that Luke and Matthew used Mark and a common source(s) which is known as Q? Do you not accept this?

I am open to the idea but not committed to it.

I am not sure that “Luke's gospel makes a special theme of the distinctiveness between the lowly Jesus who comes to suffer and die as a human martyr and the exalted Jesus who is rewarded for his suffering witness with glory and exaltation”.

I think we can see a refrain of high versus low, of bringing down the exalted and exalting the down-and outs, of the humble against the proud, etc established from the earliest chapters in the gospel.

In Mark, Luke and Matthew there are three types of sayings – eschatological ones, suffering ones and “claims of authority” ones (these are problematic as these “authority claims” could refer to Jesus, or Jesus and his followers, or the whole of mankind). It is highly unlikely that early Christianity created all of these sayings. I am not aware of any scholars who believe in an historical Jesus who believe that all Son of Man sayings were created by early Christianity.

Most scholars I am aware of who address the question rely upon ultimately circular arguments, as a few like Dale C. Allison and Stevan Davies frankly admit. They do not employ normative historical methods as more frequently found outside the areas of theology and biblical studies.

[neilgodfrey]

fwiw, pyr, jsyk, ymmv, fyr, imo, .02, afaiui, aisi,

• I accept Markan priority, (currently even suspect an Ur-Mark prior priority; but at the same time I hope I would experience only mild trauma if one day we discovered entirely new reasons for positioning Matthew in the prior position prior to prior priority);
• prefer the no-Q hypothesis, i.e. our canonical Luke knew and adapted Matthew (but acknowledge that my reasons for this preference are fundamentally aesthetic, so keep the back door open to Q just the same -- and often pop outside through that back door to keep a check on what's what there);
• suspect canonical Luke is a product of the age of anti-Marcionism, ca mid second century; am 50-50 on it being the last gospel, posterior to John;
• don't know what to make of pre-canonical / Ur-Luke.

hth, nrr, b4n

[neilgodfrey]

oh, and one more thing ....

• I see no reason to accept oral traditions as the source material for the canonical gospel sayings and narratives, rather see more direct evidence for literary sources (and conversely evidence against oral sources)

(I have submitted oaomt to be added by the web acronym standards board)

[MrMacSon]

What abourt Alan Garrow's view that "the Didache contains some Jesus sayings that were used by Luke - and that Matthew then conflated Luke's version with the Didache's original. These Didache sayings qualify as an 'extant instance of 'Q'' in the sense that they were used by both Luke and Matthew." http://disq.us/p/ykc6bq

Garrow has more here http://www.alangarrow.com/extantq.html and here http://www.alangarrow.com/didache.html

[neilgodfrey]

What abourt Alan Garrow's view that "the Didache contains some Jesus sayings that were used by Luke - and that Matthew then conflated Luke's version with the Didache's original. These Didache sayings qualify as an 'extant instance of 'Q'' in the sense that they were used by both Luke and Matthew." http://disq.us/p/ykc6bq

Garrow has more here http://www.alangarrow.com/extantq.html and here http://www.alangarrow.com/didache.html

There are too many variations for me to follow up in detail. I still have MacDonald's Papias thesis sitting on my shelf since the year of its publication, still unread.

[spin]

don't know what to make of pre-canonical / Ur-Luke.

This is one of those challenges that is mainly being avoided in our time. It's made more problematic given that we only have sources such as Tertullian's takedown. This Ur-text is obfuscated through its transmission in antagonistic writers, so we don't really know if it were really an Ur-Luke or something else that we cannot quite see. I don't like having to trust Tertullian or Epiphanius.

I see no reason to accept oral traditions as the source material for the canonical gospel sayings and narratives, rather see more direct evidence for literary sources (and conversely evidence against oral sources)

Can you see a better/simpler explanation for the existence of two almost totally dissimilar birth narratives? They start off with the same personnel and same place of birth but go in entirely different directions. Excluding the literary efforts around the birth narratives in Mt and Lk do you have a more efficacious explanation than oral developments (ie oral tradition) for the emergence of two different stories from the same starting material?

Oral traditions are hard to demonstrate but I think there are signs of such traditions. The major problem I see regarding oral traditions is some unstated claim that they are somehow veracious because they are oral. This assumption seems to be unfounded. The theory that tries to negate oral sources leaves only literary production of christian tradition, which is contrary to all evidence we have of religious development in other contexts. Were the earliest Greek religious traditions literary? Did Zarathustra invent Ahura Mazda and the rest of the Avestan religion? Was the RigVeda a wholly literary effort? Were the itinerant preachers warned about in the Didache not developing oral tradition in their efforts to make a living off christian communities?