How the New Testament Authors Created Many of Jesus’ Words and Actions
For this Post, I want to focus on two pericopes (group of verses) to bolster my thesis.
The first is taken form “The Triumphal Entry” where Jesus enters Jerusalem at Passover as recorded in Matthew 21:1-7. Since Jesus was long dead when the Synoptic account of Matthew was composed (after 70 CE or over 40 years after the Crucifixion (The Inter national Critical Commentary: Matthew, by Dale Allison and W. D. Davies, vol. I; 1988)) this Gospel, which is more Jewish than Mark and Luke, feels the need to use a proof text to convince Jews and God fearing Greeks (Gentiles who attended the synagogue, but were uncircumcised) that Jesus was the Messiah. To do this, Matthew quotes a section from Zechariah 9:9 (= Matt. 21:5) and builds his whole Synoptic account around it.
However, in doing so, the editor of Matthew fails to understand ancient Semitic Parallelisms found in Wisdom literature written in early Akkadian through Late Hebrew where a verse is citied and then the very same verse is restated again in another way. Example here is the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible. Proverbs 4:20 “My son give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.” This is addressed to only one son, not two.
By not understanding the Semitic semantics, Matthew has Jesus riding on 2 animals at once (talk about a miracle!). The stage is set in 21: 2-3 and carried out in 21: 7 (Compare Mark 11 1-7 = Luke 19: 28-35 who have it correct since they don’t build their story around a proof text).
The second problematic pericope is found in Matthew 18:15-18 in the discipline of an unrepentant brother. Jesus says “…go to him and reprove him…” (15). If he still does not repent, take two more with you “…by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.” (16). and concludes in verse 17: “And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church (ekklesia); and if he refuses to listen even to the church (ekklesia), let him be to you as a Gentile (ethnikos) and a tax-gatherer.”
The word church (ekklesia) only occurs three times in the four Gospels and all three times in Matthew (twice here and one with Peter) and all three times scholars feel it has been interpolated into the text.
It is a fact that Jesus as a Jew who attended the synagogue and that the lingua franca of Jesus was Aramaic which had no word for church (“church” is a Greek term). So why is it that Jesus talking about “the church” and giving church discipline on how unrepentant members should be dealt with?
In addressing this issue in 1989, a conservative Presbyterian minister told me: “You have to understand the Christology of Jesus. He, being God in flesh, was omniscient (Having total knowledge) and thus He knew the Church was coming and wanted to advise it accordingly.”
I then asked the Minister that if Jesus was indeed omniscient and knew the church was coming, than why did He not also know that Gentiles would be allowed into the early church (the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15) by the Apostle to the Gentiles: Paul and that Gentiles would out number Jewish Christians?
Realized that he had used an absolute attribute of God (omniscient) to get him out of the first bind with the word “church”, only to end in a divine contradiction in Acts 15 with Paul, he just sat there. The discussion ended.
20 comments:
Very nice introduction to the subject Harry! What you argue for here should be obvious to thinking Christians. Once they accept this conclusion the question for them will be how to develop criteria for when we have Jesus' words and when we don't. When this process is completed we have the arguments along the lines of Robert M. Price's book The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man!
Definitely Jesus' reference to "the church" is a post Jesus statement placed on the lips of Jesus. Another example I heard Robert Price mention is this "Anyone that wants to be my disciple must deny himself take up his cross and follow me." We obviously know what "take up the cross" means, but had Jesus actually said it it would have just confused the crowds that he was speaking to.
But I have a question. I'm not sure that Acts 15 shows that Jesus was unaware that the church would be made primarily of Gentiles, or that Paul would be a disciple to the Gentiles. It's true he didn't tell the disciples before the ascension, but that doesn't mean he didn't know it, does it?
Do you really expect to have a verbatim record 2000 years on through translations of events that were not even recorded in writing at the time?
Thanks John. I’ll have to get a copy of his book.
Jon said: “It's true he didn't tell the disciples before the ascension, but that doesn't mean he didn't know it, does it?”
Jon, what little we have of a “Historical Jesus” is of such little use that we must rely of the cloudy confusions of the Gospel accounts which totally destroy its credibility.
To argue that Jesus did or did not know something is of little use too since in the Gospel tradition even the logical name of the prophetical proof text is wrong. Matthew 27:9 is from Zechariah 11: 12-13 and not Jeremiah as the Gospel writer of Matthew thinks…Sorry.
You know the old maxim: “Well, the Bible is full of errors, mistakes and contradictions.” It’s a hyperbole to say “full” but, as established in a court of law, once a witness lies or fabricates information, the witness’ credibility is shot before the jury. Just look at the O.J. Simpson murder trail.
Akakiwibear said: “Do you really expect to have a verbatim record 2000 years on through translations of events that were not even recorded in writing at the time?"
Have you read the Southern Baptist creedal statement called “The Baptist Faith and Message”? The Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. Have you ever listened to James D. Kennedy pontificate from his church on TV as to how we can totally trust the Bible, that is the English Bible? Why just this week a Jehovah Witness stop by and left me with a copy the “Awake Magazine” whose whole subject is “Can we trust the Bible?” And the answer is “Yes” and more so if it’s the “New World Translation”.
Akakiwibear, though I was never a LDS, I attended the Mormon Ward (Church) for 20 years and my Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and Doctrines and Covenants are marked full and notes. Your argument is used extensively by Mormon missionaries to justify Smith’s “translation”.
akakiwibear said...
Do you really expect to have a verbatim record 2000 years on through translations of events that were not even recorded in writing at the time?
If it (the biblical record) is not verbatim, inerrant and without flaw, then Christianity doesn't have a single leg to stand on. Why? Because if even part of the bible is of doubtful accuracy, that opens the door to the question of whether any part of it can be trusted to be accurate. And the entirety of Christian belief is based on the bible, ultimately. If the bible can't be trusted (and it can't, as many have shown) the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Are you telling me that there was no word, or combination of words, in Aramaic that would equal ekklisia, because ekklisia doesn't mean church as in a building, it means church as in a gathering of believers. As far as I understand, anyway, I'm not Greek scholar.
"Anyone that wants to be my disciple must deny himself take up his cross and follow me." "
If no one knew what a cross was, then how did they know to crucify Jesus and the two thiefs?
"If it (the biblical record) is not verbatim, inerrant and without flaw, then Christianity doesn't have a single leg to stand on. Why? Because if even part of the bible is of doubtful accuracy, that opens the door to the question of whether any part of it can be trusted to be accurate. And the entirety of Christian belief is based on the bible, ultimately. If the bible can't be trusted (and it can't, as many have shown) the whole house of cards comes tumbling down."
This sounds like a "slippery slope" argument.
Let me borrow an argument from A.S.A Jones. If a textbook on Quantum Mechanics contained a few errors, then does that mean we should throw the whole book out, including the parts that are informative and accurate? I don't think so.
The Bible, even if it contains a couple of errors, might still contain truths that outweigh a few minor "errors", and in the end I don't think we need to throw it all out just because of a few possible errors.
It just sounds like a non sequitur to me.
Sorry, I just have to add one more thing to you "one error means Christianity is false" argument. You would be telling me that if someone could somehow orchestrate a conspiracy to change one irrelevant word in the biblical record, and then delete all old copies so that we would have no way to find out about it, we would have to throw Christianity out the window.
Actually, the only thing that we would have to throw out the window is inerrancy, which it seems to me you hinge the truth claims of Christianity on. Let's imagine for a moment that historically, one could prove Jesus died and was raised from the grave. Would you ignore such a thing, because of an error in the bible?
No, your argument is rather extreme the way you worded it.
Hi Harry,
. "The Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S."
as I have said before, perhaps all you needed was a change of denomination rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I suggest you read some liberal theology, or even the Roman Catholic view on bible literacy.
Again I say you appear to have made a poorly researched decision.
Sala kahle - peace
Nightmare - and it must be one living in a world of absolutes.
Various news reports of the start of the Tour de France this year differently reported crowds of 1 million or 4 million or numbers in between as watching the start in London. By your logic that would be evidence that the Tour de France did not happen this year.
The majority of Christians don't have a problem reading the bible and getting the message - and are not distracted by anomalies.
Do you really think that four gospels would have been included if the differences presented a real problem? There are four gospels to complement each other and increase understanding.
irishfarmer can cope and cleary appreciates the problem with .... inerrancy, which it seems to me you hinge the truth claims of Christianity on.
Sala kahle - peace
For a quick read on the views of the world's largest Christian denomination (and one I don't always agree with) on the bible not being literal or inerrant try this article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
/tol/news/world
/europe/article574768.ece
or the full text on:
http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk
/nav/giftofscripture.htm
Forgive the late response, been sick.
akakiwibear said...
Various news reports of the start of the Tour de France this year differently reported crowds of 1 million or 4 million or numbers in between as watching the start in London. By your logic that would be evidence that the Tour de France did not happen this year.
I think you missed my point. We know the Tour de France happened - there's plenty of corroborative evidence. There is next to none for the more extravagant claims of the biblical record aside from the bible itself - and when even that is riddled with contradiction the entire collection of stories must then become suspect to an reasonable individual not blinded by preconception.
The majority of Christians don't have a problem reading the bible and getting the message - and are not distracted by anomalies.
Nor did I when I was a xian. It's easy to overlook, gloss over, and apologize for even the most serious of problems when one is "high" on faith.
big difference between It's easy to overlook, gloss over, and apologize for even the most serious of problems when one is "high" on faith. and appreciating bible history and its implications for the text and using that knowledge to read and understand the bible message without being distracted by the history
akakiwibear said...
appreciating bible history and its implications for the text and using that knowledge to read and understand the bible message without being distracted by the history
Therein may lay a difference - I never learned the history of the bible until the very end of my xian experience. Indeed, such knowledge helped along the deconversion process. Why didn't I learn it? Because it was never mentioned, never alluded to - after all, faith was all that was necessary (or so we were told).
You seem to hold the opinion that the history of the biblical text can be disregarded in favor of purely reading the message of the bible (as if there is only one), as implied by the phrase without being distracted by the history. I utterly disagree. The history of the text raises a great deal of questions and implications in regards to the veracity and origins of the biblical "message", enough to make the entire text and thus what it describes untrustworthy if one is honest with oneself.
Nightmare “Therein may lay a difference - I never learned the history of the bible until the very end of my xian experience.” indeed therein may lie the difference.
I fully appreciate and personally identify with someone coming to the realisation that all was not as clean and simple as we had been taught.
It is a shock to ones system and it sent me off down the atheist path.
I suspect my Christian starting point was more liberal than yours so I faced fewer challenges – I had already come to grips with the creation myths and many (but not all) of the bible inerrancy/literal issues – but only as an adult when getting more involved in theology courses offered by our church. But the challenges were enough of shock to get me looking to atheism for answers.
What I realised I had to do was apply the same level of newly awakened scepticism to the atheist position as I had to the Christian one that was all around.
Now herein lies the real difference, and perhaps it is only a matter of time, but as I dug into it I saw the atheist position to be no stronger than the theist one (note theist not evangelical Christian) and in many cases much weaker – intellectually I started to reject atheism as an answer. But I kept reading atheist, Christian, theist and eastern religious material and much to my surprise I began to develop a real belief (call it faith if you want) in God. – more of that on my blog.
But what a nightmare for you I utterly disagree. The history of the text raises a great deal of questions and implications in regards to the veracity and origins of the biblical "message", enough to make the entire text and thus what it describes untrustworthy if one is honest with oneself. .
It is interesting that I see the history as clarifying the bible whereas you see it distracting from it.
In effect I think we have to make a choice. Either the Bible is a deliberate conspiracy spanning thousands of years to sustain a myth or it was born out of a genuine desire to record the revelation of God, however imperfectly.
Obviously the further back you go into history the less reliable the account. But then over the thousands of years the culture and civilisation surrounding matured and so the revelation to them changed in recognition of this growth – the new displacing the old with the relevant old carried over with the new etc … but I leave it to you to work it through for yourself. Sufficient to say I know how seductive the pseudo-rational atheist argument is.
If you want come and challenge me on my blog.
Hamba kahle - peace
akakiwibear said...
I suspect my Christian starting point was more liberal than yours so I faced fewer challenges
Well, I dunno. The short version, I grew up Catholic but very really "owned" or cared about the faith until I accepted Jesus and became very much a fundamentalist in my mid teens. Seven-ish years later, I walked away from that and Christianity as a whole.
You have me a tad wrong though - I'm not an atheist or agnostic, although I do agree with a great many common atheistic arguments (and the more "rabid" neo-atheists just amuse the living hell outta me for some reason :D).
Truthfully I don't really fit into any one neat religious label, so I kinda made one for myself - spiritual anarchist. I do tend to have a lot in common with the pagan set, so I'll answer to that label, and occasionally to Satanist (generally LaVayan) as well if I'm in the right mood. My blog provides a better sense of this.
Thus, unlike the writers of this blog, I do cede that Christianity does have some spiritual backing (so to speak) - I just am of the opinion that it is far, far different from what the faith "advertises" and believes.
In effect I think we have to make a choice. Either the Bible is a deliberate conspiracy spanning thousands of years to sustain a myth or it was born out of a genuine desire to record the revelation of God, however imperfectly.
Most definitely there is a choice - however I don't think we have to make that choice "blind". There is plenty of evidence available to be weighed in making that choice. And in truth the two options are not mutually exclusive - I fully cede that there are a great many Christians that are essentially good people trying to connect with divinity in the best (sometimes only) way they know how. Some of those people may have even written parts of the bible. But that last bit I doubt.
If you want come and challenge me on my blog.
I'll certainly give it a look, thank you for the invitation. 8D
nightmare - spiritual anarchist I like your lable.
Still looking before yo buy? - beware the bad guys with the emperor's new clothes.
" ... essentially good people trying to connect with divinity ... . Some of those people may have even written parts of the bible. But that last bit I doubt."
So then who did?
Peace
akakiwibear said...
Still looking before yo buy? - beware the bad guys with the emperor's new clothes.
Nah - not really in the market for an overlord or master ;) I got a few preferred deities that I like, but I consider them more as friends (imaginary or otherwise, to address anything our hosts may object with ;) ) than objects of worship. I don't consider anyone or anything worthy of worship or the slavish devotion that implies really.
So then who did?
People that didn't understand there own experiences, people that were deluded by dogma or personal prejudices, people that were motivated by anger or a desire to control others. Likely all of the above mixed together.
"People that didn't understand there own experiences, people that were deluded by dogma or personal prejudices, people that were motivated by anger or a desire to control others."
What a nightmare I guess I should not have just asked for your opinion!
Maybe you mixed in the wrong crowd? But seriously you need to crank up the setting on your keyboard BS filter ;)
Peace & a merry blessed Christmas to you
akakiwibear said...
What a nightmare I guess I should not have just asked for your opinion!
One of those cases of be careful what you ask for ;)
Maybe you mixed in the wrong crowd?
Meh, not really - it's a long story. If you want to know, I can send you a link (it's on a pagan forum I frequent).
But seriously you need to crank up the setting on your keyboard BS filter ;)
:D If I did that, I wouldn't be able to type anything at all! lol
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