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How useful are the Gospels in regards historical information?

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
What form of criticism do you agree or accept. All or do you have certain preferences?

If I can interject for a moment in a question not originally addressed to me....

I still retain a certain regard for the older criteria of authenticity: I particularly use the criterions of "embaressment", "multiple attestation" and "dissimilarity" when discussing constructions and deductions about the plausibility of attributing a certain scene or logia to the historical Jesus.

I think the criterion of embarrassment is notably useful in assessing both plausibility and probability, for example that the crucifixion and baptism of Jesus are likely historical events, as virtually all historical Jesus scholars affirm (save a few rogue mythicists like Carrier and Price).

The early church is exceedingly unlikely, in my opinion, to have contrived a narrative about Jesus undergoing baptism at the hands of John - for the remission of sins, no less - when the gospel accounts are at pains to portray him as the perfect man, the Son of God, who is not subject to anyone but God and is possessed of a unique authority (i.e. "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath", "the Son of Man had authority on earth to forgive sins", "the Son of Man will come with the clouds of heaven" etc.).

The baptism by John implies that Jesus was once a disciple of the former. And the gospel accounts tred around that matter with great delicacy. The gospel writers literally trip over themselves to try and explain this away as being anything other than what it actually was, him submitting himself to John as a subordinate (a pupil) and having his sins washed away. That didn't fit the theological narrative - so each gospel makes the extraneous details more grand with each gospel (the holy spirit is descending, John initially refuses to baptism him and says I should be baptising you instead etc. etc.), until you get to the fourth re-telling where John is all: "Jesus is the One, I must decrease, he must increase!" (yeah, yeah).

Likewise, the criterion of multiple attestation is useful, for example in testifying to a generally non-violent Jesus as depicted in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the remembered oral traditions in the Pauline epistles etc. As Professor Brian Pounds puts it: "we lack any first century sources that unambiguously portray Jesus in a violent manner. There is no question that the overall portrayal of Jesus in the gospels is essentially non-violent. Nowhere does Jesus take up a weapon in order to kill, as rebels did. On the contrary, he advocates nonviolence, even in the face of imperial oppression...Moreover, they align with the non-violent representation of Jesus in all other material" (The Crucifiable Jesus (2019) p.147).

This kind of "consensus" leads me strongly to feel that the historical Jesus likely was not an advocate of armed violence in the pursuit of his Messianic or eschatological claims

With that being said, I do feel that the criteria of authenticity - whilst immeasurably useful - can only get us so far. I've noticed some blind spots in the scholarship.

One of them would be the multiple attestation in Mark and Paul that Jesus said something about wine/bread being his body/blood in a commemorative ritual before his death. The multiple attestation of this in two of our earliest sources would give this strong credentials as a saying and event in the life of the historical Jesus. Yet, it is often barely discussed and so elevated alongside the baptism, the temple incident and the crucifixion in historical Jesus studies.

Likewise, the criteria of authenticity - whilst rigorously scientific in methodology - has not led to any broad consensus beyond some of the key facts amongst scholars of different schools in their construing of the historical Jesus. Thus, we have the "marginal Jew" of Meier, the cynic-like subversive Galilean sage of Crossan, the social revolutionary of Horsley, the eschatological Jewish prophet and restorationist of E.P. Sanders, the man of the spirit of Geza Vermes, the Messianic claimant of NT Wright and so on.

Dale Allison, in my opinion, is on to something with his latest argument that the methodology of sifting through individual sayings to determine whether each is "historical" or "unhistorical," might not be as fruitful as looking for large patterns in the Gospels and other literature. Horsley appears to have adopted a substantially similar approach as well, along with James Crossley.
 
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Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
Think about this, if the synoptic tradition is also valid study of the Bible, and the criteria of authenticity is applied, of course there is a clash of authenticity already. What do you have to say about that?

Was this the specific question you wished me to answer?

There is no consensus on the synoptic problem as you should know. My personal take is the validity of recognising collaboration between the authors of Mark, Matthew and Luke. I prefer the theory of Mark being the first gospel of the three Gospels to be written and a primary source for the other two Gospels. There may well be a Q source. There is likely independence of all three writers based on oral traditions. I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of any of the authors being who they were traditionally ascribed to be based on the writings of the early Church Fathers but acknowledge the strong arguments and evidence that make this unlikely.

So although the question of authorship and the mystery of their interrelationships have not been resolved, the three synoptic Gospels remain an important source of historical information as it relates to the Life and Teachings of Jesus. They are biographies similar to a genre of other contemporary Roman biographies of that era that make use of a degree of mythology.

There is no problem with authenticity (for me) provided we take into the limits of our knowledge and the insights gained through modern biblical scholarship over the last two hundred years.

How do you view the synoptic Gospels and the types of issues that biblical scholars have raised?
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;
And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.


Mark 1:1-9

That really happened.
And you assert this informed by ...
Critical scholars have developed a number of criteria to evaluate the probability, or historical authenticity, of an attested event or saying represented in the gospels. These criteria are the criterion of dissimilarity; the criterion of embarrassment; the criterion of multiple attestation; the criterion of cultural and historical congruency; the criterion of "Aramaisms". They are applied to the sayings and events as described in the Gospels, in order to evaluate their historical reliability.

Historical reliability of the Gospels - Wikipedia
So, let's start with Wikipedia: Gospel of Mark:

The Gospel of Mark is anonymous. Most scholars date it to AD 65–75; it was written in Greek, for a gentile audience, and probably in Rome, although Galilee, Antioch (third-largest city in the Roman Empire, located in northern Syria), and southern Syria have also been suggested. Early Christian tradition attributes it to the John Mark mentioned in Acts, but scholars generally reject this as an attempt to link the gospel to an authoritative figure.​

Presumably, if you're willing to appeal to "critical scholarship" you're willing to provisionally accept the above as well. So, too, some variant of the two-source hypothesis and its claim of Marcan priority. Where does that leave us?

We are talking about the opening verses of a gospel written by an unknown apologist (i.e., a person writing with an agenda) some decades after the purported event. He makes two types of claims:
  1. he writes that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist;
  2. he attributes to Paul a proclamation about Jesus.

These are qualitatively different categories of claim. Using the criteria mentioned above we can provisionally accept the historicity of John the Baptist (thanks to Josephus). Whether John actually baptized Jesus is far less certain. It is simply a claim made by an unapologetic Jesus promoter. One can assume that it's true, but it is only an assumption albeit, perhaps, a benign one.

The claim the John issued a particular proclamation is, however, pure propaganda. There is absolutely nothing in the criteria of historical reliability that prompts us to accept it as historically reliable. To pretend otherwise is to display a real ignorance of critical scholarship.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Oh wait, you were discussing form criticism @firedragon and I did the same thing as @adrian009 in talking about preferred criteria lol :D

Oops, just noticed that. Sorry fire!
 
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firedragon

Veteran Member
Was this the specific question you wished me to answer?

There is no consensus on the synoptic problem as you should know. My personal take is the validity of recognising collaboration between the authors of Mark, Matthew and Luke. I prefer the theory of Mark being the first gospel of the three Gospels to be written and a primary source for the other two Gospels. There may well be a Q source. There is likely independence of all three writers based on oral traditions. I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of any of the authors being who they were traditionally ascribed to be based on the writings of the early Church Fathers but acknowledge the strong arguments and evidence that make this unlikely.

So although the question of authorship and the mystery of their interrelationships have not been resolved, the three synoptic Gospels remain an important source of historical information as it relates to the Life and Teachings of Jesus. They are biographies similar to a genre of other contemporary Roman biographies of that era that make use of a degree of mythology.

There is no problem with authenticity (for me) provided we take into the limits of our knowledge and the insights gained through modern biblical scholarship over the last two hundred years.

How do you view the synoptic Gospels and the types of issues that biblical scholars have raised?

There is no consensus you said? Brother, there is more consensus on the synoptic problem than the criteria for authenticity. Its in the text book, not just in preaching and evangelical courses. Its in text book because there is enough consensus. Nothing in New Testament studies has been more established than the synoptic problem. I don't know what to say here.

Again brother, you are making general statements like "we take into the limits of our knowledge and the insights gained through modern biblical scholarship over the last two hundred years". Its vague, and not objective. Sorry, I can't relate to anything of the sort. Please try and be specific.

To answer your final question, if you do an ait Jesus exercise and separate the first person or second person quotes of Jesus and the words of the author many things will come to light. It's an ingenious way of harmonizing the division from Judaism which aligns with the criteria of dissimilarity while also speaking to the sympathetic audience. It's an amazing find.

What do you mean by asking about the types of issues brother? Can you explain what type of issues you are talking about?
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Brother, there is more consensus on the synoptic problem than the criteria for authenticity

Indeed, Markan priority + Q source underlying Matthew/Luke has long been the sort of gold standard in NT scholarship.

With that being said, there has been some pushback against the consensus in recent years, as you will no doubt be fully apprised of given your knowledge of the state of play in the scholarship.

Apologies again for discussing the utility of the criteria of authenticity earlier when you were actually talking about form criticism. For some reason, the context of your discussion with Adrian made me think that you were both talking about the criteria. :)
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
Dale Allison, in my opinion, is on to something with his latest argument that the methodology of sifting through individual sayings to determine whether each is "historical" or "unhistorical," might not be as fruitful as looking for large patterns in the Gospels and other literature. Horsley appears to have adopted a substantially similar approach as well, along with James Crossley.

I am sorry I am not very familiar with this criteria you are speaking of! You mean to say it should be more contextual than using form criticism? I don't understand.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
Indeed, Markan priority + Q source underlying Matthew/Luke has long been the sort of gold standard in NT scholarship.

With that being said, there has been some pushback against the consensus in recent years, as you will no doubt be fully apprised of given your knowledge of the state of play in the scholarship.

Apologies again for discussing the utility of the criteria of authenticity earlier when you were actually talking about form criticism. For some reason, the context of your discussion with Adrian made me think that you were both talking about the criteria. :)

There is always pushback or push forward or however you wish to word it in all kinds of scholarship. But that does not mean there is no consensus. Every single scholarship or standards in New Testament has holes in it. But I believe these holes are the best attributes of these standards. This is why we find new things and at least have schools that teach us in a structured manner. If there are no problems, the study would have died out.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I am sorry I am not very familiar with this criteria you are speaking of! You mean to say it should be more contextual than using form criticism? I don't understand.

I refer you to Allison my friend, he has been suggesting it as an alternative to the criteria of authenticity, for example in his book, The Historical Christ and The Theological Jesus (2017) chapter two.

There he wrote:


"After years of being in the quest business, I have reluctantly concluded that most of the Gospel materials are not subject to historical proof or disproof, or even accurate estimates of their probability.

That Jesus said something is no cause for supposing that we can demonstrate that he said it, and that Jesus did not say something is no cause for supposing that we can show that he did not say it. Similarly, if Jesus did something, that does not mean we can ascertain with any probability that he did it, and if he did not do something , that does not mean we can ascertain with any probability that he did not do it. There is a gaping chasm between what happened and what we can discover or deem likely to have happened...

Did Jesus utter the golden rule? I do not see how anyone will ever show that he did, or how anyone will ever show that he did not. I certainly have never run across persuasive arguments for one conclusion or the other. Sadly, this example for me is representative...

The Gospels are parables. When we read them, we should think not that Jesus said this or did that but rather: Jesus did things like this, and he said things like that.

To repeat what I have said before: the Synoptics are not primarily records of what Jesus actually said and did but collections of impressions. They recount, or rather often recount, the sorts of things that he said and did, or that he could have said and done
."

All I was saying in the foregoing is that I think he's, perhaps, onto something here. I still rely upon the criteria of authenticity as the most reliable method for historical Jesus scholarship but I reckon a few of the recent dissidents, such as Professor Allison, have made strong points.
 
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Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
Presumably, if you're willing to appeal to "critical scholarship" you're willing to provisionally accept the above as well. So, too, some variant of the two-source hypothesis and its claim of Marcan priority. Where does that leave us?

I’m willing to use critical scholarship to distinguish what is impossible, improbable, likely or certain in regards history as most thinking people of faith do. That includes recognising the limits of what we can know from archaeological evidence or written documents. Of course faith is by definition an extension of that knowledge.

We are talking about the opening verses of a gospel written by an unknown apologist (i.e., a person writing with an agenda) some decades after the purported event. He makes two types of claims:
  1. he writes that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist;
  2. he attributes to Paul a proclamation about Jesus.

In regards claim (2) I’m reasonably certain you mean John, not Paul. Otherwise that is clear from the text.

These are qualitatively different categories of claim. Using the criteria mentioned above we can provisionally accept the historicity of John the Baptist (thanks to Josephus). Whether John actually baptized Jesus is far less certain. It is simply a claim made by an unapologetic Jesus promoter. One can assume that it's true, but it is only an assumption albeit, perhaps, a benign one.

They are very different claims. The claim John the Baptist, baptised Jesus is plausible from the criteria of embarrassment.

Criterion of embarrassment - Wikipedia

Why would a work (Gospel of Mark) that promotes Jesus the ‘Son of God’ subservient to John the Baptist?

The claim the John issued a particular proclamation is, however, pure propaganda. There is absolutely nothing in the criteria of historical reliability that prompts us to accept it as historically reliable. To pretend otherwise is to display a real ignorance of critical scholarship.

Its a religious claim, not ‘pure propaganda’.

It is claimed John the Baptist said:

And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.


So two thousand years later the movement of Jesus continues with nearly a third of the world’s population identifying as Christian. Another religion called Islam followed by nearly a quarter of the world’s population identifies Jesus as an important Prophet. There is little trace of the movement John the Baptist championed. So while John the Baptist may never have spoken those words, it seems plausible he may of and I choose to believe he did.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Im sorry. Since I haven't read this book I am clueless what you are talking about. What do you mean "onto something"? What is he onto?

I personally think Allison has made a strong argument for the shortcomings of the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus scholarship, which he himself once championed. That's what I'm saying. I still prefer to use such criteria myself and am persuaded, generally, as to its merits and strengths - but I welcome his and others' departure from this hitherto status quo.

Since you haven't read this particular book, it may be best to read his new perspective in depth before discussing whether he is "onto something" as I said earlier or not.

Allison is not alone, other scholars have voiced dissatisfaction with the current lack of consensus surrounding the variable portraits of Jesus that have emerged from the third quest i.e.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0567499553/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1


Criteria of authenticity, whose roots go back to before the pioneering work of Albert Schweitzer, have become a unifying feature of the so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, finding a prominent and common place in the research of otherwise differing scholars. More recently, however, scholars from different methodological frameworks have expressed discontent with this approach to the historical Jesus. In the past five years, these expressions of discontent have reached a fever pitch. The internationally renowned authors of this book examine the nature of this new debate and present the findings in a cohesive way aimed directly at making the coalface of Historical Jesus research accessible to undergraduates and seminary students
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
I’So while John the Baptist may never have spoken those words, it seems plausible he may of and I choose to believe he did.

The fact remains that 'not impossible' is not at all the same as 'plausible'.

It seems plausible to you only because it aligns with your religious beliefs. Beyond that, there is zero reason to think it reasonable, much less probable. And to presume that a non-eyewitness speaking decades later accurately conveyed John's proclamation demonstrates little beyond the ability of blind faith to trump informed reason.

Believe it if you wish. Just please don't that this belief is in any way reinforced by critical scholarship.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
I think Allison has made a strong argument for the shortcomings of the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus scholarship, which he himself once championed. That's what I'm saying. I still prefer to use such criteria myself and am persuaded, generally, as to its merits and strengths - but I welcome his and others' departure from this hitherto status quo.

Since you haven't read this particular book, it may be best to read his new perspective in depth before discussing whether he is "onto something" as I said earlier or not.

Allison is not alone, other scholars have voiced dissatisfaction with the current lack of consensus surrounding the variable portraits of Jesus that have emerged from the third quest i.e.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0567499553/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1


Criteria of authenticity, whose roots go back to before the pioneering work of Albert Schweitzer, have become a unifying feature of the so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, finding a prominent and common place in the research of otherwise differing scholars. More recently, however, scholars from different methodological frameworks have expressed discontent with this approach to the historical Jesus. In the past five years, these expressions of discontent have reached a fever pitch. The internationally renowned authors of this book examine the nature of this new debate and present the findings in a cohesive way aimed directly at making the coalface of Historical Jesus research accessible to undergraduates and seminary students

Hmm. Another book to read? I think you hate my leisure time! Haha. Just kidding.

Brother, from what you are saying I am guessing Dale is bringing in arguments against the criteria for authenticity. Am I correct? Thus what is he proposing in contrast? Please explain a bit.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
The fact remains that 'not impossible' is not at all the same as 'plausible'.

It seems plausible to you only because it aligns with your religious beliefs. Beyond that, there is zero reason to think it reasonable, much less probable. And to presume that a non-eyewitness speaking decades later accurately conveyed John's proclamation demonstrates little beyond the ability of blind faith to trump informed reason.

Believe it if you wish. Just please don't that this belief is in any way reinforced by critical scholarship.

What kind of "critical scholarship"?
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
There is no consensus you said? Brother, there is more consensus on the synoptic problem than the criteria for authenticity. Its in the text book, not just in preaching and evangelical courses. Its in text book because there is enough consensus. Nothing in New Testament studies has been more established than the synoptic problem. I don't know what to say here.

To quote my good friend Wikipedia:

This strong parallelism among the three gospels in content, arrangement, and specific language is widely attributed to literary interdependence.[2] The question of the precise nature of their literary relationship—the synoptic problem—has been a topic of lively debate for centuries and has been described as "the most fascinating literary enigma of all time".[3] The longstanding majority view favors Marcan priority, in which both Matthew and Luke have made direct use of the Gospel of Mark as a source, and further holds that Matthew and Luke also drew from an additional hypothetical document, called Q.

Synoptic Gospels - Wikipedia

The majority view favouring something is NOT a consensus.

Further:

In recent decades, weaknesses of the two-source theory have been more widely recognized,[by whom?]and debate has reignited. Many have independently argued that Luke did make some use of Matthew after all—the Common Sayings Source. British scholars went further and dispensed with Q entirely, ascribing the double tradition to Luke's direct use of Matthew—the Farrer hypothesis of 1955.[31] New attention is also being given[by whom?] to the Wilke hypothesis of 1838 which, like Farrer, dispenses with Q but ascribes the double tradition to Matthew's direct use of Luke. Meanwhile, the Augustinian hypothesis has also made a comeback, especially in American scholarship. The Jerusalem school hypothesis has also attracted fresh advocates, as has the Independence hypothesis, which denies documentary relationships altogether.[citation needed]

On this collapse of consensus, Wenham observed: "I found myself in the Synoptic Problem Seminar of the Society for New Testament Studies, whose members were in disagreement over every aspect of the subject. When this international group disbanded in 1982 they had sadly to confess that after twelve years' work they had not reached a common mind on a single issue."[32]


Hope that better clarifies my point.

Again brother, you are making general statements like "we take into the limits of our knowledge and the insights gained through modern biblical scholarship over the last two hundred years". Its vague, and not objective. Sorry, I can't relate to anything of the sort. Please try and be specific.

If you want black and white statements there are bound to be a few Christians around who insist the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. In brief I consider the Gospel accounts authentic but with some important qualifiers as stated.

To answer your final question, if you do an ait Jesus exercise and separate the first person or second person quotes of Jesus and the words of the author many things will come to light. It's an ingenious way of harmonizing the division from Judaism which aligns with the criteria of dissimilarity while also speaking to the sympathetic audience. It's an amazing find.

I’m not sure what you mean. Care to elaborate?
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Mark begins with Jesus meeting and being baptized by John the Baptist. Read it and say to yourself, "that really happened." Go ahead, I dare you.
In Mark (unlike in Paul or the other gospels) Jesus is simply a Jewish lad from an ordinary family, not even a descendant of David.

And John the Baptist, whose message appears to have been simple but whose politics didn't please the establishment, baptized this Jewish lad, and metaphorically washed his sins off him.

At which point, on the model that God adopted David as his son in Psalm 2:7, as affirmed Acts 13.33, the heavens opened, and God adopted Jesus as [his] son.

Do I think that last part is an accurate report of real events? No. Instead, like so much of Mark, the author moves Jesus through a scene based on a part of the Tanakh (Psalm 2:7). So much of Mark is written in this way, so much can be mapped onto passages in the Tanakh, that it isn't necessary for there to have been an historical Jesus for Mark to have been written. (To be clear, I find no clincher either for or against an historical figure somewhere behind the stories, so I think it 50:50 that an historical Jesus existed.)

Indeed, the NT is full of occasions where the author directs your attention to what he's just done, had Jesus fulfill a part of the Tanakh that the author thinks will serve as a purported messianic prophecy. Perhaps the most egregious example is the author of Matthew making Jesus' mother a virgin BECAUSE the Septuagint had inaccurately translated Isaiah 7:14's Hebrew 'almah (meaning 'young woman') into Greek as παρθένος (parthenos, 'virgin'). The author of Luke repeats the error. Thus the Jesuses of Matthew and Luke are the only two Jesuses who necessarily have God's Y-chromosome. (And then those authors trip over their feet with those absurd genealogies, not only fake but incompatible, trying to make Jesus a descendant of David.)

No, I don't think those accounts are accurate reports of real events either.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Brother, from what you are saying I am guessing Dale is bringing in arguments against the criteria for authenticity. Am I correct? Thus what is he proposing in contrast? Please explain a bit.

Yes, he and the others cited are raising arguments against the utility of the criteria of authenticity for historical Jesus scholarship. Correct. I don't necessarily concur entirely but I do welcome their revisionism of the method / their critiques of the established methodology.

In contrast, Allison is proposing to discern not whether individual sayings are to be judged "historical" or "nonhistorical" (for instance on the basis of criterion of embarrassment or multiple attestation, say) but instead to look for large "patterns" in the Jesus tradition we find in our extant NT sources.

An illustrative example might be, say, if there are a plethora of sayings which describe Jesus as entering into conflict with the Jewish religious authorities, we should then conclude that the historical Jesus likely came into conflict with such religious authorities.

Here is how Allison explains his approach in the book:

"With regard to the sources for Jesus, the traditional criteria of authenticity privilege the parts over the whole. It seems more prudent to privilege generalizations drawn from the whole than to concentrate upon one individual item after another. As a demonstration of how this works in practice, consider the following traditions:

• Jesus prohibited divorce: 1 Cor. 7:10; Mark 10:2-9; Luke 16:18.

• Jesus sent forth missionaries without staff, food, or money: Matt. 10:9-10; Mark 6:8-9; Luke 10:4.

• Jesus instructed missionaries to get their living by the gospel: 1 Cor. 9:14; Matt. 10:10; Luke 10:7.

• Jesus commanded loving and doing good to enemies: Matt. 5:38-48; Luke 6:27-36.

• Jesus forbade judging others: Matt. 7:1-2; Luke 6:37-38.

• Jesus asked a prospective follower not to bury his father: Matt. 8:21-22; Luke 59-60.

• Jesus spoke of hating one's father and mother: Matt. 10:37; Luke 14:26; Gospel of Thomas 55, 101.

• Jesus enjoined disciples to take up a cross: Matt. 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 14:27.

• Jesus enjoined unlimited forgiveness: Matt. 18:21-22; Luke 17:3-4.

• Jesus exhorted hearers to lose their lives in order to save them: Matt. 10:39; Mark 8:35; Luke 17:33.

• Jesus called people away from their livelihoods: Mark 1:16-20; 2:14.

• Jesus figuratively demanded violent removal of hand, foot, and eye: Mark 9:42-48.

• Jesus asked a wealthy man to relinquish his money: Mark 10:17-27.

• Jesus forbade taking oaths: Matt. 5:33-37.

• Jesus commanded money to be lent without interest: Matt. 5:42; Gospel of Thomas 95.

• Jesus called some to a life without marriage: Matt. 19:11-12.

• Jesus asked a prospective follower not to say farewell to his parents: Luke 9:61-62.

• Jesus asked his disciples to renounce all of their possessions: Luke 14:33.

I infer from this collection of materials that Jesus made uncommonly difficult demands on at least some people. Whatever he may have taught about compassion, and whether or not his motivation owed something to eschatological expectation, he insisted on self-sacrifice, to the point of demanding that some individuals follow him immediately and unconditionally.

This historical verdict holds whatever tradition histories one draws up for the various units. What matters is not whether we can establish the authenticity of any of the relevant traditions or what the criteria of authenticity may say about them, but rather the pattern that they, in concert, create. It is like running into students who enjoy telling tales about their absent-minded professor. A number of those tales may be too tall to earn our belief; but if there are several of them, they are good evidence that the professor is indeed absent-minded
."



On his criticisms of the criteria of authenticity, which he formerly advanced, from the book:


"Scholars have, since the 1960s, often discussed the so-called criteria of authenticity, the sieves by which we supposedly enable ourselves to pan for original nuggets from Jesus.

The names of the chief criteria are now well known: multiple attestation, dissimilarity, embarrassment, coherence. While they all at first glance appeal to common sense, further scrutiny reveals that they are fatally flawed. Dissimilarity, which allows us to hold as authentic items that are dissimilar to characteristic emphases of Judaism and of the church, presupposes that we know far more about the church and Judaism than we do.

Multiple attestation overlooks the obvious problem that the more something is attested, the more the early church must have liked it, so the more suspicious we may well be about it. I do not, however, wish to review here the defects of the traditional criteria. Those failings have become increasingly apparent over the last two decades, and much of the discussion is becoming tedious because repetitious: we have entered an echo chamber.

I also wish to say little about recent suggestions for revising our criteria – a trick I was still trying to perform ten years ago – or about replacing them with new and improved criteria. My question is not Which criteria are good and which bad? or How should we employ the good ones? but rather Should we be using criteria at all?

My answer is No. In taking this position, I am setting myself against the dominant academic tradition, which has sought to find which bits of our texts represent Jesus' own views. Some may well wonder whether we are good for anything if we cannot sandblast the ecclesiastical soot from the tradition and restore the original. Others, perhaps suffering from a bit of physics envy, may insist that rigorously applying criteria is our only hope for keeping our discipline scientific and avoiding wholesale subjectivity. I am of a different mind
."
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
To quote my good friend Wikipedia:

This strong parallelism among the three gospels in content, arrangement, and specific language is widely attributed to literary interdependence.[2] The question of the precise nature of their literary relationship—the synoptic problem—has been a topic of lively debate for centuries and has been described as "the most fascinating literary enigma of all time".[3] The longstanding majority view favors Marcan priority, in which both Matthew and Luke have made direct use of the Gospel of Mark as a source, and further holds that Matthew and Luke also drew from an additional hypothetical document, called Q.

Synoptic Gospels - Wikipedia

The majority view favouring something is NOT a consensus.

Further:

In recent decades, weaknesses of the two-source theory have been more widely recognized,[by whom?]and debate has reignited. Many have independently argued that Luke did make some use of Matthew after all—the Common Sayings Source. British scholars went further and dispensed with Q entirely, ascribing the double tradition to Luke's direct use of Matthew—the Farrer hypothesis of 1955.[31] New attention is also being given[by whom?] to the Wilke hypothesis of 1838 which, like Farrer, dispenses with Q but ascribes the double tradition to Matthew's direct use of Luke. Meanwhile, the Augustinian hypothesis has also made a comeback, especially in American scholarship. The Jerusalem school hypothesis has also attracted fresh advocates, as has the Independence hypothesis, which denies documentary relationships altogether.[citation needed]

On this collapse of consensus, Wenham observed: "I found myself in the Synoptic Problem Seminar of the Society for New Testament Studies, whose members were in disagreement over every aspect of the subject. When this international group disbanded in 1982 they had sadly to confess that after twelve years' work they had not reached a common mind on a single issue."[32]


Hope that better clarifies my point.

It doesn't really. What you have said here is that there are problems with the synoptic problem. Well, I have said many many times in this thread that there are problems with all of the standards. All of it. But that does not mean there is no consensus. I think you should not use that kind of sentence which are fleeting statements and rather make specific statements of what you mean to say.

So what do you mean to say? Are you stating that all three gospels are completely cloven, individual writings of people who never used a common source? If that's what you are saying, that's fine. But say it straight bro. Its all good. There are many scholars who say the same thing, and that idea of QLM being hypothesis is absolutely correct. It is a hypothesis and everyone accepts it. Even the scholars who teach it accept it. Also, if you are saying its absolutely false, well that is also an answer for another set of questions not answered by the two source theory, and many other common source theories. Again, these are constructs for curriculum. Thus, rather than saying things like there is no consensus, please state your view directly brother man.
 
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