Just another thought on the SMark version of the resurrection scene. It may in fact be an intermediate form between the hypothesized Martha (wife) resurection and the final L version. Note that there is only 1 woman MM a sister of the dead one and that Jesus is very teed-off at her. Sh is rebuked by his groupies as well. Why? Did she delay in sending to Jesus when her sister fell sick? Also the very intimate affection eventht e suggestion of sexual behavior between the resurrected one and Jesus is best explained as betweeen Husband and wife reunited. the issues of Jesus sexual orientation resulting from this awkward and clumsy early rewrite probably motivated the further work that eliminated all the references to intimacy and placed Martha with MM as sisters of the dead man.
Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia 41 Replies latest watchtower bible
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peacefulpete
Man I wish i could edit from home! I just realized I reversed the MM and Martha characters in the resurrection scene. MM died and was raised by Jesus and intimacy (as consistant with a girlfriend/lover) folowed. Martha was the one who begrudgingly sent for Jesus and was rebuked by him. MM was later recast as the second sister of lazarus. This is consistant with the name Martha in S Mark and the motive in the betrayal in the garden scene later.
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Faraon
Leolaia
Double Edge.....Great!! I'm glad someone else than just Pete and I are reading this stuff!
What am I, chopped meat, the invisible man?
All kidding aside, I read with great interest both your posts, and those of PP. I don't answer or comment frequently because I don't consider myself in your league. I don't have the depth or breadth of knowledge that you have shown, but it is not too late to learn. Both of you have been an inspiration and a source of sorely needed knowledge.
Faraon
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Leolaia
However the exegetical use and reuse of the separate resurrection and arrest stories has little to do with the original context they were found in. The novel-like origin of some of these is not as improbable as it may seem.
My point is not that the stories were interpreted or expanded through the exegetical tradition but that this haggadic tradition was essential to the very composition of these stories (just as in the case of the stories in rabbinical tradition). I see no evidence, or at best very slender evidence, for an "original context" outside this tradition that was then embellished; in a nutshell, the very plot of the stories originated in the exegetical tradition, along with many of their motifs. One needs only to look to the story of King David's betrayal by Absalom and Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 15-17 to find the whole arrest and betrayal narrative arc from the Passion Narrative, with other stories and literary motifs from the OT combining such as the story I mentioned earlier of Joseph's betrayal by Judah for twenty pieces of silver in Genesis. Removing these motifs and narrative elements from the Passion Narrative, there doesn't appear to be much that needs to be attributed to a hypothetical "original context".
The Epistle of Barnabas shows most clearly that the exegetical interpretation precedes the composition of the story. In ch. 7, the author develops an allegorical interpretation of the scapegoat ritual in Leviticus 16 as a typological foreshadowing of Jesus and attends to certain details of the ritual that forges links with other scriptures which are then recruited to reinforce the interpretation. This analysis produces all sorts of details about the scoraging and mocking of Jesus -- some of which are reproduced in the Synoptic narrative, others which are found in the Johannine version and not in the Synoptic, while all of them are present in the Gospel of Peter version which reads almost like a tissue of motifs drawn from exegesis. Barnabas is entirely reliant on his exegetical method and shows no dependence on any preformed narrative; the situation appears to be the other way around.
Another striking example of this process can be found in Hebrews 9:12-14, which is dependent on the scapegoat ritual of Numbers 19 and Deuteronomy 21 by positing Jesus as the innocent heifer that is killed to forgive the nation for the murder of innocents: "He has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption for us. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkled on those who have incurred defilement and they restore the holines of their outward lives; how much more effectively the blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God." The levitical language in this passage derives right from Numbers 19:1-10. The parallel instructions in Deuteronomy 21:1-9 are also used to construct the scene of Pontius Pilate washing his hands of Jesus' execution in Matthew 27. The Deuteronomy text in the LXX reads:
"If someone is slain and the murder cannot be found, the elders and priests shall measure the distance to the nearest city and the elders of that city shall bring a heifer, and the priests shall break its neck. And all the elders of that city shall wash their hands over the heifer and they shall testify, 'Our hands did not shed this blood, neither did your eyes see it shed. Set not the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, but let the guilt of blood be forgiven them." (Deuteronomy 21:6-8; LXX)
Now in the narrative in Matthew 27, Pilate is accompanied with the "high priests and the elders," just as in Deuteronomy. The hand-washing incident is literarily dependent on both Deuteronomy and Psalm 26:5-6, which is itself dependent on Deuteronomy:
"So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing ... he took water and washed his hands (labon hudor apenipsato tas kheiras) before the crowd saying, 'I am innocent (athoos eimi) of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.' And the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children.' " (Matthew 27:24-25)
"I hate the company of evildoors, and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence (nipsomai en athoois tas kheiras) and go about your altar, O Lord" (Psalm 26:5-6; LXX). "Set not the guilt of innocent blood in the the midst of your people Israel." (Deuteronomy 21:8; LXX)
The formula used by Pilate corresponds to that used in the psalms while the guilt of the people in their response mocks the prayer described in the ritual. It is ironic how the Christian charge of Jewish blood-guilt for the execution of Jesus derives ultimately from a solemn prayer designed to absolve the nation of such guilt. It is interesting, moreover, how different gospel writers drew on different passages to contruct Pilate's dialogue. For instance, Pilate's declaration of innocence in the Gospel of Peter has different wording from Psalm 26: "I am clean (ego kathareuo) from the blood of the Son of God" (Gospel of Peter 11:46). This declaration actually derives almost verbatim from Daniel 13:46: "I am clean (katharos) from the blood of this woman." The Gospel of Peter and Matthew both clearly draw on the same exegetical tradition, but each gospel writer developed the interpretation of Deuteronomy 21:6-8 in a different way, deriving dialogue from different literary sources. The exegetical interpretation is prior to the specific composition of the narratives. There are many, many other interesting examples like these in the literature.
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Narkissos
Thanks for this fascinating thread. Although PP's substitution theory (interestingly bringing some "light comedy" into the usually tragic Gospel picture) was somewhat over my head at first sight, I enjoyed the debate very much.
I'm pretty convinced now that the concurrence of Cephas and Peter in Galatians is better explained by interpolation (which, in turn, sheds some light on the complex history of the Pauline corpus I am just beginning to consider) than by two existing characters in the first century (as still hold by Bart D. Ehrman, Cephas and Peter, in Journal of Biblical Literature 109/3 [1990] p. 463-74) . What remains, IMO, is the following: when the Peter character eventually appeared in Mark (either because Cephas came to be called Peter, or by independent literary creation which later absorbed the Cephas tradition), it appeared as a remarkably empty shell which could be filled by all kinds of Christian material: postpauline in 1 Peter, protocatholic in 2 Peter, judeo-christian or gnostic in extra-canonical writings.
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Leolaia
Your reference to Judah being the model for the Judas arrest story is very likely true. This however does not suggest that the story was not a rewrite of an earlier arrest story that had a woman (Martha?) as the betrayer. (kiss very tenderly..... what are you doing here? Matt 26:49,50) This seems to contradict the rewrite that Jesus foreknew the arrest that night and that judas in the image of Judah was the betrayer.
First of all, Jesus was not asking Judas why he was there in Matthew 26:50 because it is not in the form of a question. Literally, what Jesus says is: "Friend, on what you are here" (hetaire, eph' ho parei), and ho is a relative pronoun and is never used in Greek to introduce a direct question; an interrogative such as ti "for what reason" is what is used instead in such questions (e.g. Ti elthate pros me "Why did you come to me?", Genesis 26:27, LXX). This is why translators tend to treat the sentence as an imperative but with the verb deleted (possibly through a scribal error), meaning "[do that] on what you are here". This is suggested also by a similar saying of Jesus to Judas in John 13:27 where he tells him, "What you do, do quickly." John places this saying in the context of the Last Supper where he shows foreknowledge of the betrayal in much the same way as his declaration in Matthew 26:21-24. Another theory is that eph' ho is an idiom related to the notorious passage in Romans 5:12 which reads "Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, eph' ho death spread to all men because all have sinned." What is controversial is whether eph' ho designates Adam's sin as the cause of death's spread, meaning "by such means," or whether the phrase is just an expression meaning "and so" or "thus" which doesn't directly denote cause and effect but merely that a situation is subsequent to another. The evidence for the latter reading is better than the first. In this light, Jesus' utterance could more simply be read not as a question or a request but rather as a sardonic statement: "Thus you're here" or "And so you're here," which implies that that Judas' presence there was just as expected, the next subsequent event in an unfolding process. In either case, Jesus does not show surprise at Judas' betrayal -- quite the opposite in fact is implied.
Now about that kiss -- from what you wrote, I gather that designating a woman as the betrayer resolves a problem of why a man is giving Jesus such a "tender kiss". But the text as it reads is only to be expected from the OT sources that are used to construct the narrative. I refer again to the story of King David's betrayal in 2 Samuel 14-17. The connection between David and Jesus, the Davidic Messiah, is obvious throughout the interpretive tradition. In the original story, David is betrayed by his son Absalom who launches his revolt by exchanging a kiss with him (2 Samuel 14:33). Absalom however is assisted in his revolt by one of David's most trusted counselors, Ahithophel, who conspires with Absalom to remove David from the throne (2 Samuel 15:12, 31). It is Ahithophel who most clearly resembles the Judas of the gospel tradition. Like Jesus, David flees during the night across the Kidron ravine (2 Samuel 15:23 = John 18:1), and goes to the Mount of Olives (2 Samuel 15:30 = Mark 14:26), where he prays to God and weeps (2 Samuel 15:30-32 = Mark 14:32-34). David is accompanied with Ittai the Gittite who refused to leave him and who, like Peter, swore an oath to never forsake him (2 Samuel 15:19-31 = Mark 14:27-31). David tells two of his companions, Abiathar and Zadok, that he is ready to accept whatever fate God gives him and declares, "Let him do to me what seems good to him," while Jesus tells God in his prayer: "It is not what I want but what you want that matters" (2 Samuel 15:25-26 = Mark 14:36). Then Ahithophel, David's trusted counselor, meets with Absalom to conspire the capture and assassination of David. In making his proposal to Absalom, Ahithophel says: "You are only asking for the life of one man, which will bring peace to all the people," and this is strikingly similar to what Caiaphas says when he hatches the plot to have Jesus killed: "It is prudent for you that one man should die for the people, so that the whole nation should not perish" (2 Samuel 17:1-3 = John 11:49-52). Ahithophel wants to capture David that very night so that "all the people who are with him will take flight, then I shall strike down the king alone," and similarly Jesus cites Zechariah 13:7 which foretells: "I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" (2 Samuel 17:2 = Mark 14:27). Ahithophel's plan was rejected by Absalom in favor of the advice of Hushai, David's loyal friend, and ashamed of what he did, Ahithophel returns home and hangs himself (2 Samuel 17:5-19, 23 = Matthew 27:3-10).
On the basis of the above, 2 Samuel 14-17 clearly played a key role in constructing the plot of the Passion narrative. No clear motivation for Ahithophel's betrayal is stated, other than to bring peace and order (17:3), but Ahithophel clearly wasn't a lover or wife of David or someone who had a personal relationship that ended in jealousy; his role was much closer to Judas, as a trusted confidant of one's inner circle who decided to switch sides and conspire with the enemy. Joseph's betrayal by Judah, similarly, involved his brother and not a lover, wife, or someone jealous about him loving someone else. Both these stories suggest that the betrayer was crafted from the beginning as someone like Judas, a fellow brother, a member of Jesus' inner circle of disciples; the idea that Jesus' betrayer was a woman motivated by heart-break and jealousy appears only as an interpretive epiphenomenon suggested only through the combination of originally separate stories in the most recent redacted version of the Gospel of John (where only the story of Lazarus is reported), and not as something that belonged to the earliest strata of the common gospel traditions. Rather, the trope of a betrayal in the first place follows not from the combination of certain narrative stories in a finished narrative gospel but from the "suffering servant" prophecy in Isaiah 53:12 which claims that "he was handed over to die". This bare statement was then embellished into a story by adding four principal motifs from the OT. The first was the claim that the betrayer would gain thirty silver pieces from his conspirators which would later be returned to the Temple. This motif was derived from two sources: Judah's betrayal of Joseph in Genesis 37:26-38 and the prophecy in Zechariah 11:12-14:
"Then Judah said to his brothers, 'Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do any harm to him.' .... Now some Midianite merchants were passing, and they drew Joseph up out of the well. They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and these men took Joseph to Egypt." (Genesis 37:26-38)
"They weighed out my wages: thirty shekels of silver. But Yahweh told me, 'Throw it into the treasury, this princely sum at which they have valued me.' Taking the thirty shekels of silver, I threw them into the Temple of Yahweh, into the treasury. I then broke my second staff, Union, in half, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel." (Zechariah 11:12-14)
The Genesis account also inspired the name of the betrayer as Judas (Gk. for Judah). Joseph was sold as a slave for twenty pieces but since Exodus 21:32 mandates the price of a slave as thirty shekels, the latter figure is what is used in Matthew. The other gospelists only refer to "money". Matthew also has Judas throw the money back to the priests in the Temple (27:3-10), borrowing the other motif from Zechariah. Luke, on the other hand, does not draw on either motif from Zechariah and claims that Judas used the money to buy a field (Acts 1:18). The interpretation of these sources, therefore, furnish the story of Judas' conspiracy before the Last Supper and what he did after Jesus' arrest.
The second key element drawn through the exegetical tradition was of the betrayer sharing a meal with Jesus, in this case the last meal. This was derived directly from Psalm 41:9:
"Even my bosom-friend, whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has raised his heel against me." (Psalm 41:9)
The tradition of the Last Supper and the Eucharist already existed independent of the later Passion narrative, and Psalm 41:9 motivated the addition of the theme of betrayal to the Last Supper tradition. 1 Corinthians 11:23-27 indicates that this happened very early, unless we regard this text as a later interpolation which is possible (the form reproduces almost exactly the Lukan phrasing). This text thus inspired the story of what happened with Judas during the Last Supper. The third key element to the betrayal story, as discussed above, was the betrayal of David by Absalom and Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 14-17. This story provided the plot of what happened in between the Last Supper and Jesus' arrest, as well as the end of Judas' story via suicide. Finally, the fourth and final element inspired what Judas did during the arrest itself -- that is, the infamous kiss. There are several literary sources of this motif. The concept of a traitorous kiss may have been inspired by the proverbs in Proverbs 26:24 and 27:6:
"Where hatred is, there are dissembling lips but deep within lies treachery....From one who loves, wounds are well-intentioned; from one who hates, kisses are ominous." (Proverbs 27:6)
The pairing with kisses and betrayal also occurs repeatedly in 2 Samuel, the source of other elements in the betrayal story. First, as I already mentioned, Absalom and David kiss immediately before Absalom launches his revolt (2 Samuel 14:33). Then, while Absalom was hatching his conspiracy against David, he "stole the hearts of the men of Israel" by doing this: "Whenever anyone came up to do homage to him, he would stretch out his hand and take him and kiss him." (2 Samuel 15:5-6). But the most significant kissing story in 2 Samuel was one that occurs in ch. 20, during a second revolt against David. According to 2 Samuel 20:2, "all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bichri," and David declares that "Sheba son of Bichri is more dangerous to us than Absalom ever was" (v. 6). The story therefore parallels somewhat the story of Absalom and Ahithophel. The former general of Absalom's army, David's nephew Amasa, was appointed by the king to find those in Judah loyal to the king's authority but he was betrayed by his brother Joab who came to him with kisses:
"Joab said the Amasa, 'Are you okay, my brother?' And with his right hand (kheir he dexia) he seized (ekratesan) Amasa by the beard to kiss him tenderly (kataphilesai). Amasa paid no attention to the sword (ten makhairan) Joab was holding, and Joab struck (epaisen) him with it in the belly and spilled his entrails to the ground (kai exekhuthe he koilia autou)." (2 Samuel 20:9-10; LXX)
The first verse may be readily compared with Mark 14:45-46: "He immediately went to him saying 'Rabbi!' and kissed him tenderly (kataphilesen). And they laid hands (tas kheiras) on him, and seized (ekratesan) him." The wording is very close, even in the use of the intensified verb kataphilesai "to kiss tenderly". The next verse (v. 47) continues the parallel with its use of language from the first half of 2 Samuel 20:10: "But then a certain one of those who stood by drew his sword (ten makhairan) and struck (epaisen) the slave of the high priest." The resemblance between the two texts is exceedingly close. Yet this is not all. Luke's version of Judas' suicide (Acts 1:18) draws imagery not from Ahithophel's hanging but Amasa's assassination: "Falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out (kai exekhuthe panta ta splakhna autou). Even the "falling headlong" part finds inspiration from the Amasa story: according to 2 Samuel 20:8, "the sword came out and fell (kai epesen)."
I thus see very little in the Judas story that could be projected back to the stage of the narrative traditions that preceded the exegetical interpretation that recruited these motifs and tropes to construct the betrayal story. At the earliest stage, there could well have been oral traditions about Jesus' betrayer that were independent from the Judas story in the gospels, perhaps even involving a female disciple, and stories based not on exegetical traditions but living memory. But if any such stories existed, they were early on replaced by the construction of the Judas story from OT traditional materials.
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Leolaia
Robert, here's my short answer....
The Bible is a collection of diverse writings that did not become a single book, or codex, until the early centuries A.D. Before that, it was a library of scrolls that varied by community. The Pharisees had a fairly fixed canon of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings that rejected the later Greek-language apocrypha. The Jews of the Diaspora reading the Septuagint included the apocrypha and the many early Christians accepted the apocrypha as well. The Essenes in Palestine combined the Law and Prophets and Writings with their own sectarian documents, as well as pseudepigrapha like 1 Enoch and Jubilees. The canon of the New Testament also varied, with various churches accepting certain disputed books and other churches rejecting them. One of the earliest codexes of the entire Bible included 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas. Eventually the orthodoxy settled on what books were considered scripture and which were not, and for a thousand years the Catholic Church accepted the Old Testament with the apocrypha and the New Testament with its current boundaries, but during the Reformation the Protestants threw out the apocrypha from their Bible so that to this day Catholic Bibles differ from Protestant versions.
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peacefulpete
I share your conclusions about the Peter character Narkissos.
I also agree with your last comment Leolaia. And tht was a very educational take on the Matt 26:50 wording, i intend to examine it furthur. The question is: When did the Xtians make such a concerted effort to ground their Christology in the OT? You have posted excellent observations of this having been done, but when was this? Overtly, Mark shows far less than Matt. John less than either. The Gnostics including Marcion renounced the OT as a product of the deformed demiurge. Surely such a desire to interpret Jesus legends thru it would be unlikely for them. IMO the "light comedy" I posted as a possible reconstruction of a Jesus tale prior to this tide of revisionism seems to answer the nagging oddities and irregularities that betray revisionism. I have absolutely no disgreement with the major elements even the present themes being OT midrash. I could as I'm sure you could list many more. Yet according to this reconstruction the work of these revisionists is heavily laid over something else, something that the Gnostics were slower to discard, and has left only trace literary evidence. It's just a question of when did an influential sect of Xtianity begin seeing the need to root the NT stories in the OT? I believe this was subsequent to protognostic source stories that took a much different tack on the purpose, message and personal life of Jesus. -
peacefulpete
What a mess! I appreciate your bringing to my attention Leoaia the issues surrounding the translation of matt 26:50. The following was a discussion that popped up with a google search. I know this is not the thread but it is something that has arisen.
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The expression in Matt 26:50 looks incomplete and is hard to understand:
hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI
I know some options and would be grateful for comments on which, if any of
them, seems the better one:
1. The imperative POIEI should be supplied to give the sense: "Friend, do
that which you are here for." I am reluctant to go this route, because I am
not sure we are allowed to add POIEI.
2. It is understood as a question to give the sense "Friend, why have you
come?" This sounds as a real question and does not make much sense, since
Jesus knew very well why Judas had come. I also find it hard to make EF' hO
mean "why" when EIS TI or similar would have been simpler.
3. A word of saying may be implied, giving the sense "Friend, tell us what
you are here for." I suppose this could be a request to Judas to be honest
and not hide his intention behind a friendly kiss.
4. The relative could refer to the previous situation where Judas has
feigned friendship by giving Jesus a kiss and calling him Rabbi while
bringing an armed contingent to catch him. This might give the sense
"Friend, is this what you have come for?" (That is, greeting me as a close
friend as well as your Master.)
Is there a Greek idiom involved here? I am not satisfied with any of the
suggestions above.
I didn't get a lot of help from BADG. But let me quote some of what they
suggest under hOS:
2a: "The much disputed pass. hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI Mt 26:50 would belong
here if we were to supply the words necessary to make it read about as
follows: friend, (are you misusing the kiss) for that (purpose) for which
you are here? (Wlh.; EKlostermann) or thus: in connection with that (=the
purposes), for which (=for the realization of which) you have appeared (do
you kiss me)? (Rdm.2 78). Friend, are you here for this purpose? FRehkopf,
ZNW 52, '61, 109-15. But s. 2b and 9b below.
2b: So Mt 26:50 (s. 2a above), if the words to be supplied are about as
follows: friend, (do that) for which you have come! (so ESchwartz, ByzZ 25,
'25, 154f; ECEOwen, JTS 29, '28, 384-6; WSpiegelberg, ZNW 28, '29, 341-3;
FZorell, Verb. Domini 9, '29, 112-16; sim. PMaas, Byz.-Neugriech. Jahrb. 8,
'31, 99; 9, '32, 64; WEltester: OCullmann-Festschr., '62, 70-91; FWDanker,
FWGingrich-Festschr., '72, 104f n. 6 reads EF' Wi PAREI as a commercial
idiom w. the colloq. sense 'what deal did you make?' [s. 11d, Ro 5:12].
9B: NT philology overwhelmingly rejects the proposition that hOS is used in
direct questions (Mlt. 93; Bl-D. ยง300, 2; Radermacher2 78; PMaas [see 2b
above]). An unambiguous example of it is yet to be found. Even the inscr. on
a goblet in Dssm., LO 100ff [LAE 125-31], ET 33, '22, 491-3 leaves room for
doubt. For this reason the translation of hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI Mt 26:50 as
'what are you here for?' (so Gdspd., Probs. 41-43; similarly, as early as
Luther, later Dssm.; JPWilson, ET 41, '30, 334) is scarcely tenable.-Rob.
725 doubts the interrogative here, but Moulton-Turner, Syntax '63, p. 50
inclines toward it."
Thanks,
Iver Larsen
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peacefulpete
My Bible tranlations are about split on whether the verse was said as question or not. The formost arguement against it is that is contradicts the setup (Jesus knows the future and his betrayer). This of course has no persuasiveness to someone who sees it as a contradiction created thru a reworking of the story. Also from this posting the statement that the structure NEVER occurs in a question appears to have been slightly over stated.