Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus

by Leolaia 41 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Narkissos

  On Matthew 26:50 nearly everything has been said. Leolaia's suggestion of (stern) irony is interesting (something like "Sooo here you are" or "Look who's here!"). However the vocative hetaire ("friend" or "fellow") might suggest some reaction to the kiss (something like "to the point now").

  About the OT reminiscences, IMO one must not imagine a conscious, scholarly process over every detail. If you want to tell a good story, you will very naturally bring into it topoi, motives, expressions from the stories you have read or heard. This is especially true in a mainly oral culture, and applies to every stage of the making, so this is hardly evidence of early or late "material".
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  Leolaia

  My comment referred specifically to the use of the grammatical construction as an interrogative. According to the reference I was using, it's simply not attested aside for a solitary ambiguous instance. It is of course possible that the claim was overstated.

  As for when the exegetical tradition arose, it must have preceded the written gospels and so the process must have developed for some time before the 70s when Mark was published. Paul indulges in midrashic interpretation in Romans (cf. 9:25-33 and 10:5-21 on justification in Christ), Galatians (cf. 3:10-14 on crucifixion and justification), and other texts, but his focus is on fleshing out his mystical doctrine of Christ and not the events of Jesus' life to prove him as the Christ. Hebrews and Barnabas do the same, but take a more concrete step in turning Christ's role as paschal lamb into events from Jesus' passion. Revelation is also dependent on the paschal tradition but seems to take this notion in a rather different direction. My guess is that the exegetical method that resulted in the elaborated narratives of the gospels (particularly in the paschal vein) began very early in the Jewish-Christian or Nazorean tradition, as a device to recruit converts from Pharisaic Judaism (in this sense the Petrine speeches in Acts might reproduce the Jewish-Christian method); it would be among adherents of, or those familiar with the levitical tradition that this conception of Jesus would most appeal. This motive behind the exegetical method makes more sense than construing it as a Judaizing reaction against gnosticism.

  On Peter-Cephas being an "empty shell" to be filled with subsequent tradition and theology, I could say that is applies as well to most of the other figures in the gospels (e.g. Levi Matthew, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Salome) who appear in early gnostic texts only as launching-boards to elicit Jesus logia but were subsequently fleshed out for ideological purposes: such as the story of "Thomas" in the Gospel of John that was designed to refute docetic doctrine or the "Levi" of the Gospel of Mary as the defender and evangelist of Mary's gospel. Still, I find Lapham's thesis quite plausible that Peter-Cephas did have a distinctive teaching and doctrine in the Jewish-Christian vein that was preserved in the Eastern Petrine writings.
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  peacefulpete

  I can't say much about a shift from mystery cult godman to Jewish Messiah, other than that is the perceived movement by Mythicists. other camps see a Jewish Jesus at the start that was near immediately clothed in the godman motif only later yet to be "reJudaized" for historizing purposes. What we can see it an INCREASE in the effort to locate Jesus in supposed typological OT stories. Sorry Narkissos but I have to believe this was by conscious design. The details are too many and artificial. How much we need a copy of the Gospel of the Nazarenes! Or a copy of Marcionite Pauline corpus! When and by whom was this seen as necessary or at least natural? The late first century Ebionites? The Nararenes, (who predate Xtianity) apparently were associated with the Essenic tradition of JW style typology? (saw themselves prophetically in every story)
  Roman Xtians? Syrian?
  
  The 'OT reminisences' are littered with Pythagorean details. For instance the feeding 5000 episode is nothing more than Gemetriac formula for the solar deity '888'. The 153 fish story is pulled strait from the Pythagorus legends. many of the names and roles in the stories are conscious allusions to Greek mythology. What I'm getting at is that multiple sources merged in the mind of the Gospel writers. (pagan godman solar/fertility motif, Jewish apocalypticism, Jewish OT typology, Pythagorean gemetria, actions and ambitions of Jewish militant messianism, and more) Or, and I favor this, there was a great deal of redactional layers coming from multiple camps. Often only one source is recognised immediately and a theory of it's origin is made, book printed. Others see another source as primary and present a counter theory and book.
  Questions of how much time was involved come into play. There are those who suggest that what became known as Xtianity began in 2nd century BC, and it is only the work of later revisionits that placed him in the time of Pontius Pilate. If so it would provide time for a great deal of rewriting and reinterpretation.
  
  For reason that the present stories bear evidence of extensive rewrite and multiple motivations, I find the proposal of an early novel style origin story that had a greater role for Mary and Martha quite plausable tho difficult to sell because of traditional scholarly reconstructions.
  
  The Peter discussion has petered out. hehe
• 

  peacefulpete

  I was rereading your posts Leolaia, i must admit i was impressed with your argument for OT sourcing of the areest scene. I will if you don't mind send a copy of it to a scholar working upon this project for his consideration. I will atribute it to an anymous poster known as Leolaia.
  
  I was also recdonsidering your comments about the Trial scene with pilate washing his hands. Youv'e aptly demonstrated the dependence upon Ps 26 and Dt 21. I wonder tho if this doesn't help us assign some date to this style of xtian OT midrash. The dates for Gospel of Peter and this passage in Matt has been generally set late. The antiSemetic thrust characteristic of post 100 when the sharp distinction between Jews and Xtians seemed to become a matter of emphasis. The Xtians desiring to distance themselves from the Jewish revolting sought to ingratiate themselves to the Romans. Maybe the same could be said for the arrest scene which you have shown to have OT allusions. It too tends to villify the Jewish traitor and casts the Roman soldiers as restrained hapless pawns.
  
  Whether this helps the cause of those who see an earlier Mary tale behind the present form is another matter.
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  Narkissos

  PP, my view is that the mind of any educated Jew living in any Greek-speaking part of the Roman empire (including Palestine) in the 1st and 2nd century was an incredible mess -- perhaps only equated by contemporary Internet education. As you have understood my main interest in all this is literary, not historical -- this may explain my fairly casual approach to tradition history, which may in turn be disappointing to you and others (I'm sorry too). My take is that there is no "truth" to find in "origins", whatever they are. But the inner logic and interaction of texts amazes me, no matter where they come from (we may never know).
• 

  Leolaia

  My take is that there is no "truth" to find in "origins", whatever they are. But the inner logic and interaction of texts amazes me, no matter where they come from (we may never know).

  Sounds a lot like your fellow Frenchman Derrida :)
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  Narkissos

  Leolaia, you got me!
• 

  Leolaia

  The Peter discussion has petered out. hehe

  Yeah, I think so, but I may post again on this subject once I've digested the ideas from this very interesting and provocative book I'm reading on the distinctive Petrine teachings of Jewish-Christianty.
• 

  Leolaia

  I was rereading your posts Leolaia, i must admit i was impressed with your argument for OT sourcing of the areest scene. I will if you don't mind send a copy of it to a scholar working upon this project for his consideration. I will atribute it to an anymous poster known as Leolaia.

  Eeek, a real scholar? (*shies away*) hehehe, well, I should then acknowledge the influence of Crossan and Koester, as well as International Critical Commentary volume on Mark. I don't think I presented anything new, but it was fun putting all that data together.

  There is still anti-Jewish rhetoric in Mark, and surely the Jewish War of A.D. 68-70 was a key event that motivated the effort to distinguish themselves from the Jews and ingratiate themselves with the Romans. Luke is quite blatant in having Paul ingratiate himself with the Romans in Acts, and there is a lot of anti-Jewish stuff in other books of the sub-apostolic period like the Gospel of John and Barnabas. The hand-washing scene in Matthew is later than Mark but could derive from an earlier exegetical tradition independent of Mark that dates back to the same period. There was an early second-century Acts of Pilate which may have developed these themes but which has long since been lost (not to be confused with the third-century Acts of Pilate). As for the Gospel of Peter, Lapham places its publication around A.D. 100-135 and considers it an early 'diatesseron,' or gospel harmony predating that of Justin Martyr and Tatian.
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  peacefulpete

  I'll say that GMark betrays a dependence on Luke and Matt dispite it likely having preceeded them in it's Urmark form, so maybe the antiJewish passage you are thinking of (?) was loaned from the later works?
  
  I was also thinkng about how the Marcionite and Valentinian Gnostics viewed the paschal doctrine. They renounced it as i remember as an innane and barbaric teaching when questioned about it by Proto-orthodox Xtians. They felt the death of the man jesus was either the tragic result of the ignorance of the world and revenge of the spirit lords or as an illusion. The very adoption of the paschal teaching seems secondary to the Jesus story when viewed from the Mythicists perspetive.
  
  
  
  
  Hi XXX,
  Please thank Leolaia for her imput. Her alternative explanations are quite fun to examine.
  Unfortunately, I do not have time to go into everything at the momenet.
  I will only question her interpretation of the scripture at 26:50. Let us look at the historical evidence, situational usage in Matthew and the other gospels themselves.
  Historical traditional evidence.
  The Latin Vulgate has Amice, ad quod venisti. This is well translated by the King James Bible most literally as "Friend, Whereforth art thou come?" and figuratively by the New King James Bible, "Friend, why have you come?" It is extremely doubtful that Saint Jerome lied here and had a text before him that had an imperative like "[do that] on what you are here" and decided that he should change it into a question. If there was any doubt in Jerome's mind, he would have gone in the opposite direction of making the statement an imperative instead of a clear question.
  If we do not believe this was a question, we have to ask why both the best Catholic scholars of the fifth century and the best Protestant scholars of the 17th century thought it appropriate to put a question into Jesus' mouth, a question that directly contradicts the Gospel of John's assertion that Jesus knew what was going to happen. Our only serious conclusion here must be that the textual evidence was non ambiguous for them. For these scholars the textual evidence told them Jesus asked a question at this point.
  The statement at John 13.27 is Ho poieis poiêson.' This is quite far from 'eph'ho parei' at Matt. 26:50 Comparing the Latin we get the same distance 'quod facis fac citius' to 'ad quod venisti' One has to explain how the text could have changed so drastically. That Jesus said something to Judas/Martha in one scene does not mean he repeats it in an entirely different scene.
  In fact, translating the phrase eph'ho parei into "do what you are coming to do quickly," does not solve the problem of Jesus not knowing what was going to happen. Judas/Martha has already kissed him and that is all she is going to do in the scene. So giving her a command to do something proves that Jesus did not know what was going to happen to him. Judas/Martha does not do anything more in the scene. On the other hand somebody does cut off somebodies ear. (I am not sure if Mary does this in defense of Jesus or if Martha does this attacking Jesus and hitting a slave instead.) Such a statement would make sense if he knew that Martha was going to cut off somebodies ear, but otherwise, it indicates that Jesus does not know the actions or rather inaction his betrayer will take.
  As far as the word "ho" goes,
  Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon says this about the word 'ho':
  the, that ho, hê, to, is
  A. demonstr. Pronoun.
  B. the definite Article.
  C. in epic, the relative Pronoun,
  The statement that "ho is a relative pronoun and is never used in Greek to introduce a direct question" is interesting. In this statement eph ho parei, ho is the second word, so it is not being used to introduce a direct question. Is she saying that 'ho' cannot be used in a statement that is a direct question? Where does this information come from? Who made this grammatical rule?
  Matthew uses the word "Hetaire" which introduces the sentence, eph'ho parei and may be translated as "mate," as well as "friend." 3 times. He uses it to introduce a question the first two times that he uses it.
  Matthew 22.12 and he said to him, ' (hetarie)Friend, how did you come in here not wearing wedding clothing?'
  and 20:13 [13] "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn't you agree with me for a denarius?
  One can suspect strongly that the third use at 26:50 is also to introduce a question.
  Besides this evidence, we also have the evidence of Luke and John, both of which have Jesus asking a question at this point.
  Luke 22.48 "Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?" John 18.4 Then Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?"
  (Obviously, the sentence "Whom do you seek" was embarassing and a later editor of the Gospel of John added the phrase "knowing all that was to befall him,")
  So, to sum up, we have evidence from Jerome, the writers of the King James Bible, the writers of Luke and John, and the writer of Matthew himself that there was a question at this point. What are the sources that Leolaia are putting her trust in?
  This is however largely irrelevant to the hypothesis that Martha betrayed Jesus. Sadly, I'm super busy at the moment, but as soon as I get free I'll come up with a reply to the rest of the interesting material. If others can offer their opinions and thoughts, I would appreciate it and encourage it.
  Incidentally, I would guess that Jesus asks Martha "Why have you come?" because he is surprised to see her. He left her standing guard someplace where she fell asleep three times.
  There is really no need to search the tons of texts of the Hebrew scriptures to find some veiled allusion to a canonical gospel line when the reason for a line is simply and clearly explained by looking at the text on the previous page and figuring out the plot. Its a little bit like searching the Aeneid for references to the God of War Mars to try to figure out why the so called American President announced a mission to Mars last week.
  Warmly,
  Jay Raskin