8 ms·

I think there's enough evidence to suggest that whoever the people that wrote Matthew and Luke were, they were capable of introducing their own errors, along wi

by Jedd 3y ago

I think there's enough evidence to suggest that whoever the people that wrote Matthew and Luke were, they were capable of introducing their own errors, along with embellishments, from their source material. Given they wrote in Koine, and exhibit some ignorance of the geography of the area, and almost definitely never met anyone that met Jesus, it's reasonable to assume no spoken Aramaic accounts were part of their source material.

timbit42 3y ago
Sure, but would they all make the same error? Either there was no error or they all inherited it from another source or Matthew and Luke inherited it from Mark. There is some evidence in Matthew that it could have originally been written in Aramaic.
- Jedd 3y ago
  I thought it was fairly non-contentious [0] that the authors of Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily (almost exclusively) from the author of Mark's work, along with this unknown source (usually referred to as Q). It seems fairly reasonable then to assume it was a literary device made by the author of Mark - his writing is actually pretty good as far as allegory goes - that was subsequently lifted near verbatim by the later two authors. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcan_priority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcan_priority
  - timbit42 3y ago
    The parts Matthew and Luke didn't get from Mark, but match, are considered to be from Q. There are some parts of Matthew and Luke that neither come from Mark nor Q so they each also have one or more other sources unique to themselves.
    - Jedd 3y ago
      > There are some parts of Matthew and Luke that neither come from Mark nor Q so they each also have one or more other sources unique to themselves. Given that we know nothing about the provenance or contents of 'Q' - it's lost to time, and its hypothetical existence is effectively intuited by some researches - I do not understand how we can identify the set of things 'not in Q' (or indeed 'in Q'). I'd also note that there's zero evidence to suggest the unknown authors of Matthew and Luke had other sources - there's more evidence to suggest they were simply making stuff up.
      - guerrilla 3y ago
        Have you tried actually reading the proponents arguments instead of relying on arrogance? That might be a better way to find out why the consensus is what it is.
        Jedd 3y ago
        I have read a fair amount on this subject. If you could cite some rational sources that describe what you're alluding to, I'd be delighted to read them. As I noted in a sibling comment, the consensus is Marcan Priority, but a) it's not a huge majority, and b) it's ultimately a tallest dwarf competition anyway.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        So your theory is they simply made up the exact same stuff? Maybe you do believe in miracles after all then.
        Jedd 3y ago
        I don't know how you get to that conclusion. Q is literally 'source' - with unknown author and unknown content - so we don't know what's in it nor what's not in it. Therefore I challenged the claim by parent that 'anything not in Q ...' because that's an objectively ludicrous statement. My 'theory', inasmuch as I have one, is that the authors of Luke and Matthew had different target audiences, different incentives, but predominantly the same (probably two sets of) materials. They made different mistakes than the author of Mark, and indeed each other, though were presumably much more earnest. The author of Mark was probably just writing allegorical fiction. The author of Matthew for instance was the only one to talk about saints / zombies rising from the graveyards and walking into town, being seen by many people, etc - which is an odd thing for everyone else to have missed or not think to be worth mentioning. There's a beautiful graphic showing % breakdowns of the Mark / Luke / Matthew content about half-way down this page: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels EDIT: that whole page is worth a read to get a better idea on the bleed between the different texts, a historical context for when they were probably written, and a reminder of the earliest copies we can reliably put dates to.
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    Non contentious? Don’t a large portion of Christians believe the Bible is divine and any words included are there because of God?
    - defrost 3y ago
      There are a large number of camps that don't align about this issue. The King James Only movement alone: asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. and has been divided into five subgroups with varying opinions about the text and its relation to God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement This barely scratches the surface of the many opinions held about the collections of smaller books that are bound as versions of "The Bible"; which books, which translations, which interpretations, etc.
      - ShamelessC 3y ago
        Thanks! Very interesting.
        graemep 3y ago
        There is a lot of disagreement about even what documents should be in the Bible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon and lots of disagreement about translation and interpretation.
      - HeckFeck 3y ago
        > asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. As one who is fond of classical English literature, I am compelled to agree.
    - Jedd 3y ago
      Well, we get into murky territory here. I'd suggest a large portion of self-identified Christian believers really haven't thought much about it at all, beyond (as you say) some orthodox assumptions about divine nature etc. But as per my link above to wikipedia (Marcan Priority) the larger consensus amongst religious historians / researchers is that Mark was written first, Luke & Matthew were written subsequently, and based heavily on a combination of Mark + some unknown source ('Q').
gwd 3y ago
Can you give me a reference for this? The only evidence I've seen points in the opposite direction; e.g.: - The frequency and granularity of place names mentioned match other documents where we're pretty sure the people actually travelled there; vs other documents where we're sure they never travelled there - The frequency of names and requirements for disambiguation (e.g., Jesus has two disciples named James, but only one named Bartholomew) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Ylt1pBMm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Ylt1pBMm8 Regarding Aramaic: I'm just learning Biblical Greek, and one common pattern is rather than saying "X replied, '...'", to say 'X replied, saying '...'" (or "Replying, X said '...'". A Jewish friend who is a classicist told me that this pattern was a "semitism" -- i.e., not something you'd hear in native Koine Greek, but something imported from Aramaic / Hebrew. This would indicate at least that the original source material was written by native Aramaic speakers. (This latter bit is lower significance, because it was an offhand comment she made when discussing something else.)
- Jedd 3y ago
  Hmm, there's a LOT of inaccuracies between the gospels and trusted historical documents - the bottom section of rationalwiki's Gospel page [0] has some examples - though these are more historical than geographical. I was probably thinking of the author of Mark who had his Jesus doing the roundabout trip via Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, or the same author having Jesus stepping out of his boat and into a region that is actually 45km from the shore [1]. With regards Hebrew phrasing - I believe the author of Matthew was almost definitely Jewish, not sure on the authors of Mark (who I think was writing for a non-Jewish audience) or Luke. So they were writing in common Greek, but almost definitely were either Jewish, or spoke Hebrew, and/or were well versed in Jewish lore. Given the earliest copies we have date from a couple of hundred years after the alleged events, and would have been transcribed numerous times by then, we can't confidently read too much into the phrasing nuances, can we? [0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels [1] pages 72 & 106 -https://ia800707.us.archive.org/17/items/NailedTenChristianMythsThatShowJesusNeverExistedAtAllPages3246/Nailed%20Ten%20Christian%20Myths%20That%20Show%20Jesus%20Never%20Existed%20at%20All-pages-3-246.pdf https://ia800707.us.archive.org/17/items/NailedTenChristianM...

by Jedd 3y ago

timbit42 3y ago

Sure, but would they all make the same error? Either there was no error or they all inherited it from another source or Matthew and Luke inherited it from Mark. There is some evidence in Matthew that it could have originally been written in Aramaic.

Jedd 3y ago
I thought it was fairly non-contentious [0] that the authors of Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily (almost exclusively) from the author of Mark's work, along with this unknown source (usually referred to as Q). It seems fairly reasonable then to assume it was a literary device made by the author of Mark - his writing is actually pretty good as far as allegory goes - that was subsequently lifted near verbatim by the later two authors. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcan_priority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcan_priority
- timbit42 3y ago
  The parts Matthew and Luke didn't get from Mark, but match, are considered to be from Q. There are some parts of Matthew and Luke that neither come from Mark nor Q so they each also have one or more other sources unique to themselves.
  - Jedd 3y ago
    > There are some parts of Matthew and Luke that neither come from Mark nor Q so they each also have one or more other sources unique to themselves. Given that we know nothing about the provenance or contents of 'Q' - it's lost to time, and its hypothetical existence is effectively intuited by some researches - I do not understand how we can identify the set of things 'not in Q' (or indeed 'in Q'). I'd also note that there's zero evidence to suggest the unknown authors of Matthew and Luke had other sources - there's more evidence to suggest they were simply making stuff up.
    - guerrilla 3y ago
      Have you tried actually reading the proponents arguments instead of relying on arrogance? That might be a better way to find out why the consensus is what it is.
      - Jedd 3y ago
        I have read a fair amount on this subject. If you could cite some rational sources that describe what you're alluding to, I'd be delighted to read them. As I noted in a sibling comment, the consensus is Marcan Priority, but a) it's not a huge majority, and b) it's ultimately a tallest dwarf competition anyway.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      So your theory is they simply made up the exact same stuff? Maybe you do believe in miracles after all then.
      - Jedd 3y ago
        I don't know how you get to that conclusion. Q is literally 'source' - with unknown author and unknown content - so we don't know what's in it nor what's not in it. Therefore I challenged the claim by parent that 'anything not in Q ...' because that's an objectively ludicrous statement. My 'theory', inasmuch as I have one, is that the authors of Luke and Matthew had different target audiences, different incentives, but predominantly the same (probably two sets of) materials. They made different mistakes than the author of Mark, and indeed each other, though were presumably much more earnest. The author of Mark was probably just writing allegorical fiction. The author of Matthew for instance was the only one to talk about saints / zombies rising from the graveyards and walking into town, being seen by many people, etc - which is an odd thing for everyone else to have missed or not think to be worth mentioning. There's a beautiful graphic showing % breakdowns of the Mark / Luke / Matthew content about half-way down this page: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels EDIT: that whole page is worth a read to get a better idea on the bleed between the different texts, a historical context for when they were probably written, and a reminder of the earliest copies we can reliably put dates to.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  Non contentious? Don’t a large portion of Christians believe the Bible is divine and any words included are there because of God?
  - defrost 3y ago
    There are a large number of camps that don't align about this issue. The King James Only movement alone: asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. and has been divided into five subgroups with varying opinions about the text and its relation to God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement This barely scratches the surface of the many opinions held about the collections of smaller books that are bound as versions of "The Bible"; which books, which translations, which interpretations, etc.
    - ShamelessC 3y ago
      Thanks! Very interesting.
      - graemep 3y ago
        There is a lot of disagreement about even what documents should be in the Bible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon and lots of disagreement about translation and interpretation.
    - HeckFeck 3y ago
      > asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. As one who is fond of classical English literature, I am compelled to agree.
  - Jedd 3y ago
    Well, we get into murky territory here. I'd suggest a large portion of self-identified Christian believers really haven't thought much about it at all, beyond (as you say) some orthodox assumptions about divine nature etc. But as per my link above to wikipedia (Marcan Priority) the larger consensus amongst religious historians / researchers is that Mark was written first, Luke & Matthew were written subsequently, and based heavily on a combination of Mark + some unknown source ('Q').

gwd 3y ago

Can you give me a reference for this? The only evidence I've seen points in the opposite direction; e.g.: - The frequency and granularity of place names mentioned match other documents where we're pretty sure the people actually travelled there; vs other documents where we're sure they never travelled there - The frequency of names and requirements for disambiguation (e.g., Jesus has two disciples named James, but only one named Bartholomew) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Ylt1pBMm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Ylt1pBMm8 Regarding Aramaic: I'm just learning Biblical Greek, and one common pattern is rather than saying "X replied, '...'", to say 'X replied, saying '...'" (or "Replying, X said '...'". A Jewish friend who is a classicist told me that this pattern was a "semitism" -- i.e., not something you'd hear in native Koine Greek, but something imported from Aramaic / Hebrew. This would indicate at least that the original source material was written by native Aramaic speakers. (This latter bit is lower significance, because it was an offhand comment she made when discussing something else.)

Jedd 3y ago
Hmm, there's a LOT of inaccuracies between the gospels and trusted historical documents - the bottom section of rationalwiki's Gospel page [0] has some examples - though these are more historical than geographical. I was probably thinking of the author of Mark who had his Jesus doing the roundabout trip via Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, or the same author having Jesus stepping out of his boat and into a region that is actually 45km from the shore [1]. With regards Hebrew phrasing - I believe the author of Matthew was almost definitely Jewish, not sure on the authors of Mark (who I think was writing for a non-Jewish audience) or Luke. So they were writing in common Greek, but almost definitely were either Jewish, or spoke Hebrew, and/or were well versed in Jewish lore. Given the earliest copies we have date from a couple of hundred years after the alleged events, and would have been transcribed numerous times by then, we can't confidently read too much into the phrasing nuances, can we? [0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gospels [1] pages 72 & 106 -https://ia800707.us.archive.org/17/items/NailedTenChristianMythsThatShowJesusNeverExistedAtAllPages3246/Nailed%20Ten%20Christian%20Myths%20That%20Show%20Jesus%20Never%20Existed%20at%20All-pages-3-246.pdf https://ia800707.us.archive.org/17/items/NailedTenChristianM...