Take the Koester Challenge

A poster singing himself "LO" has criticized my understanding of Koester's ideas on pre Markan redaction. This is serious because I rely heavily upon Koester's concept, my understanding of which is under fire, that the pre Markan redaction was circulating in written form as early as AD 50. I've been waiting to find my copy of Koeter's book to answer. I've now gone through all the boxes and must conclude the book is well and truely lost. Nevertheless, I will still answer these arguments.

LO:You keep repeating this bit:

"Well, we can show that the basic story that makes up the Pre Markan redaction was used by all four Gospels, and that it was circulating as early as AD 50, that's just 18 years after the original events."

You rely on a single book by a single scholar (Helmut Koester's Ancient Christian Gospels) to establish the existence of a hypothetical document.

He says scornfully that I rely on a source by just one scholar. The fact of the matter is this point is from the ravings of just one guy (although that guy is the major textual critic in the world). Koester himself says that John Domnic Crosson also agrees with him on the point, and he includes as an apendix to his book an article by Diateseron scholar Jurgen Denker who also agree. Moreover, there is a general trend toward dating the dating the Gospels at a point ealier than the traditional AD 70 for Mark and latter for others. John A.T. Robinson, in his work Dating the New Testmaent places the "proto Mark" as AD45. While evidence from the Talmud indicates that Matthew had to have been circulating as early as AD 70, meaning that in as much as Matt used Mark, Mark must have been written much earlier than 70. We know that something was circulating before Paul began to write, which was about AD 50, becuase Paul quotes or alludes to Jesus teachings and sayings so consistently that Koester assumes he possessed one of the sayings documents. See my chart on Pauline allusion (scroll to bottom of page). Lo goes on,however, and continues his challenge:

The two problems here are, first, that Koester's views are of course contestable, and are contested by a number of scholars, and second, that you inject a large amount of your own interpretation into what Koester (and Petersen) actually say in the book. You really need to take another look at this claim and stop simply repeating it.

Too bad we have no specifics here. He does not produce a single scholar who disagrees with Koester, nor does he indicate what he's talking about when he says I interject too much of my own opinion. Now I am aware that I interject, of course I do because I'm using many sources to build a case for a certain view point. This is an art form through which one uses documentation to mold an original idea. It's deriving originality out of set works that are not one's own. Typically this is called "argumentation." But it is Lo's own burden of proof to show that I inject too much of my own ideas suppported. So far he has not even been specific about what he means.

This is the kind of thing I meant when I said you should take another look at this claim and stop simply repeating it. First, as I said earlier, Crossan says “the 50’s” not “by 50.” Koester describes Crossan’s position as dating the Cross Gospel to “the middle of the 1st century CE.” You interpret this “middle” to mean by 50 precisely, but “middle” means a range of possible dates in the middle, not the exact middle.

That may be a fair criticism, however, I think Koester does say exactly "AD 50." I am sure remember seeing that but I can't find the book. Since I can't prove my point at the moment let's assume our friend LO is right. Now if Corsson says "in the middle fo the century" I agree that a range is implied not a specific year. Narrowing the date to one year in particular seems a bit of a leap, I always assumed that the statement, even if Koester literally says it ("AD 50") Is meant as a rounding off not a hard and fast date. But I think what Lo forgets is that a range means that it could as earlier refer to 45 60 50 as 50-55. It could even mean AD 40-50 as easily as 50-60. So at that rate saying "50" seems reasonable. But I never meant that it must have come out that very year. Now supposed it did come out and begin to circulate in 55? That's still 23 years after events, still eye witnesses around, still a little less than half the distance from the original events that most skeptics assume or that the traditional dates assume. So I really think this point is too damaging to my argument. I think it hardly touches the argument.

Second, Koester is describing Crossan’s position, not his own. You say Koester never says otherwise. Even if this were the case, it would not mean that he endorses Crossan’s position or that he actually says he dates the Passion Narrative source to 50. But in fact, Koester disagrees with Crossan, and on a lot more than the epiphany stories. After describing Crossan’s theory in the paragraph on pp. 218-219, Koester criticizes it, saying, “There are three major problems regarding this hypothesis.” The second of these major criticisms has to do with Crossan’s early dating of a “major literary composition,” by which Koester means Crossan’s Cross Gospel.

Yea I remember that if you read far enough you see that he grounds down the problems to a point where he is not preserving any essential disagreement with Corsson. He's basically knocking out the problems. While he does disagree with Crosson on many fine points he certainly does not disagree with the idea that a pre Mark redaction served as the basis for all four canonical Gospels, that this contained the passion narrative and ended with the story of the empty. He further agrees that this was circulating "in the middle of the century." He certainly does not disagree and if you look you will see that the time period of circulation is not one of the three problems that he puts up. Again, this does nothing to my argument. you are merely knit picking. You are desperate to show that I can't do scholarship and I'm stupid and I'm not good and you are smarter and your just piicking on trivia and bull shit and you don't do anything to touch the basis of my arguments.

There is no way you could read that book and think that Koester disagrees on that key point; the pre Markan redaction circulated sometime in the middle fo the century, before the traditional date of Mark and that it was uses by the four gospels. The whole structure of the book supports that view. There would be no point at all in speaking of Diatesseron if that was not his point, that's the whole idea of talking about readings in the Diatesseron. It would absurd to present an article on the subject by another scholar at the end fo the book if that was not his major point. This is not just some small thing that he happens to agree on, it's a major point to what he has to say about the evolution of Gospels as a whole. It's the whole point of showing that the Gospel of Thomas is independent of the canonicals and it's the whole point of showing that Egerton 2 is not dependent upon John. He quotes about 10 verses, I use four of them on Doxa, showing the differences in the readings for Mark and for Egerton 2. That would be totally useless if his point was not that the Egerton 2 readings are ealier and more primative than the Mark readings. He's not arguing that they are more Jewish to be Politcially correct on ethnicity, he's arguing that they are older, they were circulating first, the represent readings that existed before those in Mark. The whole point of that is to show that here is an original soruce from whch the canoncials are taken. Naturally it has to be an older source.

You also jump ahead to p. 131 to cite two sentences about the PN source, where Koester is no longer discussing Crossan’s position. Yes, Koester believes that all the gospels depend on one PN source and that it ends with the empty tomb story. However, he does not say that this PN source was written by 50.

Yea I think he does. But what if he doesn't? He doesn't disagee with Corsson that it was circulating by "the middle fo the century." Thats' the ssence of my argument. The exact year, as I've already mentioned is not the point.In saying as much as you just said you basically demonstrate that my argument is true.

You pull that from the earlier paragraph describing Crossan’ theory on pp. 218-219, though, as I’ve said you misinterpret “middle of the 1st century” to mean specifically the year 50. Crossan’s study is not one of the studies Koester is referring to on p. 131. Crossan’s hypothetical source, the Cross Gospel, did not contain the empty tomb story. Crossan thinks that story was composed later by the author of Mark.

If he thinks that how could he disagree on the part about the epiphanies coming from more than one source? Koester thinks they came from many sources, in so far as he disagreew with Crosson on that point apparently Crossen doesn't so it's illogical to think he would say that.

So you are ignoring what Crossan actually says about when he dates his Cross Gospel, you are forcing an overly specific interpretation on Koester’s description of Crossan’s “middle of the 1st century”, and you mistakenly take Koester to be agreeing with Crossan on all but the epiphany stories.

No I don't think I"m doing any of that. I think you are so intent on showing what a bastard I am that you missing what I'm saying. The regifity to your mind to assuem that I mean litterally has to be AD 50, not 51, but 50 itelf! thta's jsut stupid. Only someone would take that way who is activley seeking to interprit the things I say in the worst possible light.