Part 1 is what was published in J.P. Holdings book on the Resurrection, this is the part that's not in the book Defending the Resurrection. It was not turned because it's bad but becuase it made the overall article too long.
Authorship and Inspiration
Skeptics
tend to assume that redaction means no inspiration. They tend to have
a very fundamentalist view of inspiration, the author is a robot
essentially or doing automatic writing and just copying words God
speaks in his head. We need to not assume this. Avery Dulles, in his
fine work Models of Revelation, shows that many of the major
conservative evangelical theologians who deal with inspiration have
different views of what inerrancy means. Here are the examples that he
uses:
*Inerrency of original autographs and divine protection of manuscripts.
Proponents of this view include Harold Lindsell.
*Inspiration of autographs with minor mistakes in transmission of an unessential kind.
Carl C.F. Henry.
*Inerrency of Textual intention without textual specifics.
Clark Pinnock.
*Inerrancy in Soteric (salvation) knowledge but not in historical or scientific matters.
Bernard Ramm
*Inerrent in major theological assertions but not in religion or morality.
Donald Blosche and Paul K. Jewett[23]
These
are conservative Evangelical options remember. Anyone of these
options could include the redaction process by a community, this does
not rule out the process of inspiration.
Skeptics also tend to
assume that if the autographs were not written by the name sakes,
Matthew not written by Matthew, John not written by John, then it
can’t be inspired. Many conservative evangelicals in the pew believe
this as well but I am not sure any serious evangelical theologians
argue it. I do not accept this idea. The names were put on latter; we
only go by what the apostolic fathers told us. But we need not assume
that even the Apostles were not part of the process of authorship.
Modern scholars think of authorship more in terms of community now
then of a single author, but as will be argued below that does not
remove inspiration form the picture. While the final products as we
know them (ie “Matthew,” “Mark,” “Luke,” “John”) are more the products
of communities than of single authors that need not indicate that
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John themselves were not the originators of
that process. For one thing Mark and Luke were not Apostles, we all
know this. No one ever claimed they were. In fact I really see much
less reason to doubt those authorship's because why would anyone
trying to lend prestige to a manuscript by ascribing it to a great
authority choose Mark and Luke rather than Peter or Paul? Mark and
Luke were secondary figures, they were not very well known and don’t
play major roles in Acts (aside for writing it). So while authorship by
a community for Mark or Luke is not the death knell of those gospels,
it is not necessary to assume that they not authored by Mark and
Luke.
Why would Mark and Luke use the Ur Gospel reading when they
had Peter and Paul to draw from? Luke also had Andronicus and Junia
(Romans 16) who were apparently in on the early days of the faith, and
others? Luke tells us he consulting the many attempts already made at
writing the account of Jesus life. Mark, Papias tells us, recorded
the Memoirs of Peter, but not in order.[24] The lack of chronological
order could be significant because it would furnish a reason why the
redactors would redact it; to change the chronological order to one
that was known from other witnesses to be more accurate. In fact we
can assume perhaps the Ur Gospel would be that source. Mark himself
could have used the Ur Gospel of the reason but the redactors after
Mark could have done so. The theory of an Ur Mark, a primary core to
the Gospel of Mark has been circulating since the nineteenth century.
The Ur Mark could be the original core that Mark recorded.[25] We know
that Matthew and Luke did not use quite the same versions of Mark, so
Mark was a work in progress that started very early around a core set
of data and continued to be worked out in many versions.[26] There
are reasons to assume that Mark did hear from Peter and used his
memoirs as the basis for the work, because the action in Mark tends to
center around Galilee. Galilee is the realm of goodness in Mark, as
opposed to the evil city.[27] Luke Timothy Johnson states: "Two main
preoccupations characterize the study of Mark's Gospel today. The
first takes seriously the ability of Mark's Gospel to reveal something
of the historical setting it addressed, and seeks to find within
Mark's narrative clues for the deciphering of history."[28]
Matthew
need not be removed from the proceedings either. As a child it always
bothered me when I learned that Mark was written first and Mat copied
him, why would an Apostle who was there follow the outline of a non
Apostle who was not? Latter I learned to rationalize by saying because
he knew Mark followed Peter’s account. There’s a much better
explanation. There is a way Mat could have bee responsible for the
gospel that bears his name without having it written it. Papias says
that he wrote the Gospel in his own language (presumably Hebrew or
Aramaic) and “everyone copied it and translated it as best he
could.”[29] The translation would be one level of removal from Mat.
Moreover, Papias refers to Matthew’s works as “the Logia.” This
literally means “the words.”[30] Thus is could well be that he wrote a
saying source, and someone else latter worked the sayings into a
narrative. Again here’s this idea of a core work looking for a
narrative order. The same chronological order that Mark’s core was
pumped into also could have served as the narrative framework for Mat’s
saying source. Mat’s Logia could have been Q for that matter, although
that is getting a bit fanciful.[31] We might also speculate that the
names were applied to the community and the gospels named after the
communities that produced them. Thus the “Matthew community” followed
Matthew and produced the Gospel of Matthew by redacting the saying
source with a narrative frame.
My feeling has been to remove John
the Son of Zebedee (John the Apostle) from the process, and this has
been my view for some time now. Cullman, in The Johnnie Circle,
effectively argued the Apostle out of authorship.[32] Richard Buckham
doesn’t buy authorship of John the Apostle and seems to think the
beloved was the Elder John whom Papias mentions.[33] What seems pretty
clear is that it’s doubtful the Apostle would call himself “that
disciple who Jesus loved.” There are other reasons Cullman and Buckham
use, for example places where the “BD” (beloved Disciple) is mentioned
In addition to the son of Zebedee. It also doesn’t make sense that the
author would set up anonymity by calling himself “the Beloved
disciple” then blow it by naming himself as John the son of Zebedee.
It may not make much sense that he would call himself “that disciple
whom Jesus loved” at all, but we can understand this as an addition by
redactors, the same redactors who make their appearance at the end of
the book and attest to the greatness of the author “this is that
one.” We have always known this group of other people stuck their say
on the back of the gospel. Why assume they had no other hand in its
production than this? It makes perfect sense they would redact it and
call the author “the beloved disciple.” They did feel authorized to
stick their say on the end of the book. In so doing they also give us
the indication of communal authorship, the elders of emphasis who
actually produced the book in its final form and in so doing they all
attest to its eye witness nature. They are at least if nothing else
eye witnesses to the teachings of this disciple who Jesus loved.
Community as Author
The
idea that the whole community was the author may be confusing to
some. It really does explain the facts far better than the idea that
the gospels were written by their name sakes. The fact of redaction is
obvious; anyone who compares the gospels in a gospel parallel has to
realize this. The idea of four or two (Matthew and John) telling what
they saw from their own perspectives cannot be the same because no two
witnesses could match up on exact syntax and have all their sentences
clearly related to one another. Yet the community authorship thing
also means eye witness testimony is the basis of the documents. The
idea skeptics argue for, wild rumor spreading unchecked has nothing to
do with it. The community told the story in controlled and orderly
fashion so that each and every member would understand it and know it
by heart. It makes no sense that eye witnesses such as Matthew would
copy non eye witness John. To deny that conservatives get into dyeing
what the vast majority of scholars see, that Mark was written first.
But the communal authorship theory explains it. The community told the
stories in communal setting, the eye witnesses probably began the
process and then latter as the eye witnesses died off the other
members demonstrated their memorization and told the stories with
those who heard them countless times checking to make sure they got it
right. Eventually he church began to grow and spread beyond Jerusalem
and they could not hold that sort of transmission together forever.
But they only had to hold it together for about 20 years, and then
began to circulate the written documents. Of course this is
speculation. How do we know this is what happened? There are good
reasons to believe that here was some sort of controlled telling in a
communal setting.
Fist, by “controlled telling” I don’t mean
too controlled. They did not have the modern concept of “court rooms”
and “eye witness testimony.” They were not telling the story to prove
to skeptics that they had eye witnesses. They were telling it for
reasons related more to the life and health of the group. They wanted
to remember the events and the teachings of Jesus, not to prove to
anything to anyone, but as a devotion to their beliefs. But the
expectation of literal history is a false one. The Gospel of Mark is
not a biography; it doesn't provide enough information to be a
biography. Nor is it an attempt at writing a history book. In fact the
Church's claim for the document is that Mark wrote the memories of
Peter but he did not record them in order. Rather he records units
placed in order by narrow bridge passages which are often rather veg.
These units are known as pericopies and they are the point of the
work; they are like pearls on a string, placed in a certain order to
get across a point. That point is not a literal blow by blow
description of what happened in the sense of a literal history book;
rather, they are there for the edification of the church. The Gospels
are primarily oriented around the needs of the church community and
pertain to worship rather than apologetics.[34] We should not expect
to find that the material is arranged in such a manner as to form a
history book. While the mistakes in geography and other aspects of
Palestinian Jewish life do indicate that the author is not Jewish,
there is also an indication that the "author" is really a redactor. It
is not the original source of the material that is not Jewish but the
redactor who put it in its present form probably in Syria around A.D.
70. But a much older layer of material stands behind this surface
reading, a layer of historical material which does link the Gospel of
Mark with he original events and may actually link the work with its
namesake and with Peter's Testimony. Secondly, the period of
“controlled telling” would not have lasted long. After just 20 years
the movement has spread to other cities[35] and began to change and
grow to an extent that there could not have been even one eye witness
in every group. The controlled nature would have fallen apart. On the
other hand it’s obvious certain facts had been set into stone even at
this early period, since there are a basic set of facts common to all
tellings of the Gospel story even in non canonical Gospels; he’s always
crucified in Jerusalem at noon, his mother is always Mary, his side
kicks are always Peter and John, and there’s always an empty tomb. That
configuration only had to hold together for about 20 years before it
began to circulate in writing, by that time the facts had been
established.
It makes sense to think that they had controlled
telling, by “controlled” I mean they conformed to known methods of oral
tradition that can be found in all bardic cultures and in the Hebrew
culture for oral traditions. The earliest Christian groups lived
together communally. They are reputed to have shared everything,
studied together and to have been of one mind.
Acts 1:12-15
12
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olive Grove,
which is near Jerusalem--a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 When they
arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter,
John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the
son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 All
these were continually united in prayer, along with the women,
including Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers. 15 During these
days Peter stood up among the brothers--the number of people who were
together was about 120--
From the first time the community is mentioned we see the story is being formed and the attitudes toward it are being shaped.
Acts 2:42-47
42
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship,
to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. 43 Then fear came over
everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the
apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and had everything in
common. 45 So they sold their possessions and property and distributed
the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. 46 And every day they
devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and
broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and
simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the
people. And every day the Lord added those being saved to them.
Devoted
themselves to the Apostle’s teaching has to include a recitation of
the events of Jesus life and his arrest, death, and resurrection. Why
they devote themselves to the Apostle’s teachings but not mention what
happened at the end, or discuss the great confirming miracle that
grounded everything in the stamp of God’s approval? Moreover we see the
communal structure that extended to ever facet from eating to
studying the teachings.
Acts 4:32-37
32
Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul,
and no one said that any of his possessions was his own, but instead
they held everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles
were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great
grace was on all of them. 34 For there was not a needy person among
them, because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought
the proceeds of the things that were sold, 35 and laid them at the
apostles' feet. This was then distributed to each person as anyone had
a need. 36 Joseph, who was named by the apostles Barnabas, which is
translated Son of Encouragement, a Levite and a Cypriot by birth, 37
sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles'
feet.
In this quotation we see they were using the
resurrection as testimony and they were talking about it the communal
setting. In spite of the fact that we can be sure this was an
idealized account, few scholars believe Luke just fabricated the
events in Acts. He had some people from that era to draw upon. Paul
got in on the end of it, Andronicus and Junia were there, and Pricilla
and Aquialla were around. The four daughters of Philip of Hiropolis
probably served major sources for Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. Even
though some of this is an exaggeration, he could easily have known the
basic flavor of the times and the events.
Moreover, we know that
the Hebrews had an oral tradition, and as an oral culture they knew
how to keep orally transmitted information straight and correct.
"No
one is likely to deny that a tradition that is being handed on by
word of mouth is likely to undergo modification. This is bound to
happen, unless the tradition has been rigidly formulated and has been
learned with careful safeguard against the intrusion of error"
This
is exactly the way in which the tradition was handed on among the
Jews. IT is precisely on this ground that Scandinavian scholar H.
Risenfeld in an essay entitled "The Gospel Tradition and its
Beginnings (1957).”[36]
Oral tradition in first-century Judaism
was not uncontrolled as was/is often assumed, based on comparisons
with non-Jewish models. B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans:
"...[T]he
early form criticism tied the theory of oral transmission to the
conjecture that Gospel traditions were mediated like folk traditions,
being freely altered and even created ad hoc by various and sundry
wandering charismatic jackleg preachers. This view, however, was
rooted more in the eighteenth century romanticism of J. G. Herder than
in an understanding of the handling of religious tradition in
first-century Judaism. As O. Cullmann, B. Gerhardsson, H. Riesenfeld
and R. Riesner have demonstrated, the Judaism of the period treated
such traditions very carefully, and the New Testament writers in
numerous passages applied to apostolic traditions the same technical
terminology found elsewhere in Judaism for 'delivering', 'receiving',
'learning', 'holding', 'keeping', and 'guarding', the traditional
'teaching'. In this way they both identified their traditions as 'holy
word' and showed their concern for a careful and ordered transmission
of it. The word and work of Jesus were an important albeit distinct
part of these apostolic traditions.*
"Luke used one of the same
technical terms, speaking of eyewitnesses who 'delivered to us' the
things contained in his Gospel and about which his patron Theophilus
had been instructed. Similarly, the amanuenses or
co-worker-secretaries who composed the Gospel of John speak of the
Evangelist, the beloved disciple, 'who is witnessing concerning these
things and who wrote these things', as an eyewitness and a member of
the inner circle of Jesus' disciples. In the same connection it is not
insignificant that those to whom Jesus entrusted his teachings are
not called 'preachers' but 'pupils' and 'apostles', semi-technical
terms for those who represent and mediate the teachings and
instructions of their mentor or principal..[37]
The
classical skeptical argument that the Gospels were written sixty years
or latter after the original events so myth developed and changed and
evolved into a resurrection that never happened, is invalidated by
the fact that the empty tomb was part of the early telling and
circulated in writing from a period only twenty years after the events.
For only two decades (at most) the infant church had to hold together
the truth as passed on to them by eye witnesses, and they would have
had eye witnesses among them to help keep it in check. The argument
that myth takes a long time to develop is not saying that it takes a
long time to make up a rumor. Skeptics have pointed this out always,
myth could begin in one afternoon, but what takes time is a concrete
from of story telling. A mythos is more than just a bunch of wild
rumors; it’s a literary work that includes a standardized form. This
standardized form is seen clearly in the canonicals. Due to this fact
we know there are traces of an earlier from shared by the canonicals
and latter finished works such as the Gospel of Peter. This
standardized form includes the empty tomb. These facts speak clearly to
presence of the empty tomb as an early historical event that was part
of the earlier telling of the resurrection and existed in the life of
the community from the beginning.
[23] Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation, New York: Double Day, 1985
I
highly recommend Dulle’s book for anyone interested in thinking
through the nature of Biblical inspiration and understanding the major
schools of thought in modern theology.
[24] Richard Buckham,
Jesus and The Eye Witnesses: The Gospels as Eye Witness Testimony.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing co. 2006, 203
[25] Neil, 239
[26]Koester, 289
[27] Neil, 239
[28] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, Philadelphia: Fortress Press p.1986, 148
[29] Papias quote on Mat’s logia, in New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, online version, URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11457c.htm . article on “st. Papias.” Visited 1/19/10
[30]Buckham,202
[31]
Buckham remarks in fn 1 that he does not translate the term “logia”
because its meaning not clear and its disputed. But he also says it
would mean “something like “amounts of what Jesus did and said.” My
attempt at translating as “the words” is based upon my pigeon Greek
derived form three years of struggle to fulfill my undergraduate
language requirement, but that is literally what the words mean. That
doesn’t mean my translation is good as a finished product. As Buckham
says “it means something like…”
[31[Major scholars such as Koester have speculated that Q could be the Logia because Q contains many Q sayings.
[32] Oscar Cullman, the Johanine Circle, Philadelsphia: Fortress Press, 1976
[33] Buckham, 411-420.
[34] Neil,.234, 258
[35]Johnson 117.
[36] Neil, 250
[37] B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans* (eds.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998): 53-55
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