Eerst maar een hele berg citaten, en mijn commentaar.
(Bij nader inzien zijn het toch maar 11 artikelen, ik had de indices die ik open had staan ook meegeteld - nou maar hopen dat ze goed zijn
Overigens behandel ik ze in volgorde waarin ze in mijn taakbalk staan, wat de helderheid misschien niet ten goede komt.)
What is a Gospel?Due to the belief by most scholars today that Matthew and Luke's gospels were based on Mark's (the Synoptic Problem) Mark's gospel has received a great deal of attention. If the author of Mark's purpose can be understood, then the gospel genre may be understood as well. Form critics emphasize that Mark's gospel is composed of many smaller units called pericopes (pronounced per-RICK-a-pee) that are linked together by Mark into a larger framework. If Mark is seen in this fashion--as an editor or an anthologist--then form critics suggest that Mark obtained his material from either the existing collections of oral traditions about Jesus, or perhaps a pre-Markan "proto-gospel" which codified this oral tradition in a very primitive manner. The early members of the Jesus movement (who would later be called "Christians") spread the stories about Jesus by preaching, referred to by scholars as the kerygma (pronounced care-RIG-muh), literally "that which is proclaimed" and the role of the kerygma was probably essential to getting the sayings and deeds of Jesus to Rome where Mark is believed to have written his gospel between 65-71 CE.
Oftewel: het is zeer waarschijnlijk dat Marcus gebaseerd is op danwel een orale traditie danwel oudere geschreven bronnen, en dat Mattheus en Lucas op Marcus gebaseerd zijn. Gezien de dubieuze status van orale overlevringen is het de vraag in hoeverre deze verhalen op waarheid berusten. Daarnaast bewijst dit vrij duidelijk dat a) de synoptische evangelien geen biografie-en in de huidige zin van het woord kunnen zijn en b) dat het heel goed mogelijk, zelfs zeer waarsshijnlijk, is dat andere schrijvers dan Marcus ook een collectie van deze orale verhalen hebben samengesteld waarvan niet a priori duidelijk is dat ze slechter zouden zijn dan Marcus.
Brandon (1967) insists that Mark was written in Rome (the most popular theory), but Miller (1994) adds that it could have been written in Greek-speaking Syria. There is wide agreement that it was written in the time period immediately leading up to and just after the First Jewish Revolt of 66-70 CE. We don't know who wrote Mark's gospel; the work was anonymous until a second-century tradition eventually linked a "Mark" mentioned by Paul (1 Pet. 5:13) as the author of the gospel and so that name has been conveniently used since.
Hier zien we dat we niet eens weten wie de schrijver van het Evangelie van Marcus is - net zoals we niet weten wie de schrijvers van de andere Evangelieen waren. Dat het niet de discipelen van Jezus zelf waren staat vast.
At some point in the copying and recopying process, Mark's gospel became harmonized with the other three (Miller 1994). This addition to the text is referred to (quite unimaginatively) as the Longer Ending of Mark and includes 16:9-20, the post-resurrection accounts. Although some manuscripts of antiquity include the harmonization, many others do not. The scholarly consensus that the canonical ending was not part of the original Mark rests mainly on the fact that early Church fathers (Clement, Origen, Eusebius and Jerome) do not mention text beyond 16:8 in instances when they should have. The Longer Ending also has two other textual variants referred to as the Shorter Ending of Mark and the Codex Washingtonianus episode, both of which appear in a small minority of the mss.
Er zijn dus tenminste 4 versies van Marcus, waarvan de oorspronkelijke hoogstwaarschijnlijk een deel niet had wat de latere versies wel hadden. Dit geeft aan dat men er kennelijk niet direct voor terugschrok om de boeken van het NT naar eigen wens aan te passen.
Historicity Of Jesus FAQ
Maar misschien is het gemakkelijk aan te tonen dat de boeken uit het NT inderdaad waarheden bevatten. Hiertoe zou het nuttig zijn als er buiten-Bijbelse referenties bestaan naar, bijvoorbeeld, Jezus.
The purpose of this document is to partially answer the question, "To what extent are the events described in the New Testament corroborated by contemporary non-Christian texts?" I argue that the answer to this question is "not much"--at the very best, some of the texts I consider support the proposition that Jesus existed and perhaps was executed by the Romans. They do not prove that he performed any miracles, rose from the dead, or did anything else ascribed to him in the New Testament. At worst, ancient texts tell us nothing new, and provide no independent support for the New Testament accounts.
Ook zal dit document een prachtig voorbeeld laten zien van de betrouwbaarheid van de vroege kerkvaders - de personen die het NT hebben samengesteld. Dit is een beetje een lange quote, maar het gaat dan ook om de belangrijkste buiten-Bijbelse bron over Jezus:
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing during the second half of the first century CE, produced two major works: History of the Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews. Two apparent references to Jesus occur in the second of these works. The longer, and more famous passage, occurs in Book 18 of Antiquities and reads as follows (taken from the standard accepted Greek text of Antiquities 18:63-64 by L. H. Feldman in the Loeb Classical Library):
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
This passage is called the Testimonium Flavianum, and is sometimes cited by propagandists as independent confirmation of Jesus' existence and resurrection. However, there is excellent reason to suppose that this passage was not written in its present form by Josephus, but was either inserted or amended by later Christians:
* The early Christian writer Origen claims that Josephus did NOT recognize Jesus as the Messiah, in direct contradiction to the above passage, where Josephus says, "He was the Messiah." Thus, we may conclude that this particular phrase at least was a later insertion. (The version given above was, however, known to Jerome and in the time of Eusebius. Jerome's Latin version, however, renders "He was the Messiah" by "He was believed to be the Christ.") Furthermore, other early Christian writers fail to cite this passage, even though it would have suited their purposes to do so. There is thus firm evidence that this passage was tampered with at some point, even if parts of it do date back to Josephus.
* The passage is highly pro-Christian. It is hard to imagine that Josephus, a Pharisaic Jew, would write such a laudatory passage about a man supposedly killed for blasphemy. Indeed, the passage seems to make Josephus himself out to be a Christian, which was certainly not the case.
Many Biblical scholars reject the entire Testimonium Flavianum as a later Christian insertion. However, some maintain that Josephus's work originally did refer to Jesus, but that Christian copyists later expanded and made the text more favorable to Jesus. These scholars cite such phrases as "tribe of Christians" and "wise man" as being atypical Christian usages, but plausible if coming from a first century Palestinian Jew. Of course, a suitably clever Christian wishing to "dress up" Josephus would not have much trouble imitating his style.
Philip Burns (pib@merle.acns.nwu.edu) has provided some of the following material on the following alternate versions or reconstructions of the Testimonium Flavianum.
One possible reconstruction of the Testimonium Flavianum, suggested by James Charlesworth, goes like this, with probably Christian interpolations enclosed in brackets:
About this time there was Jesus, a wise man, [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who performed surprising works, (and) a teacher of people who with pleasure received the unusual. He stirred up both many Jews and also many of the Greeks. [He was the Christ.] And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, since he was accused by the first-rate men among us, those who had been loving (him from) the first did not cease (to cause trouble), [for he appeared to them on the third day, having life again, as the prophets of God had foretold these and countless other marvelous things about him]. And until now the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not (yet?) extinct.
In Charlesworth's version, references to Jesus' resurrection, Messiahship, and possible divinity ("if indeed one ought to call him a man") are removed. These elements are clearly unacceptable coming from a non-Christian Jew such as Josephus. If in fact Josephus's original text mentioned Jesus at all, it was certainly much closer to this version than to the highly pro-Christian one which has survived. One possible problem with Charlesworth's reconstruction is the use of the term "Christians"--it is not clear from the reconstructed text why "Christians" would be named after Jesus, unless Josephus had previously referred to him as "Christ". It seems inconsistent to delete the reference to Jesus being "Christ", but to keep the suggestion that this is how Christians got their name.
A reconstruction by F.F. Bruce sidesteps this particular problem by having Josephus take a more hostile stance towards Jesus:
"Now there arose about this time a source of further trouble in one Jesus, a wise man who performed surprising works, a teacher of men who gladly welcome strange things. He led away many Jews, and also many of the Gentiles. He was the so-called Christ. When Pilate, acting on information supplied by the chief men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had attached themselves to him at first did not cease to cause trouble, and the tribe of Christians, which has taken this name from him, is not extinct even today.
Bruce's version also seems somewhat inconsistent, calling Jesus a "wise man" while also identifying him as a source of trouble and as someone who "led away many Jews". A further problem concerns the reference to Jesus's ministry among the Gentiles. In Jesus: A Historian's Review of the Gospels, Michael Grant argues that Jesus in fact avoided ministering to Gentiles, and that a Christian Gentile ministry arose only after his death. If Grant is right, then Josephus is confusing the actions of Jesus with the actions of the early Christian church.
A late Arabic recension of this passage in Josephus comes from Agapius's Book of the Title, a history of the world from its beginning to 941/942 C.E. Agapius was a tenth century Christian Arab and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis. The following translation is by S. Pines:
"Similarly Josephus, the Hebrew. For he says in the treatises that he has written on the governance (?) of the Jews: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."
While some have argued that this passage may be close to the original, one should note especially that this version is from a much later text, and that Josephus at least admits the possibility that Jesus was the Messiah, which seems unlikely. These two facts make this version suspect. In fact, E. Bammel argues that the passage reflects the conflicts between Christianity and Islam in Agapius's time, rather than being a genuine reflection of the original text.
The consensus, if there is such a thing, would seem to be that:
* The Testimonium Flavianium preserved in the extant Greek is not the original text. At best, certain phrases within it are later Christian insertions. At worst, the entire passage is a later insertion.
* In particular, Josephus probably did not claim that Jesus was the Messiah, or that he rose from the dead. At best, he only confirms that Jesus existed and perhaps was killed by Pilate.
Josephus apparently refers to Jesus in passing later in the "Antiquities", where we find this passage:
"so he [Ananus, son of Ananus the high priest] assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before him the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some of his companions) and when he had formed an accusation against them, he delivered them to be stoned." (Antiquities 20.9.1)
Opinion about this passage is mixed. Some scholars believe that it is a later Christian insertion, like the Testimonium Flavianium may be, but of course much less blatantly so. Others believe that the passage may in fact be genuine. No adequate means of deciding the issue exists at this time. However, those who argue for Jesus's non-existence note that Josephus spends much more time discussing John the Baptist and various other supposed Messiahs than he does discussing Jesus. However, while there is some reason to believe that this second passage is a fabrication, there is not enough evidence to definitely conclude this.
On the whole, it seems at least plausible that Josephus made some references to Jesus in the original version of Antiquities of the Jews. However, the extent of these references is very uncertain, and clear evidence of textual corruption does exist. While Josephus may be the best non-Christian source on Jesus, that is not saying much.
De file waar ik naar linkte bespreekt nog een paar andere schrijvers, die allemaal nog minder info over Christus geven (meestal geen) dan Josephus. We zien dus dat er geen betrouwbare niet-Christelijke bronnen zijn omtrent de gebeurtenissen die beschreven staan in het NT. Dit maakt het zeer moeilijk om een uitspraak te doen over de betrouwbaarheid van de ene tekst over Jezus ten opzichte van de ander. Waar jij dan ook de gedachte vandaan haalt dat alle boeken die niet in het NT staan duidelijk onwaar zijn weet ik niet - in ieder geval niet uit
externe bronnen.
Voor een nog veel langer artikel over Josephus kan je naar dit artikel kijken:
JOSEPHUS UNBOUND - ik denk dat ik zodirect sowieso nog even naar die website ga want daar staat volgens mij nog een stuk meer. Maar ik zal je hier nu niet mee vervelen, en ik ga verder zoeken naar een historische beschrijving van de vele vroeg-Christelijke boeken.
The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus ChristConcerning the issue of Christianity, for example, the majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in this field today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed.
[...]
A century ago, mythicist Albert Churchward said, "The canonical gospels can be shown to be a collection of sayings from the Egyptian Mythos and Eschatology." In Forgery in Christianity, Joseph Wheless states, "The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates." Those who concocted some of the hundreds of "alternative" gospels and epistles that were being kicked about during the first several centuries C.E. have even admitted that they had forged the documents. Forgery during the first centuries of the Church's existence was admittedly rampant, so common in fact that a new phrase was coined to describe it: "pious fraud." Such prevarication is confessed to repeatedly in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Some of the "great" church fathers, such as Eusebius, were determined by their own peers to be unbelievable liars who regularly wrote their own fictions of what "the Lord" said and did during "his" alleged sojourn upon the earth.
[...]
Biblical Sources
It is very telling that the earliest Christian documents, the Epistles attributed to "Paul," never discuss a historical background of Jesus but deal exclusively with a spiritual being who was known to all gnostic sects for hundreds to thousands of years. The few "historical" references to an actual life of Jesus cited in the Epistles are demonstrably interpolations and forgeries, as are, according to Wheless, the Epistles themselves, as they were not written by "Paul." Aside from the brief reference to Pontius Pilate at 1 Timothy 6:13, an epistle dated ben Yehoshua to 144 CE and thus not written by Paul, the Pauline literature (as pointed out by Edouard Dujardin) "does not refer to Pilate, or the Romans, or Caiaphas, or the Sanhedrin, or Herod, or Judas, or the holy women, or any person in the gospel account of the Passion, and that it also never makes any allusion to them; lastly, that it mentions absolutely none of the events of the Passion, either directly or by way of allusion." Dujardin additionally relates that other early "Christian" writings such as Revelation do not mention any historical details or drama. Mangasarian notes that Paul also never quotes from Jesus's purported sermons and speeches, parables and prayers, nor does he mention Jesus's supernatural birth or any of his alleged wonders and miracles, all which one would presume would be very important to his followers, had such exploits and sayings been known prior to "Paul."
Turning to the gospels themselves, which were composed between 170-180 C.E., their pretended authors, the apostles, give sparse histories and genealogies of Jesus that contradict each other and themselves in numerous places. The birthdate of Jesus is depicted as having taken place at different times. His birth and childhood are not mentioned in "Mark," and although he is claimed in "Matthew" and "Luke" to have been "born of a virgin," his lineage is traced to the House of David through Joseph, such that he may "fulfill prophecy." He is said in the first three (Synoptic) gospels to have taught for one year before he died, while in "John" the number is three years. "Matthew" relates that Jesus delivered "The Sermon on the Mount" before "the multitudes," while "Luke" says it was a private talk given only to the disciples. The accounts of his Passion and Resurrection differ utterly from each other, and no one states how old he was when he died. Wheless says, "The so-called 'canonical' books of the New Testament, as of the Old, are a mess of contradictions and confusions of text, to the present estimate of 150,000 and more 'variant readings,' as is well known and admitted." In addition, of the dozens of gospels, ones that were once considered canonical or genuine were later rejected as "apocryphal" or spurious, and vice versa. So much for the "infallible Word of God" and "infallible" Church! The confusion exists because the Christian plagiarists over the centuries were attempting to amalgamate and fuse practically every myth, fairytale, legend, doctrine or bit of wisdom they could pilfer from the innumerable different mystery religions and philosophies that existed at the time. In doing so, they forged, interpolated, mutilated, changed, and rewrote these texts for centuries.
Dat is overigens verder ook een zeer interessant artikel, waarin wordt betoogd dat de figuur Jezus nooit bestaan heeft, maar dat hij is bedacht aan de hand van allerlei oudere goden en godenzonen. Er staat een lijst met godenzonen/goden en welke karakteristieken ze met Jezus gemeen hebben. Een van de meest lachwekkende vind ik deze, maar ik moet zeggen dat ik geen andere bron heb om te checken of het klopt. Horus, de Egyptische god en zoon van Osiris:
* Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger, with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.
* He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30 years old.
* Horus was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the Baptist."
* He had 12 disciples.
* He performed miracles and raised one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.
* He walked on water.
* Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
* He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.
* He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word" etc.
* He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish ("Ichthys").
* Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."
* Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story.
Er staat nog veel meer interessante info op die pagina, best een aanrader. Als ik 't mag zeggen maakt dit soort info de historiciteit, en daarmee de waarheid, van het NT toch wel erg dubieus.
The Jesus Papyrus - Five Years On is dan een beetje een teleurstelling - een hele techinsche zaak over een archeologische vondst van een stukje papyrus. Wel zegt "Professor J.K.Elliott , Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds, England" het volgende:
In any case, there is nowadays no dispute among Biblical scholars that all the four New Testament gospels were composed in the first century although the precise dates and relative sequence of the compositions are open questions. It is improbable that we have any extant copy of any part of any of them earlier than the second quarter of the second century.
Review van WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT? The Making of the Christian Myth
Hier wordt de heterogeniteit van de vroege Christenen die ik al aangaf duidelijk beschreven:
Here, then, is the scenario, as Mack presents it (p.6): "We now know that there were many different responses to the teachings of Jesus. Groups formed around them, but then went different ways depending upon their mix of peoples, social histories, and discussions about the teachings of Jesus and how they were to be interpreted and applied. Some were of the type we call Jesus movements. Others became congregations of the Christ whose death was imagined as a martyrdom to justify a mixture of Jews and gentiles as equally acceptable in a new configuration of the people of God (or Israel). Still others developed into enclaves for the cultivation of spiritual enlightenment or the knowledge (gnosis) Jesus had taught. Each of these branches of the Jesus movements, including many permutations of each type, imagined Jesus differently. They did so in order to account for what they had become as patterns of practice, thinking, and congregating settled into place. And they all competed with one another in their claims to be the true followers of Jesus. . . ."
Kijk, en dan is hier een referentie aan twee van de alternatieve evangelien, waarvan jij kennelijk weet dat ze onwaar zijn, Q en het Evangelie van Thomas:
Mack classifies five different groups of Jesus people, each derived from a document or Gospel ingredient: the community of Q, those who produced the Markan pronouncement stories, the community of the Gospel of Thomas, those who composed certain Markan miracle sets, and amazingly the Jerusalem pillars talked about by Paul in Galatians, namely Peter and company. To restate the fundamental objection: not one of these sources exists in the form which supposedly represents the initial response to Jesus (the last is a special case). Q and Thomas must be peeled away to try to expose their early layers and original nature, and the Markan ingredients have to be extrapolated backwards. Ironically, the one source we do have, the Pauline letters, has nothing to say about an historical Jesus. Conveniently, Paul has lost all interest in him, the standard explanation for his silence.
En hierna komt een hele technische discussie over de verschillende lagen van het document Q, andere groepen vroege Christenen en nog veel meer. Als het je leuk lijkt zou ik het zeker lezen - ik ga het saven op mijn HD en naar de volgende tekst. In ieder geval mag duidelijk zijn dat de vroege Christenen geen homogene groep vormend - oftewel, dat de schrijvers van de 'apocriefe' evangelien niet buitenstaanders en Jezus-haters waren.
Hm, nu ben ik in een of ander taalkundig artikel terecht gekomen. Niet echt boeiend, maar mocht je het willen zien:
Tacitus' Fragment 2: The Anti-Roman Movement of the Christiani and the Nazoreans
En dan komen we bij een interessant artikel omtrent de relaties tussen de schrijvers van de drie synoptische Evangelien:
The Little Known Literary Battles Between the Gospel Writers
Leuk stuk, niet eens zo heel lang, een aanrader. Er wordt in beargumenteerd wat Marcus' en Lucas' motieven waren bij het herschrijven van Mattheus. Het artikel eindigt met:
Besides what has been mentioned here, there are other embarrassments involved with the origins of the Gospels. Among these is the late date at which any of the Gospels is first mentioned by name (around A.D. 130 or 140) or even referred to through direct quotation of verses, the probable fact that they were not written by the men whose names are attached to them, the great dearth of written literature that would explain anything about who wrote them, when, where and why, and why the source material available to the writer of Matthew never survived nor the five treatises written about the Logia by Bishop Papias.[27] However, this is another story,[28] and the little known battle between the evangelists is embarrassment enough to report here.
Kijk, dit is wat ik zocht! Een introcutie in de Christelijke traditie - de orale traditie, Paulus, Q, Thomas.
The Pre-Canonical Synoptic Transmission: Who Was the Historical Jesus?The oral tradition thrived from shortly after Jesus crucifixion to well into the second century. Many pericopes in the oral tradition--for example the legend that Jesus was born in a cave--did not survive once the written gospels became canonical. However, even after the gospels were written, the oral tradition continued to thrive in many communities. The late first century church elder Papias preferred the oral tradition over the gospels.
The very early Q gospel--which Matthew and Luke used when composing their gospels--was just such a collection of sayings, written sometime during the middle of the first century. Similarly, the Gospel of Thomas belongs to this genre because it preserves many short sayings of Jesus culled from the oral tradition. It is suspected that much of Jesus' words preserved in the gospels reflect more the theology of the early Church rather than the historical Jesus himself. This is why scholars look closely at the Q Gospel. It lies on a closer trajectory to Jesus and may better preserve Jesus' actual words than other gospels, for example, the Gospel of John which contains very little of the historical Jesus.
The oral tradition did not preserve autobiographical details of Jesus life and, surprisingly, the Q gospel does not even mention Jesus death and resurrection. The task falls to the first gospel writer (Mark in 70 CE) to write about Jesus death but he ends his gospel by the discovery of the empty tomb (Mark 16:1-8). Matthew and Luke will provide a genealogy for Jesus as well as post-resurrection appearance stories.
Voor wie dacht dat Paul wel een goede bron was - zijn geschriften zijn immers de oudste uit het NT:
There is a disappointing irony in the Apostle Paul as a source for the historical Jesus. Even though Paul did not know Jesus (he was converted to the movement two years after Jesus' crucifixion), his letters to various early Christian communities predate the gospels, making them the earliest testimony of Jesus. Yet Paul never speaks of Jesus' life and very rarely mentions anything that Jesus said. This is because Paul's letters to the various communities he founded are ecclesiastical policy designed to organize the young Church and were not intended to communicate the sayings of Jesus. Since Paul did not know the historical Jesus (and fought with those who did) he is not as helpful to us as we might at first imagine.
Jesus' disciples were still alive of course and Paul tells us that three years after his conversion he visited Peter in Jerusalem (the headquarters for the Jesus movement) for fifteen days (Galatians 1:16-19). Paul tells us that he did not seek out any of the other disciples and seems to have had little interest in their perspective of Jesus. In fact, very quickly Paul feuds with other disciples and his theology is questioned by those who follow Peter (1 Corin. 1:12-13).
The "Cephas faction" (Peter) that Paul fought followed Mosaic law and insisted on circumcision even for the Gentile converts to the new faith. The fact that Peter is so insistent on this is good evidence that Jesus himself never abandoned the tenets of Judaism. Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians because a serious crisis had arisen in the community there over the conflict between the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (under James and Peter) and Paul's earlier teaching. Paul tells us that he did not receive any instruction from the disciples in Jerusalem because his gospel from divine revelation was the only true gospel.
These various factions that Paul mentions are called "trajectories" by biblical scholars; out of these trajectories emerge different movements which emphasized or understood Jesus' teachings in manners that caused friction between them. In his second letter to the community at Corinth, Paul complains of those "superlative apostles" who preach a different Jesus than the one that he preached to them (2 Corin. 11:4-6). Paul goes on to characterize them as "false apostles" working for Satan (11:12-15). These enemies of Paul were probably the Judaizers (of Philippians 3:2-15) who, if they were not Jesus' disciples, certainly Jewish-Christians in close agreement to the theology of Jesus' disciples in Jerusalem. We must remember that Jesus was a Jew and advocated an adherence to the Law. Unlike Peter and the other disciples in Jerusalem, Paul considers Judaism a regression, a step in the wrong direction (cf. Acts 2:43ff).
We must conclude that Paul is of no help to us for understanding the teachings of the historical Jesus. Paul claims to have received his theology, not from Jesus via Jesus' disciples whom he despised, but rather through a direct revelation with a Risen Christ. Paul's understanding of Jesus' teaching received from this revelation seems to be in sharp disagreement with the understanding and practices of Jesus' own disciples in Jerusalem.
Dan gaan we over naar het eerste, en dus naar mij lijkt meest betrouwbare, evangelie, Q. Waarom is Q niet opgenomen in het NT? Is het overduidelijk dat Q onwaar is? Of is het gewoon een min of meer random besluit van een groep kerkvaders?
Since we can no longer know the words of Jesus as he would have wanted us to--by listening to him speak in rural Galilee--the closest thing we have is the Q gospel. The Q gospel puts the modern reader very close to those first Jewish Christians in the Jesus movement because it is the earliest source to Jesus' words. Scholars date Q to about 50 CE, thus it enjoys priority to the synoptic gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. That Q (and Mark) predate and were sources for Matthew and Luke is called the two source theory. (See the excellent review of the synoptic problem by Stephen Carlson for a full treatment of the issues involved with the priority of Q. See also the Synoptic Gospel Primer at Rutgers University.)
Q is from the German Quelle or "source" so named because scholars recognized very early that certain passages in Luke and Matthew formed a unified source of material for the two gospels. The community of ancient Jewish Christians who produced Q was very different from the later communities of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. If one reads the Q gospel without imposing the developed theology of later trajectories, a clear picture emerges:
Q is not a narrative gospel like the synoptics, but rather a collection of Jesus' sayings. Q is a codification of the oral tradition and tells us Jesus' words rather than anything about his life.
The Q community emphasized the coming of God's rule; yet there is a clear absence of the Risen Christ theology of the Pauline kerygma. In fact Jesus' death is not even mentioned at all.
Jesus is seen as a wisdom teacher as in the Gospel of Thomas. This conforms to the original testimony of Josephus who refers to Jesus as a wise man and a teacher of those who love truth.
John Kloppenborg identifies three layers of material in the Q gospel named simply Q1, Q2, and Q3. Q1 is the most primitive layer and closest to the historical Jesus while Q2 and Q3 represent additional redacted materials over time as new sayings were incorporated into it. Q1 consists largely of Jesus' wisdom sayings (Robinson and Koester's logoi sophon gattung, or "wisdom sayings genre") and the attitude of the true followers of Jesus toward discipleship, death, and the world around them; Q2 adds eschatological sayings (apocalyptic pronouncements) concerning the judgment to come when God's rule finally closes in; and Q3 adds the last layer of material which is introspective and cautions followers of Jesus to be patient while they wait for the eruption of God's rule into the present situation.
Burton Mack points out twelve "core sayings" of early Q1 material that give us a picture of what Jesus taught during his life. All references are to Luke's gospel:
Love your enemies (6:27)
If struck on one cheek, offer the other (6:29)
Give to everyone who begs (6:30)
Judge not and you won't be judged (6:37)
First remove the beam from your own eye (6:42)
Leave the dead to bury their dead (9:60)
Go out as lambs among wolves (10:3)
Carry no money, bag, or sandals (10:4)
Say, "God's rule has come near you" (10:9)
Ask and it shall be given to you (11:9)
Don't worry about living (12:22)
Make sure of God's rule over you (12:31)
We can see a clear theme in the early sayings of Jesus. The Q community believed in voluntary poverty, humbleness, total pacifism, and complete reliance on God rather than family or tradition. In the Q gospel Jesus says ironically "Congratulations to you poor!" (Lk. 6:20b) and further praises those who hunger and weep for they shall be rewarded when God's rule comes soon. These sayings are representative of Jesus' followers in the very early years of the movement. Paul tells us that when he visited the community in Jerusalem they reminded him to always remember the poor (Gal. 1:10). These people did not find meaning in Jesus' death, but rather found deep meaning in his teachings while he was alive. By contrast, the Apostle Paul will find deeper meaning in the Risen Christ rather than the wisdom of Jesus' teachings as preserved by the Jerusalem trajectory. This causes a crisis in the early Church prompting Paul to write his letters to the Galatians and Corinthians. (Later, Paul discovers that his rivals are completely subverting his work at Corinth and writes to them a second letter.) In any case, the striking differences between the kerygma embodied in Q and the Risen Christ kerygma of Paul may well mirror the conflict between them. Although the Q gospel lies on a trajectory much closer to the historical Jesus, it is important to remember that it still represents the theology of the Q community and probably does not accurately represent all of Jesus' sayings.
En nog wat info over Thomas:
I present the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas here because there is recent debate over its relationship to the canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Helmut Koester argues that it is a mistake to see Thomas as an "eclectic excerpt" from the canonical four because the canonical four contain large segments of narrative material which Thomas lacks entirely. Thomas is best understood in the genre that produced the Q Gospel (the sayings source genre) since its individual pericopes are independently based on oral tradition and not the narrative forms of the synoptics and John.
Since Q informed Matthew and Luke (according to the two source hypothesis), and Q dates to about 50 CE, Thomas may well have in its original form stemmed from that same tradition.
The Coptic version that is now extant as part of the Nag Hammadi library (not to mention the Greek Oxyrhynchus papryi fragments 1, 654, and 655) have not preserved the oldest tradition that is seen in the Q gospel. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the Coptic version belongs to a much older tradition, a tradition that probably stems from the oral tradition rather than upon another noncanonical or canonical gospel. Bishop Papias (c. 100 CE) tells us that Matthew first compiled the "sayings" of Jesus in Aramaic and everyone else translated these sayings into Greek as best as they could. The genre that Q and Thomas represent (as sayings sources) resemble such a description of Matthew leading some to speculate that the original Matthew was first a sayings source gospel in the manner of the Q gospel. If Papias is correct, then this certainly supports a very early dating of Thomas.
Scholarship on the Gospel of Thomas is still in its infancy and biblical scholars hesitate to draw hasty conclusions without further study. What is agreed upon is that, in its oldest strata, Thomas stressed the wisdom teachings of Jesus. In Thomas, Jesus teaches his disciples how to discover the "Kingdom of the Father." (See the very comprehensive Gospel of Thomas web site for more information.)
Het laatste artikel is dan een beetje een zinloze boekreview, die sla ik maar over. Ik zag net wel een toffe link in het een-na-laatste artikel, die ga ik even checken. Ok, die werkt niet, later nog eens proberen.
Nou ja, een berg info, ik hoop dat ik erin geslaagd ben althans aan te geven waarom het helemaal niet zo simpel is om uitspraken te doen over de authenticiteit van verschillende bijbelboeken. Het gaat hier om een zeer ingewikkelde geschiednis waarbij vele vroeg-Christelijke groeperingen, allerlei documenten die zij geschreven hebben en zelfs de vraag of Jezus wel bestaan heeft een rol spelen. Ik heb in ieder geval zoveel links gegeven dat je je gemakkelijk in kunt lezen mocht je dat willen.
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