ESSAY - authenticity Flashcards
points from supo to consider
are they still valuable
question the entire apparatus
meta-considerations
should we reject them entirely?
if authentic, how does this fit into the narrative?
if not, what does it say abut contemporary society?
intro - general
understandable that people question authenticity of sources
strauss = pioneer
3 criteria = reflective and products of both form (impact of church on jesus tradition - rejected by dissimilarity) and redaction criticism (sitz Im leben - approach to context of pericope)
embarrassment may view church context as indicative of authenticity as it suggests JC’s action against contemporary norms
intro - argument and wider concerns
argument - cannot be used exclusively. but need to recognise contradictions that arise in collective use. but they should not be entirely rejected - useful guideline.
but aside from criteria - more general questions of authenticity: if something is authentic, you also need to consider how it fits into a narrative that makes sense
if not authentic - what does it say about contemporary society.
authenticity lends itself to questions of wider meta-significance
1 - dissimilarity part 1
separates JC from Jewish/early-Xian context
jesus’ teachings on divorce - Mk 10:11-12, Lk 16:18
strongly condemns divorce
attested in Mk and Lk
but slightly different approach to both other gospel writers and jewish tradition
1 cor 7:10-11, ‘I give this command - not I but the lord - that the wife should not separate from her husband’
also matt 19:8 - Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
JC = reinterpreting Jewish law. but enough for dissimilarity - moves away from jewish tolerance towards divorce. e.g. mark 10:4-9 highlights how the law of Moses sanctioned divorce
1 - dissimilarity part 2
JC sayings on family
luke 14:26 - “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters— yes, even his own life— he cannot be My disciple. “
goes against exodus 20 - honour your father and mother
seems to attest to authenticity - even if message is not to outrightly reject parents, it still seems dissimilar enough to be deemed authentic
para 1 ao2 - general problems with dissimilarity
subjective application - how can we know
discovery of Qumran material - ‘we should be cautious about over-confidence in supposing that we know the whole truth about first-century judaism’ (Hooker)
JC was jewish! don’t separate from context - perhaps a tactic to be more understandable?
e.g. eschatological teachings - jewish expectation. Isaiah 24-27, Zech 9 and Josephus. eschatological teachings reflect this idea and so are plausible.
link to 3rd quest scholars (sanders/wright - emphasis on Jesus’ Palestinian and jewish context)
theissen - should examine plausibility of JC actions in light of context
porter - theissen’s view shifts ‘minimalistic conclusions’ drawn from redaction criticism and is more positive about context. also combines dissimilarity with other criteria
para 1 ao2 - dissimilarity and other criteria
important to combine criteria e.g. embarrassment for paul, ‘not i, but the lord’. goes onto modify it slightly - But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so.
meier - this is a conflict between the practical and the prohibited
divorce is also attested so it conforms with all 3 criteria
para 2 - attestation in literary sources
kingdom of god
- attested in multiple independent sources, also reflect contemporary concerns (what is an independent source? - synoptics, M, L, Q, non-canonical, Paul, John etc.)
link between Kofg and children - mark 10:13-16, ‘truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it’
paralleled in Mt 19:13-15 and Lk 18:15-17 and John 3:1-10)
para 2 - attestation in rhetorical strategies
dale: parables, antithetical parallelism and exaggeration - all relevant for paradigm of JC and eschatology
e. g. Q 12:51-53 ‘I have not come to bring peace to earth, but division’
- not attested in multiple sources, but rhetorically attested
- antithetical parallelism nd rhetorical questioning
para 2 - ao2 general
subjective application - what counts as a source? how do we know if it is independent?
grant - evangelists shared a lot of material from common sources. may suggest the congeniality of certain pericopes to the early church
characteristic but not authentic?
para 2 - ao2 example
jesus’ death - problem with variation in interpretations of an event that is attested
mark describes ‘strange darkness’ - Amos 8:9-10
matt 27:51-3 ‘strong earthquake’ - zech 14:5
- this shows the difficulty in evaluating whether a source is similar enough to be independent AND attested. need to question the reliability of the source itself before seeing if it is attested
- also need to fit it into a narrative framework
BUT…just because something is not attested in multiple sources does not mean it didn’t happen. unique info
para 2 - ao2 solution
USE ALL OF THEM
e.g. temple
attested - mark 13:2, John 2:14-22, antiquities 18.3.3 §54
also conforms with prophetic tradition - see OT basis for destruction of temple
but…criticising jewish authorities. does that count as dissimilarity???
solution - look at thematically. theme of temple and eschatological promise branches from OT to NT. seems likely that JC engaged with those ideas
para 3 - embarrassment
unlikely that church would fabricate sayings that would be potentially detrimental to church teaching
e.g. baptism - could threaten JC superiority
chilton - either through ‘correction, augmentation or omission’, the evangelists attempt to emphasise JC superiority
chilton and Evans - this editing suggests authenticity. why would they deliberately manufacture an embarrassing story
matt 3:13-17 - JC insists JB baptise him to ‘fulfil all righteousness’
mark emphasises JB as forerunner but still inferior
OT basis, Isaiah 42 - righteousness. attempt to quell embarrassment
mark - by John
matt - mentions John but does not specify that it is by John
luke - does not mention john’s name
heavenly voice - you are my son, the beloved
- isaac/abraham
superiority of JC - quasi-divine
para 3 ao2 - criticisms
Allison - if a pericope is present it means it can’t have been ‘sufficiently disconcerting to be expurgated’
but this fails to recognise evangelists attempt to mitigate embarrassment
e.g. crucifixion - most shameful form of execution, bandits and slaves
Meier - ‘constant struggle’ to explain away the ‘scandalous fact of Jesus’ death by crucifixion’
crucifixion was a political event ‘that could not help but make christians suspect in the eyes of roman citizens and their rulers’ Meier
para 3 ao2 - but…
our definition of embarrassment may differ to contemporaries - we are trying to psychologise the evangelists
but…even if mitigation has meant that meaning is altered - what does this tell us about contemporary society?
e.g. cry of dereliction in Mark 15:34 and Matt 27:46 - potentially detrimental to father/son theology
but… JC is alluding to beginning of psalm 22. ends in hope
therefore doesn’t seem as embarrassing
need to consider passages in relation to other criteria - crucifixion is not only embarrassing but also attested
conc
to use exclusively = problem
criteria contradict e.g. cry of dereliction - attested and embarrassing but rooted in jewish context
subjectivity = problem
solution = look at authenticity of gospels more thematically. focus on large picture and primary themes of JC’s ministry e.g. eschatological teaching
criteria attempt to categorise JC - should take a more holistic approach.
need to move beyond only ‘applying criteria to individual items’ (Allison) and admit our inability to conclusively authenticate the sayings of JC
this allows for us to recognise more meta considerations re. authenticity
if something is authentic then we can begin to form a narrative using themes.
but if not authentic, it also reveals something about contemporary society and so is useful in this way
