multiple attestation essay Flashcards
intro
understandable that people question authenticity of sources
strauss = pioneer
criteria = reflective and products of both form and redaction criticism
argument – don’t use exclusively, must consider other. Maybe better approach = thematic. If something is dissimilar, what does it reveal about contemporary society? How does it fit into wider narrative?
para 1
Attestation in literary sources - kofG
- 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 1 ao2
- 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?
- Thematic approach
para 2
- 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.”
para 2 ao2
Other criteria
• how do we decide if something is similar enough to be attested?
• 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
• 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 3
baptism
- 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
- similarly conforms with 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
conc
Attestation in rhetorical strategies may help with problems
- 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 and rhetorical questioning