Work Notes III
74.
Brown INT p344. JN: the angel stirring the water is missing from the best ms.
75.
Harmony of the Four Gospels, 1894, William Arnold Stevens and Ernest D. Burton. Abbrev: SBH; Burton and Goodspeed harmony of the synoptics, abbrev: BGH.
76.
BGH. Consider using excerpts from that preface in your preface.
77.
Quirinius appointed (garble) in 6 a.d., replacing Herod Archelaus, who had been deposed by Augustine. Quirinius immediately ordered a census for tax purposes. Because Jewish law forbids censuses, Judah stirred up another revolt against Roman rule.
78.
MT 2. J born in days of Herod the King (Herod the Great). His son Archelaus was named ethnarc (less than a king) by Augustine of Judaea, Samaria and Idumea. He was deposed in 6 a.d. Herod's son Antipas (Herod Antipas) was named tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. Herod's son Philip was made tetrarch of territories north and east of the Jordan. Herod's sister, Salome I, was granted a toparchy that included Jabneh, Ashdod and Phyaelus.
In 7 b.c., an ailing Herod had two of his sons, Aristobulus and Alexander, executed. He had another one killed later. No longer dependent on his alliance with the Hasmoneans, he had his Hasmonean wife and her son(s) by him killed.
Some may suggest that the massacre of the innocents is a legendary account of Herod's execution of three of his sons. On the other hand, anyone so merciless on his own children would have been altogether capable of the atrocity recorded in MT.
Still, LK's account of the timing of Jesus' birth is at odds with all other evidence. His date places J's birth some 10 to 13 years too late.
Archelaus, records show, took his father's place (in part) in 7 b.c., meaning Jesus, in MT's account, must have been born before then. Other indicators point to a date as late as 2 b.c., but no one thinks 6 or 7 a.d. can be right.
We may wonder whether there has been a conflation of the two Herods.
If, as experts believe, J was killed around 27 or 30 a.d., he would have been "too young." Various leads (including in the gospels) suggest that he was at least 30 years old when he died. Of course, as with so much of history before the printing press, exact dates are hard to come by.
As I say in a footnote to
Miracle Cure, I question LK's details of the birth. The earliest versions of LK on hand don't include the infancy story. This implies that decades had passed since the time of Mary's recollections, leaving the writer/editor to splice the available data as well as he could. Yet, I suspect that the essence of the story is right.
Both MT and LK are concerned to move J about so as to account for a messiah coming from Nazareth. In MT's infancy story, the problem is to get J from Bethlehem to Galilee. In LK's, the problem is to get J from Galilee to Bethlehem.
Though LK's dating is wrong, I think the lucan account closer to reality than the matthean. The matthean story, though it came before the lukan story, appears to be an echo of LK, which is to say that both echo the account that preceded both, which I sketch in the FN.
79.
Brown JN I-XII p290 (vicinity of 290). Brown makes the case for JN 6:51-59 to be a "eucharistic" verse of the bread of life discourse of JN 6:35-50.
This is interesting bcz it implies that the semi-literal interpretation of the bread of life idea took hold in the early church, even though J was almost certainly speaking metaphorically (as he does throughout JN and in the synoptic parables). Think of our idiom, "He eats that stuff up." We are to fuel up on J. That's all we need.
Still, when we gather for a meal as Christians, it certainly makes sense to honor Jesus. And, there is he in our midst when two or three get together in his name. He is in each of us and among us at the same time.
Let us also reflect that when we consume the wafer or cracker and drink the wine or grape juice, this is to remind us that we should learn to think like Jesus and do like J. We can leave to philosophers the theory of transubstantiation. Once a person is truly born again, he is always communing with Jesus. He doesn't need a special ceremony to bring about that result. So the point of the eucharist is so that Christians may share a special time with each other and with their Lord.
80.
Brown JN I-XII p291. (Also see 292.) The passage may be an interpolation meant to include the Christian passover liturgy. Perhaps a liturgical commentary (midrash) was inadvertently incorporated by a copyist.
WN IV
81.
Brown INT p263. MK takes up about 35% of LK.
82.
Brown INT p237. Bottom graph. The synoptic evangelists MT and LK do the same sort of thing I do. They take elements of MK and weave them together in accord with their needs. For example, see Brown on LK 4.38-39, the healing of Simon's mother in law. LK omits the presence of the four fishermen-disciples found in MK's version because in LK, J had not yet called these disciples.
83.
Brown INT p238. Check remarks near end of first graph. That J had healed the mother in law and effected a huge catch of fish "makes more intelligible why Simon and the others followed J so readily."
84.
Brown INT p233. FN 15 on LK's apparent inaccuracies: In LK 23.45, LK explains the darkness at the death of J as the result of a solar eclipse. But, according to astronomical calculations and Roman records, there was no such event in the Near East in November of 29, nor at Passover of 30 or 33. Of course LK and others may have assumed the darkening came from a solar eclipse. Other physical possibilities are volcanic ash (the volcano-ridden rift valley runs through Palestine) and a very big dust storm, a phenomenon well-known in the Near East. That sort of event would also explain why the darkening was not noted by Roman writers, as it would have been local -- though it implied that the whole world had gone dark spiritually (there was no light at all in it between J's death and resurrection).
In Acts 5:37-37 Gamiliel (ca. a.d.36), LK has Gamiliel speak about Theudas's revolt which did not occur until 10 years after the "speech." Check that. May turn out to be relatively minor.
85.
Re JN. I feel fairly confident that at least some NT stories are what are sometimes called midrash. That is, they use an underlying account and embellish it with a story meant to get across moral and theological truths. We have as an example from pre-Christian times, the book
Tobit, which was beloved by Jews because of its blend of fun fantasy with deep morality. Some NT episodes are not meant for light entertainment but nevertheless convey truth via accepted literary license. Take the case of the woman at the well. JN may very well have known of an incident in which J influence a Samarian woman, who then brought the townspeople out to him. And it is plausible that J gave his disciples an abbreviated version of his talk with the woman.
Still, it was the writer of JN who wrote the dialogue. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, this writer wished to convey some important knowledge about the messiah. We can be sure of this because he has also taken one of J's sayings about the harvest and adapted it to this account, though the adaptation may seem slightly out of sync. But the author placed it there in order to stress the importance of continued evangelism. People (even if not politically correct Jews) are in dire need of salvation, and look how one poor woman of low esteem could reap such a harvest of souls! The story also underscores the importance of coming to a personal relationship with J, a major Johannine theme, as Brown notes.
Think of your pastor giving a good sermon. He may give you an illustration to try to get across his point and may base that illustration on Scripture. But he dresses it up in modern language and concepts so that people relate more easily. Maybe the donkey becomes a car, or whatever. Now get this: (Hopefully) he is speaking the truth, regardless of the fact that the illustration is made up! In fact, that's how Jesus taught.
Parable is just an old word for
verbal illustration.
That's how it is, I suggest, with some -- though not all -- of the stories of the NT. Except, that these stories generally do reflect things that actually happened. But whether a healing occurred while leaving Jericho or entering it is a matter of literary license. The point is that, according to witnesses, a healing occurred near Jericho.
Those who do not care to come near to J will seize on these differences in order to brush off the message of Jesus, which is: throw yourself at God's mercy in Jesus' name and you will be saved -- forever!
As Bruce Metzger observed, though details may be incorrect here and there, the apostles and early Christians must have been convinced by something! And that something was their continued interaction with Jesus both in person and via the Holy Spirit.
We need be clear that there are different levels of allegory and parallel. The apocryphal story
Susanna teaches important spiritual lessons, but no one takes it as anything but religious fiction. On the other hand, the discourses of
John are altogether in another dimension.
Susanna is clearly fiction, but then how should we characterize the story of the woman at the well? In that case, the writer has reconstructed events based on memories of witnesses and his own understanding of Jesus as given him via the Holy Spirit.
And in the case of the synoptics, we can discern that the writers have put together remembered sayings and events, sometimes giving their own interpretations. These events were not recalled as fictions. What the evangelists tried to do was to take what people had remembered and put it in writing as the period of the eyewitnesses drew to a close. So, although these epigrams are set, as best the writers were able, into a narrative, that narrative -- such as it was -- is somewhat fictional, if not contradictory at times. Yet, no one tried to write fiction. They were trying to be faithful reporters in an era before the printing press and electronic recording. That is not what the writers of
Susanna and
Bel and the Dragon were trying to do. They were writing morality tales that were intended as fiction.
86.
Brown INT p244. Only LK includes the hostile encounter with a Samarian village -- which is diametrically opposed to the encounter described in JN. Offhand thought: I wonder whether JN might have taken refuge in Samaria after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in a.d.70.
But LK has the parable of the good Samarian.
Check 2d graph.
THE BIG OMISSION: LK eliminates J's trip to Jerusalem (Judaea?). Everything between the two mass feeding miracles in MK.
MK's "beyond the Jordan" echoes JN which has J across the Jordan near JB. Check!!!
87.
Brown INT p239. FN 30: The lucan list of the 12 apostles (see also the 11 in Acts 1:13) seems to stem from a different tradition than that shown in MK 3.16-19 and MT 10.2-4.
My take is that there was to begin with a group of disciples, some of whom became pillars of the church known as messengers or envoys of the Lord (in Greek: apostles). After a while the term
apostle began to be restricted to a particular group of men who had seen Jesus and been given special powers. Paul used this title of himself in order to insist on his equality with those who had seen Jesus before his crucifixion.
Names of these elders were recalled in different sets, just as you might remember Jack and Jim from your childhood but not Jesse, whereas your brother remembers Jim and Jesse, but not Jack. Of course Peter was not going to be overlooked by anyone because of he was just hard to forget and evidently was very active. But note that James, who is a "brother" or blood relative of Jesus, was a leader who was recalled as an apostle, though he was not one of those originally designated or chosen by J.
That is, the notion of messenger was not glorified into the title of Apostle right away.
As for J choosing 12 disciples to become apostles. Firstly, we may recall that he had attracted quite a few men who treated him as a master or rabbi. But, when his teaching became too difficult, most of them turned back. Some remained. Was the number exactly 12? We should recall that numbers such as 7, 12, 40, 70, 72, 144, 1,000 were used in ancient times as representative of spiritual wholes. It seems probable that there were approximately 12 men among his followers at the time of his resurrection appearances.
This number represents the Jewish people. Jesus chose men to reach all "the 12 tribes." Since 10 of the tribes had been decimated hundreds of years previously, we must conclude that this was a way of saying that the messiah was reaching out to the Jewish nation.
LK as a matter of fact has 70 (or 72) disciples fanning out across Palestine to reach out to the Jews. This story is so hard to fit into the general information on hand that we take it to be genuine from the perspective of LK. Why insert something that doesn't jibe, especially when we see that LK strives to make his gospel a coherent account.
88.
When we question some of the contradictions, we should keep in mind that what is impossible for man is possible with God.
89.
Brown INT p241. LK modifies MK's story of Mary and his brothers standing outside a house where a crowd has gathered around him so that there is only praise for them, not MK's implicit rebuke.
90.
Brown INT p241 FN 33. Is the lucan story (weepg, anointg feet) the same as that of the anointing of J' head by the woman at the house of Simon the leper (MK 14.3-9; MT 26.6-13) and that of the anointg of J' feet by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (JN 12.1-8)?
FN 33. Many think the two stories have been confused in the traditions that came down to LK and JN. Others argue for one basic story. Hagiographic tradition and legend glued the three stories together and further confused the situation by identifying Mary, the sister of Martha, with Mary of Magdala.
This all goes to underscore what I have been saying: Something like that happened! The truth conveyed by the recollected and perhaps rewritten story is what counts, not the particulars.
91.
Brown INT p242. LK omits MK's account of the dance of Herod's daughter and its grim end. That omission accords better with Josephus, who says Herod executed JB for being a troublemaker (probably at the prodding of the Jewish authorities). Still, one can easily imagine JB publicly condemning Herod's marriage (or proposed marriage) to Herodias, who divorced Herod II in order to wed Herod Antipas. Such a ;public denunciation would have been taken as a political threat in those parlous times.
92.
Brown INT p242. Not only does LK leave out the 2d feeding miracle, he also leaves out MK's material found between the 2 feedings -- including the walking on water.
My thought is that perhaps the men in the boat saw J do an "impossible" translation. At one moment he was at one point on the shoreline, and a moment later he was at another point around the bend in the lake, miles distant. They would have thought: "How did he get that far? Did he walk across the water?" This would also account for JN's report of the entire group being translated across Lake Galilee in an instant. Such a feat would be no less miraculous than actually walking on water. And it accounts for variations in the gospel accounts. As for MT havg Peter get out of the boat and walk toward J, we know that J certainly has power to actually walk on water. Yet, it is possible that this little episode is a midrash meant to convey some very important truths: belief, faith, focus on J, grace, grace and grace...
I don't doubt that the story could be an accurate account of what occurred. But my alternative is not less miraculous!
93.
Anyone who worries that each of the four gospels were written at one or two removes from the eyewitnesses might consider than a major portion of the NT was written by the apostle Paul, who had a personal encounter with the risen Jesus and who, as an eyewitness to many miracles, spoke as one filled with God's spirit and truth.
94.
wiki on bethsaida,
According to Josephus, around the year 30/31 CE (or 32/33 CE) Herod II raised the village of Bethsaida in Lower Gaulanitis to the rank of a polis and renamed it "Julias," in honor of Livia, the wife of Augustus. It lay near the place where the Jordan enters the Sea of Galilee.[19]
Julias/Bethsaida was a city east of the Jordan River, in a "desert place" (that is, uncultivated ground used for grazing). If this is the location to which Jesus retired by boat with his disciples to rest a while. The multitude following on foot along the northern shore of the lake would cross the Jordan by the ford at its mouth, which is used by foot travelers to this day. The "desert" of the narrative is just the barrīyeh of the Arabs, where the animals are driven out for pasture. The "green grass" of Mark 6:39, and the "much grass" of John 6:10, point to some place in the plain of el-Baṭeiḥah, on the rich soil of which the grass is green and plentiful, compared to the scanty herbage on the higher slopes.[citation needed]
bethsaida abt 7 mi frm capernaum on north shore. chorazin nearby.
95.
Brown INT p349. FN: Jesus' raisings from the dead (Lazarus {Jn 11:1-44}, the son of the widow of Nain [Lk 7:11-17], the daughter of Jairus [Mk 5:35-43]) are recounted by the evangelists as miraculous resuscitations, similar to those done by the OT prophets Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:32-37). Jesus' own resurrection is of a higher order, eschatologically anticipating God's raising of the dead in the last days. Resuscitation restores ordinary life; resurrection involves eternal life.
Well, so he says. Not really sure about this.
MT 27:50-53 has the veil of the temple ripped apart, accompanied by an earthquake that resulted in many rocks and boulders being split apart and tombs being opened. Many of "the saints" got up and were seen walking around in Jerusalem. This occurred when Jesus died, two days before his resurrection.
These I suggest were particular servants of Jehovah, such as Anna the prophetess and the holy man Simeone, along with some of the named prophets, who had been looking forward to Israel's redemption. Their revival fulfills God's pledge to the Old Order of earthly Israel. Whether they died again or not is not related. But we can assume that they did not, though what became of them is a divine secret.
