|
Post by unkleE on Aug 4, 2013 22:38:17 GMT
Here is another review by an actual New Testament scholar. He is also critical, pointing for instance at the unzealous stories of Jesus associating with prostitutes and collaborating tax collectors, but he is more positive than Le Donne. That is an interesting review, I agree. I do not recall hearing of Carey before, but he writes from a fairly political and perhaps even socialist perspective, if you check out his other writings. So he would likely be quite attuned to a political revolutionary Jesus. I found it interesting that he criticises Aslan for believing the the so-called "Messianic secret" originated with Jesus, and wasn't just a literary device for Mark's to explain something he found difficult. I would be on Aslan's side on that one I think, though I recognise that many scholars are not. Thanks for the reference.
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Aug 5, 2013 10:20:53 GMT
Apologies for the nitpick/dumb question, but how is this a problem for an argument that Jesus was in some sense literate? If he was a ngr' in the sense of a Tenakh scholar, he surely would have been capable of reading, wouldn't he? Though I don't think Jesus was a ngr' and your point on tektōn being not as specific as Witherington would like is valid. Firstly, you could be a scholar of the Tanakh without being literate. Just as today there are scholars of the Qu'ran who work purely from oral recitation and memory, so there were many illiterate or semi-literate devout Jews who did the same with the scriptures. Note that with one exception (the Lucan cognate with the Nazareth story, which represents the writer of gLuke's own invented addition), Jesus is never depicted as reading scripture but is regularly (and more plausibly) depicted as reciting it. Secondly, I'm suggesting that the writer of gMark, working from his Aramaic source/s, didn't understand the euphemistic use of "naggārāʾ" and mistook the Nazarene listeners asking "Is this a scholar?" (implying that he isn't one) for a face-value "Is this a carpenter?" and then tried to make sense of that in the context. Though I'm noting this only as a possibility because the use of a phrase we know was a euphemism for a man of learning coming in the context of a story where his learning is being questioned in a text we know drew from Aramaic sources but didn't always understand them makes this speculation valid. Just on the literacy point I think the view that Jesus was illiterate (asserted without apparently any questioning by Aslan) is very much against prevailing academic opinion. See eg. Maurice Casey Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching:" What should be regarded as culturally inconceivable is that Joseph and Miriam produced two major Jewish religious leaders, Jesus himself and his brother Jacob, without Joseph himself ever making it to the first stage...and teaching the boys Torah at home....this was culturally normal in Israel at the time of Jesus. When they grew up, Jesus and Jacob will have become like Joseph, adult, male Israelites, who read from the Torah in Hebrew,on the sabbath and at major festivals." (p 160) books.google.co.uk/books?id=lXK0auknD0YC&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=nagg%C4%81r%C4%81+scholar&source=bl&ots=qIQYqVXd4G&sig=PEEbHnhBgNJ5BscXNqFJ8Vlkkx8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CnL_UY77BsKg0QWin4GACA&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=nagg%C4%81r%C4%81%20scholar&f=falseCasey goes on to refer to several occasions where Jesus shows detailed reliance on scripture in debating with his opponents. e.g. Mk 2: 23-28 Have you nor read what David did? To quote Casey: These are not the words of an illierate peasant! (p161). Re the reviews, perhaps this one sums it up: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-zealot-the-life-and-times-of-jesus-of-nazareth-by-reza-aslan/2013/08/02/029f6088-f087-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.htmlBook review: ‘Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth’ by Reza Aslan By Stephen Prothero, But the real problem is that Aslan, like thousands of “historical Jesus” experts before him, refuses to say “I don’t know” with anything near the frequency required for the task. He, too, purports to be an intrepid archaeologist for historical truth, excavating the “real” Jesus out of the “propagandistic legend” that has grown up around him. But he, too, remakes Jesus in his own image.
|
|
|
Post by timoneill on Aug 5, 2013 12:20:16 GMT
To quote Casey: These are not the words of an illiterate peasant! (p161). Except we don't know they are the words of Jesus at all. Aslan finds Jesus was a liberal Sufi Muslim? Not in the book I'm reading he doesn't.
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Aug 5, 2013 13:33:58 GMT
To quote Casey: These are not the words of an illiterate peasant! (p161). Except we don't know they are the words of Jesus at all. Aslan finds Jesus was a liberal Sufi Muslim? Not in the book I'm reading he doesn't. So we discount all references in The Gospels to what Jesus is represented as saying? That would certainly dispense with a lot of potential evidence as to the nature of the historical Jesus. Casey gives plenty of examples besides the passage from Mark referred to (without relying on the reference in Luke to Jesus reading) and concludes "It is clear he (Jesus) knew the written text itself" (p162)(and Casey is after all, an "independent historian" without apparently the "subjectivity" and preconceptions possessed, according to some, by believers of whatever hue.). But as Casey argues, it is not just the evidence in the Gospels, but what we know of Judaism. As Casey says of Crossan's claims of illiteracy and in particular that "Jesus was a peasant from a peasant village" : "Turning Jesus from a major Jewish religious leader into a vague Mediterranean peasant flies in the face of basic evidence about Judaism and Jesus". p 160. Or do we just pick and choose as authentic (and literal or metaphorical as suits us) those sayings from the Gospels which fit our own particular theory of the nature of the historical Jesus? Which is what Prothero suggests is a fault of Aslan's book. Prothero concludes Aslan's Jesus was " a frustrated Muhammad — a man who, like Islam’s founder, came to revolutionize the world by force yet, unlike Muhammad, failed" Interestingly, the traditional view (which some see as unlikely) in Islam is that Muhammed was illiterate (so his views must have come directly from Allah and not from those corrupted Jewish and Christian writings).
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Aug 5, 2013 17:14:44 GMT
Except we don't know they are the words of Jesus at all. Without taking sides on the literacy issue, I'm interested in the fact that the gospels consistently portray Jesus as literate; there are no depictions of him as illiterate, only as literate. Did they do this to enhance his status in some way?
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Aug 5, 2013 18:59:01 GMT
Except we don't know they are the words of Jesus at all. Without taking sides on the literacy issue, I'm interested in the fact that the gospels consistently portray Jesus as literate; there are no depictions of him as illiterate, only as literate. Did they do this to enhance his status in some way? A very pertinent question which occured to me too. As Ben Witherington observes (and Casey seems to be of a similar opinion): www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2011/11/04/was-jesus-illiterate-part-three/Those who want to argue that Jesus was illiterate are arguing entirely from silence. Every bit of evidence about the culture, the educational tradition of pious Jews, and the actual NT textual evidence indicates Jesus was literateIn the article (from 2006) I referred to in an earlier post on the thread: EDUCATING JESUS: THE SEARCH FOR A PLAUSIBLE CONTEXT JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Vol 4.1 Paul Foster Jesus Teaches in the Synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4.16-30) This text is the strongest piece of evidence in the New Testament for seeing Jesus as possessing some level of functional literacy. According to the narrative, Jesus engages in his customary practice of synagogue attendance on the Sabbath When he stands up he is given a scroll containing the writings ofthe Prophet Isaiah and reads, according to the quotation given by Luke, Isa. 61.1a, b, d;58.6d; and 61.2a. Leaving aside the vexed questions raised by this conflated citation such as ... the actual historicity ofthe incident,- one can immediately see that Luke presents Jesus' ability to read in an incidental manner without anyobvious apologetic aim.Be interesting to hear from someone who thinks Jesus is illiterate, why he is presented as literate in the gospels (incidentally and repeatedly and not just by one Gospel writer who might have assumed that he was literate)?
|
|
|
Post by timoneill on Aug 5, 2013 20:47:00 GMT
So we discount all references in The Gospels to what Jesus is represented as saying? No, but we do remember that anything he "says" in the gospels is what he is, as you say, being represented as saying. That's all I was noting. Yes, he does. And what we see is Jesus addressing people who most likely were literate (scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees) and saying " ... do you not read ... " (Mark 12:10; Mark 11:26). Note the pronoun. He doesn't ever say "But I read in the scriptures ... " nor does he ever say "Do we not read in the book of ..." It's always the (more educated) opponents who should be reading what Jesus expounds orally. The remainder of Casey's examples are of the " ... is it not written ... " variety. These are similar, where he is challenging them to confirm what is in the texts. This still makes perfect sense if he was illiterate or semi-literate, since the written text remained the foundation of scripture even if the illiterate zealous man knew the content of it by oral memory. Which sounds a hell of reach and a lot like a more subtle way of saying "he's a Muslim so he's wrong" a la Fox News. Be interesting to hear from someone who thinks Jesus is illiterate, why he is presented as literate in the gospels (incidentally and repeatedly and not just by one Gospel writer who might have assumed that he was literate)? Then see above. As I said, we have no examples of Jesus saying that HE reads these things. Which leaves us with Luke 4:16-20, which is the author's embroidery on Mark 6:1-5 so not historical. And John 8:6, which is in a well-known later interpolation. Which means we have nothing depicting Jesus as being literate at all which we can say is likely to be historical.
|
|
|
Post by sandwiches on Aug 5, 2013 22:04:28 GMT
The remainder of Casey's examples are of the " ... is it not written ... " variety. These are similar, where he is challenging them to confirm what is in the texts. This still makes perfect sense if he was illiterate or semi-literate, since the written text remained the foundation of scripture even if the illiterate zealous man knew the content of it by oral memory.
So you think Jesus may have been at least "semi-literate"? Define?
How did he acquire all this "oral memory"? Would it have been simpler for him to have been taught (had repeated to him ad nauseam) all these things to the extent that he memorised them all? - the whole of the Torah? or just selected highlights? By whom? Someone who could read was constantly repeating the Torah to him without teaching him to read? What would have been simpler and more efficient?
What are your views on Casey's, Witherington's and Foster's views as to the culture of Jewish society and the expectation of reading the Torah?
Do you you think that the Gospel writers may had some apologetic aim in depicting Jesus as being literate or "semi-literate"?
|
|
|
Post by unkleE on Aug 5, 2013 22:49:49 GMT
Which leaves us with Luke 4:16-20, which is the author's embroidery on Mark 6:1-5 so not historical. I don't much care about whether Jesus was illiterate or not, but I am interested in this comment. You have said this a couple of times as if there was no doubt about it. What makes you so sure that the episode has no historical basis?
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Aug 6, 2013 4:46:13 GMT
Which leaves us with Luke 4:16-20, which is the author's embroidery on Mark 6:1-5 so not historical. I don't much care about whether Jesus was illiterate or not, but I am interested in this comment. You have said this a couple of times as if there was no doubt about it. What makes you so sure that the episode has no historical basis? I believe the argument is that Luke's account is longer and more detailed than Mark's, so it is concluded that he took Mark's account and added a few things he just invented himself.
|
|
|
Post by unkleE on Aug 6, 2013 5:55:43 GMT
I believe the argument is that Luke's account is longer and more detailed than Mark's, so it is concluded that he took Mark's account and added a few things he just invented himself. 1. Could it not be (Shock! Horror!) that the event actually happened, and Luke had more information than Mark, or chose to edit his information less? 2. I presume you are referring to Mark 1:21-28? Is that supposed to be the same incident? The only things in common are the location and day of the week - the bulk of the accounts are different. Do people suppose Jesus only went to the Capernaum synagogue once? PS I'm not criticising your reply, I appreciate you informing me, I'm just curious (and critical of so definite a conclusion).
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Aug 6, 2013 7:38:27 GMT
1. Could it not be (Shock! Horror!) that the event actually happened, and Luke had more information than Mark, or chose to edit his information less? Yes but these issues are settled on the balance of probabilities, and Occam's Razor rules. I don't know, I haven't see the actual argument laid out in detail.
|
|
|
Post by sankari on Aug 6, 2013 7:59:25 GMT
Yes, he does. And what we see is Jesus addressing people who most likely were literate (scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees) and saying " ... do you not read ... " (Mark 12:10; Mark 11:26). Note the pronoun. He doesn't ever say "But I read in the scriptures ... " nor does he ever say "Do we not read in the book of ..." It's always the (more educated) opponents who should be reading what Jesus expounds orally. When Herod consults with the chief priests, scribes and experts in the law concerning the birth of Messiah, they say 'It is written...' and quote the OT (Matthew 2:3-6). Jesus uses the same expression to preface his own quotes from the OT (e.g. Matthew 11:10; Mark 14:21 and many others). He also uses 'Is it not written...?' (Mark 11:17; John 10:34). Both phrases presuppose personal familiarity with the written word.
|
|
|
Post by fortigurn on Aug 6, 2013 9:41:41 GMT
When Herod consults with the chief priests, scribes and experts in the law concerning the birth of Messiah, they say 'It is written...' and quote the OT (Matthew 2:3-6). Maybe they just picked it up through oral learning as well.
|
|
|
Post by timoneill on Aug 6, 2013 10:41:17 GMT
So you think Jesus may have been at least "semi-literate"? Define? I have a Jewish friend who kept up a bit of study of Hebrew after his bar mitzvah and can find his way around a Psalm or two but would be hard pressed to readd to much confidently for you. He'd happily refer to himself as semi-literate in Hebrew. By listening to others read and recite key texts. Do you think it would be "simpler" to teach someone to recite key passages from Shakespeare or to teach them to read from scratch? Obviously the former is much simpler than the latter. And the former takes less time out of the working day of a member of a subsistence farming community. These people didn't have anything like our leisure time. Probably the latter, though people today can recite the whole of the Qu'ran. The texts Jesus is presented as quoting tend to come from the prophets and the Psalms. Possibly. Or by others who had learned key sections by rote. Or by scribes in nearby towns. Or by passing rabbis - Jesus wasn't the only wandering teacher. Are these very sensible possiblities somehow hard to imagine than some kind of Witherington-style Nazareth Junior High School? See above. Seriously overstated. Only one of them does. And we have no idea whether its author had an "aim" by doing so or whether, as a literate and fairly learned man, he was simply projecting an assumption onto Jesus.
|
|