Diatessaron supports Peter/Rock

[Mystophilus]

TEME525:

One last thing about “Q”, a theory that I do accept and see no threat in its acceptance. First, I think we should all agree that the Gospel message was presented in Oral Tradition (just read Dei Verbum). It makes sense to me that during the time of oral tradition someone or ones would write down various words or sayings and stories but not in a story form because it wasn’t needed - the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry were still alive. I think this is what many consider the “Q” source to be.

Personally, I take the Quelle idea in much the same way that I take the Shakespeare-did-not-write-Shakespeare’s-plays idea. Thus far, the proposition seems both unprovable and undisprovable, and has no actual effect upon the text. It may be interesting for paleographers, but it leaves me cold.

And to give it a little more credence, one has to go out of the canonical books of the NT into those books that were rejected. Such works such as the Gospel of Thomas were developed indepently of the four Gospels, yet contain many of the same passages and sayings found in the Canonical works. How does one explain this knowing that the non canonical Gospels are contemporary yet independent of the Canonical Gospels?

Most of the references which I can find to the gospel of Thomas put its composition in the C2nd, up to a hundred years after the popular dates of the four canonical versions. This is not quite contemporary, and would certainly explain the occurence of the same passages, those having been borrowed from the earlier versions.

While I think that it is reasonable to assume that oral versions of Jesus’ life existed prior to the writing of any of the gospel accounts, what needs to be stressed is the plurality of those versions. Oral traditions tend towards reinvention even more than scribal traditions do. The project of canon-formation is the act of selecting, i.e., excluding that which you do not want, so that you can bypass the embellishments. Thus, the Bible text we have now represents the best-supported C4th understanding of what the C1st gospel writers thought had actually occurred.

 

[Bishopite]

Mystophilus:

What Aramaic manuscripts of the NT? While Papias claimed that Matthew was originally written in Aramaic, no one has yet been able to locate any actual evidence of such a manuscript. Instead, all we have is a Greek text, which chooses to use two words instead of one.

Uh…wait a minute. You mentioned that we don’t have the “actual evidence of such a manuscript” [that Matthew was written in Aramaic].

What do you mean by “actual evidence?” Do we need the actual physical manuscripts written in Aramaic to prove what you call “actual evidence”?

If so then your whole argument fails since we don’t either have the actual physical and inspired original scrolls of any of the Scriptures written by the Apsotles. And if we applied your logic to the validity of the rest of the Scriptures then we wouldn’t have any “actual evidence” of the Scriptures at all.

 

[RobNY]

Why are there not links to dismissals of the hypothesis of an Aramaic Matthew, just as there are sometimes links to dismissals of Q ? To believe that Q may have existed is regarded by some as “liberal”, therefore bad - is the Aramaic Matthew hypothesis valued because it is perceived to be a defence against “liberalism” ? If so, that is to confuse apologetics with the study of Scripture - to the benefit of neither. Apologetics and scholarship do not mix well - they both have their place, just as riding and cookery do; but it would very rash to try preparing a three course meal while on the back of a race-horse.

I was realizing something along this line myself as I’ve been getting to know this issue a tad bit better. Although I generally agree with what you said, I think there is one key difference. From the viewpoint of the Aramaic Matthew defenders, it is possibly historical but unsupported by documents. From their viewpoint, the Q gospel has neither historical/traditional sanction, nor hard support. So, the reason they jump on Aramaic Matthew is that it is, to them, more credible that the Q hypothesis, for the very reason that it has some, however brief, support in tradition.

“Blessed are the concise.”
(From the lost book of Bob, ch. 12, v. 2 ¾)

Bob is such a convienent name to use.

Time to take out our Strunk and White’s, and open to whatever place in Elements of Style that we learn vigorious writing is concise and omit needless words.

And Bishopite: I don’t think he means that at all. We have evidence of Greek manuscripts by having the descendants of the original ones. We don’t have evidence of the Aramaic manuscripts by having descendants of the original one. He says “evidence of a manuscript” not possession of one.

 

[Bishopite]

And Bishopite: I don’t think he means that at all. We have evidence of Greek manuscripts by having the descendants of the original ones. We don’t have evidence of the Aramaic manuscripts by having descendants of the original one. He says “evidence of a manuscript” not possession of one.

Thanks, and sure I see what you are saying. It’s really not that important that Matthew be written it Aramaic although it is interesting.
I think the argument that Jesus spoke Aramaic [and spoke it with the apostles] which is substantiated by historical research and evidence of the languages spoken in that time period is a better one but that’s a differnt subject.

 

[Protestante]

Well no matter what, he would have used the word Petros to refer to Peter in this instance, otherwise it wouldnt have been his Greek name, he would have used Simon or something.