The Gentile readers of Canonical Luke were not obliged to know where Capernaum was

[Ken Olson]

Giuseppe also wrote:

are you asking me to wrote an entire book as K has done recently?

I would take the hint and refer to Klinghardt's The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels on this point.

Ah. Ok. I'll take a look. Where does Klinghardt make the argument for the priority of the *Ev based on the presumed geographical knowledge of Luke's audience?

Best,

Ken

[Peter Kirby]

Giuseppe also wrote:

are you asking me to wrote an entire book as K has done recently?

I would take the hint and refer to Klinghardt's The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels on this point.

Ah. Ok. I'll take a look. Where does Klinghardt make the argument for the priority of the *Ev based on the presumed geographical knowledge of Luke's audience?

I don't think he does.

[Ken Olson]

Giuseppe also wrote:

are you asking me to wrote an entire book as K has done recently?

I would take the hint and refer to Klinghardt's The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels on this point.

Ah. Ok. I'll take a look. Where does Klinghardt make the argument for the priority of the *Ev based on the presumed geographical knowledge of Luke's audience?

I don't think he does.

Me neither. So were you suggesting that if I want to discuss the best reasoned arguments for the *Ev's priority to Luke, my time might be better spend engaging with those found in Klinghardt's book? If so, I would tend to agree.

Best,

Ken

[Peter Kirby]

Yeah.

There may be some other arguments in the literature made by scholars other than Klinghardt too.

In terms of this forum, Ben C. Smith had some stuff that he wrote. But most of what's relevant seems to be published.

Personally I intended to revisit the question after doing a synopsis based on my own particular approach.

[Ken Olson]

Personally I intended to revisit the question after doing a synopsis based on my own particular approach.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your synopsis and the Mark-Ev*-Luke theory (if that is still what you hold). I think your giving more credence to Epiphanius than Tertullian is probably a good idea. I don't think we can't dismiss Tertullian entirely and still have a reasonable basis for discussing the Evangelion's relationship to the synoptic gospels (i.e., the synoptic problem), but some of the claims he makes are pretty clearly polemical misrepresentations and others appear to be in severe tension with each other.

Besides Klinghardt, BeDuhn is worth considering as well.

Best,

Ken

[Peter Kirby]

Personally I intended to revisit the question after doing a synopsis based on my own particular approach.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your synopsis and the Mark-Ev*-Luke theory (if that is still what you hold). I think your giving more credence to Epiphanius than Tertullian is probably a good idea. I don't think we can't dismiss Tertullian entirely and still have a reasonable basis for discussing the Evangelion's relationship to the synoptic gospels (i.e., the synoptic problem), but some of the claims he makes are pretty clearly polemical misrepresentations and others appear to be in severe tension with each other.

Besides Klinghardt, BeDuhn is worth considering as well.

Thanks! I look forward to getting back to it. It just takes a lot of time to go through. When I'm not procrastinating, I should be spending some time on improving the ECW website itself. Despite how interesting the synoptic problem stuff is!

[Giuseppe]

The author is writing the book, not the readers. The readers do not govern the content.

Please like the difference in your same quote:

The first time Capernaum is mentioned in Mark's gospel at Mark 1.21, it isn't stated that it is a city in Galilee, but that may reasonably be inferred from the fact that Jesus previously came into Galilee proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God in 1.14-15

precisely: previously. But in Luke we have Jesus in visit to Capernaum after the episode in Nazareth. Not before.

[Giuseppe]

Note also the detail by WR: "si rempli". Indeed the episode of Capernaum in canonical Luke is rather dense:

31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.

33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

35 “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

36 All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!” 37 And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.

A such density makes it so evident that that is THE miracle done by Jesus in Capernaum, that the exhortation in 4:23 to repeat what has been done done in Capernaum can only be a reference to it and only to it.

[Peter Kirby]

My source is Weill-Raynal, la chronologie des Evangiles.

On peut observer que l'Evangile de Luc est susceptible de s'adresser à des lecteurs complètement ignorants de la géographie de la Palestine, qu'au moment de la prédication de Jésus à Nazareth, Capharnäum n'a pas encore été nommée, que le séjour à Capharnaüm, si rempli, ne vient, dans l'ouvrage, qu'après le passage à Nazateth, et aussi bien il ne s'agit pas de déterminer l'itinéraire de Jésus, mais d'établir ls formation d'un texte.

(p. 49, my bold)

WR is writing it in reply to Loisy who has quoted Luke 4:14-25 as "explanation" of where Cspernaum is.

[Giuseppe]

I have not still understood in short what are the objections to the following points:

• 1) In Canonical Luke the story of the miracle in Capernaum is too much dense and conspicuous to be not referred in the entire gospel as THE miracle in Capernaum, 'what Jesus had done in Capernaum'.

• 2) Luke 4:14-25 is not sufficient to make the Gentile readers aware that Capernaum is in Galilee.

• 3) Luke 4:37
  
  And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.
  
  seems to be a superfluous repetition of Luke 4:14:
  
  Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
  
  Isn't it a typical example of editorial fatigue?

• 4) in Mark Capernaum is mentioned after the arrival in Galilee and without being specified as a town in Galilee. But Mark didn't need that detail because in Mark we don't have a flash-back: the sequence is linear (Galilee---> Capernaum) while in Luke the sequence is interrupted (Galilee ---> Nazareth ---> Capernaum? ---> Nazareth ---> Capernaum).

So the my point is that, even if Luke 4:14-15 had ex hypothesi read so:

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside and in Capernaum.

...this would be yet not sufficient to overcome the other obstacle, i.e. that Luke 4:31-37 is so vivid and dense in the its description of what happened in Capernaum, that hardly it can be replaced by something of different and in addition merely alluded in Luke 4:43:

‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”