Bilby: a mix of fine exegesis and naive historicism

[Ben C. Smith]

one question i'd like answered is about the birth narrative in Luke
Since Luke tells us he pulls from various sources in the incipit - could the birth narrative been taken from one of the infancy gospels
I really wish i researched this better but from memory one of them parallels Luke strongly, in the boy Jesus at the temple and i hope my memory is right here - the angel/annunciation. Protoevangelion of James? I would love someone to tell me what these parallels are in a list
I would like to consider the possibility that Luke drew from an infancy gospel and whether the ones we have may in fact be those sources

I doubt one of the infancy gospels as we currently possess it served as the direct source behind Luke 1-2. Luke 1-2, however, could perhaps have been its own infancy gospel of sorts before being tagged onto the rest of Luke; it has a certain independence to it. The infancy gospel of Thomas ends at exactly the same point: the visit to the Temple at age twelve.

The infancy gospel of James has
" And she took the cup and went out to fill it with water. (2) Suddenly, a voice said to
her, "Rejoice, blessed one. The Lord is with you. You are blessed among women." (3)
And Mary looked around to the right and the left to see where this voice came from. (4)
And trembling she went into her house. Setting down the cup, she took the purple
thread and sat down on the chair and spun it.
(5) Suddenly, an angel stood before her saying, "Do not be afraid Mary. You have found
grace before the Lord of all. You will conceive from his word."
(6) Upon hearing this, however, Mary was distraught, saying to herself, "If I conceive
from the Lord God who lives, will I also conceive as all women conceive?"
(7) And the Angel of the Lord said, "Not like that, Mary. For the power of God will come
over you. Thus, the holy one who is born will be called son of the most high. (8) And you
will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
(9) And Mary said, "See, I am the servant of the Lord before him. Let it happen to me
according to what you say.""

There is no obvious reason to think this couldn't be the source of Luke when the infancy gospel of James is dated to the 2nd century
So i wonder what is the research that has proved this wasn't the case beyond all reasonable doubt?
Does this infancy gospel use the rare word Kacharitomene like Luke?
I'm sure this work has been done but i'd like to read the arguments used

"Beyond all reasonable doubt?" You are in the wrong hobby, my friend.

At any rate, I harbor no special animus against the Protevangelium having served as source for the canonical infancy passages. And I will readily admit that I have dedicated less study to the infancy narratives overall than to other parts of the collective gospel story.

However, whenever I do deal with these materials, the infancy gospel of James always seems to come off as derivative of Matthew and Luke. For example, the latter two are anonymous, while the former claims to have been written by none other than James the step brother of Jesus; and him being a step brother (that is, Joseph having sons by a previous marriage) already appears to be preserving Mary's perpetual virginity, something which Matthew and Luke show no signs of caring about. The Protevangelium is mainly about Mary overall, as a matter of fact, as if, while Matthew and Luke assert that she has chosen for the task of birthing the Messiah, James is explaining why she was chosen.

At least two of the fragments of Basilides seem to be quoting from the infancy narratives in Matthew and in Luke; I do not think that anything this early quotes the Protevangelium. Hippolytus also cites Valentinus as interpreting the Lucan infancy narrative at one point.

But hey, again, I have not put a lot of time into this issue, and of course fragments of lost works (like those by Basilides and Valentinus) can be questioned, and of course regarding something as derivative of something else can be a subjective process. So feel free to look into it and let me know what you think.

[vocesanticae]

About the bandits on the cross, that was the entire focus of my UVA dissertation. It's published in the series Cahiers de Biblia Patristica with Strasbourg/Brepols. Feel free to consult its relevant, detailed sections on GMarc.

Thanks. I am particularly curious about how you have derived the idea that the two bandits were released by the official in charge, since you write in your blog:

1) The official in charge “released two evildoers”. The use of the nominative for the evildoers (κακοῦργοι) does not make sense grammatically, but then again, who says the earliest Gospels always have to follow proper Greek grammar?

(my bold)

In your thesis I don't find the reference to "released".

Have you arrived at that conclusion by the mere fact that the reconstructed source mentioned "two evildoers" and then you have supposed that they were the people released by Pilate ? My interest derives from the fact that PLT is the semitic root for 'the one who releases", hence there may be some irony in PiLaTe who releases someone. In addition, I am entirely supportive of Couchoud/Stahl's interpretation of the release of Barabbas. Thanks in advance for any disturb to answer.

The way I derived the idea of the two bandits released by the official was simply by reading Roth's critical edition here and removing the ellipses.

Caveat: I spent some more time yesterday looking into the crucifixion traditions in GMarc and across the synoptic and Johannine strata, and I'm no longer so sure about the above. It's really complicated stuff, so I'd rather not make any firm statements at this point. Clarifying the strata from easier texts will be necessary to tease apart the strata in these texts. I'll plan to have some updates in the next uploaded version of my iterative book series proposal.

Thank you for the constructive feedback! Much appreciated!

[Ben C. Smith]

The way I derived the idea of the two bandits released by the official was simply by reading Roth's critical edition here and removing the ellipses.

Tertullian writes: "Then Barabbas, the most abandoned criminal, is released, as if he were the innocent man; while the most righteous Christ is delivered to be put to death, as if he were the murderer. Moreover two malefactors are crucified around Him, in order that He might be reckoned amongst the transgressors."

If Tertullian is describing the Marcionite gospel here, then he is asserting that Barabbas was released and that two malefactors were crucified with Christ in that gospel. If Tertullian is not describing the Marcionite gospel here, then "released" and "two malefactors" are no longer attested for the Marcionite gospel.

[Secret Alias]

I take credit for alerting you to the possibility that Tertullian is not describing the Marcionite gospel but only reading from his own gospel - perhaps erroneously. But I have to think I made some impact in the world.

[Giuseppe]

I spent some more time yesterday looking into the crucifixion traditions in GMarc and across the synoptic and Johannine strata

of probable interest about the Johannine strata, I remember the Turmel's argument for Barabbas being absent in proto-John (considered by Turmel a marcionite Gospel).

[vocesanticae]

The way I derived the idea of the two bandits released by the official was simply by reading Roth's critical edition here and removing the ellipses.

Tertullian writes: "Then Barabbas, the most abandoned criminal, is released, as if he were the innocent man; while the most righteous Christ is delivered to be put to death, as if he were the murderer. Moreover two malefactors are crucified around Him, in order that He might be reckoned amongst the transgressors."

If Tertullian is describing the Marcionite gospel here, then he is asserting that Barabbas was released and that two malefactors were crucified with Christ in that gospel. If Tertullian is not describing the Marcionite gospel here, then "released" and "two malefactors" are no longer attested for the Marcionite gospel.

Aptly quoted. The more I consider Tertullian, the more I realize that using *only* the secure wording in Roth's edition absent the ellipses can be misleading, which of course is not Roth's fault at all, given his generous use of ellipses. While I'm concerned about ellipses themselves giving the misleading impression that Marcion's text of Luke was incomplete and lacking in coherence and flow, on the other hand, such ellipses are important reminders about the provisionality of much of our reconstructions based on using Tertullian (whose representation of GMarc varies enormously in its modes, tone, and purposes) and trying to reverse translate from Latin to Greek. Such provisionality, however, does not necessitate a minimalist approach, especially in these days of signals analysis, natural language processing, and data restoration techniques. I think Roth's minimalist-moderate approach gives us a GMarc with about 60% acoustical data fidelity, whereas we can probably get it up in the area of 90% to 95% using the methods and tools of hard data science and by locating Early Luke / GMarc correctly in the 80s CE as a receptor of Qn and Mk1, as a source for Mt1 and Lk2, and whose unique readings are sometimes attested by Codex Bezae and/or the Western text-type mss.

Any Python and/or NLP pros out there who want to help analyze and refine our datasets once they are complete, please let me know! If not, that's cool--I can always teach myself those approaches to coding.

[vocesanticae]

I spent some more time yesterday looking into the crucifixion traditions in GMarc and across the synoptic and Johannine strata

of probable interest about the Johannine strata, I remember the Turmel's argument for Barabbas being absent in proto-John (considered by Turmel a marcionite Gospel).

Thanks for calling my attention to this. Do you have a citation for Turnel's published work on this?

[MrMacSon]

I suppose i just felt a 'proto-luke' has much more in common with mark that it does matthew even if there are differences ...

I think that's likely, and I think Brodie would probably agree, based on his diagramatic schema

... if that's so it's quite curious. i get this weird feeling Luke may have been trying to replace Mark just like perhaps Matthew was hoped to replace all the others (i suspect this) and like the gospel harmonies had the same intent. i suspect before the 4-fold gospel of Ireneaus there may have been competition and desire to promote one as 'the one' (and Marcion wasn't the only one doing that)

I think that's likely. Matthias Klinghardt has proposed that (1) Mark used a Marcionite [proto-Luke type] Gospel (and probably Paul and the OT); then (2) Matthew used those (ie. Mark, the Marcionite gospel, and probably Paul & the OT); then (3) John used those; then (4) Luke used them all - to produce their 1st editions. Then (5) a final redactor or three (or more) did some touch ups.

See the diagram in this post - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 246#p94246

Markus Vinzent thinks Marcion was writing or editing a Gospel that got into others' hands1 (Mark's, Matthew's, John's & Luke's +/- others') and then, when they had produced their 'advanced' versions (perhaps in competition), Marcion produced a 2nd version/edition.

1. This was apparently common in those days: copies of draft texts were often given to people to proof-read and provide feedback
   
   [eta] see Derrenbacker, Robert Allen (2001) 'Ancient Compositional Practices and the Synoptic Problem', a thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wycliff College and the Biblical Dept of the Toronto School of Theology. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology awarded by the University of St Michael's College.

when Luke describes his 'authentic account' in the incipit - isn't he doing more than declaring his gospel authentic - isn't he by extension declaring all the others unreliable?

• It seems like it.

[Giuseppe]

I spent some more time yesterday looking into the crucifixion traditions in GMarc and across the synoptic and Johannine strata

of probable interest about the Johannine strata, I remember the Turmel's argument for Barabbas being absent in proto-John (considered by Turmel a marcionite Gospel).

Thanks for calling my attention to this. Do you have a citation for Turnel's published work on this?

As reported in the link above, Turmel comments so the passage in question about 18:39-19:6 as interpolation in John:

Interpretation based on synoptics and adapted to the primitive version that, leaving the Jews outside the Praetorium, forced Pilate to go out every time he wanted to talk to them.

(My translation from Le quatrième Evangile, Joseph Turmel. F. Rieder, 1925)

If you like, I may send you the photos of this little book.

[vocesanticae]

I spent some more time yesterday looking into the crucifixion traditions in GMarc and across the synoptic and Johannine strata

of probable interest about the Johannine strata, I remember the Turmel's argument for Barabbas being absent in proto-John (considered by Turmel a marcionite Gospel).

Thanks for calling my attention to this. Do you have a citation for Turnel's published work on this?

As reported in the link above, Turmel comments so the passage in question about 18:39-19:6 as interpolation in John:

Interpretation based on synoptics and adapted to the primitive version that, leaving the Jews outside the Praetorium, forced Pilate to go out every time he wanted to talk to them.

(My translation from Le quatrième Evangile, Joseph Turmel. F. Rieder, 1925)

If you like, I may send you the photos of this little book.

Access to a digital version would be great. Thank you!