Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus

This post is in response to Peacefulpete's interesting post from my King David thread, which I quote below:

This sounds like a convoluted fringe theory that creates more problems than it solves and is only feasible by dispensing with a good deal of evidence. It appears to reject the extensive body of evidence on Peter's existence and role in early Christianity but favors the existence of a personage of whom there is virtually no evidence whatsoever. Although the claim is that this person was systematically erased from Christian history (a la Akhenaten) and replaced by the fictive Peter, this cannot be assumed a priori -- there has to be some "probable cause" to reason that this is the case and justify the rejection of otherwise relevant evidence. There is quite a bit of evidence on Mary Magdalene, slender though it is, and her relationship with Jesus, but that there was another woman?? Maybe I'm wrong, but it looks to me like she exists only because Mary Magdalene cannot be posited as the person Peter replaces since the two are clearly distinguished in the gospel narratives. I know she is posited because she would be cast as the "betrayer" in the gospels, but that's a stipulation necessary to make the theory work that's not based on any external evidence. Even more serious is that the "betrayal" is taken as a historical matter of fact, which then forms the basis of claiming that the fictive character of "Peter" and then "Judas Iscariot" were invented to camouflage the identity of Jesus' actual historical betrayer, when historians recognize that (like most material in the passion narrative) the betrayal at the Last Supper is based on OT exegetical traditions (in this case, exegesis of Psalm 41:9) and is thus not historical. What is more, "Judas" is obviously original to the story because the betrayal is modelled on the story of Joseph's betrayal by his eleven other brothers in Genesis 37:26-28 wherein Judah (i.e. "Judas" in Greek) convinces his brothers to turn over Joseph to the Ishmaelites and they are paid twenty pieces of silver.

The notion that Cephas and Peter were different people does have some slender patristic support. According to the fourth century historian Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 200) in the fifth book of his Hypotyposeis claimed that "Cephas was one of the seventy disciples, a man who bore the same name as the apostle Peter," and later tradition by the fourth century Dorotheus of Tyre and others made him the bishop of Iconium or Colophon. Unfortunately, the Hypotyposeis has been lost and it is uncertain whether Eusebius was quoting or paraphrasing (accurately or inaccurately) Clement. It is generally thought that the designation of Cephas as someone other than Peter of the Roman church was motivated by the desire to distinguish the orthodox Peter from the "Judaizing" Petrine traditions of the Ebionites (which also circulated under the name of Peter, as Clement also attests), and also to smooth over the differences between the Paulinists and the orthodox followers of Peter -- especially in light of Paul's dispute with Cephas in Galatians 2. Galatians 2:7-8, which switches the name from Cephas to Peter, might well be an interpolation since textual evidence shows that the name elsewhere in the epistle varies between Cephas and Peter in the different manuscripts (1:18, 2:9, 11, 14), while in 2:7-8 the name is consistently Peter. The theory is that after the two verses mentioning "Peter" were added, later copyists tried to harmonize the other occurrence of Cephas with it -- producing the variation between the two names in manuscripts. Plus the content takes the form of a paranthetical gloss. The interpolation theory is quite plausible in this case but it does not show that Cephas and Peter were different people. First of all, the Cephas in Paul's apologia in Galatians 2:11-13 and the Peter in Acts 10:28, 11:1-18 and especially 15:1-12 (the "men from Judea" and "certain friends of James" being the same people who "insisted on circumcision" in both Acts 15:1-2 and Galatians 2:12) are almost surely the same person. Second, Cephas wasn't a small potato if Paul refers to "James, Cephas and John" as "these leaders, these pillars" (Galatians 2:9), and interestingly in Acts, Simon Peter is frequently paired with John (Acts 3:1-26, 4:1-31, 8:14, etc.) and once with James (15:1-21), just as Paul is paired with Barnabas in Galatians 2:9 and Acts 13:46, 50; 14:3, 12; 15:22. Clement of Rome (c. A.D. 95) writing in 1 Clement 5:2-4 alluded to Galatians 2:9 when he referred to Peter as one of the "most righteous pillars [stuloi]," the same word in Galatians 2:9. This indicates that Clement understood that Cephas and Peter were the same person, just as the interpolator to Galatians 2 did as well. Third, the reference to Cephas in 1 Corinthians 15:5 as the first to witness the risen Christ before "the Twelve" matches the account in Luke 24:34 which states that just before Jesus appears to the Eleven, the Eleven announce: "The Lord has risen and appeared to Simon." Although Mark does not have a resurrection appearance, Jesus promises Peter that "after my resurrection I shall go before you in Galilee" (Mark 14:28) and the messenger in Mark 16:7 again promises an appearance to Peter in Galilee. The appearance to Peter in Galilee in John 21 may also reproduce the same tradition, and though the ending is lost, the Gospel of Peter also introduces the same Galilee apperance and presents it as the first resurrection apperance (GPeter 14:58-60). 1 Corinthians 15:5 thus furnishes strong support for regarding Cephas and Simon Peter as the same person. Fourth, the independent tradition in John 1:42 explicitly identifies Cephas with Simon Peter. Fifth, there are minor details -- such as both Cephas and Peter being married (Mark 1:30; 1 Corinthians 9:5). Sixth, most significantly and obviously, the names are virtual synonyms both meaning "rock" in Aramaic and Greek respectively (cf. Aramaic kaifa "rock," Greek petros "rock," as in English petroleum and petrify), and onomastic evidence shows that Cephas and Peter were execeedingly rare as names outside the Bible and so the probability that two separate people bore the same name, one in Greek and the other in Aramaic, is quite remote. It is a legitimate question of how much of "Peter" may be a legendary elaboration (in the gospels, in Acts, in later apocryphal works) of the historical Cephas, but I question on the basis of the above that "Peter" arose first as a separate personality from Cephas to mask someone else's identity.

Leaving aside for a moment the implausible notion that Peter was an early Eastern creation to obscure the identity of Jesus' betrayer, Eastern evidence is quite decisive against the idea of "Peter" as purely a Western, orthodox creation. The Gospel of Thomas attests the name "Simon Peter" as one of the Twelve (cf. GThom 13:2, 114:1) who ranks among Matthew, Mary, Salome, and Thomas as the disciples who converse with Jesus and to whom Jesus dispenses his secret wisdom. The Apocryphon of James knows "Peter" (cf. Apoc. Jas. 3:10; 9:1), the proto-docetic Gospel of Peter knows "Simon Peter" (GPeter 14:60), the Fayyum Fragment attests "Peter," and the Gospel of the Ebionites refers to "Simon whose surname was Peter" (GEbi 1). Even more interesting is the fact that Tatian the Syrian's gospel harmony, the Diatesseron (c. A.D. 170), refers to "Simon Cephas" (54:23) -- representing a separate Syrian tradition identifying Cephas with Simon. The Kerygmata Petrou is a second-century commentary on traditional Jewish-Christian teaching that was preserved by Clement of Alexandria and originated most likely in Syria. The Jewish-Christian outlook is strongly Ebionite, viewing Jesus as a prophet recommending limited levitical observance and castigating Paul as an "enemy" of the Church. This is an important source for understanding the significance of Peter in the Ebionite communities of Syria and their esteem of the Petrine tradition over the Pauline. And though the Peter of the Gospel of Thomas and the later Gospel of Mary serves somewhat as a foil for orthodox authority, he also appears as an authority figure in Eastern non-orthodox Christianity and the simplest explanation is that the primitive Jewish-Christian traditions of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt knew him as well. And what motivation would the gnostics, the Jewish Christians, and others had to replace some shadowy female personality with Peter when they were the very ones who rejected inherent male authority and looked to Mary and Salome as important sources of revelation? With their esteem for female revelation, would they have been more likely to preserve the original female identity of Peter -- or even hint at it? Instead, the Gospel of Thomas has Peter asking Jesus: "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life" (GThom 114:1). The rivalry between Peter and Mary in the Gospel of Mary also has a sexist basis when Peter questions why "the Savior has spoken secretly to a woman and not openly so that we would all hear? Surely he did not wish to indicate that she is more worthy than we are?" (GMary 10:3-4). How indeed could these Eastern gnostics base their critique of Western male dominance on a figure who was known to be a female as well -- unless that knowledge had been replaced very early on, even before the early traditions found in the Gospel of Thomas which reflect a time when James the Just was viewed as the central figure of authority. Moreover there is absolutely no trace of the idea that the "Peter" of the gnostic and Jewish-Christian gospels had anything to do with Jesus' betrayal. This should be surprising since (1) their conceptions of the apostles drew less on orthodox characterizations and more on their own traditions and (2) they knew nothing of Judas Iscariot. Indeed, the reference to resurrection appearances to the Eleven in Matthew 28:16, Mark 16:14 (the non-Markan addition), Luke 24:9, 33, Acts 1:26, 2:14 and not the Twelve is dependent on the secondary Betrayal story, but earlier statements such as that by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5 and Jewish-Christian gnostic works like Gospel of Peter 14:59 and the Apocryphon of James 2:1-2 mention the Twelve instead -- indicating a possible unfamiliarity with the Betrayal story.

The evidence from the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Ebionites, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and 2 Peter all attest the compound "Simon Peter" or "Symeon Peter," suggesting that Peter and Simon referred to the same person as well -- the "Simon bar-Jonah" of Matthew 16:17, the Gospel of the Nazoreans 16, and other Jewish-Christian sources. Symeon is also identified with Peter in Acts 15:14, and it simply is a more literal rendering of the Jewish name Shim'on, with the 'ayin indicated by the vowel alternation in the second syllable. This is the form of the name in the LXX (cf. Genesis 29:33), while "Simon" is a preexisting Greek name (attested in Aristophanes' The Clouds, written in 419 BC) that because of its similarity with Shim'on was more popularly used to represent that name as well. Considering the rarity of Peter as a name outside Christian tradition and the stories of nicknames of other apostles (cf. Mark 3:17; Luke 6:15; John 11:16, 20:24), the best explanation is that Peter, or originally Cephas, was a nickname that Simon bar-Jonah had, possibly given by Jesus as Mark 3:16, Matthew 16:18, and John 1:42 claim. The translation of Aramaic names like Cephas into Greek is well-attested in the NT. In addition to the example of Peter, we have the nickname Didymus which is the translation of Aramaic tauma or Thomas "twin" (John 11:16, 20:24, 21:2), Huioi Brontes which is a loose translation of Aramaic bene regez or Boanerges "sons of wrath" (Mark 3:17), Ho Zelotes which translates Aramaic qan'an "the Zealot" (Luke 6:15, Acts 1:13), and Dorkas which translates Aramaic tabyeta or Tabitha (Acts 9:36).

Double names, such as in the case of Levi Matthew, may genuinely represent conflation of different personalities. But in the case especially of Greek names such as Peter or Dorcus, it was not uncommon for Jews in the disapora to have two or more names. The best known example is that of Saul of Tarsus, who after his conversion adopted the Greek name Paul (< Gk. paulos "small"). Like Peter, Saul was primarily known among the Gentiles under his Greek-derived name, but Luke -- writing of a time long after Paul's conversion -- still refers to the apostle as "Saul who was also known as Paul" [Saulos de, ho kai Paulos] (Acts 13:9), a construction that is reminiscent of "Simon who is called Peter" [Simona ho legemenos Petros] in Matthew 10:2 (cf. Acts 10:18) and especially "Thomas who is also called Didymus" [Thomas ho kai Didumos] in Acts of Thomas 1. Paul gives another example in Colossians 4:11 where he sends the greetings of "Jesus who is also called Justus" [Iesous ho legomenos Ioustos], again an instance of a Semitic name paired with a Greek nickname. The ultimate example of this, incidentally, is that of "Jesus, who is called Christ" [Iesous ho legemenos Khristos] (Matthew 1:16). The predominant use of a nickname like Peter or Cephas by Simon bar-Jonah is also totally understandable since Simon was one of the most common names of the time among Jewish males.

The thing that clinches it for me, I think, is the parallel with Judas Thomas. Like the case of Peter, we have an original Jewish name (Simeon, Judas) that receives an Aramaic nickname (Cephas, Thomas), that is then rendered into Greek (Peter, Didymus). The Gospel of Thomas 1:1 thus refers to "Didymus Judas Thomas," the Acts of Thomas refers to "Judas Thomas" (10, 11), "Judas Thomas the apostle" (54), "Judas who is also called Thomas" [Ioudas ho kai Thomas] (20, 21), and "Judas Thomas who is also called Didymus" [Ioudas Thomas ho kai Didumos] (1), John 11:16 refers to "Thomas who was called Didymus" [Thomas ho legomenos Didumos] (cf. also John 14:5, 20:24-28, 21:2), and finally the Syriac translation of John 14:22 reads "Thomas" in place of "Judas, not Iscariot," understanding "Judas" as Thomas' given name. Conflation with another Judas is possible in later stories that designate Judas Thomas as the twin brother of Jesus (Acts of Thomas 11), on the basis of a Judas being the brother of Jesus and James in Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55 and the mention of "Judas the brother of James" in Jude 1, suggested especially by the existence of a separate tradition that makes Thomas the twin brother of Thaddeus.

So in short, I'm extremely skeptical of the hypothesis that Peter was originated to cover up the identity of Jesus' betrayer and wife (who, if Jesus had one, would have probably been Mary), and while the notion that there were two people named Cephas or Peter holds more water I am ultimately persuaded that the Cephas Paul knew was the same figure as the Peter of the Gospels. A more plausible theory, in my opinion, is that Simon Peter's mission was mainly to Syria and Asia Minor, overlapping somewhat with Paul, and some people sided with Paul and others with Peter (1 Corinthians 1:12). Peter's teaching was more traditionally Jewish-Christian than that of Paul, and was more under the conservative influence of James the Just than Paul (Galatians 2:11-14). One possibility that this Peter visited Rome as Paul did and was caught up in the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64. Another possibility is that one of Peter's disciples adopted his teacher's nickname and became an early leader of the Roman Church (this is on partial analogy with John the Presbyter and Apostle John, who both lived in Ephesus), and he was the one responsible for 1 Peter (which postdates the Neronian persecution) and the Roman Petrine tradition. Then, just like in the cases of Apostle John and John the Presbyter and Apostle Philip and Philip the Evangelist, this second Peter was confused with the apostle and was used to ideologically establish the authority of Western orthodoxy. The Syrian Jewish-Christian churches, among whom the original Peter had evangelized, reacted to this by either emphasizing the name of Peter as the source of their tradition (such as in the Kerygmata Petrou) or emphasizing their founder as someone distinct from the Roman Peter. This is just a hypothesis, but it explains a lot more than the other theory -- especially how the those in the Eastern churches identified Cephas with Simon and promulgated Ebionite Cephas-type traditions under Peter's name.

The Matthean tradition in Matthew 16:17, which was used be the Western churches to assert their priority, likely originated in this same Syrian context where Q and proto-Matthew developed. The story, when viewed in a Jewish-Christian context, actually means something other than what the orthodoxy purports it to mean. It is drawing on the same exegetical tradition of Numbers 23:9 as found in later rabinnical literature, which states: "Upon Abraham as top of the rocks God said I shall build my kingdom" (Mishnah Yalk. 1.766). The tradition also occurs in Hebrews 11:8-10 which relates that "it was faith that Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country ... [living] in tents while he looked forward to a city founded, designed, and built by God." The likening of Abraham to the rock on which Zion was built (cf. "from the tops of rocks I see [God]," Numbers 23:9) was ultimately inspired by Isaiah 28:16 where Yahweh promises to rebuild the Temple and "lay in Zion a stone of witness, a precious cornerstone, a foundation stone" (cf. 2 Chronicles 3:1). This notion, and the figurative application to the words "temple" and "foundation stone" to certain people, finds its expression elsewhere in the same Gospel where Matthew has Jesus cite this Isaiah 28:16 to refer to refer to himself (21:42) and Jesus then mentions figuratively the rebuilding of the Temple in 26:61. Like Abraham, those with true faith and righteousness serve as the foundation stones, walls, and pillars of the Kingdom of God and the formation of a following of believers of the Kingdom is like the building of a Temple where God may dwell with his believers as he dwells in the literal Temple (Matthew 23:21). It is exactly in this same sense that the Qumrun Community Rule refers to believers as "the temple for Israel and ... Holy of Holies ... the tested wall, the precious cornerstone whose foundations shall never be shaken nor swayed" (8:5-9). Matthew has Jesus declare Simon bar-Jonah as "the rock" right when he confesses Jesus as the Christ -- it is his faith that turns him into a foundation stone. The story may have itself originated in an Aramaic-speaking context, where the words "I shall build" (ybny) in Matthew 16:18 probably constitute a pun on "stone" (bn) -- a pun that was lost when the story was written in Greek.

The story thus declares Simon Peter as a believer, and in its current form delegates authority to Peter by giving Peter "the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (16:19). This focus on authority, especially the giving of the keys of heaven, is probably a secondary feature of the pericope. In the Gospel of Thomas version of the same story, Jesus gives secret wisdom to the confessor -- not authority (13:1-8). The focus on authority probably developed later on as it became more important to appeal to apostolic authority. The saying on "binding and loosing" is separately attested in Matthew 18:18 and here it is given to all the disciples and has nothing to do with a particular individual's authority but refers to the authority of the whole body of followers to permit and forbid what they see fit. "Binding and loosing" is actually a rabbinical term that refers to the power to "forbid and permit" and conceptually derives from the belief of the Law tying up or releasing a forbidden object from divine censure. It was used by the Sanhedrin to express their authority over interpretation of the Law. Rejecting the authority of such "official" law-givers, Jesus instead declares that his followers have the authority to discipline and forgive others, regardless of the official penalties. But Jesus makes absolutely clear that this authority does not exalt any particular follower over others:

It does not appear likely, then, that the original meaning involved an exaltation of Peter. There is some evidence that the earlier story about the naming of "Peter" had a different context. The naming story in Matthew 16 occurs in a sort of competition among the disciples to best characterize Jesus and Peter is singled out by his faith -- this gives him precedence over the disciples. John's version of the naming story however occurs in an altogether different context: Peter was named at his conversion, and he and his brother Andrew were among the very first discples of Jesus (John 1:40-42). This context fits even better with the "cornerstone" motif -- Peter, as one of the very first disciples, is declared the foundation stone simply because he is the forerunner of those who would later join the movement. It is quite possible, then, that the earlier version of the naming story had Jesus declare Peter his "foundation stone" because he was one of the earliest followers, and later this story was dislocated, embellished, and moved to a point later on in Jesus' ministry in order to exalt Peter as the foremost of the apostles Jesus had chosen. This earlier version may itself be unhistorical and the name could have arisen from the fact that "Cephas", the "Rock," was the first or one of the first to witness the risen Christ and thus had a significant role in getting the "Church" started; on this view, Peter might have been given his nickname by his converts who saw him as the foundation of the new, growing Church -- in much the same way as Paul calls Cephas one of the "pillars" of the Church (Galatians 2:9). But of course, the reasons behind the name are probably lost to history.

That's it.  I'm not going to Church tomorrow.... I'm just going to read your posts.  (very, very interesting...thanks!)

Very interesting indeed. however if you reread my sloppy post you copied here you may see that all your objections are indirectly addressed. First i suggested that the scenes were part of a protoGnostic NOVEL-like story. A standard greek tradgedy with romance and jealosy and betrayal. These scenes were adopted and very soon modified to new needs. It is not suggested that Peter and Cephas are two separat characters in the stories, rather the oposite, that Peter assimilated the Cephas character as well as others in specific pericopes like the reworked Garden scene. Likewise, that MaryM and Peter are found in the same setting does nothing to the theory. The theory is complicated and of course depends a great deal upon subjective "radical' criticism as you suggest. it does however offer solution to some real problems such as the to many "Marys" problem. (another time) It possibly illuminates theGnostic traditions about Mary M. it may also explain the indignent and extremely 'familiar' tone of voice of Martha in her dialogues with her "Lord" and Savior. Sarcasm at the resurrection of L scene (which was possibly originally a resurrection of lover MM, "wept..see how much he loved ..." changed to Lazarus, a name pulled from the R man and L parable) and ordering him at the meal in Lazarus' house scene. She may be the wife!



Now mind you I am not an advocate of this theory, i just posted it because it is interesting and has many "literary" legs to stand on. Myself I find the Lazarus resurrection scene quite easily understood as a Jewish version of the very ancient Egyptian story of Horus ( a sun god) reanimating the mummified body of El-Azarus (first vowels often dropped in semitizing process) after 4 days when petitioned by his two sisters in Bethanu (as opposed to the unidentified Bethany) Egypt. But thats the mythicist in me. However I am open to the possibilty that perhaps both are right and the Egyptian tale offered a convenient framework for reworking the resurrection of MM story retaing only it's odd dialogue.



Anyway back to Peter...His appearance is not as late as you seem to think i was suggesting. i am not surprised for example that he appears in the extent GThomas. Even assuming this was not a later interpolation as well it can be accomodated. i did suggest that perhaps the first/second generation Ebionites had him in their form of Matt. i don't know this to be the case I just supposed it because it would be consistant with the disguising of Jesus love interests (according to the reconstruction) . Without the later embellishments of the proto orthodox he was not a threat to them. remember the standard model for Xtian origins among the Radical critics and Mythicists is that the jewish adoption of a version of the Jesus legend was secondary. The proto-orthodox evolved largely from the mystery end of things only later forging a kind of syncretism with the Jewish messianists.



I don't know that there is enuf to assertively offer any reconstruction, but I like to listen to the fringe now and then as this is where the creativity and excitement is.

Double Edge.....Great!! I'm glad someone else than just Pete and I are reading this stuff!

My thinking on this issue, btw, was recently inspired by the brand-new book PETER: THE MYTH, THE MAN, AND THE WRITINGS: A STUDY OF EARLY PETRINE TEXT AND TRADITION by F. Lapham (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003). It's worth checking out because it gives a helpful overview of some of the obscure texts like the Kerygmata Petrou, the Pseudo-Clementines, and the Gospel of Peter, and discusses the importance of Peter in the Jewish-Christian Ebionite community, as well as within Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity.

Here's from the blurb: "This book critically examines all the early and important Petrine pseudepigrapha to identify a distinctive Petrine theology which, it is believed, was later swamped by the tide of western orthodoxy. Despite the diversity of the books and tractates, ranging from Jewish-Christian writings to avowedly Gnostic works, a remarkably consistent Petrine tradition does emerge; and Peter is shown essentially to be neither the impetuous, undiscerning, and even vacillating figure portrayed in the Gospels and Acts, nor the magisterial and pontifical figure of later Church tradition, but a visionary who was concerned above all to hold together both the moral and cognitive aspects of the Faith."

 

Hi Pete,

I don't know if I quite have your point of view (especially since I haven't read what you have read), and I'm going to depart from it anyway, but let's presume for the sake of argument that the Cephas that Paul knew is indeed the Peter of Acts and church tradition (e.g. the first who saw the resurrected Christ and who later evangelized in Syria and Asia Minor), but this guy (let's just call him "Cephas") was a separate fellow from the "Simon" of the Gospels who himself masks a female character in an early novelistic story about Jesus who was the jealous wife of Jesus who betrayed him, denied him, and yada yada yada. Then, before the current Gospels were written, the Cephas-Peter person was identified with this fictional character and a new character, Judas Iscariot, was created to handle the betrayal part. Is that close enough? The problem, again, is that the Betrayal story centrally involved Judas and not anyone else because the story was lifted from the tale of Judah (Judas) and Joseph in Genesis. Moreover, the various pericopes that were stitched together to form the Passion narrative of Jesus' arrest, trial, and execution were based exegetical traditions of a wholly different nature and origin than the miracle stories (like the resurrection of Lazarus), and thus I would view it very unlikely that an "original novelistic narrative" can be reconstructed from these heterogenous traditions that originally had little to do with each other. Furthermore, the composition of such a romance strikes me as literarily foreign to the early gospel literature where the emphasis was promulgating Jesus' words and deeds -- even in the case of the passion narrative, the point was not to write a Greek-style tragedy but to prove how Jesus fulfilled prophecy to become the promised Christ. Even the gnostic interest in Mary's relationship with Jesus in the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary is marginal and incidental to overall story; it exists only to validate the reliability of Mary's relevation through her personal relationship -- it is the secret knowledge she imparts that is of focal interest.

Your interpretation of the Lazarus story tries to reconstruct from it the original version involving a resurrection of Mary Magdalene, but the reconstruction involves secondary elements (e.g. the proper names, the conversations between Jesus and Martha) that could not have been original to the story. This is knowable because an independent version of the same story is found in Secret Mark and bits from it are also scattered throughout the canonical Gospel of Mark (which itself is an abridged version of Secret Mark). Secret Mark shares a few striking features with John 11 (such as the locale in Bethany, the sister of the deceased man beseeching Jesus, and the motif of love between Jesus and the man he resurrects), but it cannot be dependent on John 11 because there are no traces of the rather extensive Johannine redaction and it also contains many other elements (such as the man being rich, as well as naked except for a linen cloth, Jesus teaching him secret knowledge, etc.) missing in the Johannine version. The two stories, then, derive independently from a common (likely oral) source, each reflecting their own idiosyncratic adaptations.

I suspect though that the story in Secret Mark is closer to the original version. The resurrected person in Secret Mark is the same "young man" who appears in Mark 10:17-22 and 14:51-52, and like Lazarus, Jesus is said to "love him" (Mark 10:21; John 11:36). The miracle story probably derived originally from a parable (similar to how the Parable of the Sower inspired the Abundant Harvest miracle story in Infancy Thomas 12:1-2), specifically the Parable of the Rich Fool. This is a parable, incidentally, that is missing from Mark and Q and occurs only in Luke and the Gospel of Thomas:

The "young man" that died in the Secret Mark story was specified as "rich," and this is confirmed in the fact that he had his own "tomb" (note that Lazarus in John 11 also has a "tomb," implying he was rich as well). Now just a few verses earlier in Secret Mark we read about a "rich young man" who asked Jesus what he needed to do "to inherit eternal life" (cf. Mark 10:17-22; Matthew 19:16-22). Jesus instructs him to sell everything and give his money to poor and he would be saved, but the youth turns away sad because he has a lot of money and he cannot part with it. Jesus then tells his disciples how hard it is for those with riches to enter the Kingdom of God, and his disciples ask him if anyone at all then could be saved. Jesus tells them: "For men it is impossible, but not for God because everything is possible for God" (cf. Mark 10:27). Then just a few verses later, the rich youth dies. By raising him back to life, Jesus proves that indeed all things are possible with God (in the Johannine version, Jesus similarly says: "Whatever you ask of God, God will give you," John 11:22). In this light, the miracle story would be a dramatization of the parable with a "happy ending," furnishing Jesus with the grandest of miracles (proving his supernatural power over Hades) and illustrating how indeed "everything is possible with God".

Another hint that the story originated in the parable tradition may be found in the Johannine version, where the deceased man is named as Lazarus (John 11:1). This name occurs elsewhere only in the Parable of Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), and this story shares some curious links with the Parable of the Rich Fool and the miracle story derived from it. Here we find the same two themes juxtaposed together: wealth in the figure of the "rich man" and death, which results in the man's loss of his wealth. The "rich man" is also dressed in "fine linen," which recalls the linen cloth the youth wore in Secret Mark (cf. also Mark 14:51-52). The "sumptuous feasting" mentioned in the Rich Man and Lazarus parable also recalls the intent to "eat, drink, and be merry" in the Rich Fool parable (Luke 16:19; 12:19). But most strikingly, the rich man in the parable desires to be "raised from the dead" (Luke 16:27-31) whereas the rich man in the miracle story is indeed raised from the dead. There is even a remote possibility that the Rich Man and Lazarus parable was composed to relate what happened to the rich man while he was dead before Jesus resurrected him. The switch from Lazarus being the name of the pauper to the name of the rich man is an interesting complexity, and might have something to do with the fact that the protagonist of the parable was the pauper whereas the protagonist of the miracle story was a rich man.

Since the subject of the Parable of the Rich Fool, the Parable of Rich Man and Lazarus, the Secret Mark resurrection pericope, and the Gospel of John resurrection pericope were all rich men, I don't see how the original subject of the story could be identified as Mary Magdalene -- especially since the Mary character in the John 11 version (who, incidentally, is presented as another Mary) is likely a secondary element and not part of the earliest stratum of the story.

As for the possibility of pagan, especially Egyptian, influence, this seems quite plausible considering that the Johannine version functions as the climax to the Semeia Source incorporated into GJohn, and the first miracle in the collection -- the wine miracle at the wedding feast of Cana (John 2:1-11) -- quite transparently borrows the motif from the Greek god Dionysos. Not all the miracles can be similarly traceable; the fourth miracle of the catenae, the feeding of the multitude, derives clearly from 2 Kings 4:42-44. The Horus-Osiris parallels are genuine, but I would find it far more likely that the influence was indirect -- through motifs drawn from mystery cults -- rather than direct. This is where I react with dubiousness towards the posited etymology of Lazarus from a purported El-Azarus as some sort of attested version of El-Osiris, though I haven't yet seen any attested examples of this name (with the El-Azarus spelling) from ancient sources. Do you have any citations? The actual etymology of the name, as far as I know, involves Hebrew Eleazar which in the Septuagint and Josephus is often rendered Eleazaros [< Elazaros < Lazaros] (cf. 2 Maccabees 6:18).  The etymological meaning of the name as "God helps" is especially fitting for the resurrection story, particularly in light of John 11:22 saying that "God will give to you whatever you ask of [him]."

So you mean to tell me that all this damn time, the catholic church has based their entire apostolic successions on a psuedo man named Peter, who wasn't the man we thought he was?  Damn!  I'm taking my rosary down to the cathedrial tomarrow, and wrapping it around "the fathers" neck........that lying bastard!

Gumby

This is more a fringe-related topic than anything. I am reading a book about the "Lost Scriptures" and in it some ancient works from Christianity's beginning and early centuries are discussed. Some were recently discovered and others were known, just disregarded.

Now some of these Epistles/Letters/Gospels/ Apocalypses were included in the early bible. After they were later removed, did they become "un-inspired" writings? Like being taken out of what eventually became the bible we have today removed their pedigree? If all writings of the bible are supposedly inspired, what makes some better then others? And "inspired" also doesn't mean "dictated" so I've always thought that that left a whole lot or room for human error and bias.

The final form of today's bible wasn't completed for a few centuries (I think?) so how do previously inspired writings get tossed and other inspired writings make the cut? I thought this thread with you who seem obviously  well-schooled in these matters might be  good place to get some intelligent opinions.

Thanks,

Robert

I enjoyed this thread, Leoalia, though I am not sure if I can add anything intelligent.  Just as five witnesses can give a different account of the same car accident, the farther we get from history, the less reliable the telling.  Even less reliable is the scholarly dissection of those witness statements 2000 years later.

Leolaia..You may be right. and again I pose this as merely a piece of the puzzle needing to fit the others. However the exegetical use and reuse of the separate resurrection and arrest stories has little to do with the original context they were found in. The novel-like origin of some of these is not as improbable as it may seem. Sponge Brown and a host of others see the overall layout of the Mattean gospel as written in theatrical stayle with intention of reinactment. The relationship of Acts/Luke to Homeric literature has been observed for years. While these are not directly related they demonstrate the use of novel type structure. Also the idea of the arrest story derived from OT midrash is not necessarily imcompatible with an earlier second source from a novel-like unrelated source likely understood allegorically. They are complementary if viewed as layers in the developement of the story. I agree of course with the Horus tale not necessarily being directly sourced for the two to be related motifs. Kind of like the Matrix and Jesus stories. (tho the details seem to suggest access to the egyptian)



This is possibly the best answer. The Egyptian motif was overlain on an existing tale of resurrection for both political and exegetical reasons. Mary M that lover had to go and the resurrrection doctrine literalized thru the inclusion of additional temporal details. I recently read the translation of the Horus El Osiris story and can provide a link later. The El Azarus form has not been explained other than it being a phonetic Semitism, with the E being later dropped to Lazarus. i can not speak of the accurateness of this as I know nothing about languges that I have not read from others. It would seem possible to prove as Osiris must have been refered to in jewish literature. Tho i have no idea where to look.



We're not really disagreeing we are seeing different angles.

I meant to add the thought about the use of existing OT or Pagan myth as framwork for rewriting of source stories, that this no doubt added weight and familiarity to the rewritten form. Your reference to Judah being the model for the Judas arrest story is very likely true. This however does not suggest that the story was not a rewrite of an earlier arrest story that had a woman (Martha?) as the betrayer. (kiss very tenderly..... what are you doing here? Matt 26:49,50) This seems to contradict the rewrite that Jesus foreknew the arrest that night and that judas in the image of Judah was the betrayer.

Just another thought on the SMark version of the resurrection scene. It may in fact be an intermediate form between the hypothesized Martha (wife) resurection and the final L version. Note that there is only 1 woman MM a sister of the dead one and that Jesus is very teed-off at her. Sh is rebuked by his groupies as well. Why? Did she delay in sending to Jesus when her sister fell sick? Also the very intimate affection eventht e suggestion of sexual behavior between the resurrected one and Jesus is best explained as betweeen Husband and wife reunited. the issues of Jesus sexual orientation resulting from this awkward and clumsy early rewrite probably motivated the further work that eliminated all the references to intimacy and placed Martha with MM as sisters of the dead man.

Man I wish i could edit from home! I just realized I reversed the MM and Martha characters in the resurrection scene. MM died and was raised by Jesus and intimacy (as consistant with a girlfriend/lover) folowed. Martha was the one who begrudgingly sent for Jesus and was rebuked by him. MM was later recast as the second sister of lazarus. This is consistant with the name Martha in S Mark and the motive in the betrayal in the garden scene later.

Leolaia

What am I, chopped meat, the invisible man?

All kidding aside, I read with great interest both your posts, and those of PP. I don't answer or comment frequently because I don't consider myself in your league. I don't have the depth or breadth of knowledge that you have shown, but it is not too late to learn. Both of you have been an inspiration and a source of sorely needed knowledge.

Faraon

My point is not that the stories were interpreted or expanded through the exegetical tradition but that this haggadic tradition was essential to the very composition of these stories (just as in the case of the stories in rabbinical tradition).  I see no evidence, or at best very slender evidence, for an "original context" outside this tradition that was then embellished; in a nutshell, the very plot of the stories originated in the exegetical tradition, along with many of their motifs.  One needs only to look to the story of King David's betrayal by Absalom and Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 15-17 to find the whole arrest and betrayal narrative arc from the Passion Narrative, with other stories and literary motifs from the OT combining such as the story I mentioned earlier of Joseph's betrayal by Judah for twenty pieces of silver in Genesis.  Removing these motifs and narrative elements from the Passion Narrative, there doesn't appear to be much that needs to be attributed to a hypothetical "original context".

The Epistle of Barnabas shows most clearly that the exegetical interpretation precedes the composition of the story.  In ch. 7, the author develops an allegorical interpretation of the scapegoat ritual in Leviticus 16 as a typological foreshadowing of Jesus and attends to certain details of the ritual that forges links with other scriptures which are then recruited to reinforce the interpretation.  This analysis produces all sorts of details about the scoraging and mocking of Jesus -- some of which are reproduced in the Synoptic narrative, others which are found in the Johannine version and not in the Synoptic, while all of them are present in the Gospel of Peter version which reads almost like a tissue of motifs drawn from exegesis.  Barnabas is entirely reliant on his exegetical method and shows no dependence on any preformed narrative; the situation appears to be the other way around.

Another striking example of this process can be found in Hebrews 9:12-14, which is dependent on the scapegoat ritual of Numbers 19 and Deuteronomy 21 by positing Jesus as the innocent heifer that is killed to forgive the nation for the murder of innocents: "He has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption for us.  The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkled on those who have incurred defilement and they restore the holines of their outward lives; how much more effectively the blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God."  The levitical language in this passage derives right from Numbers 19:1-10.  The parallel instructions in Deuteronomy 21:1-9 are also used to construct the scene of Pontius Pilate washing his hands of Jesus' execution in Matthew 27.  The Deuteronomy text in the LXX reads:

Now in the narrative in Matthew 27, Pilate is accompanied with the "high priests and the elders," just as in Deuteronomy.   The hand-washing incident is literarily dependent on both Deuteronomy and Psalm 26:5-6, which is itself dependent on Deuteronomy:

The formula used by Pilate corresponds to that used in the psalms while the guilt of the people in their response mocks the prayer described in the ritual.  It is ironic how the Christian charge of Jewish blood-guilt for the execution of Jesus derives ultimately from a solemn prayer designed to absolve the nation of such guilt.  It is interesting, moreover, how different gospel writers drew on different passages to contruct Pilate's dialogue.  For instance, Pilate's declaration of innocence in the Gospel of Peter has different wording from Psalm 26: "I am clean (ego kathareuo) from the blood of the Son of God" (Gospel of Peter 11:46).  This declaration actually derives almost verbatim from Daniel 13:46: "I am clean (katharos) from the blood of this woman."  The Gospel of Peter and Matthew both clearly draw on the same exegetical tradition, but each gospel writer developed the interpretation of Deuteronomy 21:6-8 in a different way, deriving dialogue from different literary sources.  The exegetical interpretation is prior to the specific composition of the narratives.  There are many, many other interesting examples like these in the literature.

 

Thanks for this fascinating thread. Although PP's substitution theory (interestingly bringing some "light comedy" into the usually tragic Gospel picture) was somewhat over my head at first sight, I enjoyed the debate very much.

I'm pretty convinced now that the concurrence of Cephas and Peter in Galatians is better explained by interpolation (which, in turn, sheds some light on the complex history of the Pauline corpus I am just beginning to consider) than by two existing characters in the first century (as still hold by Bart D. Ehrman, Cephas and Peter, in Journal of Biblical Literature 109/3 [1990] p. 463-74). What remains, IMO, is the following: when the Peter character eventually appeared in Mark (either because Cephas came to be called Peter, or by independent literary creation which later absorbed the Cephas tradition), it appeared as a remarkably empty shell which could be filled by all kinds of Christian material: postpauline in 1 Peter, protocatholic in 2 Peter, judeo-christian or gnostic in extra-canonical writings.

First of all, Jesus was not asking Judas why he was there in Matthew 26:50 because it is not in the form of a question.  Literally, what Jesus says is: "Friend, on what you are here" (hetaire, eph' ho parei), and ho is a relative pronoun and is never used in Greek to introduce a direct question; an interrogative such as ti "for what reason" is what is used instead in such questions (e.g. Ti elthate pros me "Why did you come to me?", Genesis 26:27, LXX).  This is why translators tend to treat the sentence as an imperative but with the verb deleted (possibly through a scribal error), meaning "[do that] on what you are here".  This is suggested also by a similar saying of Jesus to Judas in John 13:27 where he tells him, "What you do, do quickly."  John places this saying in the context of the Last Supper where he shows foreknowledge of the betrayal in much the same way as his declaration in Matthew 26:21-24.  Another theory is that eph' ho is an idiom related to the notorious passage in Romans 5:12 which reads "Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, eph' ho death spread to all men because all have sinned."  What is controversial is whether eph' ho designates Adam's sin as the cause of death's spread, meaning "by such means," or whether the phrase is just an expression meaning "and so" or "thus" which doesn't directly denote cause and effect but merely that a situation is subsequent to another.  The evidence for the latter reading is better than the first.  In this light, Jesus' utterance could more simply be read not as a question or a request but rather as a sardonic statement: "Thus you're here" or "And so you're here," which implies that that Judas' presence there was just as expected, the next subsequent event in an unfolding process.  In either case, Jesus does not show surprise at Judas' betrayal -- quite the opposite in fact is implied.

Now about that kiss -- from what you wrote, I gather that designating a woman as the betrayer resolves a problem of why a man is giving Jesus such a "tender kiss".  But the text as it reads is only to be expected from the OT sources that are used to construct the narrative.  I refer again to the story of King David's betrayal in 2 Samuel 14-17.  The connection between David and Jesus, the Davidic Messiah, is obvious throughout the interpretive tradition.  In the original story, David is betrayed by his son Absalom who launches his revolt by exchanging a kiss with him (2 Samuel 14:33).  Absalom however is assisted in his revolt by one of David's most trusted counselors, Ahithophel, who conspires with Absalom to remove David from the throne (2 Samuel 15:12, 31).  It is Ahithophel who most clearly resembles the Judas of the gospel tradition.  Like Jesus, David flees during the night across the Kidron ravine (2 Samuel 15:23 = John 18:1), and goes to the Mount of Olives (2 Samuel 15:30 = Mark 14:26), where he prays to God and weeps (2 Samuel 15:30-32 = Mark 14:32-34).  David is accompanied with Ittai the Gittite who refused to leave him and who, like Peter, swore an oath to never forsake him (2 Samuel 15:19-31 = Mark 14:27-31).  David tells two of his companions, Abiathar and Zadok, that he is ready to accept whatever fate God gives him and declares, "Let him do to me what seems good to him," while Jesus tells God in his prayer: "It is not what I want but what you want that matters" (2 Samuel 15:25-26 = Mark 14:36).  Then Ahithophel, David's trusted counselor, meets with Absalom to conspire the capture and assassination of David.  In making his proposal to Absalom, Ahithophel says: "You are only asking for the life of one man, which will bring peace to all the people," and this is strikingly similar to what Caiaphas says when he hatches the plot to have Jesus killed: "It is prudent for you that one man should die for the people, so that the whole nation should not perish" (2 Samuel 17:1-3 = John 11:49-52).  Ahithophel wants to capture David that very night so that "all the people who are with him will take flight, then I shall strike down the king alone," and similarly Jesus cites Zechariah 13:7 which foretells: "I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" (2 Samuel 17:2 = Mark 14:27).  Ahithophel's plan was rejected by Absalom in favor of the advice of Hushai, David's loyal friend, and ashamed of what he did, Ahithophel returns home and hangs himself (2 Samuel 17:5-19, 23 = Matthew 27:3-10). 

On the basis of the above, 2 Samuel 14-17 clearly played a key role in constructing the plot of the Passion narrative.  No clear motivation for Ahithophel's betrayal is stated, other than to bring peace and order (17:3), but Ahithophel clearly wasn't a lover or wife of David or someone who had a personal relationship that ended in jealousy; his role was much closer to Judas, as a trusted confidant of one's inner circle who decided to switch sides and conspire with the enemy.  Joseph's betrayal by Judah, similarly, involved his brother and not a lover, wife, or someone jealous about him loving someone else.  Both these stories suggest that the betrayer was crafted from the beginning as someone like Judas, a fellow brother, a member of Jesus' inner circle of disciples; the idea that Jesus' betrayer was a woman motivated by heart-break and jealousy appears only as an interpretive epiphenomenon suggested only through the combination of originally separate stories in the most recent redacted version of the Gospel of John (where only the story of Lazarus is reported), and not as something that belonged to the earliest strata of the common gospel traditions.  Rather, the trope of a betrayal in the first place follows not from the combination of certain narrative stories in a finished narrative gospel but from the "suffering servant" prophecy in Isaiah 53:12 which claims that "he was handed over to die".   This bare statement was then embellished into a story by adding four principal motifs from the OT.  The first was the claim that the betrayer would gain thirty silver pieces from his conspirators which would later be returned to the Temple.  This motif was derived from two sources: Judah's betrayal of Joseph in Genesis 37:26-38 and the prophecy in Zechariah 11:12-14:

The Genesis account also inspired the name of the betrayer as Judas (Gk. for Judah).  Joseph was sold as a slave for twenty pieces but since Exodus 21:32 mandates the price of a slave as thirty shekels, the latter figure is what is used in Matthew.  The other gospelists only refer to "money".  Matthew also has Judas throw the money back to the priests in the Temple (27:3-10), borrowing the other motif from Zechariah.  Luke, on the other hand, does not draw on either motif from Zechariah and claims that Judas used the money to buy a field (Acts 1:18). The interpretation of these sources, therefore, furnish the story of Judas' conspiracy before the Last Supper and what he did after Jesus' arrest.

The second key element drawn through the exegetical tradition was of the betrayer sharing a meal with Jesus, in this case the last meal.  This was derived directly from Psalm 41:9:

The tradition of the Last Supper and the Eucharist already existed independent of the later Passion narrative, and Psalm 41:9 motivated the addition of the theme of betrayal to the Last Supper tradition. 1 Corinthians 11:23-27 indicates that this happened very early, unless we regard this text as a later interpolation which is possible (the form reproduces almost exactly the Lukan phrasing).  This text thus inspired the story of what happened with Judas during the Last Supper.  The third key element to the betrayal story, as discussed above, was the betrayal of David by Absalom and Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 14-17.  This story provided the plot of what happened in between the Last Supper and Jesus' arrest, as well as the end of Judas' story via suicide.  Finally, the fourth and final element inspired what Judas did during the arrest itself -- that is, the infamous kiss.  There are several literary sources of this motif.  The concept of a traitorous kiss may have been inspired by the proverbs in Proverbs 26:24 and 27:6:

The pairing with kisses and betrayal also occurs repeatedly in 2 Samuel, the source of other elements in the betrayal story.  First, as I already mentioned, Absalom and David kiss immediately before Absalom launches his revolt (2 Samuel 14:33).  Then, while Absalom was hatching his conspiracy against David, he "stole the hearts of the men of Israel" by doing this: "Whenever anyone came up to do homage to him, he would stretch out his hand and take him and kiss him." (2 Samuel 15:5-6).  But the most significant kissing story in 2 Samuel was one that occurs in ch. 20, during a second revolt against David.  According to 2 Samuel 20:2, "all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bichri," and David declares that "Sheba son of Bichri is more dangerous to us than Absalom ever was" (v. 6).  The story therefore parallels somewhat the story of Absalom and Ahithophel.  The former general of Absalom's army, David's nephew Amasa, was appointed by the king to find those in Judah loyal to the king's authority but he was betrayed by his brother Joab who came to him with kisses:

The first verse may be readily compared with Mark 14:45-46: "He immediately went to him saying 'Rabbi!' and kissed him tenderly (kataphilesen).  And they laid hands (tas kheiras) on him, and seized (ekratesan) him."  The wording is very close, even in the use of the intensified verb kataphilesai "to kiss tenderly".  The next verse (v. 47) continues the parallel with its use of language from the first half of 2 Samuel 20:10:  "But then a certain one of those who stood by drew his sword (ten makhairan) and struck (epaisen) the slave of the high priest."  The resemblance between the two texts is exceedingly close. Yet this is not all.  Luke's version of Judas' suicide (Acts 1:18) draws imagery not from Ahithophel's hanging but Amasa's assassination:  "Falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out (kai exekhuthe panta ta splakhna autou).  Even the "falling headlong" part finds inspiration from the Amasa story: according to 2 Samuel 20:8, "the sword came out and fell (kai epesen)." 

I thus see very little in the Judas story that could be projected back to the stage of the narrative traditions that preceded the exegetical interpretation that recruited these motifs and tropes to construct the betrayal story.  At the earliest stage, there could well have been oral traditions about Jesus' betrayer that were independent from the Judas story in the gospels, perhaps even involving a female disciple, and stories based not on exegetical traditions but living memory.  But if any such stories existed, they were early on replaced by the construction of the Judas story from OT traditional materials.

 

Robert, here's my short answer....

The Bible is a collection of diverse writings that did not become a single book, or codex, until the early centuries A.D.  Before that, it was a library of scrolls that varied by community.  The Pharisees had a fairly fixed canon of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings that rejected the later Greek-language apocrypha.  The Jews of the Diaspora reading the Septuagint included the apocrypha and the many early Christians accepted the apocrypha as well.  The Essenes in Palestine combined the Law and Prophets and Writings with their own sectarian documents, as well as pseudepigrapha like 1 Enoch and Jubilees.  The canon of the New Testament also varied, with various churches accepting certain disputed books and other churches rejecting them.  One of the earliest codexes of the entire Bible included 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas.  Eventually the orthodoxy settled on what books were considered scripture and which were not, and for a thousand years the Catholic Church accepted the Old Testament with the apocrypha and the New Testament with its current boundaries, but during the Reformation the Protestants threw out the apocrypha from their Bible so that to this day Catholic Bibles differ from Protestant versions. 

I share your conclusions about the Peter character Narkissos.



I also agree with your last comment Leolaia. And tht was a very educational take on the Matt 26:50 wording, i intend to examine it furthur. The question is: When did the Xtians make such a concerted effort to ground their Christology in the OT? You have posted excellent observations of this having been done, but when was this? Overtly, Mark shows far less than Matt. John less than either. The Gnostics including Marcion renounced the OT as a product of the deformed demiurge. Surely such a desire to interpret Jesus legends thru it would be unlikely for them. IMO the "light comedy" I posted as a possible reconstruction of a Jesus tale prior to this tide of revisionism seems to answer the nagging oddities and irregularities that betray revisionism. I have absolutely no disgreement with the major elements even the present themes being OT midrash. I could as I'm sure you could list many more. Yet according to this reconstruction the work of these revisionists is heavily laid over something else, something that the Gnostics were slower to discard, and has left only trace literary evidence. It's just a question of when did an influential sect of Xtianity begin seeing the need to root the NT stories in the OT? I believe this was subsequent to protognostic source stories that took a much different tack on the purpose, message and personal life of Jesus.

What a mess! I appreciate your bringing to my attention Leoaia the issues surrounding the translation of matt 26:50. The following was a discussion that popped up with a google search. I know this is not the thread but it is something that has arisen.



..........................................

The expression in Matt 26:50 looks incomplete and is hard to understand:

hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI

I know some options and would be grateful for comments on which, if any of

them, seems the better one:





1. The imperative POIEI should be supplied to give the sense: "Friend, do

that which you are here for." I am reluctant to go this route, because I am

not sure we are allowed to add POIEI.





2. It is understood as a question to give the sense "Friend, why have you

come?" This sounds as a real question and does not make much sense, since

Jesus knew very well why Judas had come. I also find it hard to make EF' hO

mean "why" when EIS TI or similar would have been simpler.





3. A word of saying may be implied, giving the sense "Friend, tell us what

you are here for." I suppose this could be a request to Judas to be honest

and not hide his intention behind a friendly kiss.





4. The relative could refer to the previous situation where Judas has

feigned friendship by giving Jesus a kiss and calling him Rabbi while

bringing an armed contingent to catch him. This might give the sense

"Friend, is this what you have come for?" (That is, greeting me as a close

friend as well as your Master.)

Is there a Greek idiom involved here? I am not satisfied with any of the

suggestions above.





I didn't get a lot of help from BADG. But let me quote some of what they

suggest under hOS:

2a: "The much disputed pass. hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI Mt 26:50 would belong

here if we were to supply the words necessary to make it read about as

follows: friend, (are you misusing the kiss) for that (purpose) for which

you are here? (Wlh.; EKlostermann) or thus: in connection with that (=the

purposes), for which (=for the realization of which) you have appeared (do

you kiss me)? (Rdm.2 78). Friend, are you here for this purpose? FRehkopf,

ZNW 52, '61, 109-15. But s. 2b and 9b below.

2b: So Mt 26:50 (s. 2a above), if the words to be supplied are about as

follows: friend, (do that) for which you have come! (so ESchwartz, ByzZ 25,

'25, 154f; ECEOwen, JTS 29, '28, 384-6; WSpiegelberg, ZNW 28, '29, 341-3;

FZorell, Verb. Domini 9, '29, 112-16; sim. PMaas, Byz.-Neugriech. Jahrb. 8,

'31, 99; 9, '32, 64; WEltester: OCullmann-Festschr., '62, 70-91; FWDanker,

FWGingrich-Festschr., '72, 104f n. 6 reads EF' Wi PAREI as a commercial

idiom w. the colloq. sense 'what deal did you make?' [s. 11d, Ro 5:12].

9B: NT philology overwhelmingly rejects the proposition that hOS is used in

direct questions (Mlt. 93; Bl-D. §300, 2; Radermacher2 78; PMaas [see 2b

above]). An unambiguous example of it is yet to be found. Even the inscr. on

a goblet in Dssm., LO 100ff [LAE 125-31], ET 33, '22, 491-3 leaves room for

doubt. For this reason the translation of hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI Mt 26:50 as

'what are you here for?' (so Gdspd., Probs. 41-43; similarly, as early as

Luther, later Dssm.; JPWilson, ET 41, '30, 334) is scarcely tenable.-Rob.

725 doubts the interrogative here, but Moulton-Turner, Syntax '63, p. 50

inclines toward it."

Thanks,

Iver Larsen

---

My Bible tranlations are about split on whether the verse was said as question or not. The formost arguement against it is that is contradicts the setup (Jesus knows the future and his betrayer). This of course has no persuasiveness to someone who sees it as a contradiction created thru a reworking of the story. Also from this posting the statement that the structure NEVER occurs in a question appears to have been slightly over stated.