Hello, Steve,
Thank you for your lengthy and thoughtful response. I don't have time to address all your points, but I'll hit what I can.
You first mention Mark 5:1, and say that Mark puts the miracle at Gerasa., which, you say is too far from the lake to be the correct location. You suggest that "Matthew, in copying this story, corrects this mistake by placing it at Gadara."
The confusion, however, certainly can be attributed to copyists, who seemed unable to decide which location, of several possibilities, was the correct venue for the story. In Mark's gospel, some manuscripts call the place "the country of the Gadarenes" and some manuscripts read, "the country of the Gerasenes." The same is true of the manuscripts of Luke. When it comes to Matthew's account, some manuscripts say "Gadarenes," and others read, "Gergesenes" (a third possibility). Because of manuscript differences, it is impossible to be certain which location was identified by Mark himself, and which were miscopies of his wortk made by scribes.
The consensus of the biblical historians, based on the oldest manuscripts, is that Mark said Gerasenes, and that Matthew said the Gadarenes. The other manuscripts apparently are later interpolations, no doubt other attempts to rectify the geography problem first shown in Mark.
According to one source, Gadara was six miles (another says sixteen) from the shore, and Gerasa was forty miles away. It is not necessary to place the miracle at either of these cities, however, since the words of Mark refer not to the city but "the country" of the Gerasenes. Gerasa was a famous Greco-Roman city, and the capital of the region. Thus it would not be strange to speak of a place nearer the lake as being part of the country of the Gerasenes.
This is the argument that Robert Turkel, aka J.P. Holding, raises. However, that area, when identified as a region, has been known as the Decapolis, or region of ten cities. Each of the cities in that region were of approximately eqivalent size and stature. To say that the area around the shore of Lake Tiberias is in the region of Gerasa, far on the other side of Gadara, which itself is a half day journey, is like saying Valley Forge is in the region of Baltimore.
Origen's discussion of the geography problem in Mark, discussed below, also shows that the region near the lake was not considered within the region of Gerasa
According to Ederscheim (a Palestinian Jew of the nineteenth century), there is only one place on the eastern shore of the lake where there are cliffs such as must have featured in the story of the swine. That place bears the Arabic name, Khersa—or Gersa—which he thinks must represent the ancient Gerasa. According to Ederscheim, this place "entirely meets the requirements of the narrative."
Ederscheim no doubt got this idea from Origen, who said basically the same thing in the third century. Origen first dispells Turkel's argument, noting that the country of the Gerasenes is in the desert of Arabia, not near any sea, and that the country of the Gadarenes is near well-known hot springs, but not near a lake with overhanging cliffs. Thus, he dispells Turkel's expansion connotation of "khora" (country or region).
Origen then notes that Gergesa, from which the name Gergesenes is taken, is on the shore of Lake Tiberias and has a steep place abutting the lake. However, while Origen may have knwon of Gergesa on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in the 3rd century, archaeological evidence of the area shows no sign of settlement back into the 1st century. With this in mind, and noting that historians are confident that the orginial Mark used Gerasenes and Matthew used Gadarenes, and that Gergesenes didn't yet exist, the best conclusion is that the author of the second gospel wasn't familiar with the geography around Lake Tiberias and that the author of the first gospel noted the problem when he plagarized from Mark's gospel, and substitued the nearest town at the time to the lake.
I believe that Schweitzer was the first to suggest that this story indicates Mark's lack of familiarity with Palestinian geography. I wonder why scholars in the first eighteen centuries never considered this evidence to point toward such a conclusion. I imagine some might say, "It is because they were prejudiced in favor of the Bible's accuracy." To which, I would respond that the modern criticisms all just happen to arise from scholars who are prejudiced against the Bible's accuracy. This renders it necessary to examine the validity of their objections carefully before trusting them.
Since Origen, a church father, knew of the geography problem in the third century (see Commentary on St. John, Ch. 24), your point is rendered moot.
You think you found another proof of inaccuracy:
"In Mark 7:31, he has Jesus and his entourage going from Tyre by way of Sidon to the decapolis and the Sea of Galilee. That is like going from New York to Philadephia by way of Boston."
Yes? So what is your point? Has no one ever gone from New York to Boston, and subsequently gone to Philadephia? I am sure that such a sequence has been repeated millions of times in modern history.
In this day and age, people would do so only if their airline itinerary required such a layover for a connecting flight, or if they had business in Boston. No such rational appears in Jesus's itinary.
True, it is not anything like a direct route. Neither did Sinai lie on any kind of direct route from Rameses to Canaan. So what? People travel to the places they wish to go in whatever order suits their purposes. No law says that Jesus had to be in the kind of rush to get from "Point A" to "Point B" that characterizes our hectic lifestyles.
But in Mark it says Jesus was going from Tyre to the Sea of Galilee through Sidon, Not only would his little scenic route have cost them around 2 weeks time, water and provisions, to go from Sidon to the Sea of Galilee area would have required travelling right back past Tyre. Not likely.
Jesus, like the children of Israel in Sinai, went to the places where God led Him. There is no reason to assume that, when Jesus set off from Tyre northward to Sidon, that He knew or intended that He was going next to Decapolis, far to the southeast. Things have come to a pretty pass when 21st century critics want to find fault with Christ's preaching itinerary!
But there is in fact good reason to believe Jesus would not carry his minitry to Sidon. Tyre itself is at the boundary of Galilee and Phoenicia. While at Tyre, Jesus reveals his rather uncharacteristic bigotry towards the Canaanites. He considers them on the level of dogs, and only after great persistence and a huge demonstration of faith does he acquiesce in one healing of the daughter of the Canaanite woman. Sidon is much further within the Canaanite land, with little if any Jewish presence. It is beyond reason to have expected Jesus, with his demonstrated bigotry against the Canaanite, to have intended to stop and bring his ministry in Sidon.
Thus, for these two reasons, it is quite apparent that the author of the second gospel did not know where Sidon was and was unfamiliar with Galilee.
With reference to your source of information about "Q", I appreciate your honest admission that there actually is no difinitive proof that "Q" ever existed. However, your entire thesis concerning the origin of Matthew and Luke seems to depend substantially upon this phantom "document" that may well have never existed. The best source available to you (apparently) admits this at the outset:
The source I referenced may not necessarily be the best, but it is certainly one of the more conservative. Perhaps you've heard of it - the Catholic Church? When the Catholic Church recognizes the greater liklihood of the two-source theory, with Q, it's hard to claim it to be a product of lieberal, atheistic prejudice.
"The questions of authorship, sources, and the time of composition of this gospel have received many answers, none of which can claim more than a greater or lesser degree of probability."
No historian claims the two-source theory is certain and rock-solid, and readily admit some problems such as the minor agreements between Luke and Matthew, but in all it is accepted as the best explanation.
Again, the theory that Mark's gospel was the earliest, and that it was used as one of at least two sources by Matthew and Luke, is of relatively recent vintage. Scholars, for the first seventeen centuries of biblical scholarship did not find it necessary to explain the similarity and dissimilarity of the synoptics by this modern expedient.
The same can be said of the Copernican, heliocentric model. But, in actuality, the apparent linkage between what are now referred to as the synoptic gospels was noted by St. Augustine and St. John Crysosthom in the 4th century, again rendering your point moot.
Nor is the "two-source theory" universally accepted by all competent scholars today.
Which does not obviate the synoptic problem in any way. The two-source theory is the one generally accepted, even with recognition of some problems. I personally favor a variant of the two-source theory put forth by Ron Price, what he calls the three source theory.
A woman named Eta Linnemann was formerly a leading liberal scholar in Germany, writing a number of theological texts espousing your views on the gospels and their origins. Then she got converted, met Jesus Christ, and re-looked at her writings through an objective (that is, not prejudiced against the gospels) lens.
From what I've seen, Eta not only converted to christianity, but to evangelical, fundamentalist christianity. As such, her new-found objection to the historical critical method is of little surprise. The historical-critical method is incompatible with fundamentalist christianity, who are precluded from viewing the bible in any other manner other than the inerrant word of God. The historical-critical method, which objectively attempts to identify the history of a document without such religious preconceptions, is anti-thetical to such fundamentalist beliefs.
As a result, she burned the previous books that she had written, and wrote a couple of very revealing books exposing the sophistry and the bigotry of the critical scholars with reference to their treatment of the gospels.
Book-burning is often a characteristic of ideological fanaticism.
Obviously, liberal theologians hate her new books,
No, actually I think they find them somewhere between humourous and a little sad.
The similarities between the wording of Matthew and Mark need not point to the literary dependency of one upon another. Since the stories of Jesus were preached daily by the apostles in Jerusalem and thereabouts for the first twenty years of their ministries, it is quite likely that the stories took on a standardized wording (as we can observe even in ourselves when we retell the same story to several different audiences).
The pericoptic and chiastic structure does indicate it as a compilation of stories and oral traditions, rather than an eyewitness account. But with the high coincidence in wording, in order, in language, and in content, of Matthew and Luke with Mark makes it statistically nearly impossible to have been separate, independently written accounts. This has been recognized for centuries.
Though it is irrelevant to the discussion of the writing of the gospels, you do not neglect to call Paul's conversion a "hallucination." I don't object to a person concluding that Saul had a hallucination on the road to Damascas, if that is the best explanation of the evidence. But is it?
I was giving Paul the benefit of the doubt. The alternative is that he made it up.
How does having a hallucination empower a man to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, etc.?
Ah, heck, Simon Magus and Appolonius of Tyra were doing that as well. Even today, voodoo witch doctors raise zombies from the dead.
I think Paul's own story (partially witnessed by traveling companions with him), which the other apostles initially doubted, but reluctantly were forced to believe, makes more sense.
Conveniently for Paul, we have only his word for his revelations, and no way of confirming his "revelations". Even Jesus in the gospel stories doesn't fortell Paul's apostleship.
Luke wrote Acts, from information that he must necessarily have gotten from his inseparable companion Paul—meaning that Acts is based upon the same source as is Galatians. Either Paul suffered from schizophrenia, thinking himself to have lived two contradictory personal histories, or else the two accounts can be harmonized. This is not difficult in the least.
Again, pure speculations about the relationship between Luke and Paul, as well as of the knowledge held by Paul.
Your survey of the Galatians material is so irresponsible as to make me wonder about your honesty.
I was wondering how long is would take for the typical fundy accusations of lieberalism to surface. lol.
You pass over chapter one entirely, and miss the fact that Paul spent two weeks with Peter, James and John just three years after his conversion
This was covered by the poster to whom I responded. And, if you recall, Paul emphasized how during that visit with Peter, he did not see any of the other apostles, that he only saw James.
If I were him, I certainly would have exploited the opportunity to learn everything about Jesus that those men knew during those two weeks (one could recite the entire contents of any of the gospels in only a few hours). You think Paul did not avail himself of this opportunity? Why? Was he not interested in Jesus?
But you are not him. And Paul's other statements all emphasize how he received his knowledge of Jesus by "revelation", and explicitly not from any man. That is what Paul says. It is only through your unfounded and unsupported eisegesis that you can mold Paul's statements to fit your orthodox dogma. But, if you know anything from Paul that says, or even reasonably infers, that he learned anything of Jesus from the apostles, without resorting to closed-mined eisegesis, I'd appreciate being enlightened.
You mention Gal. 1:11-12, where Paul says that he got his message by revelation from Christ, rather than from men, and you interpret this as a claim that he never got any information about Jesus from other people. Again, you are not making a very diligent attempt to understand Paul's meaning.
No, as I said above, I do not use my own eisegesis to force what Paul says into a dogma that I must uphold and defend with closed-minded diligence and allegance. I analyse what Paul says, and try to see what he is implying and inferring, without the bias of a dogma developed centuries after Paul to which Paul's teachings must conform.
The remainder of your post concerned accusations of prejudice, to which I don't have time to respond. However, I do find such accusations ironic coming from someone who is locked into one and only one interpretation of the books of the bible, who can read them only with spectacles having the correct shade of lens congruent with his orthodox dogma. I can consider other alternatives and interpretations of these books, and take the evidence in those writings where they may lead. You can only read them as the inerrant word of god, consistent and congruent with the orthodox dogma formulated centuries after these books were written. Who does that make closed-minded?
namaste
