What language was Jesus most at home with?

by fulltimestudent 45 Replies latest jw friends

  • CalebInFloroda
    CalebInFloroda
    14 minutes ago
    I didn't say I didn't know.

    Yeah so you say, but you didn't prove it now did you? You could not write down a similar first three paragraphs of my response.

    You had no idea.

    So I've done my bit. You haven't.

    Prove that Thomas is NOT Q.--Saintbertholdt



    Q is theoretical. There is great doubt in some quarters over its existence. But Thomas exists.

    Q is supposed to be a sayings-source, but Thomas shows a narrative structure. Unlike what many people think, scholars see a narrative in Thomas. Duke’s professor of religion, Mark Goodacre, is one of them, for example. He has written extensively against Q and compared it to what we have learned from Thomas.

    As I mentioned before, Q is supposed to contain only sayings, well-known for being the source of the Eschatological Discourse given on the Mount of Olives, such as appears in Matthew 24. Thomas, on the other hand, has no such discourse in it at all.

    Therefore Thomas cannot be Q, if Q exists.

    My question to you is how can Thomas be Q in light of the absence of Q’s well-known Eschatological Discourse feature?

  • RubaDub
    RubaDub

    The obvious answer is Spanish.

    I can't personally think of anyone named Jesus who is not Puerto Rican or Dominican.

    Rub a Dub

  • Saintbertholdt
    Saintbertholdt
    but Thomas shows a narrative structure

    Have you read it? Give your arguments. All that you're doing is citing authority: "Duke’s professor of religion, Mark Goodacre".

    As I mentioned before, Q is supposed to contain only sayings, well-known for being the source of the Eschatological Discourse given on the Mount of Olives, such as appears in Matthew 24. Thomas, on the other hand, has no such discourse in it at all.

    Hence source M.

    My question to you is how can Thomas be Q in light of the absence of Q’s well-known Eschatological Discourse feature?

    Have you read the book of Mark?

  • CalebInFloroda
    CalebInFloroda

    Simply demonstrate here, using the critical method, how Thomas can be Q since Thomas has no Eschatological Discourse and that is an essential facet of Q.

    And yes, I have the facsimiles of Thomas with me. And of course I've read Mark.

  • Saintbertholdt
    Saintbertholdt
    "Besides, if you have read Thomas, you would know it was was written in Coptic, proving my original point that the language of that era was not "Egyptian" as you put it (Thomas was discovered in Egypt)."

    BTW, don't you get that I was jesting about Jesus most comfortable with Egyptian? Good lord, I tried to model it as close to a Monty Python sketch as I could. With Jesus talking in a thick Egyptian accent and his disciples not knowing what the hell he was on about while John was dropping acid.




  • CalebInFloroda
    CalebInFloroda

    Jehovah's Witnesses have spent so many years pretending that they know what they are talking about.

    They have published ridiculous concepts that people have based and lost their lives on. They might as well have been jokes becuase they had none of the value promised or that the Governing Body promised these did.

    If you are just sitting here joking around, you are no better than they are. People come here for real answers. Some people are literally suffering from the mental and spiritual abuse they have suffered. Questions and comments, unless places in an area for jokes, are no place to offer foolishness of the same sort.

    If this is just a joke to you, then I am so glad I am not you.

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent

    This conversation (to date) illustrates the problem we have with early Christianity. We just do not have enough information to be confident about the early developments.

    To get too heated (as opposed to enthusiasm for an idea) will lead nowhere, because sooner or later you come to a dead end.

    So it is with the GoT (abbreviation for the Gospel of Thomas) - I can't say that my exposure to biblical scholarship is all-embracing, but in the one year in which I attended weekly lectures and tutorials, (conducted by an excellent biblical scholar, with whom I got on well, in spite of his being a committed believer and knowing that I was an uncommitted disbeliever at a University with one of the best early Christian departments in Australia), I hope that I learnt something (Also note, I have no axe to grind, no doctrine to defend, just a passion to understand how I wasted my life in a unorthodox Christian group).

    So which scholars believe GoT is Q? I can't remember any names being mentioned, although that's no proof.

    And there is a another question for passionate believers in GoT being Q (or, at least a development of Q), do we then accept the Acts of Thomas as being true? If yes, then when you read, as an example, in the Acts of Thomas 57 (Apologies for the dated English, there are better versions available, but I've no time to search for one):

    57 Again he took me and showed me a cave exceeding dark, breathing out a great stench, and many souls were looking out desiring to get somewhat of the air, but their keepers suffered them not to look forth. And he that was with me said: This is the prison of those souls which thou sawest: for when they have fulfilled their torments for that which each did, thereafter do others succeed them: and there be some that are wholly consumed and (some, Syr.) that are delivered over unto other torments. And they that kept the souls which were in the dark cave said unto the man that had taken me: Give her unto us that we may bring her in unto the rest until the time cometh for her to be delivered unto torment. But he answered them: I give her not unto you, for I fear him that delivered her to me: for I was not charged to leave her here, but I take her back with me until I shall receive order concerning her. And he took me and brought me unto another place wherein were men being sharply tormented (Syr. where men were). And he that was like unto thee took me and delivered me to thee, saying thus to thee: Take her, for she is one of the sheep that have gone astray. And I was taken by thee, and now am I before thee. I beseech thee, therefore, and supplicate that I may not depart unto those places of punishment which I have seen.
    From "The Apocryphal New Testament" Translation and notes by M. R. James
    Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924

    Clearly, these are all imaginative stories, told to influence the lives and actions of others. And, that is the function of all religious writings and also the oral stories, which are now lost to us.

    At present Q is an imagined document. It may have existed, if it did, I imagine it to be like the hand-written notes that may be taken down at a lecture. Most likely, some people wrote down things they heard Jesus say and that impressed them, As his death receded into the past, and those who heard him speak got older, someone may have attempted to collect some of those notes. They would be scribbled of course, and brief. There were no desks to write on, when Jesus was lecturing. The sort of people we are dealing with were not scribes, and may have had only primitive writing materials, but if Q existed, it's origins may have been like that.

  • CalebInFloroda
    CalebInFloroda

    I'm a Jew.

    And I was joking too.

  • fulltimestudent
    fulltimestudent
    Joking is appropriate, because ALL religion is a joke.
  • CalebInFloroda
    CalebInFloroda

    So is atheism and agnosticism. I've left Judaism behind. I am now changing to something else. You've all won. I'm dedicating myself to one true religion from here on out.

    Goodbye cruel world.

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