الفصل الثالث
كلمات يسوع في الأناجيل: حية أو ميمورتيكس ( جهاز تسجيل ) : بقلم : داريل إل. بوك / ص 73 - 101
المقدمة
في البداية لم يكن هناك مسجلات. في عالمنا عالي التقنية في القرن العشرين ، من الصعب تقدير كيفية حدوث الاتصالات في القرن الأول. لم تكن هناك مطابع ولا مشغلات كاسيت ولا صحف ولا صفحات مطبوعة ولا فاكسات ولا عشرات الأجهزة الأخرى التي نرسل بها المعلوماتونسجلها اليوم. منذ ألفي عام ، كانت هناك نسخ مكتوبة بخط اليد بشكل فردي فقط إما على قطع من الرق أو على ورق القصب المعروفباسم ورق البردي. في الواقع ، لم يتم تسجيل معظم المعلومات ؛ تم الإبلاغ عنه شفويا. لم يكن الثقب من الكلمة المكتوبة بل من الكلمةالمنطوقة. كانت الكتب نادرة وثمينة. تقف هذه الحقائق الثقافية وراء نقل تعاليم يسوع وتنشئة الأناجيل. يتناول هذا الفصل كيف جاءتكلمات يسوع وتعاليمه إلينا من هذا العالم الشفهي في القرن الأول
ميموريتكس : يتعامل البعض مع كلمات يسوع مثل شريط كاسيت ". المقتطفات الحمراء من الأناجيل هي الكلمات التي قالها يسوعبالضبط. تعني وجهة النظر هذه عن الإلهام أنه إذا كان النص يدعي أن يسوع قال شيئًا ما ، فإن يسوع قال ذلك (ليس ملخصًا أو جوهرذلك). يقترح الأشخاص الذين يشغلون هذا الفكر أنه بما أن الكتاب المقدس هو كلمة الله الموحى بها وهو حقيقي ، فإن كلمات يسوع المسجلةفي الأناجيل يجب أن تكون غريبة عما قاله. هذا النهج يأخذ كلمة الله على محمل الجد باعتبارها كلمة حقيقية من الله. ومع ذلك ، كما سأبين، فإنه لا يشرح دائمًا بشكل كافٍ ما يُظهره النص نفسه حول كيفية توصيله لكلمات يسوع. بالنظر إلى بعض الأمثلة الكتابية ، سأُظهر أنمؤلفي الأناجيل ، على الرغم من تسجيل روايات دقيقة وصحيحة ، لم يقصدوا دائمًا إعطائنا شريط "تذكير". من الممكن أن يكون لديك حقيقةتاريخية دون اللجوء دائمًا إلى الاستشهاد الصريح ( ص 75 )
حية : يعترف هذا النهج بسهولة أن النص يذكر أقوال يسوع ، حتى تلك التي يمكن ربطها بنفس الإعداد ، مع اختلاف الصياغة. هذهالاختلافات ، التي أبلغ عنها مؤلفون يعرفون صياغة التقليد ، تكشف عن نيتهم في التلخيص والشرح ، وليس مجرد الاقتباس ، لأنهم سعواإلى تطبيق تعاليم يسوع على جماهيرهم ، واختيار ما سيناقشونه ، وأحيانًا ترتيب موادهم لأسباب موضوعية بدلا من التسلسل لذلك ليسلدينا بالضرورة تسجيل يعترف هذا النهج أيضًا بأن الكثير من التقليد المبكر المرتبط بتعاليم يسوع تم تداوله في سياق شفهي لم يخلقالإنجيليون أقوالا بمحض إرادتهم ؛ بدلاً من ذلك ، حاولوا العمل بمسؤولية مع ما أبلغوا عنه. وباعترافهم ، استخدموا الموارد التي أتاحها لهمالتقليد. يكتب لوقا في لوقا 1: 1-4 ، على سبيل المثال: بقدر ما تعهد الكثيرون بتجميع سرد للأشياء التي تحققت بيننا ، تمامًا كما تمتسليمها إلينا من قبل أولئك الذين كانوا منذ البداية شهود عيان وخدام الكلمة ، لقد بدا لي أيضًا أنه من الجيد ، بعد أن اتبعت كل الأشياءبعناية من البداية ، أن أكتبها لك بطريقة منظمة ، أفضلها ثاوفيلس ، حتى تتمكن من معرفة الحقيقة فيما يتعلق بالأشياء التي علمت بها. وفقًا لهذا المقطع ، فإن التقليد متجذر في روايات شهود العيان ، والعديد من هذه الروايات حول ما فعله يسوع وقاله كانت متاحة. كان لوقامدركًا تمامًا لما قاله الآخرون عن يسوع. هو نفسه كان ينوي توخي الحذر في روايته ، لأنه أراد الدقة بينما كان يسعى إلى إعادة سردالقصة بطريقة جديدة ( ص 76 )
إن التعليم الرئيسي عن شخصه وعمله الخلاصي له جذور في خدمة يسوع. تُظهر هذه النتائج أن الكنيسة الأولى لم تخلق وجهة نظرهاالأساسية عن شخص يسوع وتعمل من قطعة قماش كاملة. آمنت الكنيسة الأولى بيسوع بما علمهم شخصيًا أن يؤمنوا به. تعطينا الأناجيلالجوهر الحقيقي لتعاليمه والوجهة المركزية لرسالته. ( ص 78 )
بواسطة لوقا في لوقا 1: 1-4. كان الإنجيليون قادرين على اكتشاف ما فعله يسوع وقاله لأنهم تمكنوا من الوصول إلى الناس والمجتمعاتالذين تعرضوا ليسوع أو أتباعه المقربين بعبارة أخرى ، على الرغم من أنهم عملوا في وضع غير مؤات من خلال العيش في ثقافة شفهية غيرعالية التقنية ، فقد عرف القدماء ما هي التقارير الجيدة وحاولوا تحقيقها. نحن ، كمودمات ، نقلل أحيانًا من "تماسك التقليد الشفوي فيمجتمع متعلم سابقًا وأهمية الذكريات في مثل هذا المجتمع الثقافة اليهودية للتذكر إذا كان دور التقليد الشفوي مهمًا للقدماء بشكل عام ،كان مهمًا بشكل خاص للثقافة اليهودية. في وقت مبكر من سفر التثنية ، تم التأكيد على أهمية التعليم الشفهي والذاكرة فيما يتعلق بالتعليمالإلهي (تث 6: 4-9) ( ص 79 )
كيف يعمل التاريخ
يتضمن التاريخ المكتوب منظورًا ويمكن سرده من مجموعة متنوعة لكل أطياف ، سواء من حيث الإطار الزمني أو الأيديولوجية. يعكس التاريخأيضًا الإطار الزمني الذي يعرض الأحداث منه ويتصورها. لأن التاريخ في جوهره ينطوي على تسلسل ، فإن الأقوال والأحداث لديها القدرةعلى أن تكون حاملاً بالمعنى. في بعض الأحيان ، تُفهم الأحداث والأقوال بشكل أفضل بعد التفكير عنها عندما حدثت لأول مرة ( ص 81 )
التاريخ والأناجيل
كيف تعمل هذه النظرة للتاريخ في الأناجيل؟ ماذا تفعل هذه النصوص في الواقع؟ مبدأ الاختيار والترتيب في مواد الإنجيل واضح. سواءكانت تتضمن ترتيب النصوص أو تفصيلها أو صياغتها ، فإن الأمثلة التالية تكشف كيف تقدم الأناجيل يسوع. أنا أغطي الأحداث والنظام ،لأن مسألة ترتيب الأقوال وموقعها الزمني داخل خدمة يسوع هو سؤال يمكن للمرء أن يفترض أنه مجرد مسألة قراءة النص في تسلسله. علىالرغم من أن هذه النصوص تقدم عودًا عامًا لخدمة يسوع ، إلا أن الاختيارات التي تتضمن ترتيب المواد تكشف مدى صعوبة تحديد التسلسلالدقيق في بعض الحالات. في مرحلة ما ، غطى كل مبشر تعاليم يسوع على أساس موضعي وليس علم التسلسل الزمني ( ص 84 )
الأناجيل هي ملخصات لتعاليم يسوع. قد لا يقدمون دائمًا أسلوب المسجل المادي ، عرف القدماء كيفية التلخيص وكيفية القيام بذلك بدقة ،مع سلامة "جوهر" التعليم ( ص 89 )
استخدام انجيل توما وبطرس كمصدر لتعليم يسوع
قد تعامل الأعضاء الرئيسيون في الحلقة الدراسية مع أناجيل توما و بطرس على أنهما لهما نفس الأهمية بالنسبة للتقليد مثل النصوصالقانونية. ولكن يتم المبالغة في تقدير هذه الأعمال عندما تتساوى مع الأناجيل الكنسية في المناقشة. أؤكد عدة نقاط أساسية هنا. توماسوبيتر من الأعمال المتأخرة. على الرغم من أن الندوة تتعامل مع توما كما لو كان مصدرًا قديمًا على الأقل مثل المواد التعليمية المشتركة بينماثيو ولوقا (تقليد مصدر يسمى "Q") ، فإن هذا الموقف غير مثبت. وصف ريتشارد هايز هذا الموقف بأنه "تأريخ مبكر للغاية" ، و "ادعاءمثير للجدل بدرجة كبيرة" ، و "عنصر مهتز في أسسهم المنهجية." نظرًا لأن توما وبيتر يظهران مزيدًا من الاختلاف في كيفية تعاملهما معمادة يسوع ، فإنهما يشوهان تقييم كيفية عمل الشفوية ، خاصةً إذا كان يُنظر إليهما على أنهما نموذجي للفترة الأولى من التقليد المكتوب ( ص 90 )
الخلاصة
في البداية لم يكن هناك مسجلات شرائط ، لكن هذا لا يعني أن النقل الشفهي لكلمات يسوع في الأناجيل كان عشوائيًا. استطلع هذا المقالالقضايا المرتبطة بالشفهية في عالم غير عالي التقنية في القرن الأول. إن التأريخ اليوناني الروماني ، وثقافة الذاكرة اليهودية في العمل معالتعاليم الإلهية ، ونصوص الإنجيل نفسها تكشف عن المقارنات القصيرة لأي رأي يجادل بأن الشفهية في الثقافة القديمة تعني حدوث تلفيقكبير للتعاليم المسيحية الرئيسية. باختصار ، صورة ندوة يسوع في عملهم ، الأناجيل الخمسة ، سوداء للغاية في تقييمها لتعاليم يسوع. القليل جدًا من المسيح الحي الحقيقي يظهر من خلال عملهم. لم يظهر سوى القليل لدرجة أن المرء يتساءل كيف أن يسوع قد ولّد مستوىالعداء الذي تلقاه من اليهود أو الولاء التام الذي حصل عليه من تلاميذه. قد لا يكون تقليد يسوع دائمًا مثل "المذكرات" تمامًا ، ولكنه أيضًاليس شيئًا بعيدًا مثل "جيف". يأتي صوت يسوع من خلال الأناجيل ، "حية وملونة". إنها دورة مختصرة حافظت بأمانة على جوهر تعاليميسوع. تكشف صورة الأناجيل عن كلمات يسوع عن شخصية تطلب تعليمها اختيارًا لاتباعه أو رفضه ، وهي شخصية ادعت أنها تكشفالطريق إلى الله بعبارات لا لبس فيها. لم يأت بحكمة. كان حكمة (متى 7: 24-27). لهذا كان الناس إما معه إلى حد الموت أو ضده إلى حدالموت. قدمت كلماته الاختيار بين الحياة أو الموت (لوقا 9: 18-26). يجب على من يقرأ كلماته في الأناجيل أن يدرك أن الصوت الحاضرليس مكتوماً ولا مخلوقاً. بصوت عال وواضح ( ص 94 )
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1. This color scheme is present in Robert Funk, Roy Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospeb; What Did Jesus Really Say? (New York: Macmillan, 1993). The two other colors are gray and black. Black means Jesus did not say this or anything like it. Gray means Jesus probably did not say this, but that something he taught may have some connection with that saying; thus one can use the material in determining who Jesus was (see p. 36 for their description of the color-scheme philosophy). As other essays in this volume explain, the fifth Gospel for the Jesus Seminar is the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic text that the Seminar has elevated to a status equal to if not above the canonical Gospels in its historical value (see note 3 below, premises 24-25).
2. Ibid., The Five Gospels, 30
3. A list of sixty-four premises opens another key work published by the Jesus Seminar, The Gospel of Mark: Red Letter Edition, ed. Robert Funk and Mahlon Smith (Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1991). This book does for Mark what The Five Gospels did for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas. To their credit, the Jesus Seminar has been honest about their presuppositions and has tried to list and defend them. Some of their premises show that my description of this approach as a "jive" approach to the Gospels is fair. I list some of the key, and most questionable, ones here. "Premise 1: The historical Jesus is to be distinguished from the Gospel portraits of him." "Premise 4: Oral tradition is fluid." "Premise 9: Jesus' disciples were oral and itinerant: they moved around and revised his sayings and parables as the situation demanded." "Premise 10: The oral tradition exhibits little interest in biographical data about Jesus." "Premise 20: Matthew and Luke have no independent knowledge of the order of events in the story of Jesus." "Premise 24: Thomas represents an earlier stage of the tradition than do the canoni cal Gospels." "Premise 25: Thomas represents an independent witness to the Jesus tradition." "Premise 47: The greater part of the sayings tradition was created or borrowed from common lore by the transmitters of the oral tradition and the authors of the Gospels." In surveying this list, two things are clear: the stress placed on the freedom of orality and the significant role given to the Gospel of Thomas in making assessments (Thomas is given an independence that Matthew and Luke are not granted as witnesses to Jesus). These are two severe flaws in the Seminar's approach.
4. All the approaches to this question argue that the later Gospel writers had some knowl edge of what earlier Gospels writers had written and drew on traditions that recalled these events. They may not agree on which Gospel was first (either Mark or Matthew), but the amount of agreement both in wording and in event order makes it clear that some events, including most of the key events of Jesus' ministry, circulated and were well known within the church. This suggests that some, if not most, variations in word ing were conscious. The variations help to explain what kind of report the Evangelists were giving.
5. The translation is the author's, but a comparison to any accepted translation yields the same basic points: Luke had sources, he examined them, yet he still felt a need to write his own version. As I have argued elsewhere, Luke sought "to carefully follow precedent" (Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NewTestament [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994], see exegesis on Luke 1:1-4).
6. For a clear explanation of this distinction by a conservative evangelical, see Paul Feinberg, "The Meaning of Inerrancy," Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 267-304, esp. 298-304.
7. For a helpful discussion of this passage and topic in Greco-Roman historiography, see Charles Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 143-68.
8. Ibid., 153-54.
9. Ibid., 154-55.
10. Ibid., 163.
11. A summary of Jewish instructional technique appears in the article by Rainer Riesner, "Jüdische Elementarbildung und Evangelienüberlieferung," Gospel Perspectives: Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. 1, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), 209-23. This article, though it is in German, summarizes the parallels between Jewish instructional technique in the culture at large and the recording and remembering of the tradition that found its way into the Gospels. I summarize its contents in this subsection. The names associated with this approach to the background for the Gospels are Birger Gerhardsson and Harold Riesenfeld. A second article making some of the same points in English is R. Riesner, "Jesus as Preacher and Teacher," Jems and the Oral Gospel Tradition, JSNTMS 64, ed. Henry Wansbrough (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 185-210.
12. Riesner, "Jesus as Preacher," 197-208. Riesner stresses Jesus' vivid style and his memorizable speech, given that about 80 percent of his teaching is structured in parallelism of one type or another. Moreover, the disciples ("disciple" itself means "learner") were gathered by Jesus to learn from him and then to undertake mission work; thus, his teaching was important to them. Riesner goes on to challenge the views of orality espoused by Werner Kelber, a view like that reflected in the Jesus Seminar, arguing that orality in the Gospel tradition is not as flexible as Kelber suggests. Riesner notes three conditions when verbatim transmission might occur: (1) if the author is viewed as divinely inspired; (2) if the text has a recognized form, like poetry or parallelism; and (3) if the material is handed down by a group with specialized training. Jesus and his disciples fit all three. One final point: Those who work with the Gospels know that the teachings of Jesus exhibit the least amount of variation in the way they are presented. Although the settings in which the sayings appear sometimes vary, the contents them selves show little variation.
13. The text of the prophet Isaiah found at Qumran is almost identical to that of the rab bis a thousand years later.
14. Riesner, "Jüdische," 218.
15. G. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 548; G. Delling, "jtapataxußdvtu," The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 4:11-14.
16. Interestingly the Lukan form of this event differs slightly from the Matthean and Marcan versions (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:12-17), showing the "differences" issue I noted at the beginning of the essay. Anyone reading the three versions, however, can see that the fundamentals of the report of what was said contains the same gist of the event, reflecting the principle argued for here in the ancient handling of such events.
17. The examination of Jewish forms of tradition within the New Testament is a more recent attempt to correct the excessive claims of older form critics who modeled their observations on the distant and much later cultural setting of Icelandic folklore. Two essays by E. Earle Ellis are key to this fresh and more historically sensitive perspective on how tradition was communicated in the early church: "Gospels Criticism," The Gospel and the Gospels, ed. P. Stuhlmacher (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 26-52; and "New Directions in Form Criticism," Prophecy and Hermeneutic, ed. E. Earle Ellis (Tubingen: Mohr, 1978), 237-53. Ellis cites numerous examples of the traces of Jewish forms of tradition in the whole of the New Testament. Among the key points made in these essays is that major teaching would not have remained in exclusively oral form for long (see Ellis, "Gospels Criticism," 39, and the article by Stuhlmacher in the same volume, "The Theme: The Gospel and the Gospels," 1-25, esp. 2-12). The classic essay arguing for evidence of the early fixing of parts of the Gospel tradi tion is H. Schiirmann, "Die vorosterlichen Anfange der Logientradition," in his Traditionsgeschtchtliche Untersuchungen zu den synoptischen Evangelien (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1968), 39-65. The essay's title refers to the "pre-Easter origins of the Sayings tradition." This body of work shows that much of the tradition did not remain in a loose, floating position for very long, as well as discussing the care with which such tra dition was passed on
18. In fact, the Rockets won the Phoenix series 4-3 and went on to win Houston's first major professional championship in another seventh-game victory at home. My foot note has a different historical perspective than the body of my article!
19. One can hardly think of a greater death-to-life reversal than the one the Gospels por tray. It would be naive to expect the Evangelists to ignore what they had come to understand about Jesus as a result of his resurrection as they wrote their accounts of his ministry. But that does not mean that such reflection required fabrication of events. What is amazing about the Gospels is their honest portrayal of the disciples' confu sion during Jesus' life. Surely if the Gospels were as "creative" as some make them out to be, then these disciples would have been portrayed in more flattering ways than they are. If Jesus' portrait can be enhanced to such a great degree, why not that of his followers? Those who are skeptical about the Gospels' portrayal of Jesus and his dis ciples have to explain two realities: (1) the unflattering portrayal of the disciples dur ing Jesus' ministry, if the Gospel writers really did enhance the portrait of Jesus, and (2) the amount of courage the disciples showed in Jesus' absence after his crucifixion that led them to risk their lives for him. What brought about this change, even rever sal, of character? The Gospels make it clear that what the resurrection revealed to the disciples was Jesus' identity and what he had really been about. Their transformation and the resurrection's role in it is one reason why the resurrection is seen as such a hub event by the Christian faith.
20. Pericope is the technical name for a unit of tradition in a Gospel. It usually is a para graph unit.
21. Although who is responsible for the shift in order is a matter for discussion, most see Luke doing the rearranging here because for him the city of Jerusalem is so central in Jesus' ministry; thus he makes the Jerusalem temptation the climactic one. Tighter temporal markers and explicit dismissal language also appear in Matthew (4:5, 10), which also suggests the likelihood of this explanation.
22. Matthew 8 and Luke 7 are the same event, since they occupy nearly parallel positions in each Gospel. Both come immediately following Jesus' ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew)/Plain (Luke). Note one other feature. A reading of Matthew alone leaves one impression about how the event occurred, while Luke leaves another impression. The differences in choice leave slighdy different perspectives on the event, which give it a distinct force in each account. Yet the basic event remains the same. As we shall see, the Gospels handle event and sayings in a similar manner. Such differences do not impact that thrust of an event; rather, they reflect literary choices made by the author. In this case, literary compression has probably influenced Matthew's account, as his intention was to highlight the healing, not supply every detail about it
2 3. Interestingly, the apocryphal Gospel of the Ebionites solves the wording dilemma by hav ing the voice utter both sentences in the one setting, something none of the canoni cal Gospels opt to do.
24. Note how Mark 1:10 and Matthew 3:16 are explicit in identifying only Jesus as seeing the dove. In none of the accounts is there any indication that the crowd present saw or heard anything. Only John 1 indicates that the Baptist was aware of what took place.
25. In making this conclusion, I remind readers of the points made above about summary (vox) versus citation (verba). An account need not be detailed in its precision to be 1 accurate and true. Summary can be as historical and true as citation. They are simply different forms of presenting history. What I have argued is that the Gospel writers intended to summarize, and the texts themselves reveal the ways in which these sum maries were done. So they should be evaluated for what they attempted to do, not for attempting to do anything more or less. Saying this more theologically, one can say that the biblical texts reveal how God inspired the Evangelists to present their account of Jesus. In John 14-16, Jesus promised that those who passed on his story would be led into all the truth by the Spirit. These texts show how that was done.
26. By what has been said so far, it should be clear that had a significant number of evan gelical moderates been included in the Seminar and had it represented a real crosssection of current scholarship, the percentage of red, pink, gray, and black sayings would be radically different, with a much higher number of sayings falling into the first three color groupings. It would be fair to argue that the results of the Jesus Seminar are not a consensus of current scholarship, but reflect a minimalist position. For a cri tique of the Seminar or its failure to really represent a cross-section of current schol arship, in contrast to how the Seminar portrays itself, see Richard Hays' review of the Seminar's work, "The Corrected Jesus," First Things 43 (1994): 43-48, esp. 47-48. Hays, who teaches at Duke, cannot be accused of possessing any evangelical bias, so his critique is a particularly significant one.
27. See Craig Blomberg's essay in this volume for an analysis of the Gospel of Thomas.
28. Hays, "The Corrected Jesus," 44-45.
29. A full listing of all these proposed criteria is present in Robert Stein's "The Criteria for Authenticity," Gospel Perspectives, 225-63. Among the criteria he mentions that are less often used than the three this essay treats are: evidence of Aramaic linguistic phe nomena, presence of Palestinian environmental phenomena, an appeal to tendencies within tradition to develop (a negative criterion designed to exclude saying material), an appeal to tendencies in Jewish Christianity to soften the tradition's bolder state ments, and traditions whose patterns do not match the editorial style of the Evangelist. Of his secondary list, the most helpful are Aramaic linguistic tendencies and appeals to Palestinian environment, but all mese criteria show is that the tradition can fit within a setting involving Jesus
30. This largely unexpressed standard alone ends up removing almost all the Gospel of John from serious consideration. This "single witness" exclusion criterion is hidden in the Seminar's claim that "only sayings that can be traced back to the oral period, 30-50 C.E., can possibly have originated with Jesus" (Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels, 25). Since John is regarded by most to date from 90 and his material is largely unique, it cannot be connected to earlier sources, and so it becomes excluded almost by definition. One must grant that John's Gospel is more explicit in its Christological teaching than the Synoptics and that its style of Jesus' discourse is unique, but much of this Christology emerges from debate over the meaning of his works and what they imply. John makes explicit what these events showed, and cer tainly debate over Jesus' work is attested throughout the tradition. Given the kind of multiple perspectives possible within a portrayal of history, these sayings and dis courses too can represent authentic summaries of Jesus' teaching. They should not be excluded merely because they are unique. For a careful discussion of the issues John's Gospel raises that are peculiar to it, see D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 40-68.
31. Sometimes how the criteria are named reveals a great deal. To call them the criteria for authenticity suggests that a saying needs to pass these tests to be seen as authentic. To speak of criteria of authenticity simply notes that these tests can help us argue for a saying's authenticity without arguing that passing such a test is a necessary qualifi cation to establish authenticity. For a careful discussion of burden of proof from a more philosophical angle, see S. C. Goetz and C. L. Blomberg, "The Burden of Proof," JSNT11 (1981): 39-83.
32. Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels, 285-87.
3 3. For more on this, see ch. 1 by Craig Blomberg.
34. A source refers to a document or stream of tradition that the Evangelists used in writ ing their Gospels. They are what Luke alludes to in his mention of his awareness of other accounts (Luke 1:1-4). In Gospel studies, the siglum "M" stands for material unique to Matthew, "L" for material unique to Luke; "Q" for teaching shared between Matthew and Luke, while Mark refers to material originating in that Gospel. These are treated as four different strands of tradition that make up the bulk of the Synoptic Gospel tradition.
35. One might ask how this saying could be considered an "I have come" saying when it refers to the Son of Man, not Jesus. The answer is that Jesus only referred to himself as "Son of Man," so it is an indirect reference to himself. As such, it is semanacally and conceptually equivalent to "I have come."
36. Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels, 95.
37. For the details of this debate pro and con, see Robert Gundry, Mark: A Commentary for His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 587-93. The same kind of debate rages over the "Son of Man" sayings as well. On this debate, see Darrell L. Bock, "The Son of Man in Luke 5:24," BBR 1 (1991): 109-21. Our point in both cases is that something other than a consistent application of these criteria is at work in rejecting these sayings.
38. Gundry, Mark, 588, 590, also notes two other key factors. First, the saying has Semitic touches in that it reveals its age and roots in a Palestinian setting. At the least, it comes from the earliest church. Second, sixteen epistolary texts express this idea in varied terminology. So such a saying had an impact. Where did such a view come from, if not from Jesus? As Gundry says, "It seems unlikely that a saying dealing simply with ser vice and set in a pericope dealing only with service should have been given a soteriological twist without dominical [i.e., a saying associated with Jesus) support, especially since indisputably Christian formations concerning Jesus' death do not use the vocab ulary of service."