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Of those who frequent the IIDB (Internet Infidels Discussion Board), which is my main venue—if intermittently—for debating the case for Jesus mythicism, Chris Zeichman is one of the more amiable and knowledgeable of those who disagree with my position. It is therefore unfortunate that so much of the 'misunderstanding' and 'irresponsibility' he accuses me of in his critique is based on a misunderstanding of his own as to what I am saying. I don’t know if that is due to a lack of sufficient clarity on my part, or of sufficient detail to ensure proper clarity; but I do know that a major factor is a lack of careful reading on his part and a rush to judgment. I will be pointing out many examples of this. I ask the reader to bear with the length and detail of this rebuttal, not only because there is so much to refute in Zeichman's critique, but because, as is my practice, I also introduce along the way additional new evidence and argument in support of my position, in this case to demonstrate the strong likelihood that no historical figure lies at the root of the Q document. This article will thus be a major contribution to my presentation of the mythicist case. (Note: direct quotes from Zeichman, including of scripture, are in red; my quotes from scholars and scripture are in blue.) Chris Zeichman's critique can be read at: |
The Source of Q1 For those unfamiliar with Q basics: John Kloppenborg's hypothesis of Q's compositional history, on which most subsequent scholarship on Q is based, concluded that Q was composed in at least three distinct phases
[labeled Q1, Q2
and Q3]. The first has the character of 'instructional' wisdom sayings
(referred to as "sapiential"), the second of apocalyptic and
prophetic judgment pronouncements in a context of conflict between the
Q sect
and the broader society it lived in, the third (whose content can vary
according to different scholars' opinions) is regarded as introducing
'biographical' elements for Q's Jesus figure. This evolution and
development
took place over a period of time, though of an unknown length, but
probably not
exceeding a few decades in the middle part of the 1st century CE, let's
say
somewhere between 30 and 80 (not everyone agrees with my late allowance
here).
The Q units are numbered (chapter & verse) according to the chapter
and
verse numbers of their appearance in Luke. Incidentally, Zeichman
announces
[n.1] that he is assuming Kloppenborg's hypothesis is "correct" so he will not be
discussing "alternate
compositional hypotheses." In this,
he says, he is following me. If this means that he assumes I accept the
general
outline of Kloppenborg's analysis of Q, then he is right; if he is
implying
that I do, or should, accept every aspect of that hypothesis, then he
is wrong.
And I, too, will focus essentially on Kloppenborg, particularly in his
groundbreaking book The Formation of Q (1987).
Zeichman leads off with a particularly gratuitous misunderstanding of
what I
say in The Jesus Puzzle: On page 177 Doherty informs us that "the essence of Q1 represents a foreign source, whether oral or written, one which first flourished in a non-Jewish milieu." While the rest of this statement is sufficiently dubious and will be addressed later, what is of interest here is his problematic suggestion that Q1 might have been "oral."
This is not at all what I have said. In that quoted sentence I say that
the source
of Q1 might have been oral. This is not Q1 itself, but the anterior
stage to
Q1, as the term "foreign source" indicates, a phrase I would not have
applied to any segment of Q itself. The succeeding sentence in my book:
"The Jewish preachers of the new movement may have discovered and
adopted
it..." also indicated that the 'oral' possibility applied to a stage prior
to the movement that adopted it and produced the initial stratum of Q
itself. I
fully agree that Q1 must be considered a written entity. Thus there is
no
question of Q1 material being written down only at the same time as the
Q2
material; this would, as Zeichman suggests, undermine the attempt to
analyze
stratification, by Kloppenborg or myself.
Note also that the writing down of the Q2 material, even though this reflects the actual activities of the sect from its beginnings and the response it received from the society it preached in, is not likely to have occurred immediately, at the same time as Q1 was formulated. Those sectarian traditions would have taken a certain amount of time to develop, and to be collected and written down. There could be a period of years between the two phases, and most likely there was, as there is always a 'history' involved when a literary record is formed, and this is certainly true of Q2. However, it may not have been true, or as true, in regard to Q1, if that was a body of ethical and lifestyle tradition taken over from a previous (non-Jewish) group or ethos. Thus we can assume that Q1 existed in a written state within the community at or soon after the sect’s formation, and only some time after that did the Q2 material take shape and get added to Q1. |
Tradition History vs. Literary History
A principal basis on which Zeichman finds fault with my use of
Kloppenborg is
the distinction between tradition-historical methods and
literary-critical
methods, and my alleged confusion between the two. He quotes
Kloppenborg: To say that the wisdom components were formative for Q [i.e., got it started] and that the prophetic judgment oracles and apothegms describing Jesus' conflict with "this generation" are secondary [i.e., added later] is not to imply anything about the ultimate tradition-historical provenance of any of the sayings. It is indeed possible, indeed probable, that some of the materials from the secondary compositional phase are dominical [i.e., said by Jesus] or at least very old, and that some of the formative elements are, from the standpoint of authenticity or tradition-history, relatively young. Tradition-history is not convertible with literary history, and it is the latter which we are treating here. [The Formation of Q, p.244] Zeichman
backs this up with a quote from Crossan: [Some] of the material that an author used as the first layer of a composition could be created at that very moment, and some of the ones inserted as a second layer could have been there from long before. The stratification of a writing's composition is not the same as the stratification of a tradition's history. [The Birth of Christianity, p.250]
One should realize that Kloppenborg's statement is simply a 'proviso'
on his
part. He does not argue that all or even any of the "prophetic judgment
oracles," etc. actually are older or even contemporary
with the
"wisdom components." He
simply wants to avoid any misunderstanding
that such a possibility is being overlooked or ignored. I am not
lacking "a full grasp on the
concepts," as Zeichman
puts it. I am dealing with Kloppenborg's hypothesis on its own
self-declared
basis, namely that it is a treatment of literary history, not tradition
history. It would be impossible for me to deal with the latter in
connection
with Kloppenborg's hypothesis, since Kloppenborg himself provides no
role or
argumentation for tradition history in his work. Thus Zeichman's "flawed uses of Kloppenborg's hypothesis"
accusation is not only false, it is a logical contradiction. The same is true for Crossan. He quotes the above passage from Kloppenborg, adding his own remarks (the quote above). But neither does he offer any discussion of "the stratification of a tradition's history." In fact, when he goes on [p.253f] to discuss stratification in Q and the Gospel of Thomas, he appeals to Stephen Patterson's Wisdom in Q and Thomas, accepting his view that the sayings in common between them go back to a root "corpus of material" which was entirely sapiential, and had no elements of apocalypticism or Gnosticism; the latter were later "redactional adaptation." What does this do for his and Kloppenborg's proviso mention of "tradition history"? Not only have both commentators failed to offer any evidence that in fact elements of Q2 did predate the elements of Q1 in terms of their tradition-historical provenance, the evidence they do discuss tends to argue against it. Besides, if some prophetic/apocalyptic sayings were older than the sapiential ones (Crossan's "six wisdom speeches"), and both represent actual words of, or very early traditions attached to Jesus, what compelling reason would we have for assuming that only sapiential sayings would be set down when a written record (Q1) was begun—the formative stage of the literary history? On what basis can we imagine the community making that kind of distinction and choice? If Jesus was regarded as an apocalyptic preacher as well as a wisdom teacher, why be so exclusively selective in one direction when setting about to record his supposed words? Those "wisdom speeches" are artificial constructions. Jesus would not have delivered them like that, nor would a scribe have taken them down on such occasions. The sapiential layer, if representative of Jesus' teaching, would have been a deliberate, careful undertaking, supposedly drawing on oral tradition, by the initial formulators of the Q document's earliest stage. But there would have been no reason for them to formulate that document with only wisdom sayings. In any case, this would assume some kind of sophisticated thought and selection process on the part of the compilers which I see no reason to attribute to them. This is the sort of trap that modern scholars and theologians constantly fall into: reading their own highly sophisticated analyses (based on years of intensive academic study and dissection of the minutest implications they can find in the text) into the minds of first century sectarian writers or compilers. Thus, both Kloppenborg's and Crossan's provisos are without actual foundation (except in principle). When Kloppenborg says, "It is indeed possible, indeed probable, that some of the materials from the secondary compositional phase are dominical or at least very old...", this is more or less indistinguishable from wishful thinking. The actual evidence does not support it, nor does Kloppenborg try to produce any. The most likely scenario here is that literary history went along with tradition history. Q2 was added to Q1 some time after its component sayings were formed, but all of it postdated the material of Q1 which was essentially anterior to the sect in its original form. Naturally, we cannot state that with surety in regard to all cases, but it is the most appealing option in general, and a legitimate one on which to base my case concerning the root nature of Q and its alleged founder figure. |
Order and Layers in Q
This comment by Zeichman is an overstatement: One last example can be found in passing remarks suggesting that Q1 was "reorganized" by the redactor (pp. 147, 153 [of The Jesus Puzzle]), again undermining an indispensable premise of Kloppenborg's hypothesis. It is essential that the original order of Q1 was preserved in the final edition of Q, even if it was interrupted by Q2 and Q3 redactors. Again, this is because it is based on a literary-critical reading of Q, where specific redactive units interrupt pre-existing ones. If these had been modified in any way, there would be no way to identify such redaction, and Q1 material which was moved would appear to be Q2 material or one would be unable to determine strata if this were done to even a moderate degree.
Zeichman has made too much of this. First of all, I said "possibly with
some reorganization" when later sayings were added, not throwing the
whole
business into the air and picking them up where they fell. A
certain
amount of change to the order of Q1 sayings relative to each other
would hardly
have rendered it impossible to identify later insertions, since the
latter
could be identified on the basis of their contrasting nature, which is
the
principal method of determining Q stratification. Kloppenborg and
Crossan [op
cit, p.252] are able to identify the insertion of a later beatitude
[v.22-23] into the "inaugural sermon of the Q Gospel" [Lk/Q 6:20b-23]
because of its apocalyptic nature and reference to the Son of Man, as
opposed
to the preceding ones of a sapiential (Q1) nature. Changing the order
of
surrounding verses would not foil that identification. Zeichman's
warning that
"there would be no way to identify
such
redaction" is obviously mistaken, or hyperbole. As well,
linkages
between a Q2 saying and a Q1 saying preceding it are obvious and common
on
other grounds, through Q2 sayings being
recognizably a
later 'commentary' on the earlier. (This is a major method of
identifying the
Q2 material as later than the Q1.) In the latter case, a redactor would
not
split up those two sayings in any 'reorganization' because he would
recognize
that they have been joined together on an associative basis. In any
event,
perhaps we have lost some revealing juxtapositions through
later
reorganization, but enough has remained to serve our stratification
purposes.
Similarly, as I point out in The Jesus Puzzle [p.153],
Crossan's dilemma
in finding no trace of a common order between Q and Thomas in their
Common
Sayings Tradition (i.e., those sayings in common between Thomas and
Q1), is
easily solvable by postulating some reorganization of that order by
either Q or
Thomas. Crossan does not say that the original order of Q1 had to be
strictly
preserved, or that any modification would foil identifying
later
redaction. Thus he should be able to postulate a certain amount of
reorganization of either Q or Thomas as an explanation for why there is
an
"absolute lack of any common
order or parallel
sequence in the way the common material is presented in the two Gospels"
[p.249]; this would relieve him from being forced to rule out "some documentary or written source
common to both these
Gospels that might explain the large amount of parallel data."
If
he is reluctant to see much or any reorganization for Q, Thomas would
be the
more likely candidate in any event. A major relisting of its sayings
could have taken place when a body of new sayings was added (perhaps
the redactor did throw it
into the air), as there is virtually no organization in that
document as we
have it, as well as little in the way of thematic or catchword linkage.
The
'wisdom' and 'gnostic' sayings are interspersed almost willy-nilly,
allowing
some scholars to claim that there is no internal evidence that the
former are
the older. (Other factors tend to date the former as earlier.)
In connection with this, Zeichman later in his critique chides me thus: At what stage did those Common
Sayings
Tradition (CST, the term is Crossan's) similarities come about between
Thomas and Q1? That is
a
complex question for which there is no simple answer, and I am not
going to
attempt one here. It is not a case of Thomas borrowing from a finished
Q1 (much
less vice-versa). If a “common source document” was involved, what
relation did
that document bear to Q1? An early version of it, prior to what can be
extracted from finished Q? Even separating out the so-called ‘gnostic’
sayings
exclusive to Thomas leaves us with a CST that contains a few
apocalyptic
elements, expectations of the End-time, but notably without an
apocalyptic Son
of Man. (Note Thomas #44, which is a close match to Q 12:10
[blaspheming
against the Holy Spirit, etc.], but the reference to ‘speaking a word
against
the Son of Man’ is replaced by blaspheming against the Father and the
Son.) At
what point, through what connection, did those ‘Q2’-type elements enter
Thomas?
The Gospel of Thomas as we have it is generally dated as going back to
the mid
second century, though the CST portion is favored to be essentially a
product
of the mid first century, roughly contemporary with early Q. Crossan
discusses
this situation at length in his Birth of
Christianity [p.252f]. In The Jesus
Puzzle I offered only basic observations because of the complexity
and
uncertainty of the whole issue. There are limits to what that book can
contain.
There is another fundamental flaw in the way Zeichman evaluates my
argumentation.
He bases his objections on standard or majority scholarly presumptions
and
analyses, and where I don't agree with or ignore those presumptions in
presenting my arguments and conclusions, this becomes "a lack of understanding" on my
part.
For example, he questions my identification of the Dialogue between
Jesus and
John (Lk/Q
In disagreeing with my stance on the Dialogue being the product of my
Q3,
Zeichman argues on the basis of Kloppenborg's
Q3, namely, one extended pericope, the Temptation of Jesus
(Lk/Q 4:1-13)
[see The Formation of Q, p.317]. Everything else following on
the
sapiential layer of Q1 is to be assigned to Q2. Zeichman says: The
scripture cited in these verses [of the Dialogue]
is not from the Septuagint, which one would expect if this were the
case [i.e., if
it were in Kloppenborg's Q3]. The exegesis of
Isaiah here [in
the Dialogue] is not typical of
what is found in [Kloppenborg's] Q3; here [in the Dialogue] scripture functions
predictively, as opposed to the
"anxiety regarding the enduring validity of the Law" found in Q3.
Similarly, the understanding of
Jesus' miracles differs from that of
Q3 where they function christologically, a contrast from the "event of
the
kingdom" understanding found elsewhere in the synoptic sayings source [Zeichman is paraphrasing
Kloppenborg
here].
First of all, Kloppenborg makes these characterizations of the
Temptation Story
as a way of identifying it as a later addition, not of the same ethos
as Q2.
But Zeichman's mistake is in not acknowledging that Kloppenborg is
talking
about only one unit; that's all his Q3 consists of! Zeichman
can hardly
appeal to this as something "typical" of Q3, or how scripture
functions in Q3, or how miracles are understood in Q3, when it is all
based on
only one example. (I'm reminded of Lee Strobel's interviewee Dr.
Alexander Metherell
saying that "we're told in the
New Testament"
that Jesus' side was pierced at the crucifixion, when this is found
only in the
Gospel of John.) A single example does not create a generality against
which
everything else has to be compared and to which it has to conform. One
unit
does not make a standard. Thus, Zeichman cannot claim that the "predictive function" of the use
of Isaiah in
the Dialogue, or its particular use of scripture, or its understanding
of
Jesus' miracles, bars it from inclusion in Q3 when the latter, for him,
is
represented by only one pericope. This is a clear logical fallacy. I
depart
from Kloppenborg and others in assigning to, and defining, Q3 in terms
of what
can reasonably be identified as the introduction of Jesus into the
document.
This is not arbitrary or circular, since my overall breakdown and
stratification of Q, and the arguments involved in doing that, have to
make
consistent sense, which I maintain they do. (Again, Zeichman is
entitled to
argue against that, but he has to do it on the basis of my
breakdown and
analysis, not judge it by that of others and simply declare mine
invalid
because it doesn't agree. Too much of this sort of thing is done in
argument
against the mythicist case in general; it is done from the locked-in
standpoint
of traditional scholarly paradigms which are given some kind of
axiomatic
status.) In light of this, I must dispute Zeichman's summary judgment in this section of his critique, that I have set aside Kloppenborg's literary-critical method in favor some illegitimate "tradition-historical endeavor." What I have done is essentially identify the two, which does not contradict Kloppenborg because he has given us no reason to think that one cannot, in this case, treat the literary-critical as reflecting the tradition-historical. Simply stating in principle that the two cannot automatically be treated as the same, without demonstrating that such a prohibition in fact applies to this particular case, does not prohibit me from drawing tradition-historical implications from Kloppenborg's own method and hypothesis, especially if other considerations point in that very direction. Neither Kloppenborg nor Crossan declare, nor surely would declare, that it is never possible for the two to coincide. |
Q and the Cynics
There is yet more misunderstanding when Zeichman addresses my views of
the
Cynic root of Q, an idea of some standing among scholars. Zeichman
accuses me
of making "major changes to the
cynic
hypothesis as advocated by Mack and Vaage." I go so far "that it undermines many essential parts
of the cynic
hypothesis and cannot stand as he has revised it." That might be
true if I had in fact performed all the changes he reads into what I
say on the
matter. His worst misreading is that I say "the
Q1 people were Cynics." In fact, I don't even say that
there
were Q1 people. That is precisely one of the things I argue against,
that Q1 represents a distinct, earliest stage of the community, the
wisdom-oriented and tolerant state of mind of the people involved in
it, while
Q2 represents a later morphing of these same people, or subsequent
members of
the same community, into apocalyptic-oriented, fire-and-brimstone
fanatics.
Zeichman has again misunderstood my analysis of the Q1 root. It doesn't
represent a temporal stage of the Kingdom-preaching Galilean
sect, one preceding
the expression of apocalyptic sentiment and expectation (things that
are
lacking in the Q1 literary layer). I make that as clear as a bell on
page 164.
Q1, in my estimation, represents the adoption, from a non-Jewish
(ultimately
Cynic) source, of a set of ethical principles, hopes and admonitions,
instructions for an itinerant missionary lifestyle, etc., by a
Kingdom-preaching
sect which from its beginning had apocalyptic expectations and
prophetic
teachings. But as I said earlier, that part of Q which is assigned to
the Q2
layer would have been set down and added to the Q1 material only later
in its
career, after such Q2 teachings and practices (existing from the
beginning) had
had some 'history', after they had taken shape and were collected and
set down
to be added to the existing (Q1) written record. I will quote the
relevant
passage from The Jesus Puzzle [p.164]: It is
difficult if not impossible to regard the same community, the same set
of
people—not to mention the same man—as having produced the two sets of
sayings,
one reflecting an enlightened lifestyle of tolerance, accommodation,
mutual respect,
trust in a benevolent God, etc., the other a fire-breathing, intolerant
outburst of vindictiveness....First of all, it is not merely a case of
a
different personality and mode of expression. Q2 reflects an
apocalyptically
oriented mind or community, one which believes in the [future coming
of] the
Son of Man. That type of orientation does not suddenly displace a
previous
stance of being without it. Furthermore, the message of Q1 is largely
self-directed. It is a prescription for the members of a community to
follow.
It does not of itself seek large-scale conversion of others, especially
the
rich and powerful. Thus it would be difficult to envision the mindset
of Q1
changing into the mindset of Q2 within essentially the same group of
people, no
matter what the perceived provocation.
What I maintain is that the material represented by Q1 is derived from
a Cynic
or Cynic-like source which existed anterior to the formation of the Q
community
and preaching movement. (Perhaps some of the initial Q people had
previously
been involved in such circles.) I don't know if it was in the form of a
sapiential-like sayings collection as we find it in Q1, let alone if it
was
'blocked' into five "sermons." The latter I rather doubt. Those who
did the adopting, the early Q people, may have imposed that form upon
the
material, whether from some earlier written state or simply from an
oral body
of instructions and sayings. After all, standard scholarship regards
that some
group of Jesus' followers took oral traditions about Jesus' preaching
and
imposed on it the form we see in Q1. It thus becomes equally feasible
that a
Kingdom-preaching group took traditions or a crude written record
derived from
Cynic practice and philosophy, with no historical Jesus involved, and
imposed
on it the form we see in Q1. Much of my case is based on the indicators
there
are to support choosing the latter option over the former. "Doherty also sees a major discontinuity between the Q1 and Q2 people." As just explained, the "discontinuity" exists between the Q1 source, the Cynic-type milieu from which it was ultimately derived, and the Galilean movement which adopted it. Within the Galilean movement, the Q1 and Q2 people are the same. This is a major misunderstanding on Zeichman's part. So I am actually in agreement with the scholars who "emphasize the continuity between the two main strata of the Kloppenborg hypothesis."
Zeichman claims that advocates of the Cynic hypothesis (Mack, Vaage,
and Co.)
"do not posit dependence on those
Hellenistic
philosophies for their thinking, mode of dress, etc." I don't
know
why not. If this thinking and mode of dress, etc., are strongly
reminiscent of
Cynic elements, is it all simply coincidence? (If it looks like a
duck...) Why not
posit some form of dependence, even if through circuitous channels?
Zeichman's
answer: The reason is that the cynic hypothesis which they advocate is one based upon a careful method of assessment, comparison, and re-assessment, not upon reducing the relationship to genetic dependence. This
sounds a lot like, 'because they're more professional than you and
follow
sophisticated scholarly procedures, not the simplistic ones you do'.
But it's
all rather woolly, and the jargon isn't explained or illustrated. And
what is
this sin of "genetic dependence"? Does Zeichman want to claim that
there was no direct conscious borrowing, but simply an absorption of
ideas and
practices that were 'in the air' at the time? To some extent, that's
quite
possible. I advocate such a thing in my discussion of Christianity's
possible
debt to the mystery cults. But this is not to reject the idea that
Cynic
philosophy and practice was what put it all into the air in the first
place,
where it could be plucked out by the Q community. I have no objection
to
postulating intervening channels or stages, but that does not change
the fact
that one can still trace an ultimate 'genetic dependence'. On the other
hand, to
absorb and organize a body of material like that of Q1 would seem to
require a
little more than simply cocking one's ear to unattributed aural
vibrations in
the atmosphere. Consequently, I would prefer to postulate a certain
degree of
more direct borrowing or absorption, a degree of 'genetic dependence' I
don't
consider sinful.
Zeichman quotes opponents of the Cynic hypothesis as debunking my
reading of
Q1: Christopher Tuckett, for example, argues against the presence of Cynics in Galilee, the lack of a definite concept of Cynics in that time period, the genre of Q1 being like the "lives" of Cynics, and suggests that the mode of dress in Q is anti-Cynic. He additionally notes that there is a distinct lack of cynic writings in the centuries preceding the turn of the era in which Jesus is said to have lived (or Q1 was formed, for Doherty). But
then he promptly offers a quote from Kloppenborg which neutralizes what
Tuckett
has said and rescues me from demolition: All of these, Kloppenborg notes, are irrelevant to the claims of (the advocates of the cynic hypothesis) because "[the] Cynic hypothesis does not require that Cynics be attested in large numbers in the early first century CE....It only requires one of two assumptions: either that there were still some...persons who would be identified as cynic-like on the basis of their dress, behavior, or teaching, or that the literary figure of the Cynic and the basic profile of Cynic behavior and teaching were sufficiently well-known to be recognized when they were encountered in a literary presentation of Jesus...." [hiatuses are Zeichman's] Kloppenborg
has provided all the response I need to give. But note the final portion of the Kloppenborg quote. He is quite comfortable with seeing Q1 as a literary presentation of Jesus that conformed to known Cynic precedents. But if the literary presentation of Jesus and his teachings closely conformed to a Cynic model, that makes Jesus a "Cynic-style sage," as scholars like Mack have suggested. It would make the literary creation modeled on Jesus as a Cynic-type preacher. Also, how does one distinguish between this and a literary creation that is simply derived from a broader Cynic-type ethos and not an individual? On any count, a 'genetic dependency' on things Cynic is to be deduced. However, this forces scholars into a scenario that doesn't ring true. Was Jesus really an imitation-Cynic, showing little interest in or expression of things Jewish? Did he get his grand ethical ideas from somewhere else (since they demonstrate close resemblance to Cynic principles)? Why did he not, as a charismatic individual (one assumes), impose personal features and interests, including biographical, on that literary creation? Looking at it from another angle, is it likely that the earliest Christians in Galilee, if even moderately 'Jewish', would, after Jesus' death, formulate a literary creation of him that mimicked Cynic patterns so closely and exclusively? Is it likely that they would not have reworked them into a record that included more recognizably Jewish interests and a recognizable individual? Is this a viable genesis of the one document and community which critical scholars think gets them closest to the genuine historical Jesus? Scholarly readings of (and into) Q create all sorts of complications like this which are not readily resolvable, and often not even recognized because things have not been thought through in the presence of axiomatic assumptions. Surely the better explanation for this "literary creation" is that it is being formed on the model of its precedent, not on a Jesus figure; it represents the adoption by the early Q community of an ethic and lifestyle which had close connections with that of the Cynics, either ultimately derived from them or influenced by them. This ethic and lifestyle they have chosen to follow and are now recording in a 'foundation document.' All of this best makes sense in the absence of a founder figure. |
Is Q1 "Jewish"?
A key consideration here is the non-Jewish character of the Q1 stratum.
Zeichman, disputing this, calls attention to my quote of N. T. Wright
in The
Jesus Puzzle [p.158-9]: "Far
more important to the first-century Jew than questions of space, time
and
literal cosmology were the key issues of And
I asked, "Where are all—or any—of these Jewish preoccupations in Q1 or
the
parallel layer of Thomas? Where is the divine mandate, the will of the
covenantal God of Judaism, the future role of the gentile, the
restoration of
Does Zeichman counter by pointing out all the references to such things
in Q1
that I have overlooked? No. Instead he alludes to "work by E. P. Sanders and others"
that allegedly suggest
Wright's "assessment of Judaism
during the
time of Jesus" is not correct. But he does not offer any example
of
an alternate feature of the Judaism of that time which might be found
in Q1.
Still, my claim "defies the
evidence."
And what is this "evidence"? In order to assess it, I need to first
state the idea that the Q people are not necessarily Jews per se,
though they
may well include some; it is possible that the Kingdom-preaching
movement in
Galilee-Syria which Q represents was as much a product of gentiles who
had
adopted Jewish traditions, including an interest in the Jewish
scriptures
and taking part in Jewish religious observances. This is a
well-attested
phenomenon of the empire of the time, as in the (somewhat now
discredited) term
"Godfearers" (though who the term refers to is not): gentiles who had
become, in many respects, "Jewish-imitating." (This phrase is neutral
and usefully descriptive, despite the fact that Zeichman finds it
"vaguely
offensive." As a way of describing non-Jews who had attached themselves
to
Jewish tradition, I find no justification for that.)
But there is some confusion here. The key issue is not whether the Q
people
were themselves Jewish or what the proportion may have been between Jew
and
gentile. The main issue is the nature of Q1. We have to keep in mind
that there
are really two aspects to the question. But since an essentially
gentile sect
(even if subscribing to Jewish ideas) would support more compellingly
the idea
of a non-Jewish Q1 (as Wright presents it), the two are linked.
Zeichman argues
from both sides. His first piece of evidence that the Q people were
indeed Jews
and that Q1 is "Jewish" is the reference to Solomon in Lk/Q 12:27:
"Solomon in all his splendor was
not attired
like one of these [lilies]." But as a legendary figure reputed
to
have possessed great riches, Solomon would hardly be unknown to anyone
who
lived in the vicinity of
Then there is Kloppenborg's suggestion that the gentiles are used "as negative examples" in Lk/Q
6:33-34 and If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners [hamartōloi] do that. There
are various definitions of hamartōloi. The principal one is the word in English:
sinners. There
is nothing to prevent this from being a reference by gentiles (or Jews)
to
sinners within the broader society outside the sect, Jewish or Greek.
Bauer's
Lexicon points out that it can refer to irreligious or unobservant Jews.
Now, he also points out that it can serve, among Jews, as a general
term for
heathen, which is the way Kloppenborg and Zeichman are taking it,
although the
examples given by Bauer are from pre-New Testament writings. It
"perhaps"
(Bauer says) means the heathen in a few Gospel passages like Mt. 26:45
and
parallels, and perhaps that also applies to Lk/Q 6:32-4. But there is
no
guarantee that this reference singles out gentiles as a group (sinners
or not)
rather than actual sinners of any ethnic group. In fact, it is not at
all
likely, if we apply a bit of common sense to the passage itself. The Q
saying
is advocating an ethic which is beyond the ordinary. Is the speaker
going to
use the term "sinners" to apply to all gentiles (even the non-sinners
among them) as a derogatory comparison to those who follow the new
ethic? That
would hardly win over gentiles in the audience, who would definitely
have been
present in Zeichman's
appeal to Lk/Q 12:30 is even less
relevant. "Do not seek
what you may eat and drink,"
the speaker declares; these things all the nations of the world [ethnē
tou
kosmou] seek after. This hardly means anything more than that "the
whole world" occupies itself with such things, but you shouldn't
because
the Father will look after you. None of this even remotely requires
that the
speakers are Jews or that the audience to which this is directed must
be Jews,
and especially Jews who set themselves off from non-Jews. Zeichman and
Kloppenborg are grasping at straws here. And still nothing that
relates
to Wright's list of expected Jewish concerns. In fact, Kloppenborg
identifies
key elements of the Sermon on the Mount as belonging to the general
category of
"sapiential and philosophical
works...the motifs of imitation of God
and
of the righteous as huios
theou [Q Zeichman
claims there are passages in Q that
make allusion to the Hebrew bible, and these verses "refer to Lk/Q 6:20-23:
Blessed
are you the poor,
for yours is the This is supposedly a
deliberate allusion to Isaiah 61:1-2: "...the Lord has
sent me to bring good
news to the humble, to bind up the broken-hearted...to give them
garlands
instead of ashes..."
One
could as well say that Butterfly's aria before stabbing herself is an
allusion
to Hamlet's line, "To be or not to be" when he ponders the choice of
suicide. Q's promises to
The
connection Zeichman tries to draw between Q
and And why is
it left to finding vague
"allusions" to biblical passages as a means of establishing the
presence of Jewish concerns? As I ask in The Jesus Puzzle, Would this Jesus never have given voice in direct terms to the tradition of Yahwehan justice and righteousness, to the prophets as biblical precedent? Would he never give a hint of the traditional question (again going back into the prophets) of whether the people's sins and the need for repentance had anything to do with their present state of affairs? Would he never have allowed a flavor of prophetic or apocalyptic fervor to pass his lips? Why is it left to the Q2 stratum to introduce such elements? Zeichman's
other example is even more inapt.
Lk/Q 9:61-62 is supposed to be an allusion to 1 Kings 19:19-21. An
allusion it
may be, but it has nothing whatever to do with specifically Jewish
concerns of
the nature raised by Wright. What is the Jewishness of a Master
requiring that
a prospective disciple leave all behind to follow him? This is a
world-wide
sentiment. If the Q 'speaker' of this saying had 1 Kings in mind, it
was to
draw a psychological response in the listener from its echo in the
Hebrew
bible, something the Gospels are full of, since the story of Jesus was
fashioned to echo various motifs in scripture and its pseudo-history.
But this
does not of itself fill the bill to satisfy Wright's quest for
specifically
Jewish concerns. Neither does a mere mention of "the Torah" in In one
way, his whole exercise is moot. As I
said earlier, there is no doubt that the Q people were acquainted with
the
Jewish scriptures, whether they were Jew or gentile. And an interest in
the
Hebrew bible and Jewish apocalyptic expectations about the coming
Kingdom would
be natural in gentiles who had attached themselves to a Jewish
culture. Such
a syncretistic development would have been quite feasible in a mixed
and
cosmopolitan area like A final observation to be made here is that, whether Jewish or gentile or a syncretistic mix of the two, Q, as all scholars admit, shows every sign of having been written from the beginning in Greek. Whatever Jewish element was involved, it was seemingly not one that had strong ties to Jewish tradition and the Hebrew bible. It would have been to a great degree Hellenized, which in itself would imply the loss of those traditional Jewish interests which Wright has correctly remarked are notably missing in Q1. |
The Son of Man in Q In
discussing my views of the Son of Man in Q,
Zeichman draws on a response I made to him in my recent Reader
Feedback 27.
He starts by accusing me of "suggesting that
there are only two kinds of Son of Man saying:
those that are built off of Daniel 7[:13] and those which are not." Having read that Reader
Feedback
response, he knows that this classification into two kinds is one of
three
classifications created by scholars, as noted by Geza Vermes. I opted
to follow
that dual classification, which is Vermes' own preference. This is
followed by: The apocalyptic son of man, (Doherty) contends, was created by the Q2 people on the sole basis of an exegesis of Daniel 7 with no intention of it being attached to any historical person. While this is essentially
correct except in one respect, it needs
nuancing. The Son of Man surfaces in the first century among various
sectarian
groups, Jewish and (proto-)Christian, as an End-time heavenly figure,
though
with different characteristics and roles given to him; and in view of
the
features attached to him there is virtually no other likely candidate
for
having given rise to this phenomenon than the "one like a son of
man" in Daniel
7:13-14. Some scholars
(notably Vermes himself) have been prone to deny this and explain it
all—at
least where Q and the Gospels are concerned—as a byproduct of a
supposed
practice by Jesus to refer to himself euphemistically in the third
person, but
others have rejected that scenario. (I devoted some space arguing
against it in
my Feedback response and will not repeat it here.) My impression is
that this
is Zeichman's preference, and he consistently removes the
capitalization
(common in most translations of "Son of Man" sayings) from the
phrase, presumably to eliminate any sense of title and derivation from
Daniel.
(He does the same for "Cynic," perhaps in an attempt to minimize that
sense of derivation.) Zeichman
makes it sound as though I envision
the Q people poring over the book of Daniel and out of the blue coming
up with
their "Son of Man" as an apocalyptic figure. I was hardly that
simplistic, despite his reference to my "simplistic technique." (Put it simplistically in
the opponent's mouth, and you
can label it "simplistic," a fine technique which Zeichman uses quite
a bit throughout his critique.) However, as he should know from my
Feedback
response to him, I outlined scholarly debate on the question of whether
there
was a widely established and unified concept of an "apocalyptic Son of
Man" in Jewish circles, and noted that the bulk of recent scholarship
had
come to the conclusion that "there was no such widespread, unified
concept; rather, a lot of independent circles used the imagery of
Daniel 7 to
develop a diversity of messianic prediction involving a 'one like a son
of
man'," and that all of it was ultimately based on Daniel 7. (This was
derived in part from Delbert Burkett, The Son of Man Debate: A
History and
Evaluation [1999], whom Zeichman himself quotes in an endnote.) So
according to recent scholarship a
"messianic" concept of a Danielic-derived Son of Man was 'in the air'
of the first century, taking diverse forms (in Q and the Gospels,
Revelation, 4 Ezra, Similitudes of Enoch). Yet Zeichman is anxious to
deny
that such a thing was present in Q. He appeals to "scholarly
conclusions about Q, not least
of which is the general opinion of Q specialists [who go unnamed] that Daniel 7 is
nowhere presupposed in Q's portrayal of this
figure," which
contradicts Burkett's assessement as noted above. He even criticizes
Christopher
Tuckett for arguing to the contrary "because [Tuckett's]
is a holistic approach analogous to what
Doherty attempts, failing to account for specific anomalies in Q's
portrayal of
this figure" [n.
27]. By
"holistic," he must mean taking the context and the spirit of a
document or passage into account, rather than focusing on
'technicalities' that
one can allege are "anomalies." He wants to maintain that Daniel 7
and its characteristics had no input in the Q community's conception of
the Son
of Man, that "Daniel 7
is nowhere presupposed in Q's portrayal of this figure." On what
basis is such a case to be made? First,
he claims that of the "future" Son of Man sayings in Q, only one says
that he is "coming" (a Daniel 7 motif): Lk/Q 12:40. "Be ready, because
the Son of Man
is coming [erchetai] at an hour when you
least expect."
But what
of There are
also three cases of reference to the
Son of Man in the triple tradition which make it possible that
equivalent
sayings existed in Q, but that we cannot recognize them because Matthew
and
Luke show dependence on Mark instead. Mk. Mk. 14:62 (Lk. 22:69 / Mt. 26:64): "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." Mk. All these sentiments and
motifs bear close relationship to those
of Daniel 7 ("clouds," "power," "glory"). Did
they exist in Q sayings concealed behind the dependence on Mark? Can we
reasonably postulate that Mark's expression of future Son of Man ideas,
his
coming with glory on the clouds, was reflective of a familiarity with
Q-type
traditions of his own community, even if he apparently did not possess
a copy
of the document used by Matthew and Luke? The answer is, it is very
reasonable. It is reasonable because the total spirit of the treatment
of the
Son of Man in Q and the Gospels would lead us to think so, that these
ideas
were present in the Q mindset regarding the Son of Man. The context
tells us,
in opposition to contrary appeals to flimsy 'technicalities'. Nor is
that appeal to the triple tradition
simply ad hoc speculation on my part. Kloppenborg does the
same. In
discussing the "controversy" units of Q2, he notes: Since this block comprises many originally independent traditions, and since several of them have Marcan parallels, the theological tendency of the Q composition may be discerned both in the principles of association of the smaller units, and in the comparison with Mark. [p.121] And there
is another consideration here.
Zeichman earlier floated the concept of "major discontinuity" in connection with his
misinterpretation of what I was
saying about Q1 and Q2 people. He ridiculed any thought that there
could have
been a major disconnect between the former and the latter (which I
agreed
with). Yet here, he must assume a major discontinuity between Q and the
Gospels
in regard to their view of the Son of Man. First let me state a
principle that
I trust Zeichman will not dispute. The Synoptic communities are
extensions of
the Kingdom-preaching community represented by Q, later phases of it.
Mark,
Matthew and Luke do not represent communities with no derivation from
the Q
group and have for obscure reasons picked up the latter's traditions
and incorporated them in Gospels that are not a reflection of
their own
communities. That would be too bizarre a scenario. Therefore, the
Markan,
Matthean and Lukan communities are outgrowths of the earlier Q one.
What do Mark, Matthew and Luke demonstrate of attitudes toward the Son
of Man?
They include his future coming, his coming on the clouds, his coming in
glory,
'kingly' attributes like sitting on a throne, filling the role of judge
(more
on this presently). All these features—with the exception of the
"coming" itself—are rejected by Zeichman has having been part of the
Q ethos: "The
other
three links to Daniel 7 in the son of man sayings are wholly
absent from
the Q presentation of the son of man." However, he surely must admit
that they
are present in all three Synoptics. But can we reasonably label all
these, in
all three communities, as developments of thought about the Son of Man only
after the time represented by Q? Is it reasonable to reject these
ideas and
motifs as being present in or behind the Q apocalyptic Son of Man
sayings, as
Zeichman and the scholars he appeals to evidently do? If so, how does
he
account for such a "major discontinuity" when we get to those
Gospels, written by somewhat later members of the same general
movement in much the same area? Did
suddenly overnight all those varied communities take another look at
Daniel 7
and say, "Gee, we've been overlooking all sorts of motifs here; we'd
better add kingship, judging, coming on clouds with lots of glory to
our
expectations of the Son of Man"? |
The Son of Man as Judge
The same considerations apply to the question of the
Son of
Man as judge, a denial of which Zeichman raises with equal vehemence. "Nowhere in Q is it
said or implied that
the Son of man or Jesus will judge anyone." I can't even allow this as
a legitimate 'technicality'.
Zeichman points to Lk/Q 12:8-9: "(Here) the Son of
Man acts as an eschatological witness, but
this is the closest one comes to finding such a motif." (At least he admits it's
close.)
Recently on the IIDB, Jeffrey Gibson raised the same objection (with
even
greater vehemence). I will quote my response to him at that time, which
took
him to task, as I do with Zeichman, for not considering contexts: Consider the equivalent to
Luke 12:8 in Matthew 10:32:
"Whoever acknowledges [homologēsai, shall confess] me before
men, I
will also acknowledge [homologēsō, will confess] him before my
Father in
heaven…" That final reference in my
IIDB quote to
John the Baptist and his forecast of a "coming one" leads me to
Zeichman's further argument in this connection: If his
reading [of the
Son of Man as
judge in Q] comes from
equating the son of man with John's ho erchomenos (who is also
not said
to judge), he needs to justify this and not just assume it; if not, he
is just
as guilty of reading into the text as he accuses others of being. There
are, it
might be added, good reasons for doubting this interpretation, as this
conflation and exposition of this composite figure defies the narrative
of Q. Although he doesn't come
right out and say it, Zeichman's
implication is that we should not equate the Son of Man with
John's erchomenos.
(Otherwise, why fault me for assuming it?) So now we have two
apocalyptic figures due to arrive at the End-time, no doubt each with
its own
entourage. Will there not be a conflict between them in their
apocalyptic
activities? Will there be enough hotel and courtroom space? And what a
nightmare when trying to preach these two figures! How to keep all the
details
straight for audiences and parishioners? Zeichman speaks of the "narrative of Q." Let's take a look at that.
Q leads
off with John the Baptist preaching the erchomenos. Thereafter,
this
figure fails to put in any appearance at all (other than in John's
query about
him in the Dialogue of 7:18f), but is supplanted by a Son of Man who
seems to
take over similar qualities and responsibilities. Both are to be
identified
with the presumably present Jesus (though such an identification is
never
spelled out), yet they are allegedly different figures. This Jesus must
be
schizophrenic, or perhaps inhabited by two spirits. In my concept of
narrative
coherence, Q seems somehow deficient. As for John's erchomenos
not being
a judge (Zeichman puts it: "is also not said to
be a judge"), I
wonder what is entailed by Lk/Q There is one to
come who is mightier than I....He will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His shovel is ready in his
hand, to
winnow his threshing-floor and gather the wheat into his granary; but
he will
burn the chaff on a fire that can never go out. |
"Narrative" in Q Zeichman
admits that John's words about the erchomenos
do not sound as though he is speaking of an historical person, this
being one
of my arguments for deducing that there was no historical Jesus behind
the
original Q. His explanation for this is that it "is unsurprising in
light of Q's
narrative." I
have always
understood that one of the defining characteristics of Q is that it lacks
a narrative quality. It is a sayings collection, with a few 'anecdotal'
pericopes inserted into it, such as the Beelzebub controversy and the
Dialogue
between Jesus and John. No narrative structure is in evidence. On that,
Kloppenborg is quite clear: When placed
alongside the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, both of which employ
narrative as a
framing device, Q seems deficient....Although Q lacks Mark's
overarching
narrative framework...Q lacks a unifying narrative format... [The Formation of Q,
p.89, 94, 95] This is
not to say that Q had no organization
at all, quite the contrary. Kloppenborg: "Not only are the
sayings grouped into several topically
coherent clusters, there is also a measure of unity and coherence among
the
several clusters as well as logical and thematic development throughout
the
course of the entire collection"
[op cit, p.89]. But thematic format is not the same as narrative
format.
The "sermon blocks" do not present themselves as being in the order
in which they were preached. Phrases like "inaugural sermon" and "statement of
principles"
[Kloppenborg/Schenk] applied to the
first block are scholarly labels, perhaps reflecting a certain amount
of
'narrative' disposition on their part. The "eschatological"
pronouncements are more or less grouped toward the end of Q, but this
does not
mean that Jesus waited until later in his ministry to preach about the
coming
End-time and the Son of Man. There may have been a logical sequence for
the Q
redactor(s), but it was not narrative, following the course of a
ministry. If Q
had had any concern for such a narrative it would have brought in
biographical
elements, certainly a lot earlier than the latest addition, the
Temptation
Story, which is supposedly the start of a 'biographical' concern in Q.
Zeichman
is trying to impose an historical sequence on something which lacks any
such
thing. If there is a bow toward an historical dimension, it is only
with the
initial Baptist pericope, quite understandably since it is an
acknowledgement
toward John that he had been the one to start the Kingdom-preaching
process, an
idea further stated in To digress
for a moment, I consider that
labeling the Temptation Story as 'biographical' is a mistake. This unit
could
never have been composed to represent even an imagined historical
event.
Kloppenborg discusses several scholars' evaluations of it [p.250-2],
most of them
seeing it as an instructional allegory. Bultmann argued that it "functioned as a
paradigm of obedience
suitable for post-baptismal catechesis." Others rejected it as
being "unique
(or messianic) temptations of
Jesus; instead they are paradigmatic and symbolic for the Q
community's
self-understanding."
"Jesus
provides a
model...Jesus' refusal in the temptation account provides both a
legitimation
and a structural homologue for this mode of behavior"... "In short, the
temptation account
provides a paradigm and aetiology for the kind of behavior which Q
elsewhere
recommends for the followers of Jesus." Thus, the story is not
history, not biographical, and
therefore unrelated to any possible narrative concerns. And consider
those
quotes. Kloppenborg and the others are getting perilously close to
providing
another reason why Q developed an imaginary founder. Instructional
messages are
best impressed upon the recipient, and tend to be embodied, in personal
stories
involving an individual. An individual serves better as an exemplar
than does
an abstract directive. (This may have been an essential impulse for the
creation of the first Gospel.) The same principle applies to the
broader
catalogue of sayings along with the miracle and controversy stories. An
attribution of such teachings and activities to the community (inspired
by
personified Wisdom), which originally served to articulate the sect's
self-understanding, would inevitably have focused on an historical
individual
(real or imagined) to better highlight and convey that understanding.
In a
discussion of the "Projected
Audience" for Q,
Kloppenborg points out: While the ostensible or implied audience is "this generation," it is, of course, hardly likely that Q was broadcast as a whole to outsiders as missionary propaganda, or circulated as a polemical tract....In their redactional arrangement these sayings articulate the conflict between the Q group and their Jewish contemporaries over the preaching of the kingdom. Conflict with outsiders... actually serves a positive and constructive purpose as a means to define more clearly group boundaries, to enhance internal cohesion and to reinforce group identity. This stratum of Q [Q2] articulates its conflict with "this generation" in terms which provide a transcendental legitimacy for the community....Thus, while ostensibly directed at the "out-group," these polemical and threatening materials function in fact to strengthen the identity of the "in-group" and to interpret for them the experience of persecution, rejection and even the failure of their preaching of the kingdom. [The Formation of Q, p.167-8] To return
to considerations of
"narrative," Zeichman's rationalizations on this topic would be quite
unworkable. He has tried to explain why the opening Baptist
pronouncement on
the Son of Man does not sound like he is speaking of an historical
person. Does
he really think that Q could have come together, or would have been
carefully
organized, to produce a "narrative" in which considerations such as
whether John knew Jesus at the time of his pronouncing the initial Q
saying
would have been taken into account? Does he think that during Q's
formative
stage that any compiler, if he had an historical Jesus in his own
mental
background, would have offered a pronouncement by John that clearly
created the
erroneous impression that John was not speaking of a human person
already on
the scene? Would such an oral tradition on which it was supposedly
based have
conveyed such a thing? That saying of John would simply not have formed
like
that in the first place, oral or written, if any historical Jesus had
existed
for the Q community. For the same reasons, Zeichman's further rationale
doesn't
work: that John at the time of this preaching didn't know the
historical
Jesus, he hadn't yet met him; so regardless of whether John is warning
of the
coming Son of Man or simply a coming historical person he didn't
realize was on
the scene, he sounds, quite justifiably, as though he is speaking of a
future
figure. This is alarmingly naive, for it would have to be based on the
Q
pericope being an accurate memory of actual words by John. If it isn't,
and it
is impossibly not, this was a saying formulated in later tradition,
oral or
written by a Q compiler, who did know of an historical Jesus,
and that
would be reflected in the formulation of any saying by John. To suggest
that
the oral tradition or compiler would have taken this into account in
the
interests of strict narrative accuracy, and have John reflect what
would have
been a non-knowledge of Jesus, would be too bizarre to countenance.
These are
protestations of the amateur apologetic type, and have simply not been
thought
through. Q opens with the
spectre of a baptizing ascetic proclaiming the
imminent judgment of God and the demand for repentance (3:7-9, 16-17).
At first
blush, there seems to be little affinity between this figure and
Jesus....The
prediction of the coming apocalyptic figure—either God himself or some
supra-human (angelic?) figure... [op cit, p.95, 104] Though we
can only speculate, we may well
assume that redactors in those days were either not very perceptive, or
were
not concerned about relatively minor contradictions. Or they may simply
have
read their later understanding into earlier passages and let them stand
as is.
This is not an ad hoc explanation, for it is in conformity with
a common
situation in the early Christian documentary record as a whole.
Scholars can point
to many apparent contradictions that exist between one passage and
another (the
Paulines are full of them, which leads many radical scholars to posit
all sorts
of interpolations and even later authorship), or between multiple
documents,
such as the Gospels. Did those redactors (and Matthew and Luke were
redactors
of Mark), not realize the incompatibilities they were creating? (To
some
extent, of course, later emendation to erase such things were
performed
by Christian scribes.) Thus I don't regard the incongruities between
two
pericopes in Q to be a serious problem. To
illustrate this practice of creating
incongruities in redactive evolution, it would be interesting to note a
passage
in Kloppenborg and the implications that can be drawn from the
situation he
describes. In discussing [p.94] the "Logical and
Qualitative Progression in Q" he points out a glaring
discrepancy
between the opening Baptist pericope and the Dialogue of 7:18f. He
notes that
in 7:18-23, "Jesus is
expressly identified with the Coming One" (that is, with the erchomenos
of the Baptist saying
in Yet ambiguities
persist, since John's Coming One is not
obviously consistent with Jesus as he is described in
Kloppenborg makes another observation which has
implications he does not realize. He points out that Schurmann has
observed
"that all
of
the Son of Man sayings in Q are attached either to the preceding or
following
sayings and function to explain or interpret them." This is in the context of
his
discussion of the "sign of Jonah" pericope. Let's look at that Son of
Man saying and its preceding sentence: ...[This wicked
generation] asks for a sign, yet no sign shall
be given to it but the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign
to the
Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation. [Lk/Q 11:29-30] One final point here. I noted earlier that the Gospel of Thomas lacks an apocalyptic Son of Man, and that a couple of sayings similar to Q’s Son of Man sayings have alternate readings which show no sign of him. This might lead us to think that Thomas does indeed have a connection with Q which predates the introduction of the apocalyptic Son of Man into Q’s preaching. The two collections split off before the Kingdom-preaching community came up with its End-time Son of Man. |
The Son of Man = a human Jesus? At this
point, it may come as something of a
shock to Zeichman that I may have to agree with him on one point about
the Son
of Man. In my Reader Feedback response to him I said that I favored the
idea
that Q never identified its new founder with its apocalyptic Son of
Man, but
that this only occurred when Q was incorporated into the Gospels—which
includes
Mark, who we have established would have had access to oral Q
traditions. I had
considered all the apocalyptic Son of Man sayings, but I overlooked the
Dialogue which, while it does not use the term Son of Man in the
apocalyptic
sense, speaks of John's erchomenos, who (if I'm not missing
something)
cannot be seen as a separate figure from the coming Son of Man. So even
if this
passage is late in Q's evolution, it seems to require that the
community at
that later stage came to identify their new founder as the Son of Man,
on earth
in a pre-apocalyptic ministry. It is possible that this was effected
through
the influence of the non-prophetic son of man sayings—the 'generic'
ones which
were now capable of being interpreted as speaking of a 'ministry'
(e.g., Lk. 8I
tell you, everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of Man shall
confess
him before the angels of God; 9but
he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10And everyone who
will speak a word against the Son of
Man, it shall be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy
Spirit,
it shall not be forgiven him.
However, there is a dual
way of resolving this conundrum. If the Son of Man and the new founder
Jesus
were not identified with each other, at least at the time
12:8-10 was formed, there is no conflict. At
the same
time, we ought to see verses 8 and 9 as originally referring to the
community
itself, something to the effect that "everyone who accepts our message
will be accepted (judged favorably) in heaven by the Son of Man, but
those who
reject us and our message will be rejected." Apparently, the Q
preachers
felt more lenient toward anyone who might "speak a word" against the
Son of Man, although a word (blasphemy) against the Holy Spirit merited
no leniency. Perhaps the redaction which produced the Dialogue
came even
later, and only by that time was an identification being made between
the erchomenos
Son of Man and the founder figure. Once again, no effort was made to
correct
any anomalies that were now being inadvertently created in previous
strata. However,
if I am forced to agree on this point
with Zeichman, such spirit of agreement is short-lived. I see nothing
in Q's Nor do I
agree with Zeichman's rationalization
about why the Son of Man in Q is never said to be going to "return."
After all, if Jesus is the Son Man and Jesus is on the scene, then
speaking of
the Son of Man arriving at the End-time would be about a return
of
Jesus/the Son of Man. Zeichman suggests that This is a
wicked generation. It demands a sign, but no sign shall be given to it
except
the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so
also will
the Son of Man be to this generation. At the Judgment, when the men of
this
generation are on trial, the Queen of the South will rise with them and
condemn
them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of
Solomon,
and behold, something greater [pleion,
neuter]
than Solomon is
here. The men of That this
passage suggests that a ministry of
the Son of Man is in progress is not obvious. First, the Son of Man as
a sign
to this generation is spoken of as in the future (estai, will
be), not
in the present. As soon as the sign of the Son of Man is mentioned,
what
follows it? A reference to the future Judgment, when this generation
will be on
trial, implying it is this judgment—conducted by the Son of Man—that
will
constitute the sign (though this is anticipated as imminent). When the
speaker
compares the past figures of Solomon and Jonah with the present, he
says that
"something" (pleion) is here—not someone—that is greater than
Solomon and greater than Jonah. The thing being compared to the
wisdom of
Solomon and the preaching of Jonah is the preaching of the Q community.
And the
arrival of the Son of Man to sit in judgment will vindicate that
preaching.
Kloppenborg's discussion of this pericope
[p.131-3] suggests the possibility of an alternate explanation. He
points out
(following Schmidt) that the "sign of Jonah" that will be
given to this generation is actually present; it is being given now. In
parallel, the "sign of the Son of man" that will be given
should be taken as present also, as referring to a present preaching.
Perhaps.
This may be what Zeichman has in mind. In support, Kloppenborg appeals
to the
two references to pleion, "some present
reality which is greater than Jonah or
Solomon. Given the context, this can only be the preaching of judgment." Earlier [p.128],
Kloppenborg
has admitted that "there
is no reason to construe (those references) in a christological way [i.e., as a reference to
Jesus]. The
neuter pleion does not invite
such an interpretation." Such remarks are in keeping
with my
contention that what is being compared to the two biblical figures is
not a
"some one" but a "some thing," all of which is further
evidence for the scenario that these sayings initially referred to the
activity
of the community, and not of an individual founder figure. But can
these pleion
phrases, as Kloppenborg implies, simply be equated to "the sign of the
Son
of Man," making that sign refer to the preaching of judgment, whether
by
Jesus or the pre-Jesus community? That is by no means secure. The
future
Judgment itself is given pride of place in what follows. And the "something greater" comparisons are brought in
only as
a way of justifying the condemnation of this generation in that
Judgment. There
is no necessary or apparent link between them and the earlier reference
to the
"sign
of the Son of
Man." Zeichman
also brings in Lk/Q 17:23-30 as
support for a "ministry
in progress." I
invite
the reader to peruse that passage and try to find any implication of
present
activities for the Son of Man in phrases like "when his day comes" and "on the day when
the Son of Man is
revealed."
Zeichman, in
wrapping up, claims that, well, if Jesus is presently conducting a
ministry, he
can hardly be said to be going to "return, for he is
already there."
This is patently absurd. I may be visiting my mother
on Sunday, but if I also intend to visit her on Wednesday and go home
in the
meantime, there is nothing to prevent me from telling her, while I am
still
with her on Sunday, that I will "return" on Wednesday. And if a third
person is speaking, it's virtually required. Consider the following
imaginary
conversation in that public square. Jesus, the Son of Man, is standing
off at a
distance. A Q follower says to an attending citizen: "The Son of Man will come
when you least expect him, be
ready." |
Wisdom in Q In
discussing my treatment of Wisdom in Q, as the one to whom the sayings
were possible attributed, later
transferred to Jesus when he was introduced, Zeichman seizes on my
acknowledgement "that
Q presumes that Jesus was a historical figure just as it does John the
Baptist." Of course it did—once it
had introduced such a figure,
although I earlier allowed that on his initial introduction, Q almost
seems to
treat him as a symbol rather than a concrete biographical entity. That
is the
whole basis of my scenario: no historical founder Jesus through the
phases of
Q1 and Q2, followed by the introduction of such a figure with resulting
new
material and some revision to older material. Surely Zeichman has not
misunderstood this, although his trumpeting of the fact that "it is nearly
irrefutable that...the Q
community at some point conceived of Jesus as a human founder" would seem to indicate that
he has
not grasped the concept I am putting forward. Lk/Q My other
argument was based on the attribution
of the saying in Lk/Q 11:49 to "the Wisdom of God": For this reason
the Wisdom of God said: "I will send them
prophets and apostles, and some of these they will persecute and
kill..."
Kloppenborg's discussion of the entire passage,
Lk/Q 11:42-52 [p.139-147], assumes a "complex history" and an
insertion of the Wisdom pronouncement (the "Sophia oracle" of 49-51) in bits and
pieces, but in the end the original
speaker is still identified as Wisdom. And in the end, we are still
left with
some perplexity as to why, at some stage, Jesus was not introduced here
(or
anywhere in Q) as the culminating example of Wisdom's oracle and Q2's
focus on
the deaths of past prophets. One of the insertions is regarded as verse
51a,
"from
the blood of
Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the
sanctuary."
Zechariah here is generally thought
to be a reference to the 2 Chronicles prophet, a pre-exilic figure, or
possibly
the prophet of the biblical book who lived shortly after the exile.
Either one
is a rather distant cut-off (a terminus ad quem) for Wisdom's
listing of
murdered prophets. (Kloppenborg makes a similar observation.) Could an
interpolator
who knew of the death of Jesus have settled for describing "the blood of all
the prophets shed since
the foundation of the world"
as having ended several centuries previously? The nitty-gritty of this
complicated passage almost defies making sure judgments about it, but
we are
still left with a silence in any form on the death of Jesus which
cannot be
blithely dismissed. It is almost inconceivable that if, as Zeichman
maintains,
"meta-history
in Q is
closely linked to its use of Deuteronomistic theology"—"the theme of the
killing of Yahweh's
prophets," as
Kloppenborg phrases it—not the slightest reference to the killing
of Jesus
is found anywhere in the document. Zeichman
tries to counter this kind of
observation by some rather strained rationalization. The reason why
Jesus is
not included in the reference in My second
objection is based on the agreed
originality of the Lukan version, with its attribution of the saying to
Wisdom.
If imputed to personified Wisdom (or even to NIV's "God in his
wisdom"), this would have provided an easy opening of the door to a
reference to the future killing of Jesus. Kloppenborg refers [p.144] to
this
"saying
of Sophia
speaking, apparently from her standpoint at the beginning of history." Since the Wisdom of God,
in such a
position, would have had no impediment to forecasting the future
(indeed,
according to Kloppenborg, she is doing precisely that with the oracle
as it
stands: "I will send
you prophets and messengers...),
she could very well have included reference to the killing of Jesus. If
we are
to follow Luke, it is not Jesus who would have made the "silly" remark that "this generation has
killed me" (as
Zeichman objects), but Wisdom, who would be making a prophecy. On the
other hand, of course, there is no reference at all to, or
sign of
knowledge of, at any stage of Q, a death of its founder, so the
redactor would
have had no reason to assign one here to either Wisdom or Jesus. This
would
provide an 'out' for Zeichman, provided he were willing to acknowledge
that a Q
Jesus would have undergone no death and resurrection, and that the
historical
Passion was the invention of Mark.
Zeichman's succeeding argument refers to "two verses." One is clearly
The other Wisdom passage that needs to be taken note of is Lk/Q
13:34-35: 34O
Burton Mack [The Lost Gospel, p.98] places these verses in his
Q3 stratum
(something Zeichman disapproves of). It is not clear from Q that they
are
actually envisioned as spoken by its Jesus, but this may well be, in
which case
it would belong in Q3. What we would then be seeing is a dramatic
example of
the Wisdom attribution evolving into a Jesus attribution, what once
Wisdom said
now Jesus says, just as we see this in other cases when the
evangelists, mostly
Matthew, change references to Wisdom (such as 11:49) and the Son of Man
into
direct references to Jesus or pronouns representing him. It is also
interesting
to carry verse 35 to its end. Following on the above: ...I tell you, you shall not see me until the time comes when you say: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
It is thus not at all clear whether Q 13:34-35 belongs in a Q3,
understood as
spoken by and referring to an historical founder, or whether it is
still part
of Q2 (like 11:49), a reference to Wisdom, before a founder was
introduced and
attracted her sayings. Once again, we are entitled to draw a clear
implication
from this. Over the course of Q and into the Synoptics, Wisdom as
speaker of
the sayings is evolving into Jesus. Wisdom sayings are being placed in
his
mouth. But if this 'oracle' has survived in a form which suggests it
was not
attributed to Jesus, that is, it does not reflect what it should have
if such a
founder was envisioned from the beginning (namely, that he would
"return" or that he was numbered with the prophets who had been
killed by 'Jerusalem'), then we have to conclude that it was formed or
redacted
into Q at a time when no such figure or ideas associated with him
existed.
Eventually, the oracle came to be identified with him, but the
incongruous
elements were not noticed and altered, or else the new understanding
was simply
read into it.
Incidentally, the Greek of verse 35a says somewhat laconically,
"Behold, your
house [meaning the city or the |
Q1 as "Instructional" Zeichman
objects that the "instructional" genre of wisdom-type
sayings (the
Q1 stratum) is always, in the words of Kloppenborg [p.274], "ascribed to named
sages, usually of some
reputation...[the] attribution to a named and renowned sage is a
dominant
feature....It is hardly ornamental. It points to the requirement for
external
authorization."
Zeichman
adds, "Even
when
Wisdom is present, there is nonetheless an orator who acts as a
'mouthpiece' of
this divine figure, as in Q."
My suggestion that an identification of Q1 with Jesus is a later stage "flies in the face of
the identification
of Q1 as instruction." These bald
statements lack a necessary
nuancing. Does Kloppenborg know to whom the Q1 material, when taken
over by the
early Q community, was attributed? No, he does not. It could very well
have had
an attribution that is now lost, even one that was soon changed to
Wisdom. Can
he or Zeichman point to precedents like the Book of Proverbs, which in
its
finished form was attributed to Solomon though parts of the text
feature the prominent voice of personified Wisdom, and tell us exactly who
it—or
rather
its various components—were attributed to in those previous, formative
stages,
or whether there might even have been a period of attribution to Wisdom
herself
before the attribution to Solomon took shape? No, they cannot. Carole
R.
Fontaine [Harper's Bible Commentary, p.495] says this of
Proverbs: The book of
Proverbs...comprises collections dating from various periods in the
history of
ancient Israel...[it] probably received its final editing in early
postexilic
times...."wisdom literature" exudes something of a cosmopolitan air,
which reflects its origin in a wisdom tradition common to the ancient
Near
East. The literary genres found in Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes and
the
content they convey have parallels in Mesopotamian and Egyptian
literature.
Moreover it is clear that, in a number of instances, such extrabiblical
literature has had a direct impact on the Israelite traditions. For
example,
Proverbs
[T]his arises with
the fusion of the well-known sapiential
motif of Sophia as a preacher of repentance (Prov In other words,
there existed a view of personified Wisdom as a preacher,
a deliverer of advice and wisdom teachings, that she was a force that
indwelt
prophets. This is a perfect fit to my contention that in the early
stages of Q
development, before an historical Jesus was introduced, Wisdom could
have been
regarded as the source of the sayings (once the Cynic derivation was
lost or
discarded). To her also, for a time, could the prophetic sayings of Q2
have
been attached. What else would the Q preachers have regarded themselves
as than
"prophets," and as Kloppenborg notes, prophets were traditionally
seen as being 'indwelt' by the Wisdom of God; 7:35 more than intimates
that
they regarded themselves as her "children." Kloppenborg himself
characterizes
them as "envoys of Sophia"
[op
cit, p.123]. There would have been nothing untoward in the Q
prophets
claiming that their teachings were God's Wisdom speaking through
themselves. We have argued
above that the tendency of the instruction genre
to ascribe the sayings points to the need of the genre for
legitimation.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Prov 1-9. The prologue concludes with a
"wisdom speech" (
So if we are to trust 'scholarly findings', we are led to consider the strong possibility that Q1—contrary to strict application of Kloppenborg's principle—had no attribution to Jesus, and while it may have had some previous attribution prior to the Q community, this quickly atrophied and could well have been replaced (temporarily) by Wisdom. |
Performing Miracles I have said that miracle anecdotes, such as the
Beelzebub
controversy [Lk/Q The (Q) prophets used to
drive
out devils from dumb people, and when
a devil came out, the dumb person began to speak. Onlookers were often
astonished, and some would say, "They drive out devils by Beelzebub,
the
chief of devils." Others would ask for signs from heaven. But the
prophets
knew they were being tested and would answer: .... [a series of sayings
designed to counter the accusation which were in the repertoire of the
Q
preachers] .... "Anyone who is not with us is against us, and those who
do
not heed us will be scattered [when the Son of Man arrives].
Zeichman maintains that the Q community "seems to have
conceived of (Jesus) as a
historical figure," as "put(ting) in
Jesus' mouth a
defense of his practice of exorcism, and an explanation for its lack of
permanence a few verses later (11:24-26)." But this idea works equally
well in the context of the
miracle working of the community itself. The pericope was a defense of their
practice of exorcism, followed by an explanation for its lack of
permanence.
(One wonders why the community would preserve a tradition of a practice
of
failure needing justification, unless it was a common occurrence and a
strong
memory; if such miracles had been attributed to Jesus from the
beginning, it
seems less likely that such traditions of failure would ever have
formed.)
Zeichman's preference has no more to support it than his desire to have
it so.
[M]iracles are
treated not so much as deeds of Jesus as
they are events of the kingdom whose presence or impending
coming they
portend ( |
What's In a Name? When Zeichman discusses the question of the name
given to
the late-invented human founder who replaced Wisdom in Q, he is
particularly
misleading. He makes it sound as though I maintained that it was
"Jesus" and tried to offer explanations for this, ones that are
"particularly
unconvincing." In
fact,
I started by posing what I called "an intriguing question" that could
be asked: "Why was the imagined founder given the name Jesus?"
[The Jesus Puzzle, p.181]. What follows over the next several
paragraphs
shows that I did anything but declare that this was the name that was
given to
him; in fact, I offered several possible scenarios that did not
involve,
as Zeichman might style it, a Q3 redactor sitting at his desk and
asking
himself 'Now, what name should I give to this guy I just invented?'
This latter
idea, which Zeichman actually tries to counter, is never put forward by
me and
is too ridiculous to imagine I would present. To say that the community
could
develop over a certain amount of time the idea of a founder who had
lived at
the sect's beginning and spoke its recorded sayings is hardly
equivalent to
suggesting that one person, in the course of amending a document, was
responsible for the whole thing. When Q3 first introduced a founder figure, was he called "Jesus" at all? Even if the name nowhere appeared in the Q text, even if another designation had been used by the Q3 redactors in passages such as the dialogue between Jesus and John, Matthew and Luke, with Mark's Gospel in front of them, would inevitably have changed it to Jesus. So Zeichman chose to flog, if not
a dead
horse, at least one that had been put out to pasture. There is no way,
without
a manuscript of Q, that we can know for certain if the figure in it was
called
Jesus. The assumption that it was is based on scholarly preconceptions
and
traditional paradigms about Q and the Gospels, which are the very
things that
are being challenged in The Jesus Puzzle. |
Early Units and Later ConstructionsThere is another type of criticism which Zeichman engages in at various points throughout his critique that is directed at the appeal I make to a basic principle applied in much of New Testament research. The simpler version of a saying or pericope is likely to be the earlier expression of it, often leading one to regard the more complex version as an artificial construction or redaction. Note that here I say "likely to be," since possibilities always exist that could account for the less likely alternative. But explanations of the latter sort tend to be strained and often contrary to common sense. (An example would be the claim that in the context of an alleged Matthean priority, the much shorter Mark can be explained by assuming he drastically edited and reduced Matthew, choosing to jettison most of Jesus' teachings and substitute difficult readings for easier ones, etc.)
Four paragraphs into his critique, Zeichman calls
attention
to my treatment of the three chreiai of Lk/Q 9:57-62, which
refer to the
demands made on those who would preach the (Doherty's)
conclusion that Q —or that they
exhibit literary features of Q2 such as polemic
against "this generation" (which they do not), or that there was a
projected audience of unrepentant outsiders (which there is not), then
he would
have had a good basis for this.
It is more likely
that the entire
pronouncement story is a post-Easter
creation...The next pericope (
|
Appended Thoughts
In his "Appendix: Other
Shortcomings"
Zeichman takes me to task for a number of things. Most of
them have been addressed in earlier contexts, but a couple need
attention here.
One is his quote of my statement in The Jesus Puzzle [p.152]
that "Those
(sayings in Thomas) judged
'authentic' by the Jesus Seminar are from the stratum similar to Q1" . Zeichman calls this
statement "very ambiguous,"
and perhaps it needs clarification. But it is
nothing compared to the disorder he creates in attempting to
refute it. If he means that the
fellows of the Jesus Seminar found no Q2
sayings with parallels in Thomas to be authentic, he is wrong. Contrast
the
Jesus Seminar's actual findings, which state the following Q2 sayings
to have
authentic parallels in Thomas: Thomas 64//Q 14:16, Thomas 33:2-3//Q
11:33,
Thomas 35:1-2//Q 11:21-22, Thomas 10//Q 12:49....
|
Summation
In a summary paragraph (before his Appendix),
Zeichman
focuses on the issue of my relationship to mainstream scholarship. It
goes
without saying that I suffer by comparison, and he offers opinions on
why
scholars have failed to "engage
with (my) work."
Allegedly, my "ideal
audience appears to be those who lack the
meta-cognition to
assess the claims and arguments he makes in the book." Since this is an allusion
to most
of the Internet public who follow the Historical Jesus / Mythical Jesus
debate,
in places like the IIDB, he has managed to insult most of those who
will read
this article. But his use of what I consider pretentious jargon like
"meta-cognition" points up one reason why scholars do not engage with
me, and why I would entertain little hope of a conscientious reading if
they
did. Jargon itself is a mark of insider insulation and aloof
self-confidence. There is so much unquestioned assumption inherent in
such
confidence, that new paradigms, new ways of looking at the evidence,
are
largely precluded. Zeichman himself is a prime example. He says: (Doherty's) proposal
for a complex set of individual arguments
with little scholarly support used in an attempt to override the
paradigm
offered by Kloppenborg, which explains rather easily and simply the
diversity
in the Q tradition, clearly represents an agenda-based interpretation
of the
data in the same vein as the "apologists" he is trying to subvert.
|
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