My understanding is that it comes from the document called ’On Resurrection’, 4Q521. I don’t know whether that document or its language originated outside the community – I had thought inside, but I personally don’t know that with any certainty.
This is a popular gloss:
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If I could append the scholarly article I would.
And thus incorporated into the group culture. Borrowing is an inevitable part of any such community. It’s not like there’s copyright to worry about. Point is, would this be something well-known outside the community? If we only have it from Matthew’s gospel and a Qumran associated text, that seems fairly suggestive. But it might suggest more than one possibility.
Still, because the story sticks out a bit–John questioning whether Jesus is the promised one, when all other texts either dodge the question of what John thought, or have him affirming Jesus is Messiah–there’s every reason to think some version of this exchange might have occurred, and was remembered to have occurred. Matthew is going to present it as Jesus answering John’s doubts, but does not go on to say John accepted Jesus’ answer. If this was a made-up story, or even more to the point, a story not already well-known to elements in both John’s and Jesus’ cult–wouldn’t Matthew’s John have done precisely this?
They are not simply telling whatever story they feel like telling. (Okay, maybe John’s gospel does that at points, but not the synoptics).
I understood that, and said as much in my response. But it’s still a text used at Qumran, and apparently not widely used elsewhere, if at all. Qumran was not all one thing, as I understand it. But if we assume John was influenced by that community, and Jesus was at the very least influenced by John, then we have good reason to believe they would communicate in language connected to that community. Whether it originated at Qumran is beside the point. How many OT stories originated outside the OT? Still part of that tradition. There are stories in the Arthurian myth cycle that go back much further in Celtic mythology–this is really a commonplace. All traditions have an accumulative tendency to them. Borrowing is an inherent part of creating something new.
…we have good reason to think John’s followers did claim he was Messiah, since his cult persisted quite a long time after his death (and you are in a bad position to deny that, with your ramblings about the Mandeans)…
Ok I’ll need a citation to the effect that John’s disciples thought he was the Messiah. In every source I’ve seen (Jewish, Muslim, Christian) he is located firmly in the prophetic tradition. The fact he had disciples is not a sufficient reason in and of itself to claim Messiahship (is that a word?). All the classical prophets, both pre-literary and literary, had disciples. Not saying there is no such citation you understand just saying that I’m not aware of it. Here’s your chance to educate me.
Why make John identify Jesus as Messiah?
Because the Christians were in a bit of a bind. The could not deny the tradition that Jesus had been one of John’s disciples and had been baptized by him so they rationalized it. John became not the mentor of Jesus but the forerunner of Jesus.
If you’re going to claim Jesus lifted everything from John…
I have not made such a claim any more than I’ve claimed that Jesus was arrested on the Temple Mount. I hold up an idea to the light, turn it this way and that, to consider the assumptions behind and implications of the idea without making a firm commitment to its truth or its falsity. I’m sorry but it’s just odd to encounter people who cannot do this. People for whom every issue must be marked with a firm ‘True’ or ‘False’. Well the universe also contains a ‘maybe’.
Are you so committed to the idea that Jesus was an unique genius, the like not seen before or since, that it has never occurred to you what influence John might have had on Jesus?
You’re just trying to do what the gospels did in reverse–make John larger, Jesus smaller.
In a sense that’s true but only because I want to know what John and Jesus were like in their own times and in their own context. You’ve lectured us in the past about what historians do…well doesn’t it occur to you that this is exactly what historians do?
When are you going to just Ecce Homo, already?
Probably never to your satisfaction. As attractive as it is, the easy and obvious answer is almost never the right one. Don’t YOU see that?
Robert wrote
It’s a Q-text so earlier than Matthew and thus even more suggestive, but there are reasons to question whether or not this text or at least its interpretation of Isaiah 61 were unique to the Qumran community.
This would be my question to Prof Marcus when he sees a relationship between John and Qumran. Couldn’t this be part of the repertoire of apocalypticism in general and not be specific to one flavor of such?
Robert said
That’s probably still the majority position, which is why I was so looking forward to Marcus’ book once I learned of the general outline of his views. Since the mid-90s (when some of the last Dead Sea Scrolls texts were finally published, including 4Q521 in 1992), there has been a need to challenge this majority view.
Agreed. You know if I had the spare change I would finance a debate between Marcus and Ehrman about this issue. Or they could just sit together and talk about it on video.
I want to tarry a moment on this point:
”However, what is most noteworthy is that Isaiah 61:1 says nothing about this Anointed One raising the dead. Indeed, in the entire Hebrew Bible there is nothing about a messiah figure raising the dead. Yet, when we turn to the Q Source, which Luke and Matthew quote, regarding the “signs of the Messiah,” we find the two phrases linked: “the dead are raised up, the poor have the glad tidings preached to them,” precisely as we have in our Qumran text.”
Is this Qumranic text (which might have originated outside) the only example of this, aside from its quotation in Q/Matt/Luke?
Robert said
Close. Most scholars do not think Mark had access to Q (‘though some do). But this particular Q-passage contains a Mk-Q overlap in applying the combined scriptural reference (Mal 3,1/Ex 23,20) to John the Baptist. It’s impossible to say how much of this particular Q-story, but he at least knew part of it.
The trend is from variety to unity. You start off with a lot of different stories and sayings, and different interpretations of those stories and sayings and gradually it gets pared down, to try and get everyone on the same page. The only true ‘original source’ is what really happened, but nobody is live-blogging Jesus’ life.
When you get right down to it, scholarly consensus works the same way–or doesn’t. There is never going to be absolute scholarly consensus on Napoleon, for example. (Though I’ve never seen it myself, I read once that some wit, perhaps mocking revisionist history, composed a scholarly satire ‘proving’ Napoleon was a myth. For all I know, that’s a myth. But I did read that it existed somewhere.)
The reason we seek at least rough consensus is that once it breaks down, discussion becomes essentially impossible. Everybody is speaking a different language (Mytherism has essentially opted out of the consensus, because there’s a market that wants precisely that). Scholarship becomes nothing more than a Ivory Tower of Babel. And increasingly, nobody even cares if they can prove their points anymore, since only people who want to agree will even bother to listen. The ideal is diversity without anarchy.
There were core memories early Christians had access to, but they weren’t enough to build an institution around. Increasingly, that was the goal, since the Kingdom was not showing up on schedule. What we look for is things that were not useful for institution-building, and work along the assumption those might be core memories, closer to what really happened, if not 100% accurate, as if 100% accuracy is a thing in the real world. Because these people had powerful feelings for Jesus, they really did want to know what he thought and said and did. They were looking for cues as to what they should think and say and do. But that created the temptation to make people think and say and do what you wanted by putting your own words into Jesus’ mouth.
The further back you go, the less critical institution-building was, the less concerned the person telling the story was with shoring up an agreed-upon consensus. With modern history, there’s a lot more evidence to draw upon, but there are still conflicting sources, and differing interpretations–and ideologies. Ideology has to be allowed for, because everybody has one, whether he/she thinks of it as such or not.
So before you even try to arrive at an opinion, the first person to interrogate is yourself. What do you want to believe is true? And why?
See, this is the kind of stuff you think about when you study history at the graduate level. I am not necessarily recommending it. 😉
In the Jesus Seminar book the 5 Gospels they spend some time in the beginning warning us all not to simply create the Jesus we want to see rather than see the historical Jesus. As many have noticed this is pretty darned common.
So after hipping us all to watch out for the jive…
They announce that Jesus was not apocalyptic – and dismiss every apocalyptic verse Jesus says as non authentic – because Jesus was not apocalyptic.
Oy Vey
Stephen said
Well godspell I appreciate whatever time you can devote to this site. It’s been a long time since I graduated from Zebulon T Pike Barber College with a Master’s Degree in Spittoon Aerodynamics and I still have a lot to learn.
That certainly sounds like a subject you’d excel in. I’ve heard those degrees aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit in the job market, though. I’m sure you were there for the pure joy of learning.
🙂
Steve Clark said
In the Jesus Seminar book the 5 Gospels they spend some time in the beginning warning us all not to simply create the Jesus we want to see rather than see the historical Jesus. As many have noticed this is pretty darned common.So after hipping us all to watch out for the jive…
They announce that Jesus was not apocalyptic – and dismiss every apocalyptic verse Jesus says as non authentic – because Jesus was not apocalyptic.
Oy Vey
Which they is this? Fundamentalist Christians can be pretty damn apocalyptic themselves. I think the argument is less over whether Jesus was apocalyptic as to what the apocalypse would consist of, and what the timeline would be. And that argument will continue until the actual apocalypse.
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