I’ve always wondered how much the depiction of Jesus in the gospels depended on what seemed to have been ongoing controversies with John the Baptist’s disciples? If we go by Josephus, in his day John was the more important figure. Perhaps there’s a bit of an inferiority complex being displayed by the gospel writers? They make it seem as if Jesus was well known throughout the entire region even though this seems unlikely. And how much of Jesus’ teaching was lifted directly from John?
James McGrath has ** you do not have permission to see this link ** that the infancy narratives may re-appropriate a significant amount of material that was originally about John the Baptist.
I’m perfectly happy with the idea that the Jesus of the Gospels was a composite character. I’m particularly (though groundlessly) taken with the idea that much of Jesus’ moral teaching was really just common aphorisms that got put into Jesus’ mouth–misattributing pithy sayings is remarkably common.
I’ll have to look it up; I might be mixing him up with someone else.
Edit: I think you’re right, as I don’t see that claim in Bart’s posts. I seem to recall he did agree that the infancy narrative has Semitic/Hebraic characteristics.
That’s a common scholarly observation; various scholars (Torrey, Sahlins, Winter, Farris) have used this to argue that Luke translated a Hebrew source. I am getting this from “The Original Language of the Lukan Infancy Narrative” by Chang-Wook Jung, who argues against this view.
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