Loading...In yesterday’s post I discussed a textual variant in Mark 1:1 that could be explained either as an accidental slip of the pen or an intentional alteration of the text. We’re plowing into some heavy waters here, but it involves some intriguing stuff that I can say with assurance you didn’t ever learn in Sunday School…
Just by way of basic review (basics not involving heavy waters, but that you *also* didn’t hear in Sunday School), there are thousands of textual witnesses to the NT (Greek manuscripts, manuscripts of the versions, writings of the church fathers who quote the text); these witnesses attests hundreds of thousands of variants among themselves; the vast majority of those differences are immaterial and insignificant and don’t matter for much of anything; some of them are highly significant indeed. Most of the changes were made by accident. Some were consciously made by scribes who wanted to change the text.
And in Mark 1:1 we have a variant where it is hard to tell which it is. At issue are the words “Son of God.” Did Mark begin his Gospel by announcing that it was about “Jesus Christ”? Or about “Jesus Christ the Son of God”? It is a difference of four letters in Greek (since “the Son of God” would have been abbreviated as one of the nomina sacra)
Yesterday I argued why the change could be seen as a slip of the pen. The letters, it has been widely argued by textual experts, could simply have been skipped over – especially since the fourth letter is the same (upsilon) as the letter before the first.
I think the answer is incredibly creative and possibly right. But probably *not* right. One reason for thinking so: this kind of accidental omission of words (or letters) typically happened when
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scribes had grown tired and/or inattentive. But the striking thing is that this particular alteration happens at the very *beginning* of the book, when the scribe would have started afresh, after having completed the copying of another book (Matthew), made some decorations at its conclusion (as in our oldest manuscripts) perhaps to celebrate his completion, and begun anew on the next book. It seems unlikely that this kind of rather significant error would have happened at that particular point in the copying process.
Moreover, it is worth noting that the manuscripts that attest the variation are not ones that are closely related to each other otherwise. That means that they all probably do not go back to the same mistaken copy, but that the omission would have been made in precisely the same way by more than one scribe. That increases the unlikelihood, given the fact that the change comes right at the beginning of the text. That the same accident would happen exactly the same way among different scribes seems unlikely (though not impossible).
When I first devoted myself to analyzing this textual variant, over twenty years ago, it made me think that the change was made intentionally. If the change was intentional, did a scribe remove the words from a text that had them, or add them to a text that lacked them?
I can’t think of any reason a scribe may have wanted to eliminate the words “Son of God” from the text on purpose. The words coincide perfectly with Mark’s view of Jesus otherwise, and the other references to Jesus being the Son of God are not omitted from the text in our manuscripts. So if the change was intentional, it is more likely that the words were *added*, by a scribe or scribes who wanted to make sure the readers knew that this Jesus Christ whose life was about to be described was in fact the son of God.
But I think there may have been more to it than that. Here’s what I argue in the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: We know from the writings of the heresy-hunter Ireanaeus, toward the end of the second century, that there were groups of Gnostic Christians who preferred using the Gospel of Mark, because it provided them with support for their view that “divided Jesus from the Christ.” This is a view that I have described before on the blog. For these Gnostics, Jesus Christ was two things, a man Jesus who was completely human and a divine Christ who temporarily inhabited him to empower him for his ministry.
In this Gnostic view, the Christ from above came into the man Jesus at his baptism, allowing him to do his miracles and to deliver his spectacular teachings. And then, just before he died, the Christ left Jesus. That is why he cried out, at the end, “My God, my God, why have you left me behind?”
Mark’s Gospel was especially useful for people who had this view. You have these final words of Jesus in Mark (also in Matthew, but not in Luke or John). So, one could argue that the Christ leaves Jesus at this point. But also in Mark you are lacking a Virgin Birth story (contrast Matthew and Luke). The story begins not with Jesus being born as the Son of God. You have him … being baptized! And according to Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus is baptized, in 1:10-11, the Spirit of God comes down upon Jesus from heaven and enters into him.
And so this is perfect for a Gnostic view that divides the Jesus from the Christ, as Irenaeus says. The divine element comes into Jesus at his baptism as the first thing that happens to him (before he utters a word or does a deed); and Jesus cries out in despair that the divine element has left him at the end.
What, then, does this have to do with the textual variant in 1:1? What I argue in Orthodox Corruption is that since the words “the Son of God” do not appear to have been deleted by accident, they were more likely added on purpose. One needs to figure out the purpose. In my view, they were added by proto-orthodox scribes who had a very set purpose: they wanted to clarify that Jesus Christ was and always had been the Son of God. He is called the Son of God, with this addition, before the baptism. He doesn’t become the Son of God at the baptism. He is, and always has been, the Son of God.
Did you hear about the controversy on Jeopardy. The Final Jeopardy answer was “Paul’s letter to them is the New Testament epistle with the most Old Testament quotations.” The writers deemed the correct answer to be “Who are the Hebrews” and the contestant who answered “Who are the Romans” was considered incorrect and was robbed of a victory. Read https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/entertainment/jeopardy-bible-controversy-tournament-champions-cec/index.html
Yup, I heard. Ouch.
I’ll get right into ” the Orthodox Corruption..” when I finish ” Heaven and Hell”, which I am very much enjoying.
But, just from reading these posts, I remember that many decades ago, when I first read about Christianity, and knew not what ” Gnostic” was ( not until after Elaine Pagels), the mainstream knowledge was that ” every” Christian, in the whole of Christendom , had a ” Jesus of History” and a ” Christ of Faith”.
There were two holy persons co-existing inside the belief system and imagination of Christians. There was no need to choose. This took care of everything: what made sense from experience, and what was supernatural and thus mystical and literally wonderful in its own right. And the “Christ” notion had been created by Paul.
I don’t quite understand at this precise moment if there is any kind of difference between the uncontroversial definitions I learned back then and the new knowledge derived from Gnosticism : one nature tragically divides itself, one abandoning the other to its fate.
I would not have believed it then had I heard it. I guess I wouldn’t have been ready then.
YEs, since the early 20th century scholars (not lay folk, and not early Christains) differentiated between the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith. It was not that there were actually two beings. There were two sources of investigation. Were Christians mainly interested in what Jesus himself really said and did based on historical investigation (the view of classical “liberals” in GErmany, England, France, adn the U.S.), so that his actual life and teachings are what mattered? Or were they interested in the theological representation of Christ and his work as begins to develop with Paul and other early Christian authors, and down through the history of Christianity (the view eventually most famoulsy of the neo-orthodox tehologians such as Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann). The historical Jesus himself may have taught the “fatherhood of God and teh brotherhood of man” (i.e., the need to love God as a good parent and one another) but the theological Christ taught the redemption to be brought by his sacrifice of the cross. Two different perspectives. Which matters the most? Depends whom you would ask. Gnosticism was a different thing altogether, unrelated to this modern scholarly concern. It taught there actually were two beings, a human Jesus and a divine Christ who temporarily inhabited Jesus’ body.
Prognosticators!
Would the absence of “son of God” be therefore compatible with an adoptionist Christology whereby Jesus was born “only” human and achieved divine status at a later point? If I’m not mistaken, Hercules was made a god following his exploits, so the idea of “divine promotion” was not unknown in the 1st century. Do you think the author of Mark may have been an adoptionist?
I think it’s possible. But I don’t think the debate over this verse requires that conclusion, since no where does Mark explicitly state an adoptionistic views. But it’s also important to note that there is nothing in Mark’s account that makes one think that Jesus was a pre-existent being or that he was born of a virgin. Scribes may have been alert to that fact and changed the account accordingly.
Dear Bart:
I watched your three lectures on how Jesus became God or divine which came up on my desktop this week. I had a couple of questions following those lectures. First, when you were discussing prior beliefs about human/divine notions before the NT, could there have been any Aramaic texts of the NT prior to the NT?
It appears that all the NT texts were originally composed in Greek. But some of the sayings of Jesus and early accounts of his life may have been circulated in Aramaic (probably were) before they were translated into Greek. The authors themselves, though, probably heard all the stories in Greek (there’s no good evidence they even knew Aramaic) and almost certainly composed their accounts in Greek.
In your discussion in lecture #2 on how JC became God or divine (I think) you stated that prior to Christianity, other religions were not focused on beliefs but rather on ritual practices, sacrificial offerings, etc. Yet, anthropologists were exploring animistic beliefs (and rituals) among tribal peoples including some emphasizing revitalized animistic beliefs today. And, surely other religions, including other World Religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian had strong doctrinal beliefs prior to Christianity. Maybe you were trying to make another point? Thanks, Ray
The point I was making is not that Greeks and Romans didn’t think anything about the gods or have any ideas about them. I was trying to stress that “doctrines” about the gods were not part of the religion. YOu didn’t have to believe any particular thing about who Zeus was (e.g., his “divine attributes”) or what he had done (e.g., in the myths) in order to worship him. there were no creeds that were spoken (I believe in X Y or Z); there were no heresies; there was no orthodoxy. These religions were about cultic practices, not beliefs.
In my mind, this raises the question as to whether or not Mark suggests that Jesus became the Davidic messiah at his baptism. If we say that Jesus and the Christ are two different beings, that were united at Jesus’ baptism, then the question arises as to which one of them is the “son of God” and which one of them is the “Davidic messiah”. But in those copies of Mark that omit the phrase “son of God” it shouldn’t matter since the phrase “Jesus Christ” is there and that is a reference to the united double being (which obviously includes which ever one of them is the “son of God”). In other words, I don’t see how not having the phrase “son of God” is helpful to the Gnostics.
There are two christological views in play here. One of them — the one you refer to in oyur first sentence — is that Jesus, the man, was adopted by God to be his son at his baptism. That is God “made” the man Jesus his special chosen one. I myself do suspect that was Mark’s view. The other view, though, is that there are two beings united at the baptism, the man Jesusand the divine Christ. That is the view that later developed among Gnostics. Mark shows no signs of holding that view. Unfortunately, we do not know what Gnostics tehmselves thought of Mark’s presentation (we have no records of it); we can only know what the *opponents* of the GNostics said about their views, and it was this opposition that led to the alteration of the text.
I’m still confused here because my, perhaps incorrect, understanding of Gnosticism is that Jesus was not the son of the Israeli god but an agent from some still greater god who sent Jesus into the world to liberate people from the miserable material world that the Israeli god created. So, I don’t understand why Gnostics would have Jesus being the adopted son of the Israeli god or the double being Messiah from the Israeli god. Since the Gnostics didn’t consider Jesus to be the son of the Israeli god, Jesus wouldn’t be the Israeli Christ either. So, the phrase “Jesus Christ”, which appears in both versions of Mark’s gospel, is antithetical to the very ideas underlying Gnosticism. Therefore, neither variation in the introduction to Mark’s gospel is Gnostic friendly. For that reason, the scribes would have no motive to add the phrase “son of God” to Mark’s gospel. In Gnosticism, isn’t it the case that Jesus is not a messiah at all?
Gnosticism is a very complicated affair and there were countless variations of it — it wasn’t a one-theology-fits-all kind of thing. Your opening description is actually more closely related to Marcion’s views rather than the various Gnostic views. Neither Marcion nor the Gnostics though of Jesus as “adopted” to be the Son of God. A typical Gnostic view was instead that a divine being came into Jesus at his baptism to empower him to preach and do miracles, and then left him at the crucifixion.
In any event, my argument is not that Gnostics preferred one version of the verse in Mark or another. My argument is that someone *opposed* to a Gnostic view that the divine Christ came into Jesus at the baptism changed the verse by making it clear that Jesus Christ existed BEFORE the baptism (not just Jesus as the man by himself or Christ as the divine being by himself). The scribe did this so that Gnostics could not use the verse in support of their views. Whether they ever did or not is not known. see what mean?
Thanks for the clarification, and in answer to your question, I sort of see what you mean. The versions of Mark’s gospel, which are missing the phrase “son of God” in verse 1, still have the phrase “Jesus Christ” -before- the baptism story. So, the theory you are advocating only makes sense if the Davidic messiah, i.e. Christ, is not divine unless the phrase “son of God” is added. There is an ambiguity there because the Christ could be divine without being a son of God. But even so, it is not good news for the Gnostic. Imagine a book titled “The Life of Hillary Clinton” and its first sentences discuss “Hillary Clinton’s” physical birth using the name “Hillary Clinton”. It would be totally wrong to assume that Hillary was married to Bill Clinton the day she was born. In other words, the name “Hillary Clinton” is merely being used as a title and isn’t a reference to her marital status during her birth. Likewise, those copies of Mark that use the phrase “Jesus Christ” and/or “son of God” isn’t necessarily a reference to Jesus’ status at his birth.
I’m not exactly saying that. I’m *not* saying that for Mark — the author himself — or even his first readers the Davidic Messiah would not be divine unless the phrase “Son of God” was added. For Mark and his readers, Christ was a divine being. He doesn’t ever indicate WHEN or HOW or IN WHAT SENSE Jesus was divine. That has to be inferred from the things he does say. What I AM saying is that some later readers of Mark believed that he was teaching that Jesus became divine at the baptism (and that MAY have been what he actually did have in mind, but he never says one way or the other). OTHER readers found that interpretation of Mark to be incorrect. And so to CORRECT the INCORRECT (in their opinion) reading, they (well one or more scribes with their view) inserted “Son of God” into v. 1 to help circumvent it. See what I mean? We have evidence that some Gnostics were indeed reading Mark that way and we know that proto-orthodox authors were completely opposed to the view. My argument is that someone of the latter persuasion changed the text.
Yes, I understand what you are saying, and I think you are probably right. But I also think that even with the phrase “son of God” added to the beginning of Mark, Gnostics could still say that Jesus became divine at his baptism for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. If the scribes wanted to totally prevent that from happening, then they should have altered the text to explicitly claim that Jesus was divine at, or before, his birth.
Yes, I agree with that. Often the arguments we use against others have zero effect, even when we think they should.
Professor, despite the lack of any headings, titles or the like the Synoptics all appear to start with some sort of introduction to the .. actual text. “ The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah”, “ This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah”, “ Many have undertaken to draw up an account”…. Aside from the fact that absent those introductions the works would likely read very poorly, were there any conventions on beginning literary works?
At first glance, the lack of word spacing, paragraphing etc… would seem to indicate a lack of convention in the periods writing. But, then you point out the scheme to codify the nomina sacra! Could the first line have been considered…. Less than a part of the text thus ….. eligible for change?
Some authors certainly began their works with a quick statement about what teh book would be. Many scholars have thought that Mark’s opening verse was indeed intended to be something like a title.
What was the view of these gnostics on who Jesus was before he was baptized by John? Was he a mere mortal like the rest of us? If so, what was their explanation for why Jesus was so exalted by the baptism? Was it because of something Jesus did before he was baptized, or did they hold that Jesus had a latent divine status that was catalyzed by the baptism?
Yup, often he was seen as a mere mortal, but as one who was far more righteous than all the rest of us. That’s why he was chosen.
Wouldn’t that be too subtle a change by proto-orthodox scribes? Just because they change it to “beginning of the gospel of jesus christ son of god” doesn’t necessarily mean he is “christ” or “son of god” from the beginning. It could still just be read as the story of Jesus who became (and is now at time of writing) christ and son of god.
Oh, them guys was plenty subtle in places.
What were the early Christians’ thinking on the divine inspiration of the New Testament books? It seems odd that scribes would modify them if they believed them to be the actual words of god.
Sometimes scribes would change the text precisely becuase the Bible *was* the word of God, and the scribes thought that their predecessors had changed it or, more commonly, that hte message of the Word could be made clearer and less open to misinterpretation by altering the wording a bit.
What was the overall response from NT scholars to the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture?
It’s usually thought to be my most significant scholarly contribution and to have helped transform the field of New Testament textual criticism away from a strict concern for what the “original text” said, showing that in fact textual criticism can be used to provide important data about the social and theological history of early Christianity as well.
A non-Gnostic scribe could have added the abbreviation for UIOU THEOU, but is it a possibility that a Gnostic-leaning scribe might have intentionally deleted the 4 letters, to make a more perfect copy of Mark?
After I wrote Orthodox Corruption of Scripture I wanted to write a book on the Heretical Corruption of Scripture, where I would consider changes made by Gnostic or Mardionite or … other heretical scribes. I couldn’t find any clear instances of it, so gave it up. MSS that were changed in “heretical” ways (there were surely lots of them) were simply not recopied by the orthodox scribes of later times.
Is this the Irenaeus text you refer to Bart?
“Those, again, who separate Jesus from Christ, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified.” 3:11:1
Your speculation that “the Son of God” has been added at Mark 1:1 before Jesus’s baptism to confute Gnosticism would be rather stronger, I think, if Irenaeus did use it in this way; but, though Irenaeus does elsewhere quote the verse against Gnosticism at 3:16:3, it is as one of a long series of ‘Son of God” citations, with no specific reference to the Baptism.
Whereas your argument for an accidental omission (in your previous post) is supported by the short reading’s being found in sporadic medieval manuscripts, sometimes apparently corrected by a diorthetes. If these instances are accidental omissions, a principal of parsimony would suggest that all could well be.
Moreover, fathers who know and cite the longer reading of 1:1 (e.g. Jerome) also cite the shorter form without ‘the Son of God”; which does suggest that omission here was well within the rhetorical category of ad-hoc ‘improvements-on-the-fly’. An accidental omission might well become considered original for subsequent copyings.
I think I use the text only to show that Gnostics used Mark to separate Jesus from the Christ, to show the plausiblity of an anti-Gnostic corruption in v. 1; I don’t use Irenaeus (that I recall) to show that proto-orthodox fathers accused Gnostics of altering 1:1? The quotations of the father could just as well show they had a ms or more without the words. (that’s normally what patristic citations show — what texts they had available to them)
How much of a ‘fringe’ would you say this view is these days?
I’d say the view I map in teh post (from my book) is a minority view among scholars — though I don’t know. It’s not “fringe” though in the sense of being “way out there.” Those who agree and disagree on the matter pretty much use the same criteria of judgment; they just come down differently on the probabilities.
At first glimpse, the subject matter of this and your prior article left me thinking, “Wow, we’re stressing over a TITLE? Sounds like arguing over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.” But as I read both articles, I began to see your point about why the apparent edit was more likely an intentional theological statement (the added “Son of God”) rather than an omission by a tired/careless scribe. With Paul’s writings indicating next to nothing about Jesus’ life – and I’ll be honest, I still think there’s some weight in the case for Jesus being non-historical – and with Mark (consensus earliest Gospel) saying nothing about any remarkable birth or early life of Jesus, one can see early church scribes developing an agenda to make Mark fall at least a bit more into line with the “born a God” narrative of Matthew and Luke.
I have wondered why Paul’s writings – the authentic ones, at least — weren’t doctored up a bit to create more narrative harmony with the Gospels.
Yeah, it’s not one of those MAJOR issues, but it’s a very interesting smaller one with potentially larger implications. As to Paul and the Gospels, my sense is that the contrasts are so wide ranging and deep that a few changes here and there ain’t gonna change the landscape much.
I’ve never really understood the big fuss or ta-doo about the words and the statement that Jesus is “the son of God”, in the bible. The New Testament clearly states in many places that we are all sons and daughters, ie. children, of God. Jesus is also depicted as having made his followers his brothers or siblings, this is outlined in his washing their feet.
I could understand if in places it said that Jesus was the first or most developed or evolved child/son of God, or something like that. But stating it like he was the only child of God and that this idea pertains only to him doesn’t make sense in the New Testament context.
I know I’m not making a textual criticism here, rather a theological one. Still, this way of putting things and stating things has always miffed me.
Thanks for reading
Right! This issue that I’m discussing is decidely *not* whether the NT portrays Jesus as the Son of God. That is a much BIGGER issue but also a no-brainer: yes it absolutely does, all over teh map. But that’s not the only important question to ask of each book of the NT, even if it’s far *more* important than other related questions. (Which diswasher I buy is much less important than what house I decide to buy; but, well, it’s still an important decision)
This probably isn’t the right place to put a question like this, but your house/dishwasher analogy got me thinking about it.
Is there anyway that the word ‘destroy’ as it’s used in the bible could be interpreted as ‘deconstruct’ or something like that?
There seems to be a lot of the use of the word “destroy” in the bible. God destroys the evil doers, the bad people. God destroys this, that and the other thing. There’s also a lot of destroying going on in the book of Revelation.
I’ve been in a group or two that are about “deconstructing” from fundamentalism, so the word’s been on my mind a bit as of late. – – – I myself would be a lot more comfortable and would probably think a good deal better of some of the biblical concepts of God, if E deconstructed the bad people, the bad ideas, and the bad things about this world, instead of actually “destroying” them.
So my question is; Is there any way that the word can mean something like ‘deconstruct’ rather than ‘destroy’?
Thanks
I think part of the problem would be what the word “deconstruct” is taken to mean. If something — say a building — is deconstructed but not reconstructed then normally you would consider it destroyed.
Here, I think what people are talking about is “deconstructing” their state(s) of mind, their way of looking at things and understanding of things. From this can come better actions, and better energy to do better actions, (though better actions can happen anyways).
A lot of these people are “deconstructing” ideas that they had and were given since early childhood. In a way many of them feel like they are “deconstructing” their reality, and reconstructing a new one, with better ideas.
I was just thinking that this could have been what some of the early Christians were going through. Literally replacing one “reality” with another.
I’d just rather think of God “deconstructing” someone’s reality, than destroying or demolishing them, even if they really are really bad people. ( then on to eternity 🙂 🙂 )
I believe both that Jesus actually WAS a divine emissary, i.e., the “Word” of God, AND that attaching this status (and label) to a book — ascribing the uniquely divine attribute of “inerrancy” to an inanimate, manmade object — treads dangerously close to idolatry.
Thus, your objective analysis of the surviving record has, for me, been a pearl of great value! 😇
I also share your enthusiasm for the first gospel. It was in fact noticing while still in high school the obvious, doctrinal discordance of Mk 10:18 that set me on my own, amateur quest of the historical Jesus. Discovering your unbiased, insightful work decades later (or maybe the growing awareness that there “looms but the horror of the shade” 😉) is what actually resurrected my search! Particularly, your very illuminating scholarship on the first chapter — and most especially Mk 1:11.
So I have to wonder how you managed a double-post on whether this gospel’s original opening line included the title ‘Son of God” (or its nomen sacrum), including significant exposition on how and why this was of surpassing importance to Gnostics, without any mention whatever of the crucially important pronouncement of the “voice from heaven” at Jesus’ baptism.
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I have it on good authority that our earliest and best texts of Mark describe the baptism of Jesus as heralded by “the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove,” along with the proclamation: “You are my Son; TODAY I have begotten you.”
Further, that THIS is the form of Mark recounted in commentaries by the earliest, patristic authors.
It is unsurprising to me that the Incarnation of the “Word” in a mortal man should be marked by a dove-like, spiritual manifestation, and the accompanying pronouncement from heaven a quotation from the OT book of Psalms.
It is equally apparent that so inarguably Adoptionistic a Christology (per original Mark) is as supportive of Gnostic theology as it is problematic for the Incarnation and/or Preexistence Christologies (per Matthew/Luke and John, respectively) of emerging orthodoxy.
But how is it that Gnostics — many (if not most) of whom did NOT believe that Yahweh was the “Father” of whom Jesus spoke — could be run roughshod by those who regarded that view as heretical, while blithely embracing a redacted version of the event that replaces the *scriptural* “today I have begotten you” with the vapid “in whom I am well pleased”?
I think you’re referring to the voice at the baptism in Luke’s Gospel (where there are indeed manuscripts with that reading, which, in my view, is probalby original), not Mark’s.
😳 Now I know the chagrin of the hapless student who adds an “s” to the book title: “Revelation.” 😖
But for my purposes the Mark/Luke distinction makes no difference.
Unless we accept the *highly* dubious supposition that all three synoptic authors coincidentally came up with the very same, banality to replace the problematic, “Today I have begotten you” conclusion to the Psalms quote, the substitution must go back to Mark — BEFORE his work was “borrowed” by Matthew and Luke (in their surviving form.)
It seems to me the most plausible explanation is that Luke must have had another source that also recounted the Baptism story with the lines from Psalms intact, and that this is the version he opted to use.
Might this in fact have been another difference between his first and second editions? Perhaps Luke, himself, reversed his earlier, editorial decision on this at the same time he added his two chapters of Nativity prologue. Both modifications would, after all, not only harmonize the accounts (assuming he became aware of Matthew in the interim), but also serve the same, orthodox, Christological development.
Yes? No? (Or did I already flunk out with that Mark/Luke faux pas? 😵)
Well, it’s possible that he changed it himself. But given his Christology broadly, as evident throughout Luke and Acts both, it looks like he preferred the words of Psalm 2 for the voice, in order to indicate that at that moment something highly significant happened to Jesus, not just that he was declared to be God’s son but that in some sense he was elevated to a position of sonship. I argue that at length in my book Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.
Your inference about Luke’s Christology also explains why he, unlike Matthew, left Mk 10:18 intact. IMHO your arguments for his first two chapters being a 2nd edition addition (😏) are compelling.
The stage-setting, historical context and misplaced genealogy alone suggest this gospel originally began with what is now chapter 3. In addition Jesus’ baptism heralding the launch of his public ministry is not only the logical starting point for the narrative, but parallels two of the other three gospels. Further, a prior edition of Luke, sans the lengthy Nativity tale (angelic Annunciation to Mary, poetic Magnificat by her cousin, strangely unattested decree by Caesar Augustus, etc.), also explains the genesis of the Marcion controversy.
It seems to me that the adoptionistic implications of the Holy Spirit descending from heaven (both Matthew and John add literally *alighting*) upon Jesus are nearly inescapable. An accompanying voice from heaven pronouncing “Today I have begotten you” makes it a divine trifecta that removes all doubt!
If Luke’s chapters 1 and 2 were quilled by the same author (which is AFAIK undisputed), doesn’t the Psalms pronouncement at the baptism do a bit more than merely “indicate that at that moment something significant happened to Jesus”?
Oh, it’s disputed. I’m not at all sure chs. 1-2 were written by the same author. And yes, if the quotation of Psalm 2 is original, something massively significant occurred.
The unmodified quote from Psalms seems to me a far more appropriate and plausible pronouncement by the “voice from heaven” than the midstream, horse-changing version proffered by Mark (and parroted by Matthew) — especially to the insipid: “in whom I am well pleased.”
Having the voice from heaven explicitly quote the OT passage makes perfect sense. Rewriting the payoff into an inanity makes none at all. Except, of course, as prophylactic against the unavoidably adoptionistic implications of “TODAY I have begotten you.”
But if, as does seem likely, the author of Luke embraced an adoptionist Christology, i.e., that Jesus “was *elevated* to a position of sonship” at his baptism, why did he subsequently weave (from whole cloth BTW 😖) an elaborate, incarnationist prologue?
No one denies that it was Luke, himself, who subsequently wrote and inserted the lengthy, incarnation-affirming introduction to his own gospel. So why not deduce that it was also he, and not some later scribe, who embraced Mark’s bastardization of the Psalms quote in the process of making his second draft? Aren’t both changes needed to mitigate the adoptionist Christology of his 1st edition?
The prologue is not incarnationalist, I don’t think. There’s nothing there about Christ existing before his birth. Just the contrary, the angel tells Mary that he will be called the Son of God BECAUSE the spirit of God will make her pregnant. He wasn’t a divine being before being born; that’s when he came into existence, conceived as the son of God — that is, God is literally the one who was his father, by impregnating Mary. disabledupes{1c74bb459ac5e7c7bd5947c43c0d9e3f}disabledupes
😧 I do seem determined to deny poor Luke his props. First, I wrongly credit Mark as the author who faithfully preserved Psalms 2; then I misattribute his Christology to the author of John!
I almost asked about the correct label for the theology that makes Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God at his birth. That would have been “Steeerike Three!” Obviously, the BVM had to have been deflowered by the Holy Spirit nine months earlier. (I guess I fouled that one off. 😉)
So the Christology of Luke (and Matthew) which is neither Adoptioninst nor Incarnationist is properly labeled… what? “Conceptionist?” That seems awkward. (Not that the other two aren’t.) Or do you scholarly types call it something else?
My view is that Luke embodies a number of moments when Christ becomes the Son of God: conception, baptism, and resurrection. Matthew, does not indicate a moment at which it happened. The best way to discuss their christology is not to give it a label but to lay it out / explicate / explain it. (It’s a bit easier with John since his incarnational Xgy can be seen to permiate his account, even if he expresses it in different terms ni different places; but he too contains passages that do not presuppose that Christ is God)