From mls@panix.com Tue Jul 15 23:38:09 1997 Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels From: mls@panix.com (Michael L. Siemon) Date: 15 Jul 1997 23:38:09 -0400

One will always go wrong in evaluating ancient opinions,works and thought if one is not constantly aware of the rhetorical reworking of *everything.* This was not dishonest (as it would be in a newspaper today) -- it was in fact THE METHOD by which an intelligent person grappled with issues, that is, by recasting them *as they seemed to him to be required to be rephrased in his own opinions, to meet the issues as he understood them.* It was the only method of "analysis" open to an educated person in the ancient world. Even philosophy amounts to much the same thing -- reworking via rhetoric of the raw (and hence, necessarily, uncomprehensible) material that cries out for words

One of the impressive things about Jesus and his teaching is how he uses words to point beyond all rephrasings. This speaking in parables causes some comment in our gospels (Mark is particularly pointed on this :-)); Jesus seems to have known that words are traps for people (especially for hyper- religious people, like the Pharisees.) The gospel writers (IMO) do a very good job of using their *own* rhetorical constructs (like Matthew's invention of the Sermon on the Mount out of scattered materials in prior sources, seen in Luke in something closer to their original fragmented state) to set up this limitation of human words -- even human words from the mouth of Jesus.

John is particularly apt at making Jesus' words "impossible" in themselves *so that* you will be forced beyond the words to face the spiritual reality John describes in his prologue. (What else is the exchange with Nicodemus than a condemnation of "understanding" via over-literal response to words?) John's gospel is heavily laden with irony, an immensely subtle rhetorical technique for *making* readers take the literal words and recast them into something *not* stated (maybe, not statable) explicitly, and possible even undermining the literal statements.

One reason that relying on literal readings of "Jesus' sayings" in these gospels (especially John) is dangerous, is that one is savaging the actual careful work of the gospel writer who *positions* these statements to make a larger rhetorical structure, and it is that larger structure that carries the meaning. Quite aside from the historical unlikelihood of some of the sayings in John (the I AM [_ego: eimi_] sayings in particular), ripping them from the author's context is an almost certain guarantee that the words will be *mis*used.

-- Michael L. Siemon mls@panix.com