Why the 2-Source hypothesis, why Q

This post is a continuation of a previous post on Casey’s synoptic approach, but now presenting what persuades me that the two-source hypothesis is the best one, much of what I’m saying is found in Kloppenborg’s helpful volume Q: the Earliest Gospel.

Maurice Casey’s synoptic approach

Maurice Casay’s Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent historian’s account of his life and teaching, is a work on the historical Jesus that I find solid and helpful, his work on the Aramaic origins of Mark and the Aramaic origins of Q have been especially interesting for me, and hopefully will be taken on more by gospel scholars and historians of Christian origins. In this post I will be taking some quotes from the section “Historically Reliable sources,” whose synoptic approach I find largely reasonable, and after that I will point out what I find helpful in Casey’s approach, and what I disagree with.

Endorsement of The Priest and Levite as Temple Representatives by Michale Blythe

Here is a Blurb for the Priest and Levite as Temple Representatives: The Good Samaritan in the context of Luke’s travel narrative:

“The Priest and Levite as Temple Representatives provides an in-depth and thorough exegesis on the parable of the good Samaritan that draws out the often neglected social, economic, political, and cultic factors at play, bringing the parable to life in its first-century Palestinian world as well as within the context of the message of the Gospel of Luke. This book is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the full ethical impact of the parable.”

—Roman A. Montero, author of All Things in Common and Jesus’s Manifes

Il Dio Della Bibbia contributor videos

An Interesting Blog

I’d like to share with my readers a blog of a friend of mine, a great biblical scholar based in Greece: e-homo religiosus. A lot of what he shares is portions of books he finds interesting with his highlights and notes, and various findings in biblical scholarship of interest. The blog includes posts in both Greek and English. Take a look, (he recently highlighted post from my own blog).

Healing

In dealing with theodicy, a scriptural data set that needs to be taken into account is Jesus’s healings. The reason for this is that with these healings, we get Jesus’s own reaction to human suffering. Some accounts portray the motivation as ‘pity’ (e.g. Luke 7:13 with Jesus rising the only son of a woman from the dead,  Matthew 14:14 with the healing of sick people in the crowd, Matthew 20:34 with his healing of the blind man). The word used for being moved pity is σπλαγχνίζομαι bascially means being moved as to one’s inward parts, kind of like how one might say “that hit me in gut”.

So what are we to make of these accounts? I think there are a few things we can say: