Leo Yohansen is Back

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Bart answered ... · Continuing with Leo Yohansen · With Leo Yohensen, Snappy Version · Leo Yohansen is Back · somewhere else : Apostles and St. Irenaeus · Where is the First Person if Moses and some Disciples wrote Torah and Gospels? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Also under the video with GMS and Leo Yohansen

Leo Yohansen

1. "As I recall, zealots were a radical wing of essenes. If I'm wrong, I can look it up."

Yes, you're wrong. Look it up.

"Not a real problem. They can fix the whole picture together later."

They can't fix what was incapable of having been memorized in the first place.

"No one says anyone has memorised everything."

Either your imagined scenario of a group memorizing things works or it doesn't.

"If you refer to Mark 10 on marriage, I suppose Our Lord said this more than once as He was questioned more than once, forget where the parallel was. If it was Matthew, as I think it was, and it was there that the further words "unless it be for fornication" .... it is explainable as Matthew, a Levite, was better at memorising than Peter, a fisherman.

If you refer to Sermon on the Mount, Matthew and Luke, these were two sermons, the Matthean to the disciples, the Lucan to the crowd below."

Your claim has been that a group of men had memorized what was written down. So, talking about individual memories would be irrelavent to your claim.

"Not sure I recall an example. If you mean cleansing of the temple, I think this occurred twice, once when Our Lord started and once more a few days before the Crucifixion."

I'm talking about many events.

A. Finding Disciples
B. The Capernaum Healings
C. The Leper
D. Fasting and the Sabbath
E. The Twelve Appointed
F. A House Divided
G. Mother and Brothers
H. The Sower
I. The Mustard Seed
J. The Stormy Sea
K. Legion
L. The Daughter of Darius (sic - Jairus)
M. Home Town Rejection
N. The Twelve Sent Out
O. The Feeding of the Five Thousand
P. The Entry Into Jerusalem
Q. The Cleansing of the Temple
R. The Anointing for Burial

The above is the order of events as presented in Mark. For the other accounts, the orders are

Matthew
A
C
B
J
K
Da
L
Na
E
Nb
Db
F
G
H
I
M
O
P
Q
R

Luke
M
B
A
C
D
E
R
H
G
J
K
L
N
O
F
I
P
Q

John
A
Q
O
R
P

"No author would have wanted to put all the speeches into a single papyrus scroll, however many they knew. Remember, codex format came into fashion after this."

If it had been a group effort as you had imagined, then yes, they would have wanted to put everything in a single work. The Torah was written in 5 scrolls so no one was ever limited in presenting everything in a single scroll.

"To further imagine what was being taught behind the scenes in contrast to what is actually portrayed, that is, disciples listening to speeches, not memorizing parts of speeches, only testifies to the imaginary nature of it all. Imagination is required to attempt to justify imaginary accounts."

Imagination is required to justify lots of real accounts too.

With what I portrayed, the actual text in the Bible would give the lesson without pulling out extras for how the memorisation was being effected, as that would have been taken for granted.

What you portrayed simply didn't work and therefore wasn't credible for what is portrayed by the texts.

2. a) "As if there were only he and the "persons in the fictional account" and none between them we know names of."

As if the names we know leading up to Polycarp and Ignatius aren't as fictional as well.

"John wrote the Gospel c. ten years after the Apocalypse. AD 100 as opposed to AD 90. He was most probably a Cohen and one of the 72, not a fisherman and one of the 12."

None of that is true. The writers of the two works aren't even the same person much less written at the presented times.

"Here are bishops of Antioch, for you : Peter I ( c. 37/47– c. 53/54), Evodius ( c. 53/54– c. 68/83), Ignatius ( c. 68– c. 107 or c. 83–115). First successor : Evodius. Second successor : Ignatius. QED.

You do not get to state that a Church tradition was "started" year so and so just because it is the earliest recording you know of."

Yes, I do. I get to say it because for literally hundreds of years no one had known of it combined with the fact that the tradition isn't even credible.

2. b) "Exactly how many contemporary texts are there referring to them at all and in situations of conversation?"

Contemporary texts make references to all kinds of people with titles, none of them being 'Rabbi' or 'Rabban'.

"Hoshianna Ben David" would be equivalent to "thou art ha-Meshiakh"

No one have been publicly calling him that either.

3. "Your failure to understand a technique of memorisation doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

Your failure to imagine something credible does mean that it doesn't exist.

4. a) "Or one below the other."

Look up the verses to the order of events in the texts as presented above.

"You could refer me to such a comparison too - BUT to an example that struck you as important."

Or you could actually look up the parallel synoptic accounts and see for yourself. As an example, you could look up Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 and see how Luke 21:12-17 follows Mark 13:9-13 but how Matthew 24:9-13 abbreviates the matter. Then you can see how Matthew 24:15-22 follows Mark 13:14-20 but how Luke 21:20-24 differs with them. These differences are clearly not the product of some imagined group effort to memorize speeches but are the product of copying a text and making individual changes.

"Like SVO and SVO? Like same adjective to O? How much could be due to these being very natural word choices, and that's why I wanted a striking example from you."

And that's why you need to look it up and see for yourself. Look up the orders of events presented above.

4. b) "In a situation (as given by Clement the Stromatist) where St. Peter is reading from two texts side by side, Matthew and Luke, and adding some of his own, this would obviously be because St. Mark was noting the words of St. Peter. Believing he was editing a Gospel."

No, there was no such situation so there's nothing obvious about it.

"St. Peter skipped some."

No, 600 of Mark's 666 verses are reproduced in Matthew. 300 are reproduced in Luke. There would have been no sense in anyone reproducing the texts only to greatly abbreviate Matthew or Luke to create a much shorter account.

"Or Markan Gospel as the ultimate outlet, as St. Mark heard St. Peter reading Matthew and Luke."
Again, no such situation. In fact, it is absurd to believe that Peter would need to be informed by a text of Matthew pertaining to events that Matthew had not been a part of. In Mark 9:7, Peter, John, and James, are to have been with Jesus and heard a voice that said "This is my beloved son, hear him." Neither Matthew nor anyone else had been there. In the Matthew 17:5 account, the voice says "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear him." Again, neither Matthew nor anyone else had been there so if the Mark account had been produced from Peter's memory, one would expect Peter to have known what he had heard rather than Matthew who hadn't been there to have heard anything. So, in 2Peter 1:17 when the voice is recalled as having said "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." it is absurd to believe that Peter had to recall the writing of someone who hadn't been there instead of his own memory supposedly recorded in Mark. This shows that these texts are not the product of the individuals claimed from tradition. The fact that ALL of them are written in the third person testifies to the fact that none of them had been written by any eye-witnesses.

4. c) "In other words, St. Papias is scrupulous enough to give us the chain of evidence. And this St. John the Gospeller arguably one of the 72 and a Cohen."

In other words, Papias provides no chain of evidence as he only provides what others have said about anonymous texts and John had not been known to have been a cohen. If anyone would have been a cohen, it most likely would have been Cephas but nothing is known of either of them having been so. And the reference to Matthew obviously isn't a reference to the received text called Matthew as that text is not a collection of logia. It's also obvious to anyone who's read Matthew and the Gospel according to the Hebrews that they weren't written by the same person.

Hans Georg Lundahl

1 "Yes, you're wrong. Look it up."

In case you missed, I did. I admitted my error.

"They can't fix what was incapable of having been memorized in the first place."

It was, as already specified, not incapable of having been memorised.

If there are twentyfour sentences to memorise, each has to memorise two of them, and as the order between the disciples is fixed, the one who memorised alpha and nun (Peter) is followed, twice, at the right moments, by the one memorising beta and xi (Andrew) and so on.

Your problem with this is attending to one sentence to memorise and hearing other sentences at the same time. In principle, this is no different from the recorded practise of two sthenographers writing down a sentence up to when it's no longer spoken while trusting the colleague will pick up what they are hearing. It is also not very different from singing one tune while hearing people who sing three other tunes (four part counterpoint).

"Either your imagined scenario of a group memorizing things works or it doesn't."

It works up to when they can get an overview of the thing said. After that, different people would have been differently well versed in each of the speeches.

"Your claim has been that a group of men had memorized what was written down. So, talking about individual memories would be irrelavent to your claim."

Your objection is confusing short term memory - piecing a speech together on stepping aside - and long term memory.

"I'm talking about many events."

The internal order of which was obviously not memorised in above method. I mentioned it as applying to speeches, one by one, not as applying to the whole sequence of events over 3 and a half years.

Q - cleansing of the temple. There were two of them. St. John records the one which the Priests could consider as "immaturity" and the synoptics the one which they could consider as a "repeat offense".
M, hometown rejection, also more than one, not necessarily restricted to only two.
O - you forget that there were two feedings of multitudes, 5000 and 4000. Matthew 15 and Mark 8 deal with the 4000. Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9 and John 6 deal with the 5000.

J and K always come in that order - when they come at all.

C the leper comes as part of B the Capharnaum healings, which had started before A the finding of disciples.

"If it had been a group effort as you had imagined, then yes, they would have wanted to put everything in a single work. The Torah was written in 5 scrolls so no one was ever limited in presenting everything in a single scroll."

I did not say any single Gospel was a group effort. I said the speeches in them were - at short term.

The Torah is five different books, not a continuous work just subdivided for convenience. Genesis and Exodus are both c. twice the length of a Gospel, Numbers and Deuteronomy one and a half the length of a Gospel, and Leviticus matches the length of a Gospel. Taking, as I do, chapter numbers as useful indicators of length.

"What you portrayed simply didn't work and therefore wasn't credible for what is portrayed by the texts."

To get that skewed result, you'd need to be very ignorant on how teaching is done in oral cultures or even in places where schoolbooks are scarce.

Hans Georg Lundahl

2a) "As if the names we know leading up to Polycarp and Ignatius aren't as fictional as well."

Well, where do you draw the line? How do you propose the transition from a fictional church to a factual church happened? Or alternatively, supposing the factual church started c. 100, how do you propose it entirely forgot its real history and substituted a fictional one for it?

"None of that is true. The writers of the two works aren't even the same person much less written at the presented times."

I'm sorry, you are wrong. And I am very sorry, you are addicted to a wrong principle, likely to make you wrong in the future as well. That one being ignoring Church tradition (about as sensible as ignoring the US tradition about the order of the presidents) in favour of reconstruction. A flight of fancy that can take any liberties, when it doesn't serve the handed down informations, but serves to pretendedly invalidate them.

2b) "Contemporary texts"

I note you shirk the question how many, and obviously also which ones they were.

"make references to all kinds of people with titles, none of them being 'Rabbi' or 'Rabban'."

And what exact type of references are we talking about? Like do they involve conversations?

"No one have been publicly calling him that either."

In Pharisaic contempt of the people, as long as the crowd shouting that so everyone could see and hear weren't backed up by the P¨arisees or Priests, that was not "official" to you ... unless you simply meant to deny the historicity, in which case it falls under the heading of preferring reconstruction over tradition.

Hans Georg Lundahl

3 "Your failure to imagine something credible does mean that it doesn't exist."

Your "credible" just shows your inexperience with how information is handled outside where you were learning.

Hans Georg Lundahl

4a) Part of what you deal with is a strawman, as it would apply to a group effort to memorise not just single speeches and confrontations, but actual order of all events, which I did not say. B U T you gave, thank you very much, an actual example.

"Or you could actually look up the parallel synoptic accounts and see for yourself. As an example, you could look up Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21 and see how Luke 21:12-17 follows Mark 13:9-13 but how Matthew 24:9-13 abbreviates the matter. Then you can see how Matthew 24:15-22 follows Mark 13:14-20 but how Luke 21:20-24 differs with them. These differences are clearly not the product of some imagined group effort to memorize speeches but are the product of copying a text and making individual changes."

Mark 13:9-13 = Luke 21:12-17?
Mark 13:14-20 = Matthew 24:15-22

Peter comparing Matthew and Luke read Luke 21:12 - 17 and Mark noted down 13:9-13, then he read Matthew 24:15-22 and Mark noted 13:14-20.

[9] Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake. [10] And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another. [11] And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. [12] And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold. [13] But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved.

[9] But look to yourselves. For they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto them. [10] And unto all nations the gospel must first be preached. [11] And when they shall lead you and deliver you up, be not thoughtful beforehand what you shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye. For it is not you that speak, but the Holy Ghost. [12] And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death. [13] And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved.

[12] But before all these things, they will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name's sake. [13] And it shall happen unto you for a testimony. [14] Lay it up therefore into your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer: [15] For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay. [16] And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death. [17] And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake.

I will take one piece of common text.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
For they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto them.
... they will lay their hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name's sake.

It does not strike me as copying and changing, it strikes me as memorising with different wording - Matthew, as you say, giving a shorter version.

4b) "No, there was no such situation so there's nothing obvious about it."

According to Clement the Stromatist, of Alexandria, the city where St. Mark was the first bishop, there definitely was.

"No, 600 of Mark's 666 verses are reproduced in Matthew. 300 are reproduced in Luke."

There are 677 verses in Mark. And it is entirely possible that both sets were reproduced into Mark and not from it.

"There would have been no sense in anyone reproducing the texts only to greatly abbreviate Matthew or Luke to create a much shorter account."

If you deliberately ignore the scenario provided by Church tradition from Alexandria : St. Peter was not trying to make a new and shorter account, he was skimming through both Matthew (which he already knew) and Luke (which was presented to him for approval) and showing the agreement by reading from both and changing them at turns. And St. Mark, habitual as St. Peter's secretary, taking notes as if hearing St. Peter dictate a Gospel of his own.

"Again, no such situation."

Again, if you a priori deny situations presented by tradition.

"In fact, it is absurd to believe that Peter would need to be informed by a text of Matthew pertaining to events that Matthew had not been a part of."

Complete strawman. St. Peter did not need information, he already knew Matthew agreed with his memories and he was checking by Matthew and his memories that Luke was a good Gospel too.

"Neither Matthew nor anyone else had been there." In the Matthew 17:5 account, the voice says "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear him."

Difficulty disappears if Matthew had his information from Peter.

"So, in 2Peter 1:17 when the voice is recalled as having said "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." it is absurd to believe that Peter had to recall the writing of someone who hadn't been there instead of his own memory supposedly recorded in Mark."

In Douay Rheims, the verse reads:

For he received from God the Father, honour and glory: this voice coming down to him from the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

In other words, no discrepancy in lacking the final imperative.

"This shows that these texts are not the product of the individuals claimed from tradition."

Only by a shallow analysis that sets out to "prove" that by dishonesty.

"The fact that ALL of them are written in the third person testifies to the fact that none of them had been written by any eye-witnesses."

Yeah, anyone involved in events would naturally refer to himself in first person, always ... Moses and Caesar never existed .... duh!

Are your grades in mathematical subjects somewhat better than those in letters? Like, languages, philosophy, history?

Hans Georg Lundahl

4c) "In other words, Papias provides no chain of evidence as he only provides what others have said"

No, he provides what one fairly significant other than himself has informed him of. He says John and Aristion were disciples of Christ.

"about anonymous texts"

According to John's information to Papias, they were precisely not anonymous.

"and John had not been known to have been a cohen."

You are missing a reference from Asia minor (I think another early CF than Papias, about same time) where John is said to have worn the golden head band. See L'énigme du disciple que jésus aimait by Jean Colson. You are also missing the beloved disciple in his Gospel knew the chief priests. No one says Cephas did so.

"If anyone would have been a cohen, it most likely would have been Cephas but nothing is known of either of them having been so."

Very obviously, no one pretends Cephas had ever been a Cohen.

"And the reference to Matthew obviously isn't a reference to the received text called Matthew as that text is not a collection of logia."

It is a collection of logia set in the background setting of the story. You are imagining, every reference a text receives in ancient times (or our times!) absolutely has to be prosaically precise in the way a librarian's catalogue description is.

"It's also obvious to anyone who's read Matthew and the Gospel according to the Hebrews that they weren't written by the same person."

Actually very few have read the Gospel according to the Hebrews, so the claim is moot. But it is also irrelevant. Matthew writing first in Hebrew does not mean his text equals "Gospel to the Hebrews". Or is claimed to equal it.