Pesher and parable - a severe wrenching of the traditional view
crunch
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qumran_origin/message/354
"Only the gospel parables, found in the Synoptics but not in John,
have been thought to be for a moral purpose only, and much imagination
has gone into plumbing their moral depths. They have been used to
build up a picture of Jesus as a sage, spinning these tales in order
to teach us to love our neighbours etc. But does that theory - which
is of course partly true - account for the details of the text? Does
it account for the remarks attributed to Jesus when the first parable
in Mark was given, the parable of the Sower?. He told the inner group
around him that to them was given the mystery of God, but to those
outside everything was in parables (Mk 4: 11). This is exactly the
theory of pesher, including the word 'mystery' (mystêrion) , which is
used in the Scrolls to explain the theory. Scripture was a raz, a
'mystery' (something like a puzzle) which has a pesher,
'solution' (1QpHab 7:1-5). The word pesher, pithron, is used for the
interpretation of dreams, such as was given by Joseph, who alone had
the God-given knowledge to interpret Pharaoh's dream. (Gen 41:11-12 ;
also Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Dan 2:36).
The whole approach was characteristic of the literary style of the
time. Philo said that it was evident that the OT had an allegorical
meaning, because of the peculiarities of its literary style, apparent
to educated grammarians ( On Dreams, 1, 101 ). When you read the
gospel parables, they have some odd features which are hardly
accounted for by the story-teller's art."
-----
"One thing I saw long ago was that Jesus had quite a sense of humour,
and was in fact a very clever teacher, as were all his associates in
the schools. He enjoyed composing the stories about himself walking on
water, turning water into wine, feeding 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish.
As a teacher, he knew that the naive would take them at face value,
but critical minds would ask questions, bring in exact information,
and when they saw what they really meant would have undergone an
educational experience. Other evangelists took up the device, with the
result that the gospels give something to the 'babes', and a very
great deal to thinking people of those times. (Even to thinking people
of these times - it is great mental exercise to tackle their carefully
constructed puzzles, and to discover what Jesus' serious political
purpose was.)"
-----
My hope is that historians will review Thiering pesher
with a fine-tooth comb.
-----
David Christainsen
Sir David
> Dr. Barbara Thier<flush>
Carl compulsively rides his hobbyhorse.
crunch
Anonymous you is untruthful here.
theologynut
> Dr. Barbara Thieringhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/qumran_origin/message/354
Very interesting point--that the supernatural incidents of the gospels
parabolically refer to allegory rather than reality--a perception that
diplomatically embraces both proponents of inerrancy and those who
balk at the idea of a virgin giving birth, a man walking on water,
food appearing out of nowhere, disease instantly being healed, and
dead people coming back to life. More than parable, which the Jesus
Seminar believes to have come from the font of common lore, these
miracles are what the synoptic gospel-writers (Mark, Matthew, and Luke
according to the second century bishop Irenaeus) attributed to their
divine, world-saving, messianic, son of God, literary creation--which
conflated with a real rustic Galilian rabbi named Joshua ben Joseph,
came to be the preferred diety of the western world. Not that there
is anything wrong with that. But the gospel attributed to John is so
quantamly different from the synoptics (water into wine, woman at the
well, raising of Lazarus, Jesus delivering long sermons touting his
own divinity), that its obvious there were a variety of traditions
from a variety of places written by a variety of authors. When you
add Agrapha (noncanonical literature) and the Gnostic gospels into the
mix, you discover that Jesus traditions were wondrously varied and
therein lies the miracle--that man invented writing and we can still
identify with their dreams and desires.
crunch
wrote:
>...
Yet, the Thiering advocacy on the nature of the gospels
is way more radical than the picture you paint here. For
example, she puts Jesus Christ as the author of John's
Gospel to have been written just before 37 AD.
Then again, she has related the Gnostic gospels (and
re-dated some of them) to the canonical gospels, not
to mention the Apocrypha.
Last, she says the gospels were carefully constructed,
not the result of growth of tradition at all.
It would be the interested reader's responsibility to investigate
the relevant Thiering articles from my former Yahoo Forum -
a massive undertaking to be sure.
So, my main point is that you touched upon the tip of the
iceberg. But, thank-you for doing that.
BTW I personally reject the miracles cold and have re-interpreted
them in the Thiering way.
Matt Giwer
The pain in your wrist should be noticable by now.
--
"As a discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." -- Godwin's Law
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4196
http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/sewer-bible.phtml a15
Sat Nov 14 01:05:14 EST 2009
JTEM
crunch <pchristain...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yet, the Thiering advocacy on the nature of the
> gospels is way more
Yes. Of course. Your mania easy dwarfs all opinions,
facts and statements resulting from disorders.
No question.