GOSPEL PARALLELS

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When I was a senior in college I developed an intense interest in the historical Jesus. I read many accounts of the “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” and decided to embark on my own quest. I embarked upon an intense study of the Gospels which lasted until I graduated from law school and began to practice law. Even after that time I still would engage in sporadic bouts of Bible study, and I have amassed two thick books containing notes of my studies.

 

One thing that I was especially intrigued by was the Synoptic Problem—an attempt to explain why the first three Gospels were so similar while at the same time being so different. I read as much as I could about the Two Document Hypothesis, the Four Document Hypothesis, the elusive Q Gospel, Proto-Luke, and many other theories of how the Gospels came to be. I examined several Gospel harmonies and Gospel synopses; and I decided I could distill the various harmonies and synopses into a more harmonious synopsis of my own. I worked on this synopsis for several years and made many false starts toward producing a manuscript of my synopsis. Since most of my work was done in the years BCE (Before the Computer Era), I found the project rough sledding as a spare-time project.

 

Now that we are firmly in the CE (Computer Era), and I have retired from full-time employment, I have decided to publish a manuscript of my synopsis. You might ask, “Why another synopsis (or harmony) of the Gospels. Aren’t there enough already? My answer is, “Yes, there are many, but I find none of them entirely satisfactory.” In harmonies, the authors try to interweave the Gospel of John in among the Synoptics. Given the wide differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels, this is a very difficult task which renders unsatisfactory results. In most synopses, the passages from John are either ignored or consigned to footnotes, another unsatisfactory treatment. Among the synopses, the pseudepigraphal gospels are usually ignored. Throckmorton’s is different in that his synopsis puts pseudepigraphal passages in footnotes.

 

I wanted a synopsis which moved John’s parallel passages out of the footnotes and into the main text. I also wanted the main text to include passages from what I consider the two most important pseudepigraphal gospels, Thomas and Peter. Although they are far inferior to the Canonical Gospels, they are far superior to all the other pseudepigraphal gospels which I have read, and they just might contain a small amount of authentic material.

 

The Synoptic Gospels contain many of the same stories in almost precisely the same order. These stories are called parallels. Although we see many sequential parallels in the Synoptics, many of the parallels are non-sequential. For example, Matthew and Luke report that when Jesus first enters the Temple during the Passion week, he immediately cleanses it. Mark says he just looks around and returns the next day to cleanse the Temple. Then there are doublets—stories which sound a lot like other stories but are sufficiently different to cause the reader to be in a quandary as to whether they are telling different versions of the same story. For example, Matthew reports the exorcism of two Gergesene demoniacs; but Mark and Luke say that Jesus exorcized one Gadarene demoniac. Then we have doublets, which tell very similar stories but are sufficiently distinct details that they are likely different incidents. For example, all three Synoptics tell the story of Jesus healing a leper, but Luke also tells a story about Jesus healing ten lepers. Then there are passages that I call analogs: they tell similar stories, but the stories are very different. For example, Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son is similar to Matthew’s Parable of the Two Sons, but they are so dissimilar as to be two different stories. Likewise, the Parable of the Sower, which appears in all the Synoptics, has an analog in Matthew’s Parable of the Weeds.

 

How do we prepare a synopsis which melds all these different types of stories into one harmonious whole? I have tried to accomplish this task by putting the sequential parallels in boldface and arranging them in parallel columns. The non-sequential parallels are included with the sequential parallels, but they are not in boldface. They may be put in parallel columns, or they may be set out below the sequential parallels. I have treated the doublets and analogs the same as non-sequential parallels, but they are usually placed below any non-sequential parallels. The bottommost entries in each section are the pseudepigraphal parallels and doublets.

 

In arranging the stories, I have tried as much as possible to adhere to the numbering system worked out by Albert Huck and Hans Leitzmann.  I have also tried as much as possible to have each story confined to a single page. Where it is not possible to get all the information on one page, I have subdivided the stories and added letters to the section numbers. For example, Luke’s Discourse against the Pharisees is in Huck’s Section 154, but I have subdivided it into 154A-F. When I can’t get all the non-sequential parallels, analogs, and doublets on a single page, I have also subdivided the sections and given them trailing letters. For example, Luke’s story of Sending out the Seventy is placed in Section 139A. The additional material is in Section 139B.

 

Sometimes this system breaks down, as in the story of Peter’s Denials. The parallels are not sequential, but making separate sections for each of the non-sequential parallels would have been tricky, so I put them all in a single section and set them out in boldface despite the fact that they weren’t truly sequential.

 

Throughout the synopsis I have used public domain translations of the texts. The main text will come from the WEB Bible, which is available online at Biblegateway.com. Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas come from Mark M. Mattison’s The Gospel of Thomas: A Public Domain Translation. Quotations from the Gospel of Peter come from M.R. James’ The Apocryphal New Testament.

 

You will encounter some unfamiliar words in the pages of this synopsis. I have appended a glossary of those words at the end of the book. One word which ought to be defined at the outset is “pericope.” It is a technical term used by Bible scholars which means “Bible story.” Thus, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a Gospel pericope, as is the story of the baptism of Jesus.

 

Regrettably, the text of this book is single-spaced without spaces between the paragraphs. Although it makes reading somewhat more difficult, doing otherwise would have made the book a great deal longer and more expensive.

THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS?

 Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), the British astronomer who gave the Big Bang its name, was a maverick among his contemporaries. He denied that the Universe started with a Big Bang, and he said that the likelihood of life arising on Earth through the accidental combination of amino acids (the theory of abiogenesis) was similar to the likelihood of a tornado roaring through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747. Hoyle was aware that he had many detractors, but he said, “I don’t care what they think. It is better to be interesting and wrong than boring and right.”

Something else that Hoyle said was, “I have always thought it curious that, while most scientists claim to eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts more than it does the clergy.” One scientist who fits Hoyle’s aphorism is Paul Davies (b. 1946), who has written many books discussing God and physics (e.g. God and the New Physics, The Mind of God, and The Goldilocks Enigma). In his books Davies wrestles with the questions of how the Universe came to be and why it is so conducive to the spawning of living things, including sentient living things such as ourselves.

He examines and rejects many explanations, including the explanation that God made the Universe.  In The Mind of God Davies asks the question, “In what sense might God be said to be responsible for the laws of physics?” He then summarizes the thoughts of Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) on the subject. Leibniz first posited that God must be rational. Otherwise, how could we live in a rational Universe? The next attribute of God must be that He is omnipotent. He made everything. How could He not be omnipotent? A rational, omnipotent God must also be perfect. This concept is probably beholden to St. Anselm’s (1033-1109) Proslogion, where he argues that God is someone “than whom there is nothing greater.” What else can we say about a rational, omnipotent, perfect God? He must be omniscient. Leibniz held that God must have these characteristics. Then Leibniz asked the question, what kind of a Universe would be made by a rational, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect God? The best of all possible Universes.

Leibniz’s theory that we live in the best of all possible worlds was savagely ridiculed by Voltaire (1694-1778) in his work Candide, where he made a learned nitwit by the name of Professor Pangloss the butt of his jokes. Of course, Voltaire made the problem of evil his argument against this being the best of all possible worlds.

Of course, we, with our limited knowledge, doubt that this is the best of all possible worlds. But what’s best for us may not be best for the Universe as a whole. To those who would criticize God for making a less-than-perfect Universe, Rev. J. Vernon McGee (1904-1968) said, “This is God’s Universe, and God does things His way. You may have a better way, but you don’t have a Universe.”

Davies, of course, doesn’t believe God created the Universe, but he seems to think that our Universe is the best of all possible Universes. He bases this opinion on the twin facts that mathematics so perfectly describes everything in the Universe and that the Universe is perfect for the spawning of sentient life. In his book The Goldilocks Enigma, he considers several explanations for this, including the theory that God made the Universe. I forget which explanation he said that he  preferred, but I do recall that when I read all the possibilities he put forward, I decided that God is the simplest, best explanation for the Universe being the way it is.

POST COLONIAL THEORY

I'm learning about an academic and activist phenomenon called Post Colonial Theory. I never heard of it before, and I might be severely misconstruing what I've learned, but it seems to me that the bedrock of Post Colonial Theory is as follows:

Heterosexual white males of European descent began to overrun the world not long after Columbus sailed, and eventually wound up carving out a world-wide colonial empire which marginalized and exploited the people of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. This marginalization and exploitation continued for centuries, until it began to fall apart after World War II. 

Even now though, heterosexual white males of European descent continue to marginalize people of other races by insisting that the best way to gain knowledge is through the use of the scientific method, observation, experiment, logic, and reason, supported by rigorous, peer-reviewed research. These methods are products of Western culture and are used as tools of White Supremacy to keep people from previously colonized ethnicities on the margins of society.

The solution is to reject these Western white male "hetero-normative" tools of White Supremacy and use other traditional, emotional, non-rational methods of gaining knowledge. This is the kind of thinking behind the website A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction (endorsed by the Oregon Department of Education), which states that that “white supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms” when educators require students to show their work. I wish I'd known that when my high school algebra teacher insisted that I show my work. I could have confronted him about how unfair he was being.

What the Post Colonial Theorists seem to want to do is to jettison white male heterosexual educators who use the tools of White Supremacy like the scientific method and logic, and replace them with educators who are not white, male, or heterosexual, and who do not use White Supremacy tools like logic and reason.

This all seems to be based on a value judgment that white males of European descent are evil because of this history of imperialism. If that is true, then the vast majority of the people claimed to have been marginalized by white male Europeans are also evil. On every continent with the possible exceptions of Australia and Antarctica, ethnic groups have engaged in imperialism, conquering and subjugating people of other races, exploiting them, and remaking the conquered lands into their own image.

It began with Sargon of Akkad and continued through the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Egyptians, Chinese, Mongols, Arabs, Turks, Zulus, and Maoris, to name a few nonwhite ethnicities who have embarked on a program of conquest and subjugation.

A GOLD MEDAL FOR "VARIATIONS ON THE THEME OF CHESS"

Last Saturday was the Florida Authors and Publishers Association awards banquet. Although I was registered for the banquet, I decided that the uncertainty surrounding the pathway of Hurricane Debby dictated that I not go. So I stayed home to batten down the hatches for Debby. As it turned out, I could have gone and gotten back before the hurricane hit, but I am satisfied that I did the right thing by staying home.

As it turned out, we got flooded. I feared that the water was going to come into the house, but it stopped at the western side of our house. It probably took out the air conditioner's air handler, but the inside of the house stayed dry. We were without power for about 15-20 hours, and our septic tank is still submerged, but with the help of our friends and our son, John, we got through it OK. 

I was naturally curious about how I did in the contest, but information on the web was scanty. Today, however, they sent me my Gold Medal. Being colorblind, I thought it was Bronze until I compared it to previous Bronze and Gold Medals. When I received notification that I was a winner, I predicted that I would get a Bronze, and I was just a little off.

Now, with that Gold Medal and a $10 bill, I can get a small cup of coffee at Starbucks. It ain't like a Gold Medal from Paris, but I take a good measure of pride in the accomplishment. When I submitted the book, I was sure I wasn't going to win anything.

If you are among that small minority of people who like Chess and Chess Variants, you'll like "Variations." I'm now working on a book that should have a somewhat broader appeal, but it will never make the New York Times best seller list. Advice for aspiring authors: Don't quit your day job.

After I finish my current project, I am planning on writing a popular account of the trial of Jesus. About ten years ago I did a heavily footnoted "scholarly" treatment of the trial, and my son John told me that the five people who would read the book would enjoy it. He was right. This next book, however, won't have any pretensions for being a scholarly work. Maybe more people will read it.

MIDDLE EASTERN CHESS PIECES