This week's blog post . . .

[Alex]

so when people die does their entire body go the Heaven? are coffins empty? If he had an earthly body how can it also be a heavenly body

"A wizard did it."

From The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror (not sure which one, but it had Lucy Lawless in it)?

[ER]

so when people die does their entire body go the Heaven? are coffins empty? If he had an earthly body how can it also be a heavenly body

"A wizard did it."

From The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror (not sure which one, but it had Lucy Lawless in it)?

Whooooa! Karma for the Scotsman!

[lester1/2jr]

I never got the whole wise men/ adoration thing either. Everyone came out to seem him then they just like left and never thought about it again. I wonder if any of them were like "Hey Jesus I was at your adoration, when are you going to start doing some of that stuff?"  "I've got to be a carpenter till I'm 30 for some reason but just you wait!""

[indianasmith]

No one knows what happened to the magi, but Matthew records that Jesus' family fled to Egypt to get away from Herod, and then took up residence in Nazareth to get away from Herod's son.
One interesting theory I heard regarding why Jesus did not begin His ministry until he was nearly 30 is pretty fascinating.
We know Jesus had a houseful of siblings - four brothers and at least two sisters (the Gospels verify this).  Joseph, according to a second century tradition, died when Jesus was sixteen.  It may have been that Jesus became the man of the house then and had to take care of the family until His siblings all came of age.  Maybe the wedding at Cana was the last of His little sisters getting married?

[lester1/2jr]

definitely nothing about that in the bible though

[indianasmith]

That's true.  It bugged people 1800 years ago to - there were a whole set of forged Gospels produced by the Gnostics focusing exclusively on Jesus' childhood.  I think God revealed all that he wanted us to know in the Gospels; anything else is speculation. Fun, but ultimately profitless.

[lester1/2jr]

I think Gospel of Thomas is relevant because of the format. Papias asserted that the original gospel of Matthew was in Hebrew (probably aramaic actually) and was similarly just the quotes. This would make it a likely candidate for being the elusive Q gospel. If so, it probably looked somewhat like Thomas without all the eastern type mumbo jumbo.

[indianasmith]

The problem with the Gospel of Thomas is, if you study the grammar and word order, it's way too late to have been written by the Apostle Thomas.  It follows the wording and order of the Diatesseron, a harmony of the four Gospels dating to around 175 AD.  Way too late to contain much eyewitness testimony.

[lester1/2jr]

right, but the fact that people recognized the format of just quotes is relevant.

[indianasmith]

It is quite possible that some of the earliest written records of Jesus were simply written collections of his quotes - but it's also worth noting that there is simply no manuscript evidence that "Q" ever existed.  It's a theoretical construct based on textual analyses of similar passages in the synoptic Gospels.  The thing that the proponents of "Q" tend to overlook is that, IF you accept traditional authorship - which MANY scholars do, Bart Ehrman notwithstanding - then these three books were written within a decade of each other by men who KNEW each other.  It is quite possible they drew on a common oral tradition, or shared sources.

[lester1/2jr]

well Papias also describes mathews gospel as being written in hebrew, whereas the one now known as Mathew was originally in Greek, so you have to wonder what sort of document he was talking about. That whatever it was would be completely distinct from the story form gospel of Mark and contain information, quotes, not found in Mark and in the language that Mathew (aramaic ) spoke and write in etc isn't a bad fit from a certain perspective


"Therefore Matthew put the logia (sayings) in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis


Correct that there is no actual Q document anyone has seen.  Papias' "expositions on the saying of the lord" also disappeared though it is referenced and quoted by Eusibius and others as i'm sure you're aware.


also Luke states "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us,  just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word." many implies more than one or two so ... who knows what was circulating in one form or another

[indianasmith]

All true.  I hope they find a copy of Papias' lost works one of these days; it would shed a lot of light on the early stages of Christianity.
I think Matthew wrote down the sayings of the Lord in his native language very early on, maybe even while Jesus was still alive, and then wrote them out in Greek later on.  But, that's pure speculation on my part.

[lester1/2jr]

the idea that Mark is taken from Peter's account comes from Papias and that has been generally integrated into the "tradition" so maybe other stuff from there has too

the alleged quote from Jesus about how there will be gigantic grapes is one of my favorite things in the world (and is in many ways true, there are tons of grapes in this world now)

[indianasmith]

Israeli grapes are huge, too - like golf balls!

[lester1/2jr]

thats in the regular bible. when they go and scout out the land and are like buddy you're not gonna believe these grapes