Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Daniel Wallace on Manuscripts of Q

    There’s a great moment in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the book, not sure about the movie) when the truly incredible synthesizer on the ship is trying to produce tea. The results? Something almost, but not quite totally unlike tea.

    Daniel Wallace asks whether manuscripts of Q still exist, and prefaces his answer with:

    A favorite argument against the existence of Q is simply that no manuscripts of Q have ever been discovered. No more than this bare assertion is usually made. But a little probing shows that this argument has some serious weaknesses to it.

    He does make some good points regarding the likelihood that Q would continue to be copied if it was absorbed into Matthew and Luke as well as the scarcity of manuscripts dating from the first or even early second century. Thus, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. One always needs to qualify that little line by noting that if there is an event that would definitely leave evidence, and that evidence is absent, that absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence.

    Having now tried to attain a record for the use of “evidence” and “absence” in a single paragraph, let me move on to the technical content. Dr. Wallace presents us with eight papyri containing just portions of the gospel of Luke and suggests it’s hypothetically possible that at least one or two of these are actually papyri of Q.

    He continues by presenting all the reasons one might reject that hypothesis with respect to a particular manuscript, and what happens next might be described as the case of the mysteriously vanishing evidence. One manuscript of these eight remains after the sifting, and Dr. Wallace’s conclusion hardly seems conclusive:

    Altogether, the evidence thus far presented can hardly be said to build confidence that any missing Q fragments have actually been discovered.

    You know, that’s what I thought before I read his post, so what’s this “has serious weaknesses” thing of which he speaks?

    I do not absolutely reject Q myself. I have simply become less and less confident that it existed. I started on this path reading the works of William R. Farmer, and most recently when my own company published Why Four Gospels? by David Alan Black.

    I still feel that the redaction theories for Mark that I’ve encountered are less than convincing. But my confidence in Markan priority and the existence of Q has still been seriously weakened.

     

  • February 2013 Biblical Studies Carnival Posted

    … at Delving into the Scriptures.

  • Two Things that Lead Toward Christian Unity

    There are two things I’ve noticed in my own life and in the lives of people I know that tend to lead toward less divisiveness and greater Christian unity. These are:

    1) A focus on doing mission

    2) A focus on the study of scripture

    What’s interesting is that people can differ on how to do mission or how to study scripture, but if they’re spending their time doing more than talking, their talking starts to focus less on their differences. Sometimes they do change their point of view on certain theological issues, but more often it’s a matter of focus.

    I wonder what would happen if we simply spent more time going to scripture and then carrying out the mission as we see God calling us to it, and less time correcting one another, that we might find that God will change all of us.

     And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. — 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NRSV)

    (Note: I do believe both of these things must be done prayerfully.)

  • The Premier 2013 Biblical Studies Carnival Posted

    … at Zwinglius Redivivus, complete with lofty claims. Go forth and check those claims thoroughly!

  • Too Sensitive?

    Probably.

  • Greg Boyd and Spiritual Warfare

    Scot McKnight has a post titled Greg Boyd and Hostile Forces, referencing Boyd’s contribution to the book Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views. This is a book I’m adding to my reading list.

    The thing that interests me most about this is the idea that scripture doesn’t (broadly) support the idea that everything that happens is according to God’s will, provided one takes “God’s will” in a detailed sense. (I’m brushing by volumes of theology here!) There is a sense of conflict. This is especially true if one emphasizes reading the story of scripture, rather than just the propositions. One of the passages that has always fascinated me in this regard is Daniel 10, especially verses 12-14.

    Our lives as Christians often reflect this apparent conflict. While speaking of God’s plan and will, we blame many things on the enemy, and never come to a sort of accommodation of our lives and affirmations. I’m not sure this is a bad thing. On the other hand, I do think it should point us away from some of the more monolithic views of God’s will.

  • Quote of the Day

    From David Alan Black:

    … hermeneutics is simply the prelude to obedience.

    It should cause one to think.

  • In Memoriam: John William McKenzie Brady

     

    In Memoriam: John William McKenzie Brady

     

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  • The UMC and Innovation

    Or you might say, denominations (or even just “organizations”) and innovation.

    We don’t have to work within the system if we don’t want to. We can work without it. We can go outside of it. We can leave it if it continues to stifle us.

    I might have preferred “if God calls us to,” but the author gets around to that:

    The simple question should always be, “What does God want me to be doing right now?” We have a responsibility to discern where God is at work in the world, and to participate in it.

    In the end, if you can’t do the innovative work that God wants you to do within the structure of a denomination, then you must leave.

    Oh, yes, the link. Why I Doubt the UMC Can Handle Innovation. Make sure to follow the links back to the article he’s responding to and previous responses.

    I’ve seen plenty of people stifled by the denomination, but not just by the United Methodist Church. Those of us who are older (physically or in the faith) tend to want to keep others from making mistakes. But we can often suppress those who are moving forward with the work of the gospel by preventing what we think are “mistakes.”

  • Fiscal Cliff Deal Results in Abuse of Language

    From CNN: “Two hours after their midnight deadline, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a last-minute deal Tuesday to avert the feared fiscal cliff on a 89-8 vote.”

    To put a charitable construction on it, they mean the deal was made at the last-minute and passed two hours after the deadline, but if you pass it after the deadline, is it really last minute? Isn’t it after the last-minute. And shouldn’t meeting a deadline with a legislative deal actually include passing the deal? In addition, the deal hasn’t yet passed. The house must still vote on it.

    But what it tells me, and this is nothing new, is that you can’t trust things like the sequester, which was intended to force congress to actually do something. They just choose to ignore it.