bivalve wrote:
> >There are four different accounts of Jesus' baptism, one of which
> >(John) does not mention a voice. This points out what Brown is
> >getting at when he warns against overly naive readings. Based on the
> >four accounts, it is unclear to me whether there was a voice, or if
> >there was, who heard it(Jesus only, John the Baptist or the
> >audience)<
>
> John does not exactly give an account of the baptism of Jesus; John
> the Baptist refers back to it but does not give a full description,
> so the omission of mention of the voice there does not seem
> significant. The synoptics all mention a voice from heaven. They do
> not say who heard it or how, but someone had to hear something for
> the event to be recorded.
The last words here show an implicit assumption that the gospels
are "recording" an event. They are not, however, that limited. The
gospels make use of the fact, which seems pretty much undisputed, that
Jesus' public ministry began with John's baptism. But then the gospel
writers reflect - in different ways - on the theological significance of
that event. This can be seen especially in the way the writers deal with
a problem - why should Jesus, who is sinless, have received a "baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mk.1:4)? For Mark there's no
problem - it's enough that (as the vision & audition indicate) Jesus is
anointed with the Spirit for his mission & proclaimed God's Son as in
Ps.2. But Mt & Lk deal with it differently - Mt with the little dialogue
between Jesus & John (which doesn't really answer the question) & Lk by
skipping over the baptism itself ("when Jesus also had been baptized") &
having the vision & adition come while Jesus is praying - a favorite Lk
theme. Finally, the 4th Gospel doesn't say that at all that Jesus _was_
baptized. If we had only that account we could easily think that John
saw the Spirit descend on Jesus without him being baptized - or perhaps
even instead of him being baptized.
Now of course all these accounts can be "harmonized" - but as
usually happens with such an effort one ends up with a kind of monster in
which all the elements from all the gospels are packed into one
narrative.
> John 12:29 is rather more explicit about a noise that was heard by
> the crowd, though only some identified it as words.
>
> >This [part of Daniel] is definitely incorrect. Darius became king
> >many years after Belshazzar, and was preceded by other Persian
> >Kings, notably Cyrus the Great. <
>
> This depends on the equation of Darius the Mede of Daniel with Darius
> I, the rather later king of Persia. However, conservative
> commentators have suggested that "the Mede" is intended to
> distinguish Daniel's character from Darius I. Assuming that Darius
> the Mede is someone known under another name in the other accounts,
> Cyrus would probably provide the best match.
>
> It also presumes an odd mix of flagrant error and detailed knowledge
> on the part of the author. A Maccabean forger knew about the
> existence of Belshazzar and the lack of a siege or defense at
> Babylon, yet was ignorant of Cyrus and did not even read Ezra?
Again, the phrase "Maccabean forger" assumes things about the
intent of the writer & standards of literary ethics that just aren't
valid. The primary purpose of the writer of Daniel is to exhort Jews to
remain faithful during difficult times of persecution. Obviously some
historical data was used but there's no reason to think that the writer
was trying to mislead people about who captured Babylon &c. & there's
nothing surprising about the fact that there's a mixture of accurate &
inaccurate information. If someone were writing a story about the
American Civil War to try to make some point about American society
today, he or she would probably get some of the historical references
right but might neither know nor care who the Confederate general at the
fall of Vicksburg was.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 27 2002 - 10:56:31 EDT