From: Dawsonzhu@aol.com
Date: Fri Sep 27 2002 - 13:25:04 EDT
George Murphy wrote:
<<
One biblical scholar who has done such work is Robert Gundry, whose
_Matthew: A Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art_ (Eerdmans, 1982)
deals with such questions for the entire gospel. His conclusion about the
Petrine part of our text may be worth quoting (p.300);
"The several echoes of the story about the earlier storm and the
preceding part of the present story, the heavily Matthean diction, the
theological motifs characteristic of Matthew, and the possible allusions to
the
OT make it difficult to resist the conclusion that Matthew did not draw the
material in vv 28-31 from tradition, but composed it as a haggadic midrash on
discipleship: confessing Jesus as Lord, obeying Jesus' command, being guilty
of
little faith in persecution, crying out for deliverance, and being recued and
rebuked by Jesus."
>>
Well, I realize that the reading could be different
between then and now, and there are cultural things,
and symbolic things, and so on and so forth. Undoubtedly this
incident does raise impressions of
Elijah and Elisha crossing the Jordon. Indeed, in
an even bigger way because it was not just the
Jordon, but something much bigger.
Yet all this said and done, calling the work some
sort of "haggadic midrash" renders it little more
than an utterly opaque, turgid, tale. Grander themes
aside, it was my understanding that the Gospels were
intended to appeal to the common folk. Yes Matthew
is trying to persuade the Jewish folk, and I'm sure
that he felt some obligation to impress the readership with his great
knowledge of Jews traditions and so forth. The Jews
were certainly familiar with themes of the OT, yet
if the NT requires me to read countless horrendously thick tomes with
references to countless other thick
tomes just to extract some tiny fragment of truth,
what is the point? A general familiarity with the
OT would already make these themes visible to somewhat
lesser folk than the great rabbis of the day.
In the end, I would either have to feel that whatever
words are used for it, "haggadic midrash" is one step
short of the word for "hogwash" as best I can see it.
It becomes a useless exercise to try to draw out any
truth in something that muddy. I can accept that I've
been taken for a fool. I support the Christian faith
because I see more in it as an objective, and I suspect
our survival as a human race is dependent on our
submitting to God and much of Christ's views.
However, in the end, if something is really false,
we don't simply believe it anyway. If life is
mere probablilities, and material is all there is
and ever will be, then we are talking a different
set of rules. The issue here is whether there is
more or not. Where is your faith George? Have
you really bowed down to the Great Machine?
Maybe I have missed something, and I am the first
to confess that I have much to learn still, but
either Jesus is much greater than Elijah, or he
was just another Rasputin with some fantastic idea
that a lot of people got hornswaggle on. Given that
it is true that Jesus was greater than Elijah, then
I would conclude that whatever the themes and stylistic
issues of the scripture are, the apostles were telling
the truth. Here then, faith in their honesty, is what each of us is
asked to make a decision on. I don't
know the answer either George, but I'll walk the road
of faith before I listen to this kind of muddle.
by Grace alone we proceed,
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