Flight to Egypt (was Re: [asa] Gospel in the Stars WAS Star of Bethlehem presentation?)

Pete Enns wrote:
> I think this is a both/and, folks.
>
> 1. Historically speaking, Herod was a mess, and a mass killing was not out of character.
>
> 2. Matthew's Gospel is prone to some midrashic embellishments, geared as it was to a Jewish audience. Note, too, that the slaughter of the innocents drove Joseph to Egypt. They returned when all those who sought to kill him were dead (Matt 2:19-20), which certainly reflects the same command given to Moses in Exod 4:19. Matthew's Jesus is the new Moses (complete with his own Mt. Sinai experience, i.e., Sermon on the Mount, as we have discussed in this list several weeks ago, etc., etc).
>
> Pete Enns

I'm aware of another mention of the flight to Egypt in the very
fragmentary 6th/7th century Papyrus Cairensis 10 735 (see Schneemelcher,
New Testament Apocrypha, Vol.1, p.101) which is interesting for two reasons.

First, in so far as it raises the slender possibility that there may, at
one time, have been an independent textual witness to the event.

As it stands the text from which it derives is unidentified and scholars
debate whether it derives from a non-canonical gospel, a commentary, or
a homily.

To give an indication of how fragmentary the text is, in translation reads;

The angel of the Lord spake: Jo<seph, arise,
take Mary thy w<ife and
flee to Egypt<.......
...............
..............
every gift and if <....
his friends....<....
of the king..<....

And the SECOND interesting point:

Well, on the REVERSE of the above there is a passage which loosely
parallels Luke 1:36 - so on the SAME fragment we find parallels to both
Matthean and Lukan material - how's that for a precedent? :)

Blessings,
Murray

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Received on Tue Nov 24 17:44:05 2009