Donald Traxler's Poetry: March 2023

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Synoptica XXXVI - About Luke

My own research, along with generally accepted rules of textual criticism, has convinced that the most primitive texts we have in the Synoptic Gospels are in the Gospel of Luke. See, especially, my previous writings on the Beatitudes and the "Our Father." My own research, along with that of Professor George Howard, has convinced me that Matthew knew and used Luke. Almost everyone, these days, is agreed that Matthew knew Mark. Should I go all-in and opt for Lukan priority? Some of those who have done so, including Lockton in the 1920s and Lindsey some fifty years later, have offered very compelling evidence that Mark knew and used Luke. If this is so, and Matthew knew both Mark and Luke, then Streeter's so-called "minor agreements" (which are really not minor at all, and remain the major impediment to Streeter's Two-document Hypothesis) can be easily explained.

So far, so good. And yet I hang back. Why? Because of this question: If Mark knew and used Luke, and Luke's Gospel included the so-called "Q" material, then why did Mark not include the all-important "Q" material in his Gospel? How could Mark leave out the "Sermon on the Plain," which, in the hands of Matthew, became part of the Sermon on the Mount? The question, as it stands, is unanswerable. Either Mark's Gospel is prior to that of Luke, in which case the question does not arise, or it is secondary to Luke, as strongly suggested (to say the least) by the stylistic considerations brought forth by Lindsey (and also, apparently, by Lockton, though I've not yet read him). We cannot have it both ways. The only way out of this impasse, it seems to me, is to posit an Ur-Luke that did not yet include most of the "Q" material missing in Mark.

I have been using the long-familiar term "Q material," but that does not necessarily mean that I believe that there was a written "Q document." In fact, if Matthew knew and used Luke, there is no need of one. To explain the absence of this material in Mark, though, we would still need for there to have been an earlier, Q-less edition of Luke.

Luke's Gospel appears to have had a number of sources, and there is strong evidence that they were Hebraic, or at least composed in a Semitic language. Lindsey said that he found it very easy to translate Luke back into Hebrew, but found the same task to be extremely difficult when he tried it with Mark.

(to be continued)

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Synoptica XXXV - The Changing Hypothesis

First of all, I would like to correct a misstatement in Synoptica XXXIV: In the example I was thinking of (Mark 7:2-4), it was Mark, not Luke, who found it necessary to explain Jewish customs to his audience, while Matthew did not. The passage, on hand-washing, is not in Luke at all, so we don't know whether he would have needed to explain it.

I ended Synoptica XXXIV this way:

"The easiest way out of this mess is to assume that the Gospel of Luke was written before, not after, that of Matthew, and even before Hebrew Matthew. In this view of things, the Gospel of Matthew would have been written for the Jews, as a corrective to trends that the Jewish community of followers of Rabbi Yeshua saw developing in Pauline Christianity, trends with which they did not, and could not, agree. A parting of the ways for the two communities was inevitable."

The "corrective" mentioned above would have been the Gospel of Matthew in its Hebrew version, which does not assume Divine status for Rabbi Yeshua, nor does it make any claim that he is a messaiah (which, in Judaism, would mean a powerful king and military leader).

Jesus (Rabbi Yeshua) was a Jew. On that fact, all who believe in his existence are agreed. No Jew would claim to be God, as that would be blasphemy of the worst sort, and (rightly, I believe, in light of later historical events), punishable by death. Such a claim would also bring disgrace to the person's family and friends. It would be an unfortunate start for a new church.

It is notable that, while the Gospel of Matthew talks about the Jewish Jesus, the Epistles of Paul talk about an abstract and Gentilized Christ (the Anointed One is the meaning in Greek). To the pre-Christian followers of Rabbi Yeshua, Pauline "Christianity," Paul's invention, would have been untenable and blasphemous. It would also have resulted in an inevitable parting of the ways for the two communities.

Rabbi Yeshua was leading a revivalist movement within Judaism. He had no wider goal, ambition, or focus (and in that he was the exact opposite of Paul). How do we know this? Mt. 10:5-6: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Also, Mt. 15:24: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." It is interesting that these sayings of Jesus are given to us only in the "corrective" Gospel of Matthew.

Consider also Jesus' defense of the Law, Mt. 5:17: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law, or the prophets. I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill." These words, too, appear only in the "corrective" Gospel of Matthew.

Criticism of the wider aspirations of Paul and his followers: Mt. 7:6: "Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." It is not surprising to me that these words, often not understood, appear only in the "corrective" Gospel of Matthew.

(to be continued)

Synoptica XXXIV - The End of the Layered Matthew Hypothesis

To pick up the thread of our thought, here is the end of Synoptica XXXIII:

"Again, we will have plenty to say, but I would like to start by taking a look at The Cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11:15-19 || Lk 19:45-48 || Mt 21:12-13).

The thing that stands out for me here is the phrase "for all the nations" in Mk 11:17 is ABSENT from both Luke and canonical Matthew. It is, however, present in Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew, where the original scriptural reference (Isaiah 56:7) is correctly completed as לכל העמים (for all peoples). This inclusion in Hebrew Matthew (and Mark), corresponding to an omission in Luke and Greek Mathew, is worth thinking about."

Yes, it is very much worth thinking about. I am increasingly uncomfortable with hypothetical documents as sources. The overall impression I got from Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew (especially in, for example, the Beatitudes), was that Luke provides us with a text that is older than Greek Matthew. The evidence is also strong (consider the introductory phrases such as "At that time. . . " in the Hebrew version of the Sermon on the Mount, always coinciding to shifts or voids in the Lukan narrative, no longer necessary in Matthew's grouping of the sayings, and subsequently edited out of Greek Matthew) for primacy of Luke with regard to Matthew,

Historically, this latter view does not make sense, given that the first followers of Rabbi Yeshua were Jews, while it is clear that the Gospel of Matthew was written for the Jews, and that of Luke for the non-Jewish "Nations" (the goyim). If anyone doubts this, consider Luke's explanations of Jewish customs for his Gentile audience, which Matthew did not need to explain for his audience of Jews. Consider also Matthew's respectful phrase "Kingdom of Heaven," where Luke pretty much invariably has "Kingdom of God." Jew's do not bandy the divine name about unnecessarily.

This clear difference of intended audiences may have led to the impression that the Gospel of Matthew was older than the Gospel of Luke. Internal textual differences, even in the respective canonical (Greek) versions, however, do not bear this out.

Going back to the Cleansing of the Temple, with which we ended the last Synoptica entry and began this one, it does not make sense that Luke should have omitted "for all peoples" from the citation of Isaiah 56:7, given the Pauline vision of a worldwide ministry. If Luke had been copying from Mark (or Hebrew Matthew), he would have had the correct citation. Was the author of Luke unfamiliar with the Hebrew Bible? Not at all, on the contrary, as we can see from the scriptural references in the Magnificat.

The easiest way out of this mess is to assume that the Gospel of Luke was written before, not after, that of Matthew, and even before Hebrew Matthew. In this view of things, the Gospel of Matthew would have been written for the Jews, as a corrective to trends that the Jewish community of followers of Rabbi Yeshua saw developing in Pauline Christianity, trends with which they did not, and could not, agree. A parting of the ways for the two communities was inevitable.

(to be continued)

Monday, March 27, 2023

Photo: Self-portrait

Self-portrait, Hudson, Florida, 2023.

I Am in My Polynesian Period

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Aging Project XXXVIII

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Aging Project XXXVII

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Aging Project XXXVI

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Life Is a Dance / he kanikani te ora

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Photo - Still Activity

Saturday, March 11, 2023

Aging Project XXXV

Thursday, March 9, 2023

Aging Project XXXIV

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Fireside Chat III - Our Natural State

I intend to make quick work of this third part of the present series, because I have already written quite a lot on the subject of our natural, but severely repressed, nudity. See my Gymniad series, published in this blog in 73 parts from 4 August 2017 to 22February 2018; Gymnós series, 36 parts, from 14 March 2018 to 29 May 2018; and Gymnosophia series, published in 72 parts, from 8 June 2018 to 12 October 2018. Nevertheless, I have to say something about it now, for several reasons.

"If God had wanted us to run around naked, we would have been born that way." Sometimes I think we forget that we WERE born that way. Most human societies, at least the Western, non-primitive ones, severely restrict our ability to exist in our natural state. This restriction, it seems to me, has seriously harmful effects on us, both physically (e.g. Vitamin D deficiency and vulnerability to heat- and humidity-related fungi), and psychologically (body-acceptance issues, unnatural attitudes toward the opposite sex, and sexual hang-ups). We can solve all these problems by simply dispensing with clothing when and where the weather permits.

So why are we, generally speaking, not allowed to do so? Is it to better meet the needs of industry? Is it just another way of reminding us that we are property, the workers and consumers, the wage-slaves, of materialistic nation-states?

We are not only bodies; we are souls that inhabit bodies. The autonomy of these souls is beset and usurped by governments all over this world. Why? I have never understood it.

If we are not free to exist in our natural state, we are not truly free. Period.

Fireside Chat II - Writing by Moonlight

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:"

Those words are, of course, by William Wordsworth, from his great poem "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," and I would stress these:

"But trailing clouds of glory do we come"

I have had many "intimations of immortality" in the form of flashes of remembrance. I'll not dwell on the details here, since I've written about them elsewhere. The result, though, is that, although I accept the inevitability of physical death, I know that there is no death of the spirit.

I remember my taking on of this body in the womb. I have knowledge, including medical knowledge and languages, that I would not be expected to have, based only on the experiences of this lifetime. I can remember other experiences in Polynesia, China, Japan, and both Western and Central Europe.

I have an affinity to both Polynesian and Jewish culture, though these could hardly be more different, and especially to the latter.

I do not think that my rather small amount of physical Jewish ancestry is sufficient to explain the deep resonance with Judaism that I feel. In other words, this is something that I believe I brought into this life from previous lives.

The same is true of the Polynesian influence, which perhaps manifests in my aversion to clothing.

A corollary of all this is that I believe in the spirit world, and spirit communication. Nor does it stop with believing: I put the belief into practice. I have communicated with many who have passed, including my mother, my uncle Charles, former girlfriends, and several old friends who have gone on. I have also done this with others, and with relatives of others. In most cases, the communications involved, at some point, details that I could not otherwise have known.

For this and other reasons, I frequently find myself writing in the dark at night, in a notebook that I keep beside the bed. The writing usually happens between 1am and 5am, centering perhaps on 3am. I am left-handed, and although I try to write in level lines, they always slant or curve steeply downward.

These forays onto the astral plane and other sources of inspiration do cause me to lose some sleep. Sometimes, though, there are things more important than sleep.

(series to be continued)

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Fireside Chat

As I write this, in early March, the "fireside" part is a joke here in Florida. But in other parts of the country, there is snow, deep snow. In California, there are people trapped in their houses, and running out of food. When Sandy and I lived in the Blue Ridge, the biggest snowfall we saw came in March. People told us, "don't put your birdbath out until Mother's Day." (Meaning that the birdbath would freeze, and break.)

As the Walrus said, the time has come to talk of many things. I don't propose to talk about "cabbages and kings," but only some things, important things, that seldom get mentioned.

The first of these is reincarnation. Yes, due to certain experiences, I accept it as a reality. But I was surprised to learn (from a posting on his Youtube channel by Rabbi Simon Jacobson, of Chabad) that it was known in Judaism, but had been kept secret. One may speculate about the reasons for the secrecy, but I prefer not to.

Reincarnation was also known, and considered an acceptable teaching, in early Christianity. Unfortunately, it was declared "anathema" in the early fifth century CE, at one of the Church councils (I'm forgetting which--Constantinople?). It is universally believed in Hinduism and Buddhism, not to mention modern Neopaganism and a host of New Age religions. Not sure about Islam, but I think so. In other words, pretty much everyone believes in it, although they may not talk much about it, and it seems that only Abrahamic religions have forbidden its teaching to the masses.

The result of this situation is, of course, that we have truly amazing (and verifiable) reincarnation stories from places like India and Nepal, but they are few and far-between in most countries of the West.

Religiously, I was raised Catholic, but feel far more Jewish than Christian. I do have some Jewish ancestry (which my father hid from me until I was about thirty), but my acceptance of reincarnation as a reality does not come from either of these sources. It is due, rather, to certain experiences that I have had.

(to be continued in the next Fireside Chat)

Photo by Fergus McCarthy, of Midleton, Co. Cork, Ireland.

Sunday, March 5, 2023

151,000 Visits and Many Interests

About a week ago, we passed the milestone of 150,000 visits (page-views) to this blog. Until now, I haven't had time to say anything about this milestone.

This blog, originally conceived as a poetry blog, now treats of many more things. In fact, it reflects many of my interests, including poetry, expository writing, translation (of the Bible and the Psalms, in particular), the so-called Synoptic Problem, naturism (my chosen lifestyle), and aging. I may also touch on music and guitar repair. You just never know.

I would like to thank all of you, in more than a hundred countries, for reading my blog entries, of which there are now over three thousand. Thank you, merci, gracias, wadó.

Photos - Man and Machine V, VI, and VII

Man and Machine V

Man and Machine VI

Man and Machine VII

Aging Project XXXIII

Correction: 5'11" = 1.80 m.

Friday, March 3, 2023

Synoptica XXXIII - Bringing Mark into the Picture

I believe it has been about a year since my last post on the "Synoptic Problem." Until now, I have concentrated on Sayings material, mostly not present in the Gospel of Mark. In other words, my Layered Matthew Hypothesis is quite incomplete: I haven't really known what to do with Mark. I would now like to shift the focus to some narrative elements in Mark that are also present in one or both of the other synoptics.

One of these narrative elements is Luke's "great omission" of Mark 6:48-8:26 from his Gospel. This portion of Mark includes The Walking on the Water, Healings at Gennesaret, What Defiles a Man, The Syrophoenician Woman, The Healing of Many Sick Persons (Matt.) / of the Deaf Mute (Mark), The Feeding of the Four Thousand, The Pharisees Seek a Sign, and The Blind Man of Bethsaida (the last also omitted by Matthew). There is a lot to say about this "great omission," but one possibility is that Luke used an earlier form of Mark's gospel. We will come back to this.

Other narrative elements are those, within the Triple Tradition, where Matthew and Luke are in agreement against Mark. These, though often called "minor agreements," are really major agreements due to their bearing on the Synoptic Problem.

Let's start with one of the latter:

As suggested by James M. Dawsey (N), an Ur-Markus may have been the source for Lk 19:45-20:47. The || section in Mark is Mk 11:11-12:40 This section includes Jesus in the Temple, The Cursing of the Fig Tree, The Cleansing of the Temple, The Meaning of the Withered Fig Tree, The Question about Authority, The Parable of the Wicked Tenants, The Question concerning Tribute to Caesar, The Question concerning Resurrection, The Great Commandment, About David's Son, and Woes against the Pharisees. Again, we will have plenty to say, but I would like to start by taking a look at The Cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11:15-19 || Lk 19:45-48 || Mt 21:12-13).

(to be continued)