21 Questions
What are the three stages that Luke acknowledges in the genesis of his work?
the "eye witnesses and servants of the word" who "handed down" the truth of Jesus; those "many" who have already drawn up accounts of Jesus and the early church; and Luke himself, who, having "carefully investigated" these sources, now composes his own "orderly account".
What three approaches in particular made distinct and significant contributions to the study of gospel origins and development?
Form criticism, which focuses on the period of oral transmission; source criticism, which focuses on the way different literary units were put together to make up the gospels; and redaction criticism which focuses on the literary and theological contributions of the authors of the gospels.
What are the four cautions that should be noted about the application of form criticism?
First, it is probable that more of the gospels material than many form critics allow existed from very early periods in written form and that much of the rest of it may already have been connected together into larger literary units. Second, we must be careful not to impose a straitjacket of specified, clearly delineated forms on the material. Third, the claims of form critics to be able to identify the setting in the life of the church that gave rise to specific forms must be treated with healthy skepticism. Finally, the assumptions of many of the form critics about the nature of the transmission process are suspect.
Who raised doubts about the validity of the so-called laws of transmission appealed to by the form critics.
E. P. Sanders
Many form critics are guilty of underestimating the degree to which first-century Jews would have been able to remember and transmit accurately by word of mouth what Jesus had said and done.
True
What are the four main solutions suggested by the book to the question of synoptic relationship?
Common dependence on one original gospel. Common dependence on oral sources. Common dependence on gradually developing written fragments. Interdependence.
What is the "Two Source" Hypothesis?
The two-source hypothesis holds that Mark and "Q", a lost collection of Jesus' sayings, have been used independently by Matthew and Luke.
The two source hypothesis has not been subjected over the last thirty years to serious criticism.
False
Most proponents of Markan priority think that a sayings source such as Q must have been used by both Matthew and Luke
True
The process through which the gospels came into being was a complex one, so complex that no source-critical hypothesis, however detailed, can hope to provide a complete explanation of the situation.
True
What are three challenges to the validity of redaction criticism in respect to our ability to distinguish tradition and redaction?
In some places the direction of dependence hypothesized with the two-source theory may be reversed. Matthew or Luke may sometimes depend on a version of a story independent of, but parallel to, Mark. Since we do not possess copy of Q, arguments about whether Matthew or Luke has redacted Q are necessarily uncertain.
Redaction critics do not often enough assume that all the changes an evangelist makes to his tradition are theologically motivated.
False
The identification of the setting of a particular gospel by redaction critics on the basis of the author's theology is often far more specific than the data allow.
True
Redaction criticism is often pursued in such a way that the historical trustworthiness of the gospel material is called into question.
True
Literary critics do not believe in a true or false meaning to the gospels but only of "my" meaning and "your" meaning because they argue true meaning is not in the author's intention but in the encounter of text and reader.
True
What do literary critics turn into a virtue?
The historical skepticism and uncertainty of text and reader
Literary critics of the gospel are able to get the heart of the gospels because they accept that the evangelists a referring to events in the real world.
False
Who denied the historicity of the gospels, but felt that they still taught truth of a religious and philosophical nature.
D. F. Strauss
Who showed that each successive "historical" Jesus was little more than the projection of the writer's own cultural and philosophical outlook back into the plane of history?
Albert Schweitzer
By the time Rudolf Bultmann was done with his quest for the historical Jesus what was left of the historicity of the gospels and the person of Jesus.
Almost nothing of the text and history of Jesus.
The Jesus Seminar was an organization that believed in the authenticity of the gospel material and did not deny the person and history of Jesus as presented in the New Testament
False
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