Is the Ascension Story an Embellishment?

[robrecht]

Mind you, I'm a reformed "Two-Document Hypothesis" scholar. Eventually I found out what outlandish circumlocutions Christopher Tuckett and such do to maintain the fiction that our complete Mark plus Q (as if it's one document--it isn't, it's at least 3 parts) was used by both Matthew and Luke. I had been under the illusion that they were sophisticated enough to know that a Proto-Mark preceded our Mark, or at least preceded its use towards Luke. I had thought the nonsense views of Mark + Q were just misunderstandings promoted by encyclopedias and some trashy introductions.
(To be clear, even less do I believe the theories sorting out only extant documents, particularly the Griesback, Farrer-Goulder, and Augustinian Hypotheses.) I don't know how people can be so gullible.)
(It helped that about two years ago I started saying that the Synoptic Problem could never be solved. Then sure enough I realized it could be done. Skepticism has to precede truth. An open mind is the only way to discover truth.)

What circumlocutions of Tucket are you speaking of?

[Adam]

I guess you havn't read Tuckett's book. He does an excellent job of apologia for every little variation of Matthew and Luke supposedly coming from canonical Mark, but each attempt reduces the odds to vanishing that the whole edifice can stand.
As I said, I always assumed the better scholars, not the mere encyclopedists, never ever said the text of Mark used in making Matthew and Luke was for all purposes the one we have. It's absurd. The power of peer pressure for Consensus when the alternatives are out of "political" favor (or in any case are worse, requiring even more desperate measures to rehabilitate). No one had the moral courage to go back and reconsider the proto-gospel hypothesis because it had been out of favor for over a century. Cowards.

[robrecht]

I guess you havn't read Tuckett's book. He does an excellent job of apologia for every little variation of Matthew and Luke supposedly coming from canonical Mark, but each attempt reduces the odds to vanishing that the whole edifice can stand.
As I said, I always assumed the better scholars, not the mere encyclopedists, never ever said the text of Mark used in making Matthew and Luke was for all purposes the one we have. It's absurd. The power of peer pressure for Consensus when the alternatives are out of "political" favor (or in any case are worse, requiring even more desperate measures to rehabilitate). No one had the moral courage to go back and reconsider the proto-gospel hypothesis because it had been out of favor for over a century. Cowards.

You've offered no examples of circumlocutions here. Just unsupported rhetorical posturing. Don't you have anything of substance?

[Adam]

I don't own Tuckett's book. I can only reference it on Sundays. I doubt I will trouble to do so, as there still are some scholars for whom I have respect.
There are some good books I can't even access, like Delbert Burkett's elaborate Proto-Matthew scheme, as detailed as Boismard's. But I'm sure the process cannot have been as mechanical as Burkett describes. At least he's thinking.

[robrecht]

I don't own Tuckett's book. I can only reference it on Sundays. I doubt I will trouble to do so, as there still are some scholars for whom I have respect.
There are some good books I can't even access, like Delbert Burkett's elaborate Proto-Matthew scheme, as detailed as Boismard's. But I'm sure the process cannot have been as mechanical as Burkett describes. At least he's thinking.

Your lack of respect for scholars does not serve you well.

[Adam]

Noted.

[shunyadragon]

Noted.

[Adam]

I've learned a lot in these nine years, Shunya.
You have not.
So who's batting a head against a wall? (Well, maybe me, I've broken down a few in the meantime.)

[shunyadragon]

I've learned a lot in these nine years, Shunya.
You have not.
So who's batting a head against a wall? (Well, maybe me, I've broken down a few in the meantime.)

From what you have revealed you believe what you read, and read only what you believe. A rather intense circular view of what you selectively believe.

[Adam]

Wahtever floats your boat, Frank

[Adam]

Actually quite absurd, Frank.
Since I have such idiosyncratic opinions, I could not have acquired from mere reading the one-of-a-kind views I have.
Had you substituted "read" instead of "revealed" your post would not have been quite so totally ridiculous.