How can we determine which parts of Scripture are true?

[Zelduck]

This is really a question for Christians, but since it doesn't assume the validity of the Bible, I think it belongs here rather than in the Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma section.

There have been multiple canons of Scripture. Books have been accepted and rejected for various reasons throughout Christian history. Books have lied about their authorship. Passages have been added and removed. Books were written in different times and different places by different authors and for different reasons.

So how can I have confidence in any particular verse, chapter, or book, that what I am reading is the inspired work of the Holy Spirit, and not the work of a man, no matter how pious?

What method ought I use to reliably determine what is and is not the Word of God? Has someone already done this for me, and if so, how can I tell if they didn't make a mistake?

[Student]

[Replying to Korah]
I think our disagreements stem from the fact that you appear to be unwilling to answer the most basic questions regarding the reasoning that presumably lies [hidden] behind your thesis. You simply assume you are right and plough on regardless. Take this as an example:

Why would the [Johannine] discourses not have been included In the Synoptics, if early? (1) They might have been unknown until later. (2) They might have been in Aramaic, difficult to work with. (3) They might have been unpopular. Indeed, all three of these reasons seem likely.

At first glance it would appear that you attempt to address a comprehensive range of possible options. However your subsequent paragraphs show that this is false – all three of your options assume that the discourses existed prior to the composition of the Synoptic gospels.

(1) The discourses may have been unknown to the Synoptic writers. The only reason to think that an apostle wrote the discourses is that the Farewell Discourse is set at the Last Supper, where only apostles are stated to have been present. However, cooks, servers, and even scribes could well have been present without specific mention. Besides, some critics believe that the “beloved disciple� was not an apostle; John Mark, John the Elder, or Lazarus being suggested variously. (Cullman, p. 76-77, 117)………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The discourses would easily have remained unknown if not by an apostle. To be included later, even though not by an apostle, would likely mean that some special value became recognized in them precisely because of early date. The discourses never record apostles as involved or even present in John 14. The discourses are set largely in Jerusalem, whereas Jesus’s ministry with his apostles is shown in the Synoptics to have been in Galilee. None of the apostles were natives of Jerusalem, and all traveled widely with Jesus throughout Palestine. The discourses thus were likely written by a non-apostle, at an early enough date to be later respected.

It would appear from your reasoning as if the question of the early composition of the discourses is an established fact and the matter closed. All that is required is to establish a possible reason why they remained hidden!

However your convoluted reasoning deliberately avoids the simplest, and perhaps the most obvious answer i.e. the discourses were unknown to the Synoptic evangelists because the discourses did not exist at the time the Synoptic gospels were composed/compiled. Ergo, if they did not exist then they could not have been included in the Synoptic gospels.

Furthermore, for the discourses to have existed but to have remained hidden, you have to explain why, not only the Synoptic evangelists, but also the church fathers, prior to Irenaeus, fail to quote from them.

Finally, what reason, other than late composition, can you suggest for the church tradition of g.John being composed by the evangelist in extreme old age, whilst residing in Ephesus?

Please do not feel obliged to respond; my questions are purely rhetorical, simply to illustrate my point.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 320 by Student]
I don't assume anything. I simply argue for it based on my conclusions after studying the best academic studies, particularly by Teeple. You don't like my conclusions, so you seem to assume I must be wrong based on my presumably wrong presuppostions.
Teeple has no detractors except evangelical Christians who assume John is not based on earlier sources.

[Zzyzx]

.

[Replying to post 320 by Student]
I don't assume anything.

Do you not assume that your knowledge is superior to that of others?

I simply argue for it based on my conclusions after studying the best academic studies, particularly by Teeple.

You appear to argue as though your conclusions were established fact accepted by scholars and theologians – rather than layman opinions.

You don't like my conclusions, so you seem to assume I must be wrong based on my presumably wrong presuppostions.

Have you demonstrated that your presuppositions are not in error?

Has anyone anywhere accepted / supported / cited your conclusions?

Teeple has no detractors except evangelical Christians who assume John is not based on earlier sources.

NO detractors? Not one in Christendom other than evangelical Christians?

Does Teeple have detractors among Non-Believers (or doesn't that count)?

[Korah]

[Replying to post 322 by Zzyzx]
I thought I was clear. Among non-believers and other non-evangelical academics, Teeple did have detractors, but both of them later praised his work: Robert Kysar and Dwight Moody Smith. D. A. Carson is the only opponent as such I know of.

The nearest thing to refutation of Teeple would be opposition to the underlying source criticism that led to his analysis. It was Rudolf Bultmann who extracted the numerous sources underlying John that have been studied since, and Bultmann has lots of critics. His Signs Source has been widely accepted, the sayings source(s) not so much.

[Zzyzx]

.

Among non-believers and other non-evangelical academics, Teeple did have detractors, but both of them later praised his work:

Did Teeple have only TWO detractors?

In researching Howard M. Teeple (is that the Teeple to whom you refer?) I discover that his books sell for $50 to $90 new and ONE CENT to $4.50 used – which says something about the value people attach after reading his work.

I have not found scholarly, theological or professional reviews and/or references to his work. Is it well known and accepted in scholarly / theological circles? Citations? URLs?

[Korah]

[Replying to post 324 by Zzyzx]
As I stated before, I only know of one unrepentant detractor of Teeple, and he is an evangelical. See especially pp. 417-419 in this link to D. A. Carson's negative 1978 review in Journal of Biblical Literature:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/c ... ticism.pdf

He mostly deals with Bultmann, Fortna, and Temple, and his case against Teeple is that Teeple is too sure of himself and all the source-analytical theories mutually contradict one another. So it's certainly no attempt at a specific refutation of Teeple. I've seen plenty of arguments specifically against the others, so Teeple could well be the only one close to correctness. (I say again that Teeple was an atheist, so ideas on authorship and date are my own.)

For the original negative opinion of Teeple's (and the others') work by Robert Kysar, see
The Fourth Evangelist, 14-37; and "Community and Gospel: Vectors in Fourth Gospel
Criticism," Int 31 (1977) 355-66, esp. pp. 357-58.

Maybe you were looking at the wrong Teeple book. If you had been reading my stuff you would know the relevant book is Literary Origin of the Gospel of John, 1974. Last I looked in Amazon you couldn't get a copy for less than $100.
Edited to add:
Teeple is cited as an expert for reference:
"for a catalogue of positions until 1974, see Teeple, The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John, chap. 6)."
http://www.mycrandall.ca/courses/NewTes ... RCJOHN.htm
(see 2nd paragraph)

[Student]

[Replying to post 320 by Student]
I don't assume anything. I simply argue for it based on my conclusions after studying the best academic studies, particularly by Teeple. You don't like my conclusions, so you seem to assume I must be wrong based on my presumably wrong presuppostions.
Teeple has no detractors except evangelical Christians who assume John is not based on earlier sources.

It is not a question of me disliking your conclusions. It is that you fail to provide any argument or reasoning to substantiate your conclusions. You simply proceed by assertion, constantly bleating on about H.M. Teeple, as if he was some sort of talisman underpinning your thesis.

Having read Teeple’s “The Literary Origin of the Gospel of John�, I can say, quite categorically, that he, Teeple, does not support your thesis regarding named eye-witness accounts in the gospel of John, nor does he support that idea that the discourses in John are earlier than the Synoptic gospels.

To claim that Teeple’s work somehow underpins your assertions, and that while Teeple remains un-refuted so does your thesis, is downright iniquitous.

With regard to Teeple’s hypothesis, as you say, it has never been refuted, but then neither has it received unequivocal endorsement or academic acclaim. As far as I can ascertain, taking for example Kysar’s critique of Teeple’s book [Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Jun., 1974), pp. 308-312] , the main criticism of Teeple is that his findings would require each of his putative sources to rigidly and woodenly stick to a particular style of writing and set of themes. He does not allow for the possibility of variation or imitation of style or content. Kysar concludes that his work is a useful addition in the field, but cautions that Teeple is perhaps too certain of his findings and that a little more humility might not go amiss. [Why does that bring someone to mind?]

[Korah]

[Replying to post 326 by Student]
Regarding your first paragraph, we seem to have an epistemological incompatibility.
Regarding your second, you are categorically correct, as I have been acknowledging.
Your third is "downright iniquitous".
As for your fourth, I guess I need to get off Ask.Com and back to Bing to find Kysar's rescission of his criticism of Teeple. Carson's is the only remaining negativity I know of--and apparently he got his impression of Teeple's over-confidence from Kysar.
I appreciate your sense of humor, even though it is at my expense.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 327 by Korah]
Kysar's better opinion of Teeple must be in his more recent books. Jstor access would be needed to search. The index shows Teeple's name at pages 23, 60, 62-65, 103, and 267 in the first, where 60, 62-65 fall into the chapter, "Literary Probes into the Gospel of John":
Voyages with John: Charting the Fourth Gospel, 2005
which collects his scholarly articles, but Teeple is not mentioned in
John, the Maverick Gospel, 3rd Ed. 2007
Kysar died in 2013.

[Korah]

[Replying to post 296 by Korah]
In my Post #296 I boasted how pre-publication scholarship supported me, so for "net neutrality", here's my acknowledgment that one paper says the tide is against me.
Thatcher sent more papers today, pre-publication. Score two for (or against) the academic establishment and against me. One argues Matthew was used in writing GJohn. Then Chris Keith goes farther to dismiss all source theories within John in his “The Competitive Textualization of the Jesus Tradition in John 20:3-31 and 21:24-25�.

First, Johannine scholarship has witnessed a turn away from source-critical hypothetical reconstructions of GJohn’s sources. Source-critical reconstructions of the tradition-history of GJohn, whether Bultmann’s three-source theory,45 Fortna’s Signs Source,46 Brown’s complex multi-stage community development theory(ies),47 or any modern variants,48 gain(ed) currency from a form-critically-inspired and historical-positivist era of New Testament scholarship. In this era, scholars have had great confidence in their abilities to stratify layers of the gospel tradition and assign them to corresponding stages of a community’s development. This source-critical procedure and the concomitant Gospel community hypothesis it requires, however, have both received strong criticism. Scholars working in media studies (orality, texuality, and memory) have increasingly eroded confidence in the criteria by which scholars identify earlier (often oral) traditions in written texts.49

As an aside he also attacks Synoptic source theories:

(One can observe similar erosions of scholarly confidence in the ability to mine and recover earlier states of the gospel tradition from the written Gospels in the demise of the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus studies and the increased popularity of the Farrer-Goulder solution to the Synoptic problem.)50
50 On the former, see Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne, eds., Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (London: T&T Clark, 2012). On the latter, see Mark S. Goodacre, The Case against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2002); Mark S. Goodacre and Nicholas Perrin, eds., Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005); John C. Poirier and Jeffrey Peterson, eds., Marcan Priority Without Q: Explorations in the Farrer Hypothesis (LNTS; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), forthcoming.

To me this looks like evangelical distaste for sources within GJohn. Also lined up against me from the other side are the hard academics who presuppose there can be no eyewitness accounts within GJohn. So there I go again, I think I’m right and everyone else in wrong.