Or that church leaders were trying to promote a certain idea about Jesus and, finding nothing in the Gospel that specifically promoted this idea, stuck in a story that did.
Oh, sure. And I’m not sure why you say Matthew specifically. The Synoptics all have the same sort of thing going on, obviously. The context, it seems to me, is entirely Jewish. The feel I get is that we have young upstart reform punks, if you will, with a “spirit of the law” attitude, vs the old fart conservatives (as far as the young punks are concerned), and their “letter of the law” ways. I very much doubt that the historical Jesus gave much of a thought to gentiles one way or the other. One thing that strikes me about the Gospels is how little they talk about Judaism. If you want to learn about that, go elsewhere, because these texts aren’t telling you jack. Why? Is it because the Gospels don’t care about Jews and Judaism? No, on the contrary: They’re intensely interested in Jews and Judaism, or at least their source material was. They just seem to assume that everyone already knows the score and understands the context. You don’t have to explain Judaism if you’re a Jew preaching to other Jews, which is what Jesus was doing. They already know about it.
Which is sort of why this gets weird when the message is peddled to gentiles, I suppose. The gentiles wouldn’t know a Pharisee from a Sadducee from a High priest from a fringe cultist. I mean, I know that, because I’m basically just a random-ass gentile myself, so I’m not exactly an expert on any of that, and I’m noticing that reading the Gospels *sans *footnotes isn’t exactly helping any.
Actually, I have another one of those half-baked thoughts about this, that I’m not sure how to articulate. It’s about this punkish attitude in the Gospels towards the Jewish priests and religious authorities. Let’s shoot something off and see what happens:
I’m allowed to complain about my elders, because they’re *my elders. I can call them a bunch of #@&%*!. But if I preach that message to you, and then you preach it to someone else, then suddenly we have a situation where you are telling people: "Hey, y'all know **MB**'s elders? They're all a bunch of #@&%! True fact!"
And now suddenly I’m in a mind to come over and rather angrily tell you to know that off, because those are my elders, and you’d better not talk about them that way.
I dunno. Not sure if that made a lick of sense. I’ll work on it.
Too late for edit: That should be “knock that off”. I don’t proofread good.
Hey! Everyone knock it off! And stop calling my grandmother a racist! I’ll have you know that she’s a wonderful person!
One theory about that story is that is was in the original by John, then taken out so as to not “promote adultery” then put back in. Some early version of John just skip over those verses but retain normal numberings, so there is a gap there.
And who is promoting this theory, and what is the evidence for it?
Verse numbers weren’t put into the Bible until the Middle Ages.
wiki:
Jerome, writing around 417, reports that the pericope adulterae was found in its usual place in “many Greek and Latin manuscripts” in Rome and the Latin West. This is confirmed by some Latin Fathers of the 300s and 400s, including Ambrose of Milan, and Augustine. The latter claimed that the passage may have been improperly excluded from some manuscripts in order to avoid the impression that Christ had sanctioned adultery:
“Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin.”[15]
I used the modern terms.
Wait. Are you, DrDeth, of all people, suggesting that some early Christians altered or edited the text of John, to promote a certain viewpoint?
Did that just happen? Did you do that on purpose, or by accident?
I think its not only likely but almost a certainty. Even tho I am strongly in favor of John as the 'author" of the Gospel by that name, for example, few think he personally set pen to parchment (very few of the ancients did so, they used secretaries/scribes). He lived among his disciples and it appears dictated his memoirs and reminiscences to them at a fairly advanced age. Discounting the faulty memory of a man so aged, his words were almost certainly edited by his followers. Then there occurs copiest errors, translation errors and even- yes- deliberate changes.
Look at the two places where Josephus mentioned Jesus. One is offhand, mostly talking about the execution of His Brother. The other* was almost certainly edited by some pious copiest.
*About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
Flavius Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, 3[51]
per wiki: Based on this reconstruction, it is likely the original passage read:[9][150]
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.