# Presupposing Ground Zero: The Common Sayings Tradition **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 16, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299 "2004-04-16T02:46:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/41 "2004-04-22T17:58:04Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I think this is an excellent point. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself. > > What say you, **Iscariot**? Was the baptist’s message truly for the forgiveness of sins? The Essenes definitely–explicitly even–wasn’t. Neither was Josephus’ mentor Bannus. Josephus doesn’t attribute any such message to the baptist–it seems to be Markan redaction: A precursor to the new redeemer, Jesus O’ Naz. The Baptism’s movement was widespread, the rejection of the temple non-existent. He clearly wasn’t offering so much of a replacement for it as the gospels may lead us to believe. Regards. I’ll get to Diogenes Post later. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/42 "2004-04-23T00:11:43Z")
> [@Iscariot](#): > > It is rather odd. Except that the Hindu Guru didn’t exactly lead his followers anywhere. They accepted the essential truth of his message without converting to Islam–the same way a missionary can get a Hindu to accept Jesus without converting them to Christianity. The apostles did not “convert” to the extent that they did not accept Jesus’ rejection of the temple. I’m not making a point about movements but about religious psychpathology as it pertains to _individuals_. As I said before, I don’t think Jesus’ rejection of the temple (and it need not have been verbalized as a desire for literal physical destruction, just a denial of its intermediary necessity) was an overt part of Jesus’ message or ministry until the day he did it. I think it caught his followers by surprise and they didn’t know how to deal with it. > [@](#): > > No, the first two claims aren’t supported with scripture, they’re supported with the claim that he has given exactly has he has received (from the other apostles)–Jesus died in accordance with scripture, and was raised in accordance with scripture, that he appeared to. . . > > This is all one sentiment–what Paul has received from the other apostles, and “I or they” so do we preach it. > > His appeal–that he has given what he received from the other apostles–both opens and closes his statement. It’s not three claims, it’s one–“This is what I was told, and what they also say.” He declares his source for this twice (15.3 and 15.11) I would quibble with your evaluation of what is meant by “received.” I think Paul was referring to personal revelation, not the apostles. > [@](#): > > Are you aware of another group in the first century of whom we have a vast library? > > And I trust you’re aware that all of our classical sources place Essenes in “every town,” and label them the third largest sect in Judaism. They weren’t exactly out of the mainstream. > > Most Jews didn’t belong to any sect. That makes them a sizable number. They’re certainly the group that most parallels Christianity. I agree with the last sentence but I don’t think that a large library or a mere presence in every town would make the sect mainstream. As you said, most Jews did not belong to sects and the Essenes were only the third largest of the sects that most people didn’t belong to. If the Essenes were so essential to the Christian movement, then why is there no association with them in the gospels? > [@](#): > > You guessed it, the Dead Sea Scrolls. I’ll have to look up the specific verse. I shall await the verse. > [@](#): > > He’s also drawing on the Wisdom of Solomon, on Sirach, on The 12 Patriarchs, on the Psalms of Solomon–there are scores of potential sources. It’s the vindication of the suffering just one; _THE_ Jewish hero. He’s drawing on those sources _after the fact_. It’s prophesy historicized, not prophesy expected. > [@](#): > > There is also Talmudic literature that interprets none other than Isaiah Messianically. Christianity is antecedent to the Talmud, at least in written form. But pony up the cites. I’ll read them. > [@](#): > > The “third day” probably comes from Hosea, and it is indeed specious–but not overly so, Judaism has always been rife with odd interpretations of texts to support contemporary events. Something along the same lines as the “Peshar.” You’ve probably scored this one though. > > But the resurrection could come from any of a number of sources–Jesus as the “firstfruits” of the promised resurrection of the dead. The same vein of thought that seems to have indicated the Essenes expected a return of the ToR. > > Melchizedek has some sacrificial qualities in 11QMelch. Be astounded. > > Raised on the third day has more in common with peshar than any other method, so specious reading is what we should expect. Kinda like how Habbukuk suddenly told the story of the ToR. You’re making some scattershot references but could you be more specific. Is there anything in pre-Christian Jewish literature which expresses an expectation of a sacrificed and resurrected Messiah whose death redeems sins? > [@](#): > > Paul’s statement begins and ends with an appeal to his source–what he has received from apostolic authority. Paul has received that “Jesus died. . .according to scripture. . .” and so on. He’s not appealing to scripture for the basis, he’s appealing to the reception of the tradition. Something he reiterates at the end. > > Taking your reading, then his claim at the start to have “given exactly what he received” is meaningless–why did he say it in the first place? Like I said. I think he was referring to what he had “received” from personal revelation, not the apostles. John does, Paul not so much–he’s largley absent of Paschal symbolism, it seems to be a later development–Hebrews missed a lot of opportunity as well, and it really shouldn’t have. [quote] [QUOTE=me] ]Christ _begins_ at Golgotha as far as Paul is concerned. It was the _sacrifice_ that inspired him (well that and the resurrection). He saw the crucifixion as a divinely ordained event and the human mechanistics which brought it about were simply in the (unwitting) service of God. The legal cause of the crucifixion was completely incidental to its divine purpose. > [@](#): > > Ah, I see your point, and to that end, I agree. > > But with all of Paul’s disputes on the Law, noting what I said above (he should have nailed the apostles for not venerating the temple if they didn’t), we run into the same problem–if Jesus _said_ not to venerate the temple, why doesn’t Paul appeal to Jesus’ actions. > > Pehaps the other apostles may have ignored it. Paul sure as hell wouldn’t miss the chance to twist the knife–to point out what hypocrites they were, who denied Jesus’ last act. I think this is somewhat of an argument from absence. We have only a handful of letters from a decades long career and we have to be careful about assuming that whatever is not mentioned in them was not ever addressed by Paul elsewhere. There is simply not enough available data to form any conclusion about how Paul viewed the temple incident or the apostles’ reaction to it. He may not have known much about it himself, and whatever info he got from the apostles probably would have been spun in a self-serving or apologetic way from their perspective. I don’t think we can assume that Paul _knew_ that Jesus had renounced the temple. > [@](#): > > John was beheaded. Why was Jesus crucified? John was killed by Antipas, Jesus by the Romans. Only the Romans used crucifixion. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/43 "2004-04-23T03:18:10Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The apostles did not “convert” to the extent that they did not accept Jesus’ rejection of the temple. I’m not making a point about movements but about religious psychpathology as it pertains to _individuals_. As I said before, I don’t think Jesus’ rejection of the temple (and it need not have been verbalized as a desire for literal physical destruction, just a denial of its intermediary necessity) was an overt part of Jesus’ message or ministry until the day he did it. I think it caught his followers by surprise and they didn’t know how to deal with it. Then why did anyone remember it? This isn’t an argument in favour of historicity of the event, it’s “I like it, we’ll keep it.” What grounds do you suggest indicate that the temple incident was historical? What has been seen thus far is a reshaping of your entire reconstruction to keep the temple incident–but no arguments for the incident itself. “Jesus might have done this if he was. . .” > [@](#): > > I would quibble with your evaluation of what is meant by “received.” I think Paul was referring to personal revelation, not the apostles. Then we’ll need another thread to get into it. Doherty tries that too. He’s wrong. > [@](#): > > I agree with the last sentence but I don’t think that a large library or a mere presence in every town would make the sect mainstream. As you said, most Jews did not belong to sects and the Essenes were only the third largest of the sects that most people didn’t belong to. There were a lot of sects in the first century. The Essenes were mainstream enough that no one speaks of them in any marginalized sense. > [@](#): > > If the Essenes were so essential to the Christian movement, then why is there no association with them in the gospels? > [@](#): > > I shall await the verse. I’ll have to track it down. > [@](#): > > He’s drawing on those sources _after the fact_. It’s prophesy historicized, not prophesy expected. Really? Have you read the Psalms of Solomon? > [@](#): > > Christianity is antecedent to the Talmud, at least in written form. But pony up the cites. I’ll read them. This is semantic quibbling–the two are more than parallel enough that we can use the one to see the general thought the latter came from. I’ll get this one for you with the scrolls reference–this should be easier to find, the scrolls I’ll need to find myself, the Talmud Brown cites. > [@](#): > > You’re making some scattershot references but could you be more specific. Is there anything in pre-Christian Jewish literature which expresses an expectation of a sacrificed and resurrected Messiah whose death redeems sins? All in one neat little shot like that? Of course not. Is there any one pre-Christian reference to a Davidic warrior who would be from Bethlehem? Judaism never worked like that. > [@](#): > > Like I said. I think he was referring to what he had “received” from personal revelation, not the apostles. You’re going to need to argue for that, not just suggest it. > [@](#): > > I think this is somewhat of an argument from absence. We have only a handful of letters from a decades long career and we have to be careful about assuming that whatever is not mentioned in them was not ever addressed by Paul elsewhere. There is simply not enough available data to form any conclusion about how Paul viewed the temple incident or the apostles’ reaction to it. He may not have known much about it himself, and whatever info he got from the apostles probably would have been spun in a self-serving or apologetic way from their perspective. I don’t think we can assume that Paul _knew_ that Jesus had renounced the temple. If Paul didn’t know, and the disciples denied it. . . Who is telling the story in the gospels? Again, you’re not giving any reason to accept it except “I like it, Jesus did it.” The cross can be explained without it, the message it sent was ignored, and nobody wanted any part of it–all concessions you’ve made. We can add to that the fact that it’s easy to come up with a development of the story that would leave it as nothing more than Markan redaction. Why are you keeping it at all? > [@](#): > > John was killed by Antipas, Jesus by the Romans. Only the Romans used crucifixion. That was rather my point. Regards. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/44 "2004-04-23T03:35:24Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic\[/QUOTE](#): > > I don’t think Jesus was Gnostic, but Gnosticism may have been an outgrowth of his original sapientialism. I also don’t think the message is all that late. Thomas and Q are at least contemporary with Mark and probably prior in oral form. I don’t believe the message was ever really adopted by anyone as Jesus originally intended it. I call the message sapiential based on the sayings alone, not on any early Christian practices or doctrines. I think you might be misunderstanding what Gnosticism is, because you have definitely said Jesus was Gnostic, just not in so many words. Q isn’t sapiental, it’s apocalyptic, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s contemporary with Mark or not. Our full version of Thomas is from the fourth century, and has undergone rather flagrant Gnostic redaction, add to that the fact that the redactors are clearly familiar with the synoptics, and the problems I"ve already noted regarding establishing ground zero, and Thomas isn’t much use. It’s value has long been overstated–it’s too late a manuscript, without any point of comparison for textual criticism. > [@](#): > > What definition are you using? Maybe I’ve been misunderstanding you. Apocalyptic eschatology refers to the coming of the Messianic Age. > [@](#): > > No, actually, I _didn’t_ say that. I’ve reviewed every thread we’ve participated in and I didn’t say it. I did say that I thought Jesus was a wisdom teacher in the vein of Funk and Crossan and I think you interpreted that as me claiming he was a Cynic. Fair enough, my mistake. > [@](#): > > They don’t explicitly say he was a mystic but they _do_ say he subverted Jewish law. He healed on the sabbath, he broke purity laws, he dined with unclean people, etc. IMO, this behaviour makes perfect sense for a mystic but not for a strictly “Jewish” rabbi. This behavior makes perfect sense if it’s redacted for a Gentile audience too. You need to argue for their historicity, not just presume what works best for you. > [@](#): > > Religious psychopathology did not exist in the Hellenistic or Palestinian world? Cite? That’s not what I said. The belief that one could access God directly did not exist in first century Greeks or Jews. The intermediary fairly dominated the religious scene at large. > [@](#): > > Mystics transcend normal cultural constructs. It’s a natural consequence of the experience. You appeal to this here, but later call Jesus “consistent with other mystics.” They can’t be wildly unpredictable except when you don’t want them to be. > [@](#): > > Because the message is too experiential and was too odd for its cultural context. To put it quite bluntly, the apostles just didn’t get it. They were attracted to him for reasons of personal charisma (common to successful mystics- in India it is often claimed that mere physical contact with such a person can cause ecstatic states in other people. I don’t believe that necessarily, but I do know that they can exert a strong personal magnetism. Ramakrishna attracted followers who abandoned their families and possessions after meeting him a single time. These followers include not only Indians but Victorian British soldiers who went to mock the “Sammy” and were impressed enough after meeting him to desert the British army and become his disciples. Even with all that, and in a culture much more disposed to mysticism, most people did not really “get” Ramakrishna or ever become enlightened. I think that people were attracted to Jesus in the same way, and they continued to venerate him after his death, but that they did not really grasp everything that he said. Some of the sayings remind of Zen koans. In order to get them you have to already be in an altered state of consciousness. Jesus’ personality and some of his teachings were strong enough to inspire his cult, but I think that most of his original message was simply misunderstood or altered. And, again, you run into the same problem–you’re making a Jesus you want to see there, and then suggesting that all the evidence for him just vanished. HIs apostles didn’t echo it, Paul didn’t echo it, it kinda, sorta, shows up in Q if we stratify it just right, but only vaguely, and we need to imagine a lot to shape it from it, but all of them were just hiding it! You form conclusions from evidence, not evidence from conclusions. > [@](#): > > Because it makes sense. It is entirely consistent with his ministry and the Q sayings and it’s consistent with the behavior and ideologies of other mystics across diverse cultures. An event is historical because of this vague “touch blue make it true” approach? 1. It is demonstrably dependent on Jewish Scripture. 2. It is not likely such an event would be seen–what was the point? 3. His apostles did not follow it. 4. Paul has never heard of it. 5. It flies flagrant in the face of what is known of first century religions. I’ve named others, but these are the keys. It doesn’t make sense, more importantly, even in your own reconstructions, it isn’t necessary. So why is it there? > [@](#): > > I don’t know what you mean by “have him.” Personally, I’m just curious. I think that any historical Jesus would have to be fascinating just because he _is_ historical Jesus…even if he isn’t. If the message that survives is entirely dependent on later apostolic tradition, why have an historical Jesus? If he is not the necessary antecedent of anything, then there wasn’t one. > [@](#): > > Sedition, of course…or fear of sedition. The question is, how casual was their definition of sedition? I think that during Passover it was casual indeed. Josephus says exactly the opposite. They walked on eggshells at Passover, lest they cause a riot. Flipping tables at the temple does not seem to be grounds to crucify–it would be a rather shocking motivation for a cross. Even more shocking that any Messianic leader would be killed but his followers not (Theudas, the Egyptian, and so on). The only exception to that trend is John the Baptist, who was killed by Antipas (as you noted) and thus not terribly analogous–at least in this regard. Regards. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/45 "2004-04-23T03:41:14Z")
I was typing too quickly–getting ahead of myself–and missed your question as to why the Essenes aren’t mentioned in the NT. Matthew contains much polecism against them (who else, for example, issues the command “hate your enemies,” a sentiment found nowhere in Judaism but in the DSS). Hebrews was most likely written to Essene converts by an Essene convert. They are mentioned, only implicitly rather than explicitly. Regards. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/46 "2004-04-23T04:00:56Z")
I’d like to ask that future responses to this go into a new thread–my original question has _still_ never been answered, despite the fact that much of Diogenes’ reconstruction (the sapietnal Jesus) requires the Kloppenborg-esque stratification–Diogenes in fact just appealed to Q and Thomas. How do we know that the common source for Q and Thomas is Jesus? What grounds are there to presume that he is ground zero? I’ve provided numerous reasons to suggest he isn’t, perhaps most damning the fact that Clement, James, and the Didache have never heard of this sapiental Jesus who uttered all these Cynic sayings, despite the fact that they quote those same sayings. Regards. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/47 "2004-04-23T14:25:48Z")
Alas, being the weekend, I think I’ll pretend this once I have a life, which renders my time here finished. Just to clarify my position in general on topics discussed, I do think Q exists, I don’t think Thomas is independent from the canon, I don’t think John is independent from the synoptics, and I think the two greatest problems with virtually every reconstruction of Jesus are that they fail to explain 1) Why he died in such a public manner during Passover (they should have avoided public executions during that time–not a universal tendency, to be sure, but one we should expect them to follow unless it demoralized more than it inspired) and 2) They fail to explain why he died, but his movement continued. The answer, I’d suggest, is really quite apparent. Matt.26.29 is argued authentic by a number of scholars, though the best argument is from John P. Meier. Without a lengthy discussion on its authenticity, there is really only one way to interpret this passage adequately (attempts to contend it is a passion prediction fall well short)–it refers to a tangible, future kingdom. Not just any kingdom, but one coming _now_. He’s not ushering in the Messianic Age at an unknown future date, he’s doing it in the very near future. So near, that Rome had to kill him quickly before he tried to do whatever he had in mind. A death so public that those who believed in this Jesus would realize that he was wrong. Having falsified Jesus’ promise to be the agent of an eschatological miracle, Rome was done with the matter, and wasn’t terribly troubled when his message re-emerged. There exists a tendency in the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” to try and make a Jesus one can like–even outside the “Quest,” men like Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchhill or Nietzshe–men who hated Christianity, invariably liked Jesus just fine. Nowhere is this tendency more apparent–often even unwittingly explicit–than in the work of the Jesus Seminar, most explicitly Crossan, Funk, and Borg (all of whom have stated more than once that they “like Jesus” but wouldn’t “like Jesus” if he wasn’t what they make him out to be). Beware of any Jesus you find to be an agreeable person. Be even warier of any Jesus who would like you. As Schweitzer once noted, the best lives of Jesus are not written with love, but with hatred, “hate sharpens their insight.” Just ask Strauss. Regards. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/48 "2004-04-23T15:23:32Z")
Well, I won’t go into a comprehensive response to everything left above then. I’ll just post an on point response to your original question in this thread, i.e how do we know that the common source is Jesus? The short answer is we _don’t_ know, but from a purely personal perspective, I think this is like asking if Homer really wrote Homer. We agree that there _is_ a common source and I think that for the sake of convenience and tradition that we might as well call the common source “Jesus,” just like we call Luke Luke and Matthew Matthew even though we don’t know who they really were. The obvious rebuttal to this is to ask how we can identify the author of the common sayings to the man who was crucified by Pilate c. 30 CE. My response to this (which I know you don’t agree with) is consistent attribution and a consistent ideology with that of other mystics. My hypothesis is based on an assumption-- that Jesus was a mystic. If he was, then the psychpathology of these experiences is surprisingly predictable across religious cultures and is not bound by cultural context. I don’t know how much you’ve studied about mysticism, but I recommend you look into it before you dismiss this out of hand. Start with William James’ _Varieties of Religious Experience_ but don’t stop there. Read biographies of mystics. I mentioned Ramakrishna, but also look at the teachings of as many others as you can. The ideologies are much more consistent, transcultural and iconoclastic than you might expect. I spent a lot of time on mysticism in college and even did an independent study on mysticism in India for credit. I also researched Cabalism, Sufism, Medeivel Christian mysticism, South American shamanism and others. That’s not even counting my own personal practice and study of Zen meditation which is a form of mystic practice in itself. The common sayings sound mystic to me. They sound like the kinds of things that _all_ these guys say after they get blown out. If you read some of Ramakrishna’s sayings they look like they could have come right out Thomas or Q. No, the sayings don’t seem Jewish, but these mystics almost never jibe idealistically with their own religious context. Breaking through dogma and recconfiguring compensators is one of the most common characteristics. Their ideas come from their psychopathological experiences not from their context. They don’t “learn” this stuff from others, they “see” it, and that’s that. If it contradicts even their own previously held beliefs they discard those beliefs, or they at least reinterpret them to fit their experiences. When I said that mystics are “unpredictable” I meant that they express ideas which seem anamalous, even bizarre or shocking within their own cultural contexts. Compared with other mystics there’s an amazing consistency. In short, I would posit that IF Jesus was a mystic then it is not implausible that he was the source of the common sayings because they are the kinds of things a mystic would say-- even a _Jewish_ mystic. If Jesus was NOT a mystic then my thesis falls apart. I grant you that it’s subjective and my IF is a big one. I also grant you the non-attribution of some Q sayings is problematic and I have to find a way to address them. Finally, I would say that the part of “Jesus” that I like is the Q sayings. The crucifixion has no special resonance for me and I have no use at all for the soteriology but I _do_ like the sayings. Since I have no other name, I will call the author Jesus and suspect that he was a mystic. Whether he was the same guy that got nailed to a cross is admittedly an open question. I _suspect_ that he was but I am not doctrinaire about it. Hell, I’m only about 99% sure that there was a crucified Jesus at all. As to why the Romans did it-- if they did it they were trying to prevent a riot. If jesus pissed off a crowd at the temple, that might be enough. And the _crowd_ would be essential to my speculation in this. If Jesus was as popular as Fredriksen says he was (she accepts the trumphal entry into Jerusalem as historical) then I think she would have to explain why he _wouldn’t_ be noticed-- and indeed attract a crowd-- at the temple. ---
**Author:** ![Iscariot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ac91a4/32.png) [@Iscariot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iscariot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299/49 "2004-04-23T16:51:30Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I spent a lot of time on mysticism in college and even did an independent study on mysticism in India for credit. I also researched Cabalism, Sufism, Medeivel Christian mysticism, South American shamanism and others. That’s not even counting my own personal practice and study of Zen meditation which is a form of mystic practice in itself. “. . .every reconstruction since Schweitzer has been as though the author is looking into a deep well, and seeing their own face reflected back at them. There has never been a single scholar guiltier of this crime than the Jesus Seminar.”-Luke Timothy Johnson. Gotta run now. Regards. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presupposing-ground-zero-the-common-sayings-tradition/240299.md?page=2)