stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
"The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's hand differ in a number of details, and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech."
en.wikipedia.org
Is the Gettysburg Address a Literary Creation? (A Response to Hatsoff)
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stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
Well, IS it? Can we or can we not use the same logic our skeptic posters, with the backing of our resident modern Bible scholar, use in that other thread, to assume that both the Sermon on the Mount and the Gettysburg Address were works of fiction? Where have all y'all chatterboxes gone?
The differences are almost all matters of punctuation -- e.g., some versions have commas or hyphens where others don't. There are also some trivial word differences, like whether it was "brought forth upon this continent" or just "on this continent," or whether the ground was "hallowed" or "consecrated." See the "amalgamated version" in the Wikipedia article you linked to."The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's hand differ in a number of details, and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech."
Gettysburg Address - Wikipedia
One version (the “Bliss copy,” the version we’ve almost always seen printed as “The” Gettysburg Address) has Lincoln’s signature. It is essentially identical (again, with differences in a few words plus punctuation) to the version printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer days after the speech.
So if we had five essentially identical copies of the Sermon on the Mount, one signed by Jesus, all essentially identical to a contemporary report‘s transcript of that sermon, and modern scholars still argued the sermon was the product of a later editor, you would have good reason to be dismissive and to bring up the analogy with the Gettysburg Address.
Maybe a stronger analogy with the Sermon would be something like the "Melian Dialogue" in Thucydides' History. From what I gather, scholars of the ancient world almost all say this was a "literary creation" as well, a "dialogue" whose words were never actually spoken by the people who were at that conference, but something Thucydides thought was a good representation of the kinds of argument which would be well suited to people in that position (the stronger side making demands of the weaker side). This is an entirely secular business, so presumably nobody is taking a stand one way or another out of any kind of religious partisanship for or against the reliability of Thucydides; sometimes scholars just think they have good reasons for skepticism about whether things happened the way the author said they happened.
Now it's possible that some scholars go out of their way to cast doubt on religious texts by using standards or criteria that they don't use with secular texts. And it's possible that many are too skeptical of both secular and religious texts. But that's something that would have to be argued for.
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Lucian
Well-known member
I think Komodo's response is sensible. My view is that Lincoln's speech is probably not a 'literary creation' in the same sense as the Sermon on the Mount is, and that comparisons between modern and ancient speeches in this context are not generally useful. But I don't think either is a work of fiction per se."The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's hand differ in a number of details, and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech."
Gettysburg Address - Wikipedia
There are all sorts of gradations. The Melian Dialogue might be:
1) As close a reconstruction as Thucydides could make to the actual words used by the participants, based on the reports of reliable eyewitnesses to the conference.
2) As close a reconstruction as he could make, with the language made a little more concise and elegant.
3) As close as he could make it, but with some arguments added which weren't actually made by the participants, but which they really should have used, to make their points stronger and clearer.
4) Like #3, but with a number of touches calculated by make the readers less sympathetic to the Athenians and more sympathetic to the Melians.
5) Like #4, but also bringing out some topics which the participants didn't actually touch on, but which are kind of implicit in the situation, and it wouldn't have been inappropriate or even surprising if they had brought them out explicitly.
...and so on, ending with "it's a fact that an Athenian delegation met with a Melian delegation, and the Athenians demanded a Melian surrender, but all the details are made up." Sort of like how Shakespeare takes two lines from Holinshed and turns it into a thousand-word scene in Richard II. And we say of that "well, of course that's plain fiction, it makes no pretense to being historically accurate," but that's not exactly true; some plays had titles like "The True History of..."
I thought the same thing, but then changed my mind.
The fundamental difference is that the people who recorded the Gettysburg address believed that is was given in that form, and were trying to reproduce it to the best of their abilities. In that sense, it was not a literary creation.
The author of Matthew did not think Jesus actually said the Sermon on the Mount; he knew he was constructing something original to his work. Something Jesus would agree with, he believed, with words Jesus said in various other places, but never said in a single speech.
Lucian
Well-known member
Do you think Matthew's audience was unaware of this?
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
What a crock! Prove it.
Let''s summarize, everyone:
There were no tape recorders back then. Most likely, Matthew and the narrator to Luke were giving the sermon as they remembered it. Or perhaps Jesus gave the same essential sermon more than once. But I'll guarantee that if the exact same words occurred in both accounts, the same people gloating over the alleged contradictions would be whining about collusion.
But all of y'all are missing the larger point: The hypocrisy. Lack of verbatim identity with the Jesus sermon means literary creation, but NOT for the Lincoln speech.
If that was what 'Matthew' did, it's a problem for those who see literal truth and divine purpose in every word of the Bible, and it would be a problem for an author who wrote a "memoir" this way today, but I don't think that would have gotten him kicked out of the Historians' Guild of 70 A.D.
Suppose you could prove that the Melian Dialogue didn't happen, but rather what happened was that Thucydides asked all the generals he knew what sorts of things they said in these kinds of situations, when they were pressing for a surrender, and what sorts of things the other side said, and he put together the best lines from that plus the best ones he came up with himself but thought appropriate for the situation. My sense is that if you said this to anybody in the ancient world, they would not be likely to respond with indignation at this fraud, but rather would say "good work, Thucydides!"
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stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
Just for the record, I don't give a damn if Matthew's great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-great grandfather's fifth cousin, thrice removed recorded the sermon in 1611, it would no more detract from the divine inspiration than finding out that Beethoven's plumber wrote the 9th Symphony would detract from its humanly inspiration.
I do not know, but I would guess they were aware. He was not trying to fool any one, he was trying to promote the religion he believed in, and was doing so by constructing a story that explained that religion and why you should believe it.
OK, then those scholars who are arguing that it was an eyewitness report of an actual sermon are being exactly as irrelevant in pointlessly chasing after a question whose answer does not matter in the least, as are those who are arguing that it wasn't an eyewitness report of an actual sermon.
Also for the record, if I'm being included among the y'all who allegedly say "Lack of verbatim identity with the Jesus sermon means literary creation," then no. Didn't say that, didn't imply it, don't agree with it.
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stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
What's your evidence for this?
"The author of Matthew did not think Jesus actually said the Sermon on the Mount;..."
I may have missed you presenting it previously so I beg your indulgence. Thank you.
In that post I was kind of talking hypothetically. If we say hypothetically that that the author did that, then there is a qualitative difference between that and the records we have of the Gettysburg address; it is not merely different by degree. Therefore the premise of the OP misses the mark
However, that said, I still think it likely the author of Matthew made it up, and the short answer as to why is that it does not appear in the oldest gospel, Mark. I cannot see any reason for Mark omitting something so important if he knew about it.
For a more detailed view (not by me), look at the thread stiggy was responding to:
- [youtube] Is the Sermon on the Mount a literary creation? A response to Mike Winger (and Michael Jones)
Shameless plug ahoy! Here's the link to the video: And the description: Pastor Mike Winger seems to think that the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain were actual sermons given word-for-word by the historical Jesus on two different occasions. In this video, I walk through some...
forums.carm.org
Thanks. I'm not sure the absence of the sermon from Marks gospel is not necessarily evidence that others made it up. But thanks again.
Tiburon
Well-known member
What would make one 'divine' inspiration and the other not?
How can we discern the difference?
stiggy wiggy
Well-known member
I just wanted to let you know that I did see your post, but I have little to add given the excellent responses of Komodo, Lucian, and The Pixie, who have all collectively explained the situation better than I could have done."The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln's hand differ in a number of details, and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech."
Gettysburg Address - Wikipedia
Tiburon
Well-known member
So it's just your opinion then.