Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§7.8 The Sources
e. Other sources dealt with by Crossan and Koester can be mentioned
briefly. It is difficult to assess the significance of Papyrus Egerton 2 with its striking
parallels to John 5.39-46; 9.29; and 10.31, 39 and Mark 1.40-44; 12.13-15;
and 7.6-7. 160 The parallels to Mark and John may be explained in several ways,
of which use of traditions earlier than and independent of Mark and John is only
one. 161 Certainly Pap. Eg. 2 may provide further witness to the different versions
in which stories about Jesus were circulated; but it is equally possible that the
parallels are the result of hearing these Gospels read or of oral circulation of
what these Gospels narrated. 162 Once again, we must take care lest we unconsciously
assume a literary interdependency or a deliberate scissors and paste redaction.
f. For completeness we should also mention the often canvassed possibility
that collections of miracle stories lie behind Mark 163 and John. 164 Other questions,
as to whether Mark was able to draw on further pre-formed tradition, for
example, groupings of parables (Mark 4) and apocalyptic material (Mark 13), as
also the question of an already extensive Passion narrative prior to Mark, are
'was silent, as if he felt no pain'; 19 — Jesus' final cry on the cross, 'My power, O power, thou
hast forsaken me!'); but here too note the hesitations of Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha
1.220-21.
160. J. Jeremias and W. Schneemelcher in Schneemelcher and Wilson, New Testament
Apocrypha 1.96-99; Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament 37-40 (with bibliography); analysis in
Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels 205-16.
161. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels is too confident that the direction of influence
is more likely to have been from Pap. Eg. 2 to John than vice-versa (208-11); e.g., talk of Jesus'
'hour . . . not yet come' is distinctively Johannine (John 7.30), and reference to the 'hour' in
Mark 14.35 is much more remote (211). Similarly overconfident is Cameron, Other Gospels
71-73.
162. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha 97; Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament
38; Charlesworth and Evans, 'Jesus in the Agrapha' 514-25 (here 521-22); Miller, ed., Complete
Gospels 412; and particularly F. Neirynck, 'Apocryphal Gospels and Mark' 753-59 (with
additional notes (771-72); also 'Papyrus Egerton 2 and the Healing of the Leper', ETL 61
(1985) 153-60, reprinted in Evangelica 7/773-79 with additional notes (1985 and 1991) added
(780-83). The suggestion that Pap. Eg. 2 indicates a pre-canonical combination of Johannine
and Synoptic materials (Crossan, Four Other Gospels 75) is much less likely.
163. See particularly P. A. Achtemeier, 'Towards the Isolation of Pre-Markan Catenae',
JBL 89 (1970) 265-91; also 'The Origin and Function of the Pre-Markan Miracle Catenae',
JBL 91 (1972) 198-221; Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels 201-203, 286-87.
164. Crossan, Historical Jesus 429-30; Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels 203-205,
251-53, 286-87. Miller, ed., Complete Gospels 175-93, attempts a reconstruction of the Signs
Gospel hypothesized to lie behind John, based on the work of R. T. Fortna, The Fourth Gospel
and Its Predecessor (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). The significance of such collections
(aretalogies) as early ways of presenting Jesus ('Jesus as the Divine Man') was already signalled
by Koester in his 'One Jesus and Four Primitive Gospels' 187-93.
171