Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §8.6
very beginning of the process, and the Gospel of Thomas gives it some credibility
for the continuing tradition. But editorial fingerprints on collections of Jesus tradition
in the present Synoptics do not constitute sufficient evidence that each of
the collections was first composed by those who thus handled them. There is also
good evidence of sayings being grouped and stories linked from what may have
been a very early stage of the transmission process — even, in some cases, that
Jesus may have taught in connected sequences which have been preserved. To
group similar teachings and episodes would be an obvious mnemonic and didactic
device for both teachers and taught, storytellers and regular hearers, more or
less from the beginning. 292
We may think, for example, of the sequence of beatitudes brought together
in oral tradition or Q (Matt. 5.3, 4, 6, 11, 12/Luke 6.20b, 21b, 21a, 22, 23), and
elaborated differently by Matthew and Luke (Matt. 5.3-12, Luke 6.20b-26). Or
Jesus' responses to would-be disciples (Matt. 8.19-22/Luke 9.57-62). 293 Or the
sequence of mini-parables (the wedding guests, new and old cloth, new and old
wineskins) in Mark 2.18-22 (followed by Matt. 9.14-17 and Luke 5.33-39). Or
the sequence of teaching on the cost of discipleship and danger of loss (Mark
8.34-38; again followed by Matt. 16.24-27 and Luke 9.23-26), where Q/oral tradition
has also preserved the sayings separately. 294 Similarly with the sequence
of sayings about light and judgment in Mark 4.21-25 (followed by Luke 8.16-
18), with equivalents scattered in Q and the Gospel of Thomas. 295
We will have occasion to analyse some of the most fascinating of the sequences
later on: the 'parables of crisis' in Matt. 24.42-25.13 pars. (§12.4g), Jesus
and the Baptist in Matt. 11.2-19 par. (§12.5c), and Jesus' teaching on his ex-
sumes that 'the imprint of orality' is evident only in 'short, provocative, memorable, oftrepeated
phrases, sentences, and stories' — 'a sixth pillar of modern gospel scholarship' (Five
Gospels 4); 'only sayings that were short, pithy, and memorable were likely to survive' (Honest
40, 127-29; similarly Acts of Jesus 26). This assumption predetermines that 'the Jesus whom
historians seek' will be found only in such brief sayings and stories. He lists 101 words (and
deeds) judged to be 'authentic' in his Honest 326-35.
292. Here again I should perhaps stress that I am thinking not just of the more formal occasions
of retelling and reteaching in 'cult narrative' and catechism, well indicated by Moule, Birth,
and H. Koester, 'Written Gospels or Oral Tradition?', JBL 113 (1994) 293-97 (here 293-94).
293. Or indeed any of the six clusters identified by Kloppenborg as belonging to Q 1 ,
which I have already suggested are better understood as different traditional materials grouped
by teachers for purposes of more effective and coherent teaching than as a single 'stratum'
(above §7.4c and n. 83).
294. Matt. 10.38/Luke 14.27; Matt. 10.39/Luke 17.33; Matt. 10.33/Luke 12.9.
295. Matt. 5.15/Luke 11.33/G77i 33.2; Matt. 10.26/Luke \2.2IGTh 5.2, 6.4; Matt. 7.2/
Luke 6.38b; Matt. 25.29/Luke 19.26/GTh 41. See further below chapter 13; also Crossan, Fragments
ch. 5; M. Ebner, Jesus — ein Weisheitslehrer? Synoptische Weisheitslogien im
Traditionsprozess (Freiburg: Herder, 1998) ch. 1.
246