Story Plan

To show that I have a plan, Beloved, here are the cuttings for the next major section of my translation for you. You can see that I pick and choose from several tables. It shows just how different are the four testimonies - not only in content but also in sequence. I have chosen these pericopae as the continuation of the Initial Public Ministry as we have already seen.

Section	Title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John	Table
IV	INITIUM MINISTERII PUBLICI					1
21	Primi discipuli				1.35	1
22	Nuptiae in Cana factae (a Tuesday)				2.1	1
23	In Capharnaum manet (see 22)				2.12	1
33	In Nazareth praedicat		4.16			2
34	Vocatio discipulorum	1.16		4.18		2
35	In synagoga Capharnaum docet	1.21	4.31			2
36	Daimoniacus in synagoga	1.23	4.33			2
24	Primum iter in Jerusalem				2.13	1
271	Jesus in Jerusalem, Bethaniam redit	11.11		21.10		9
272	Ficulnea maledicta	11.12		21.18		9
25	Purgatio templi (April 28)				2.14	2
275	Ficulnea arefacta	11.20		21.20		9
276	De potestate Jesu et baptismo Ioannis	11.27	20.1	21.23		9
26	Ministerium in Jerusalem				2.23	2
27	Colloquium cum Nicodemo				3.1	2
253	Benedictio parvulorum	10.13	18.15	19.13		8
280	De censu Caesaris	12.13	20.20	22.15		9
28	Ministerium in Iudaea				3.22	2
29	Testimonium Ioannis Baptistae				3.23	2
17	Ioannes in carcerum mittitur (28-29)		3.19			1
109	Patri confitetur			11.25		5
45	Quaestio ieiunii	2.18	5.33			2

Story Status

Beloved, I have organized the tables with all the words I am writing so you can find your way around the scriptorium without too much direction from me.

Section	Title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John	Story	Table
I	PRAEFATIO						1
1	Prologus	1.1	1.1	1.1	1.1	>>	1
	Excursus - Gospel					>>
	Excursus - Jerusalem					>>
6	Genealogia Jesu		3.23	1.2		>>	1

We had placed a bookmark here, for we were not able to return at first. All this happened a long time ago. First we had to pursue the order that Uncle Mark himself chose. And he omitted the Exordium entirely. But time passed. A year later, we returned to look at the texts from another point of view. A year later. For a whole year, these parts of books occupied a dozen tables in the scriptorium. Continual dusting and care, but no progress in this beginning section.

I learned much in that year. It is a dangerous thing to learn from these books. God has much to teach - not all without pain.

It is not that the introduction was of no interest. It shows the depth of tradition in the faith - and as I think on my own growth, it shows suffering, reproach, slavery, the exploitation of one by another, reaching back to Isaiah and Samuel. It contains great psalms that speak of deliverance and that will be sung for ever. It establishes a history linking the Messiah to the Exodus from Egypt. But all these things were out of scope for John Mark in his desire to move immediately into the ministry of Jesus. And all these were not needed for John who writes of the new creation in a strophic imitation of the first six days and a new understanding of the seventh.

But now we have read the Exordium, which we divided into 11 sections on the first table (though I have omitted one which I will return to later). One section, the genealogy, is repeated from the Prefatio. The other 10 present the announcements, the birth and the early years of Jesus.

Section	Title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John	Story	Table
II	EXORDIUM						1
2	Annuntiatio nativitatis Ioannis		1.5			>>	1
3	Annuntiatio nativitatis Christi		1.26			>>	1
4	Visitatio Mariae		1.39			>>	1
5	Nativitas Ioannis		1.57			>>	1
	Proleptic - Glory					>>
7	Christi nativitas		2.1	1.18		>>	1
8	Natus Adoratur		2.8	2.1		>>	1
9	Circumcisio et praesentatio		2.21			>>	1
	Excursus - A Rite					>>
10	Fuga in Aegyptium et reditus			2.13		>>	1
11	Puer Jesus in Nazareth		2.39	2.22		--	1
12	Puer Jesus in Templo		2.41			>>	1

Section	Title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John	Story	Table
III	PRAEPARATIO					>>	1
13	Ioannes Baptista praecursor Domini (Autumn 27)	1.2	3.1	3.1	1.19	>>	1
14	Ioannes paenitentiam praedicat		3.7	3.7		>>	1
15	Ioannes interrogantibus respondet		3.10			>>	1
16	Ioannes Christum evangelizat	1.7	3.15	3.11	1.24	>>	1
18	Baptismus Jesu (March 28)	1.9	3.21	3.13	1.29	>>	1
20	Proleptic - Tentatio	1.12	4.1	4.1		>>	1

Section	Title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John	Story	Table
IV	INITIUM MINISTERII PUBLICI					>>	1
21	Primi discipuli				1.35	>>	1

So we begin the fourth of 18 sections. Here are counts of the number of cuttings we made for each of our authors.

Section	Title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John
I	PRAEFATIO	1	1	1	1
II	EXORDIUM		9	5
III	PRAEPARATIO	4	8	5	3
IV	INITIUM MINISTERII PUBLICI				9

You can see that Mark and John both omit the Exordium as I noted earlier. Also that John has mostly unique material even though I have placed some of his sections in parallel with the others. Matthew and Luke both have their own special material sometimes in long sections. These may be unique to them or show influence the one on the other or the two on Mark. So Luke has 64 sections in a row that are his. You can see them on tables 7 and 8. Some few of these are unique to Luke, but many have parallels with Matthew and some with Mark. Luke has also the Sermo Domini (table 4) similar to Matthew's Sermo in Monte (table 3), but Matthew's is much longer. All four share the passion, the crucifixion, and the resurrection (tables 10, 11, 12).

V	MINISTERIUM IN GALILAEA	17	17	4	3
VI	SERMO IN MONTE			27
VII	SERMO DOMINI		7
VIII	MINISTERIUM IN GALILAEA	29	18	57	5
IX	PASSIO IMMINET	10	8	15	2
X	ITER IN JERUSALEM		64
XI	INFESTO SCENOPEGIAE JERUSALEM				13
XII	MINISTERIUM IN IUDAEA	8	7	9	7
XIII	ULTIMUM MINISTERIUM IN JERUSALEM	14	11	14	1
XIV	SERMO ESCHATALOGICUS	8	7	7
XV	CONCLUSIO TEMPORIS ANTE PASSIONEM NARRATI		1	5	3
XVI	PASSIO	23	24	25	31
XVII	RESURRECTIO	3	3	3	4
XVIII	EPILOGUS	2	1	1	2
	Totals	118	186	178	86

There are too many in my totals, but remember that the sections are counted twice when they are shared. I have worked out more counts also - for Matthew, Luke and John together share only one section! (Do you know which one?) Matthew, Mark, and Luke in contrast, share 36 of my cuttings. But perhaps I will share more of these at a later time in the story.

IV. INITIUM MINISTERII PUBLICI

We begin a long section in John's book. It covers to the end of the first table and a fifth of the second table. As I consider the whole, I will I think include some of the later sections of the other three among these beginnings of John. Each section is a cutting such as can be rearranged now that I have had them severed from the codices.

These are the section titles as I have formed them in your tongue:

Section	A title	Mark	Luke	Matthew	John	Table
21	Primi discipuli				1.35	1
22	Nuptiae in Cana factae ( this happened on a Tuesday)				2.1	1
33	In Nazareth praedicat		4.16			2
34	Vocatio discipulorum	1.16		4.18		2
35	In synagoga Capharnaum docet	1.21	4.31			2
36	Daimoniacus in synagoga	1.23	4.33			2
23	In Capharnaum manet				2.12	1
24	Primum iter in Jerusalem				2.13	1
271	Jesus in Jerusalem, Bethaniam redit	11.11		21.10		9
272	Ficulnea maledicta	11.12		21.18		9
25	Purgatio templi (April 28)				2.14	2
275	Filculnea arefacta	11.20		21.20		9
276	De potestate Jesu et baptismo Ioannis	11.27	20.1	21.23		9
26	Ministerium in Jerusalem				2.23	2
27	Colloquium cum Nicodemo				3.1	2
253	Benedictio parvulorum	10.13	18.15	19.13		8
280	De censu Caesaris	12.13	20.20	22.15		9
28	Ministerium in Iudaea				3.22	2
29	Testimonium Ioannis Baptistae				3.23	2
17	Ioannes in carcerum mittitur (in the 16th year of Tiberius)		3.19			1
109	Patri confitetur			11.25		5
45	Quaestio ieiunii	2.18	5.33			2

John is unique among the writers. He measures his phrases in careful balance, reasoning in circles from the outside edge to the center and then back to the circumference. Every section has such circles. I hope I will be able to show you some of these as we proceed.

Story Outline

I wonder if any of you have surmised the outline of the story being narrated by Secundus. We are just a few pericopes in. Tim critiqued with accuracy of the ear my naming of the gospel. I have found in my unlinked archives my first attempt to get Secundus to name these books:

I have been given four differing copies of - what shall I call these books - the reminiscences of the apostles of Jesus. And I have more than one copy of some parts, sometimes with variations such that I cannot tell what the first writer might have written. It is a stretch to find a name for these writings which point clearly to the pre-eminence of Jesus ...

For some reason I purged much of my early writing - many layers of compost.

Secundus was not deaf in this early version! I think depriving him of the obedience sense will cause us to hear better. His image-ination of conversation is of course, imaginative!

So where are we: we began with Praefatio, where there is one pericope, the prologue. The gospel portion is here: Prologus. We have just begun the Exordium which begins with the gospel portion: Annuntiatio nativitatis Ioannis.

We jumped ahead (or behind) if you like with Matthew and Luke's Genealogia. This is part of the Exordium.

I intend that the story will follow the order of the Synopsis of the Four Gospels, Greek-English Edition of the Synopsis Quattuor Evangelium, Edited by Kurt Aland (6th edition). It is like imagining being in the mind of a 2nd century person who wanted to write a harmony of the Gospels. I have enough smattering of modern music to know how to sing in semitones - so harmony is not my intention, but a cluster of ideas and a stimulus to thought - or so I hope.

It is possible that some flashbacks, excursus, and flash forwards may provide interest - and not force me to deal necessarily in sequence always. So we have had one already on Jerusalem - and one on Gospel. Jerusalem was written several years ago at 4 am in the morning, one of those given hours where getting up early is OK. (To see all the bits of the story bottom up, click on the 'story' tag on the left panel. To see the whole outline and all the gospel portions one at a time in glorious colour, go here.)

Secundus was born in 62. So he is about 55 years old in 117, the last year of Trajan. Prima was 3 years his senior, and as we read, she died in 113 at age 54. I try to keep myself straight from this timeline. Bits and pieces of his first book are also linked there in chronological sequence. I will reference them if they seem relevant - and I may not, for there are lots of other books to read.

Warning - easy to get lost for a while in the old pages. Others have done this, but I haven't seen a story emerge from their critiques yet.