Luke 11:49 - Christ Quoting Who?

[Zakuska]

Luke 11:49

49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:

What is Christ quoting from in this verse?

I can't seem to find the quote in the OT/Bible, the Apocrypha, or the Jewish Wisdom Literature.

[LeSellers]

49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:

...

I can't seem to find the quote in the OT/Bible, the Apocrypha, or the Jewish Wisdom Literature.

Oh, were you under the impression that the Bible is complete? Don't be silly: it is a book assembled by fallible men, many with an agenda and a preconception of what the Bible should say, and who were much less interested in what it did say.

Lehi

P.S. Nota bene: this is both true and sarcastic. LS

[Rob Bowman]

Lehi,

There is no evidence that Luke 11:49 is quoting a book that was omitted from the canon of the Bible.

Peculiar, isn't it, that these fallible men with their agenda and preconception that you regard with such antagonism, should come up with 27 books for the New Testament, and apparently, according to the Prophet Joseph Smith, all 27 happened to belong in the canon? Isn't is also peculiar that no LDS prophet has proposed adding to the canons of the OT or the NT any of the many books that manuscript discoveries have made extant again? I guess those fallible men didn't do such a bad job after all.

Oh, were you under the impression that the Bible is complete? Don't be silly: it is a book assembled by fallible men, many with an agenda and a preconception of what the Bible should say, and who were much less interested in what it did say.

Lehi

P.S. Nota bene: this is both true and sarcastic. LS

[Rob Bowman]

Zakuska,

Luke 11:49 does not indicate that Christ was quoting from a particular writing. The verse does not report Jesus using any of the standard scripture citation formulae that we find him using elsewhere in the Gospels, such as "it is written" or "have you not read." Jesus is stating what God in his wisdom predetermined to do, expressing this as the wisdom of God having said something in the past. Jesus is not claiming to derive this statement from an older text.

Luke 11:49

49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:

What is Christ quoting from in this verse?

I can't seem to find the quote in the OT/Bible, the Apocrypha, or the Jewish Wisdom Literature.

[Zakuska]

Zakuska,

Luke 11:49 does not indicate that Christ was quoting from a particular writing. The verse does not report Jesus using any of the standard scripture citation formulae that we find him using elsewhere in the Gospels, such as "it is written" or "have you not read." Jesus is stating what God in his wisdom predetermined to do, expressing this as the wisdom of God having said something in the past. Jesus is not claiming to derive this statement from an older text.

Excuse me for a moment Rob, but this is a pretty lame explanation. He uses the same term else ware in Luke when he is referring to something that is "written".

Luke 4:12

12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

RE: Deut. 6:16.

Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.

Edited August 29, 2011 by Zakuska

[BCSpace]

Luke 11:49

49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:

What is Christ quoting from in this verse?

Literally, the supreme intelligence of God, sometimes ascribed to Christ. Thayer's (near the bottom of the description)has it as:

"In the noteworthy pass. Lk 11:49 (where Christ ascribes to the 'wisdom of God', what in the parallel, Mt. 23:34 he utters himself), the words...seem to denote the wisdom of God which is operative and embodied as it were in Jesus, so that the primitive Christians when to comfort themselves under persecution they recalled the saying of Christ, employed that formula of quotation [cf Co. 1:24,30, etc.]; but Luke, in ignorance of this fact, took the phrase for a part of Christ's saying. So Eusebius (h.e. 3,32,, perhaps in the words of Hegesippus, call those who had personally heard Christ......."

Not easy to quote a graphic like that, just click the link.

[Rob Bowman]

Zakuska,

The wording in Luke 4:12 is different from the wording in Luke 11:49. Luke 4:12 uses the perfect passive form eiretai, "it is said," with no subject expressed, which is formally analogous to the common "it is written." In Luke 11:49, the verb is the aorist active form eipen, "said," and has the expressed subject "the wisdom of God." The two wordings are not at all the same.

[Rob Bowman]

BCSpace,

Thayer's explanation is very strained, because there is no evidence of a "formula of quotation" in early Christianity in which sayings of Jesus were introduced with the words "the wisdom of God said...." Such an interpretation would also seem to assume that the saying circulated independently, which does not fit the evidence here (since in both Matthew and Luke the saying is part of parallel versions of the same discourse).

Literally, the supreme intelligence of God, sometimes ascribed to Christ. Thayer's (near the bottom of the description)has it as:

"In the noteworthy pass. Lk 11:49 (where Christ ascribes to the 'wisdom of God', what in the parallel, Mt. 23:34 he utters himself), the words...seem to denote the wisdom of God which is operative and embodied as it were in Jesus, so that the primitive Christians when to comfort themselves under persecution they recalled the saying of Christ, employed that formula of quotation [cf Co. 1:24,30, etc.]; but Luke, in ignorance of this fact, took the phrase for a part of Christ's saying. So Eusebius (h.e. 3,32,, perhaps in the words of Hegesippus, call those who had personally heard Christ......."

Not easy to quote a graphic like that, just click the link.

[BookofMormonLuvr]

"the wisdom of God"

The Holy Spirit, from what I understand, within the OT, has been called "Wisdom". So perhaps He is just quoting the Holy Spirit in this instance?

[altersteve]

There is no evidence that Luke 11:49 is quoting a book that was omitted from the canon of the Bible.

Well, yeah, obviously. If the book was omitted from the Bible, then there wouldn't be any evidence.

[Rob Bowman]

Steve,

You wrote:

Well, yeah, obviously. If the book was omitted from the Bible, then there wouldn't be any evidence.

Absolutely incorrect. There are two kinds of evidence that might be found if Jesus was quoting a scriptural writing that has been omitted from the Bible. (1) The text of Luke 11:49 might introduce the statement as a scriptural quotation using one of the several standard citation fomulae that Jesus and the apostles used ("it is written," "have you not read," "as the Scripture says," etc.). (2) The statement might appear in any of the many pre-Christian Jewish writings that are not part of the OT (e.g., any of the books in the Apocrypha, any of the various Jewish pseudepigraphal writings, etc.). The fact that neither of these kinds of evidence applies in this case is good evidence against the supposition that Jesus was quoting an extant scriptural book.

[mfbukowski]

Lehi,

There is no evidence that Luke 11:49 is quoting a book that was omitted from the canon of the Bible.

Peculiar, isn't it, that these fallible men with their agenda and preconception that you regard with such antagonism, should come up with 27 books for the New Testament, and apparently, according to the Prophet Joseph Smith, all 27 happened to belong in the canon? Isn't is also peculiar that no LDS prophet has proposed adding to the canons of the OT or the NT any of the many books that manuscript discoveries have made extant again? I guess those fallible men didn't do such a bad job after all.

See, now there you go.

You come in with guns blazing- I am not at all interested in this thread, but someone here monitor Rob for when he gets all defensive about our lack of a Christian attitude. It WILL happen! He will soon by crying about how everyone gangs up on him

But of course I will throw something out here- On one hand he criticizes Joseph for adding to scripture and now he says he didn't add or take away enough.

You can't win with this guy.

I am gone.

Edited August 30, 2011 by mfbukowski

[Rob Bowman]

Huh?

[Ron Beron]

In the Interpreters Bible it states in reference to this passage....

The Wisdom of God: Possibly some lost Jewish apocryphal book from which the quotation is taken. Cf. Jer. 7:25-26. Others prefer to translate, "God, in his wisdom, said, ..." Jesus himself is the speaker in Matthew, and the statement becomes a prediction. Prophets and apostles: Possibly a Christianized version of "prophets, and wise men, and scribes" (Matthew), or perhaps apostles should be translated "messengers."

While the Expositor's Bible Commentary states this...

NIV translates ἡ σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ εἶπεν (hē sophia tou theou eipen, lit., “the wisdom of God said”) as “God in his wisdom said.” This interpretation is one way to understand this unusual introduction to a quotation that has no known source in the OT. Some think it is from an apocryphal source. Ellis (Gospel of Luke, pp. 170–73) takes it as referring to NT prophets bringing new revelations from the risen Christ. It may embody the essence of several OT passages. Many of the prophets God sent were opposed and even persecuted (e.g., 1 Kings 19:10, 14; Jer 7:25–26; Mal 3:10). The apostles were likewise “sent” on a mission that may be described as prophetic (Luke 6:22–23). Thus the saying applies all that God said “in his wisdom” in the OT to the NT apostles and prophets. Each of the above attempts to understand this difficult saying is plausible, and others could be cited. It is not clear whether there is an allusion to wisdom in its technical sense in Proverbs and other Jewish writings known as wisdom literature. There is no apparent reason for such an allusion, but it is otherwise difficult to explain why wisdom is introduced at all here, since nothing in the saying has a unique “wisdom” characteristic. It may simply refer to the sovereign wisdom of God in allowing evil men to continue and the good (here the prophets) to suffer.

Leifeld, W. L. (1984). Luke. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke (F. E. Gaebelein, Ed.) (957). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

What's of greater significance is that Jesus uses the word Wisdom or Sophia which has far reaching consequences in its OT usage of Hokma or the creation aspect of God. Both the English Standard Bible and The New Jerusalem Bible translates the passage with honorifics, "Wisdom of God " indicating a personal pronoun of some kind. When this is taken in conjunction with the understanding of Wisdom as espoused in the OT it can be fairly significant because Jesus has often been associated directly with Sophia or Logos. Therefore, if so, then Jesus is quoting Himself.

[Ron Beron]

Duplicate...

Edited August 31, 2011 by Ron Beron

[ebeddoulos]

It would appear that Rob Bowman is once again marching to his own drummer. I wandered through the commentaries in my collection and what follows is what I found.

The McGarvey & Pendleton Commentaries feel that the best source of this quotation is an amalgam primarily from 2 Chronicles plus a bit from proverbs.

“The phrase "wisdom of God" has been very puzzling, for the words spoken by Jesus are not found in any Old Testament book. Among the explanations the best is that which represents Jesus as quoting the trend or tenor of several prophecies such as 2Ch 24:19-22, 2Ch 36:14-16, Pro 1:20-33. It may, however, be possible that Jesus is here publishing a new decree or conclusion of God, for the words specifically concerned the present generation. If so, Jesus assents to the decree of the Father by calling it "the wisdom of God," and the language is kindred to that at Mat 11:25, Mat 11:26];”

Lightfoot on the other hand, thought it to similar to a phrase found in the Targums:

“Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:

[Therefore also said the wisdom of God.] This form of speaking agreeth well enough with that so much in use, the rule of judgment saith. Amongst numberless instances, take that of the Targumist; "Is it fitting that the daughters of Israel should eat the fruit of their own womb? The rule of judgment [retributive justice] answered and said, Was it also fitting to kill a priest and a prophet in the sanctuary of the Lord, as ye killed Zacharias," etc.”

The Pulpit Commentary provides several speculative alternatives; among them being a quote from a lost apocryphal book, a quote from the Gospel of Matthew, or a reference to the Book of Proverbs. None were judged satisfactory:

Luke 11:49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets. in other words, "Because of the determined, irreconcilable hatred of you Pharisees, and the people whom you guide, to all that is noble and true and real; because, in spite of your seeming piety, you are fast rooted in impietyTherefore said the wisdom of God, I will send. The expression, "wisdom of God," has been a difficulty to commentators. The words have been referred

(1) to a quotation of the Lord"s from a lost apocryphal book of that name; but we have no instance of Jesus ever quoting from an apocryphal book, known or unknown.

(2) St. Luke is here quoting from the similar passage in St. Matthew"s Gospel, which, when he was compiling his Gospel, lay before him, and alludes to the earlier memoir as "The Wisdom of God." Against this we have no proof that St. Luke ever saw St. Matthew"s Gospel, but a strong probability exists to the contrary; besides which, the expression is never used by an apostolic writer in such a sense.

(3) A reference is here intended to the Book of Proverbs, which in the early Church was known by the title of "The Wisdom of God," and the passage referred to is Luk 1:20 and Luk 1:31.

In a similar vein, John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible entertained the idea that it might actually mean what it says and that Jesus was quoting from a book called “the Wisdom of God.”

Some have thought, that some book, under the name of "The Wisdom of God", is here cited, which had in it the following words,

I will send them prophets and apostles; which, in Matthew, are called prophets, wise men, and Scribes; and by whom are meant the apostles of Christ, and the ministers of the Gospel. The Persic version reads, "lo, I send to you", as in Mat 23:34,

and some of them they shall slay and persecute; some of them they shall put to death, and others they shall persecute from one place to another; See Gill on Mat 23:34.

The long and the short of it is that the International Standard Version Commentary summed it up quite nicely. It simply acknowledges that it is a quote but of unknown origin:

Luke 11:49

ll. The source of this quotation is unknown.

In spite of Rob Bowman’s best machinations, Jesus is quoting but from where is anybody’s guess.

[LeSellers]

There is no evidence that Luke 11:49 is quoting a book that was omitted from the canon of the Bible.

We can assume that anything Jesus said is scripture. He is the source of all valid scripture.

We can also assume that most (if not all) of what we have recorded of what He said during mortality had precedent in the scriptures He was familiar with, i.e., books that could have, at the very least, been in the Hebrew canon. He was the One Who inspired those writers in the first place.

We can reasonably assume that He was quoting someting here.

With those three points assumed, then either what He said here was in the Old Testament, or, if we can't find it, it must be in a book that was omitted from the Bible. The second condition seems to be the case, so the conclusion is valid, based on the assumptipns.

If you want to assert that Jesus was not quoting anything at all, but giving new scripture, that's fine. You could also claim that He was quoting a non-scriptural source, and that's fine, too.

But you cannot say there is no evidence that He was quoting a book not found in our modern (and grossly truncated) Bible. You simply don't like the evidence nor what it leads to.

Lehi

[Rob Bowman]

ebeddoulos,

You wrote:

It would appear that Rob Bowman is once again marching to his own drummer.

Your conclusion, frankly, is based on a lack of serious study and even a lack of attention to the sources you do quote.

You wrote:

I wandered through the commentaries in my collection and what follows is what I found.

You did not wander through commentaries in some collection you have somewhere. Your quotations all came from online sources, generally very old commentaries in the public domain. There is not one contemporary exegetical commentary represented in your quotations.

You wrote:

The McGarvey & Pendleton Commentaries feel that the best source of this quotation is an amalgam primarily from 2 Chronicles plus a bit from proverbs.

I had to look up this work, as I have never heard of it or of its authors (and I am a biblical scholar by professional, academic training). Still, these writers agree with me: Jesus was not quoting from a long-lost or suppressed book of scripture, or even quoting a particular statement from any text at all. He was attributing to God's wisdom a statement that represents the truth reflected in several OT texts (which were and are in the canon).

You wrote:

Lightfoot on the other hand, thought it to similar to a phrase found in the Targums.

Yes, but Lightfoot is not suggesting in any way that Jesus was quoting or paraphrasing the Targum. Lightfoot is suggesting that "the wisdom of God said" is an introductory form similar to "the rule of judgment answered and said" which is found in the Targum quotation he gives. That is, both expressions are not introducing a literal quotation from some preexisting text or reporting someone's actual words; the wording is figurative and means that what follows is consistent with God's wisdom (in Luke) or the rule of judgment (in the Targum). Thus, Lightfoot agrees with me that Jesus is not quoting an earlier text.

You wrote:

The Pulpit Commentary provides several speculative alternatives; among them being a quote from a lost apocryphal book, a quote from the Gospel of Matthew, or a reference to the Book of Proverbs. None were judged satisfactory.

Excuse me, but you left out of your quotation from the Pulpit Commentary the explanation it actually favored:

"Putting aside all these, it seems best to consider the expression simply as a solemn utterance of the Lord, in which he identifies himself with the 'Wisdom of God.'"

So there is another work that concludes that Jesus was not quoting an earlier text.

You wrote:

In a similar vein, John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible entertained the idea that it might actually mean what it says and that Jesus was quoting from a book called “the Wisdom of God.”

Here again, you present a selective quotation and avoid the author's statement in which he gives his own view:

"...the sense may be here, that the infinite wisdom of God said within himself, determined in his own breast, to do what follows. But I rather think that Christ is intended, who, as God, is the essential wisdom of God; and, as man and mediator, has the spirit of wisdom resting on him, and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in him...."

That is, Gill thinks that Christ is speaking of what he himself, as the wisdom of God, said. Once again, the author you quote does not think that Jesus was quoting from an earlier text.

You wrote:

The long and the short of it is that the International Standard Version Commentary summed it up quite nicely. It simply acknowledges that it is a quote but of unknown origin.

Which tells us nothing.

So of the five secondary sources that you quoted, four of them offer an explanation, and of those four, all of them agree that Jesus was not quoting a specific earlier text.

What were you thinking when you read these comments on the verse?

You wrote:

In spite of Rob Bowman’s best machinations, Jesus is quoting but from where is anybody’s guess.

Four of the five secondary sources you quoted disagree with you. The fifth has no explanation at all. Is this your evidence?

[Rob Bowman]

Lehi,

You wrote:

We can assume that anythign Jesus said is scripture. He is the source of all valid scripture.

We can also assume that most (if not all) of what we have recorded of what He said during mortality had precedent in the scriptures He was familiar with, i.e., books that could have, at the very least, been in the Hebrew canon. He was the One Who inspired those writers in the first place.

We can reasonably assume that He was quoting someting here.

I find your first two assumptions reasonable but not the third.

You wrote:

With those three points assumed, then either what He said here was in the Old Testament, or, if we can't find it, it must be in a book that was omitted from the Bible. The second condition seems to be the case, so the conclusion is valid, based on the assumptipns.

Your argument is logical enough, but its conclusion depends on the truth of your third assumption.

[Cobalt-70]

Most modern translations seem to regard this passage as a quote. For example, the NIV says, "Because of this, God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.'" That leaves open where the quote comes from. But there are also other translations, such as the ISV, that say something like "That is why the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles. They will kill some of them and persecute others.'" So they regard the "Wisdom of God" as Jesus himself. By this theory, this is actually Luke quoting Jesus, rather than Jesus quoting someone else. "Wisdom of God" is taken as an honorific for Jesus. I think the latter view is a horrible distortion of the context of the passage.

Edited August 31, 2011 by Cobalt-70

[Ron Beron]

Rob Bowman' writes,

I had to look up this work, as I have never heard of it or of its authors (and I am a biblical scholar by professional, academic training). Still, these writers agree with me: Jesus was not quoting from a long-lost or suppressed book of scripture, or even quoting a particular statement from any text at all. He was attributing to God's wisdom a statement that represents the truth reflected in several OT texts (which were and are in the canon).

The truth is we don't know. He might be quoting from an earlier text or he might not. Certainly, Jewish people at the time were not married to only Torah and other books of the Bible, but also accepted other books of instruction as they do now with the Midrashim, the Talmud, and the Mishnah among others. What is significant is that while Jesus may not be quoting an earlier text earlier lost texts did exist. Importantly, Jesus is citing Himself as authority here. In a article published by the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1967), pp. 231-240 The Wisdom Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels Author(s): William A. Beardslee, it states,

On the side of Christology, it is a striking fact that Q, already at a veryearly date, interpreted Christ by means of the analogy of transcendent Wisdom,or possibly even identified Christ as the Wisdom of God.16 Something greater than the wisdom of Solomon is here with Jesus (Luke 11:31). Q quotes the "Wisdom of God" as speaking of the rejection of its emissaries("the Wisdom of God said, I will send you prophets and apostles and some of them you will persecute and kill"); Matthew is not improbably right in interpreting the "Wisdom of God" as Jesus himself." Wisdom is at work in the Son of Man even though he is rejected by a generation that cannot confront decision; John and Jesus are manifestations ("children") of Wisdom(Luke 7:31-35; Matt. 11:16-19). The Wisdom that is unavailable to men has been given by the Father to the Son, and it is through the Son that menfind the Father, but this transcendent Wisdom is hidden from those who are wise by worldly standards (Luke 10:21-22). These passages indicate that Q was strongly influenced by late Jewish speculation, indeed far more so than Matthew. Yet the references to Christ as Wisdom are so brief as to be most difficult to interpret with confidence. Almost no mythology of oopltais expressed in Q. Christ is Wisdom because he brings what the world cannot bring. The identification of Christ and Wisdom is not elaborated to givea picture of the transcendent Christ, but it is applied unspeculatively to give precisely to the concrete, present commands of Christ the numinous attributeof transcendence.

[Rob Bowman]

Cobalt-70,

I'm not disputing that in some sense the words Jesus attributes to the wisdom of God are presented as a "quote," but the question is whether it is a quotation from an earlier text--and in particular an earlier, scriptural text. That Jesus is quoting a completely unknown text is possible but not very likely. That he is quoting a text that he regarded as scripture but that was later suppressed from the Bible is so highly improbable as to be essentially impossible. We know what books Jews in the first century regarded as scripture. If Jesus was quoting one of them we would know where the quote originated because we have all of the books they regarded as scripture. If Jesus had been quoting another book that he regarded as scripture but they did not, one would think there would be some indication of Jesus insisting that the text from which his quote came was scripture. Not only is this not so, there is no indication anywhere in the Gospels that Jesus had any disagreement with the Jews of his day regarding what books were scripture. And had Jesus regarded the quotation as coming from scripture, he would have introduced it using one of his standard citation formulas (e.g., "it is written").

Most modern translations seem to regard this passage as a quote. For example, the NIV says, "Because of this, God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.'" That leaves open where the quote comes from. But there are also other translations, such as the ISV, that say something like "That is why the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles. They will kill some of them and persecute others.'" So they regard the "Wisdom of God" as Jesus himself. By this theory, this is actually Luke quoting Jesus, rather than Jesus quoting someone else. "Wisdom of God" is taken as an honorific for Jesus. I think the latter view is a horrible distortion of the context of the passage.

[Rob Bowman]

Ron,

You wrote:

The truth is we don't know. He might be quoting from an earlier text or he might not. Certainly, Jewish people at the time were not married to only Torah and other books of the Bible, but also accepted other books of instruction as they do now with the Midrashim, the Talmud, and the Mishnah among others. What is significant is that while Jesus may not be quoting an earlier text earlier lost texts did exist. Importantly, Jesus is citing Himself as authority here. In a article published by the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1967), pp. 231-240 The Wisdom Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels Author(s): William A. Beardslee, it states....

This interpretation of the logion is one of the views currently favored by some scholars, but since it denies that Jesus was quoting an earlier text I don't see any need to respond to it. My only concern here is to explain why Luke 11:49 is not significant or serious evidence for a "lost book of the Bible." See my reply to Cobalt-70. I agree that texts existed that are no longer extant, but for reasons already presented, it is clear that Jesus did not consider any such text to be scripture.

[Ron Beron]

Ron,

You wrote:

This interpretation of the logion is one of the views currently favored by some scholars, but since it denies that Jesus was quoting an earlier text I don't see any need to respond to it. My only concern here is to explain why Luke 11:49 is not significant or serious evidence for a "lost book of the Bible." See my reply to Cobalt-70. I agree that texts existed that are no longer extant, but for reasons already presented, it is clear that Jesus did not consider any such text to be scripture.

Do you believe it is possible that Jesus was quoting from a book not included in the OT due to its loss?

[Rob Bowman]

Ron,

You asked:

Do you believe it is possible that Jesus was quoting from a book not included in the OT due to its loss?

"Possible" can encompass the extremely unlikely, making it difficult to say that something like this is "impossible." But for all practical purposes, no, I don't think it's realistically possible; or to put it more formally, I don't think it is plausible. See my reply to cobalt-70 for an explanation of why I don't think this is plausible.