Valid but False Jesus Teachings

(July 9, 2022) This historical signal extraction methodology is only able to determine if a claimed Jesus teaching goes back to the time of Jesus within plus or minus 3 years. A teaching that goes back to the time of Jesus by being valid is assumed to be true if it can't be falsified by any other means. 

This teaching is false because it does not have audience relevance. Jesus could not have said this because it would have meant nothing to his audience. Jesus had not yet been crucified. Therefore, it seems to have been used as a comfort saying by the early followers of Jesus during the  persecution right after the death of Jesus.

Because this false teaching is so well dated and because it is so well attested, it was used to define the shape of the source weight curve which defines the validity levels for each of the sources. Consequently, the sources which have this teaching were weighted so that they add up to (almost) one.

 This valid but false teaching describes an early Christian persecution which seems to have occurred after Pentecost 50 days after the death of Jesus. This time of persecution is attested in Paul's letters:

The context which Mark wraps around this theme shows that a severe persecution had been experienced by his community. This is evidenced by the statement that one who wants to save their eternal life must lose their physical life. In contrast, the persecution in Q and Thomas is less severe leading only to the psychological rejection response (you hate and reject me therefore I hate and reject you.)

The Q source of this teaching is the negative of the Mark source as indicated by its use of the English double negative “not” and “not worthy of me”. Thomas is similar to Q.

References

(July 9, 2022) This is another comfort saying for the early followers of Jesus which arose during their persecution right after the death of Jesus. Again, Jesus would have had no need to teach this issue prior to his death so this teaching is false because it has no audience relevance.

The Greek word translated as "persecution" is dioko. Yet it is also translated as “followed.” Multiple word assignments in translations leads to biased translations so a more objective word assignment to use which covers all this words uses would be "pursued." Some examples of its use where it is translated as “followed” are: “followed after righteousness” (Romans 9:30-31), “follow after charity” (1 Corinthians 14:1). “press towards the mark” (Philippians 3:14), “follow that which is good” (1 Timothy 5:15).

Even the Christian biased Strong’s Greek Lexicon says this:

Jewish officials seem to have given license by the Romans shortly after they executed Jesus to hunt down the followers of Jesus and bring them to the attention of Roman authorities. Paul, as Saul the Pharisee, admitted to actively pursuing the followers of Jesus (Galatians 1:13). Interestingly he did not go after James, the brother of Jesus, and his followers who had settled in Jerusalem (Galatians 1:18-20) probably because they initially did not claim that Jesus was the messiah. This Jewish persecution of those who claimed Jesus as messiah, continued throughout the lifetime of Paul:

Thomas 69 shows that the “blessing” oral tradition initiated by this teaching continued to be developed with Thomas adding another blessing (blessed are the hungry) to the original. This trend reached its apex in Matthew and Luke which have several related blessings that came to be known as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12) and the Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-26).

(July 9, 2022) Once again this teaching is false because it lacks audience relevance. It originated during the persecution which occurred shortly after Jesus was killed. Its theme is that of comparing short term rewards to long term rewards.

 This teaching is unique in that it is an early developing theme which is not found in the Q source yet both Matthew and Luke have independent versions as indicated by their different wording and wrapping contexts. Both Mark and Matthew couple this false teaching with the other false teaching of “take up the cross.”

(July 9, 2022) This valid teaching has Jesus supporting an apocalyptic viewpoint which contradicts all his other teachings. So it is false due to a lack of coherence.

This teaching is primarily about what happens at the end times for people who have remarried. If the saved all rise from the dead then who will be their marriage partners? The earliest attempt to answer this question was to avoid it and just prohibit any remarriage since the apocalypse was supposed to occur within a generation.

Mark states people should not divorce and remarry because they have become one flesh. Matthew restates this and actually adds a dualist gnostic explanation stating in verse 8 that the united flesh was how it was at the beginning before the material world split off.

Later, when the expected apocalypse did not happen, Mark provided the only logical explanation within that end times paradigm which was that no marriages will exist after the apocalypse. This answer was copied by Matthew and Luke: