My Choice of Source Theory on Wason’s Poll

Brandon Wason is running a Synoptic Problem Poll on Novum Testamentum, I cast my vote yesterday on my choice of source theory. I went for ‘agnostic’ which I believe most people should probably admit to unless they’ve done some of their own research. (Does lot’s of thinking count?!) My musings and lecture notes here indicate some very minimal research of my own but I often wonder how better knowledge of manuscripts and text criticism would affect our source theories?

I was not able to choose ‘Two-Source Hypothesis’ because there was not the more vague option ‘Mark plus ‘Q’-(unspecified)-traditions’ which I think is inappropriate to place in the 'Other Hypothesis' category given that many have held such a theory under the umbrella of the 'Two Source Hypothesis' (I'm still willing to receive comments on my Q survey post from last September).

Whenever I’ve gotten excited by the fact that Lk may have depended on Mt, the data has let me down. Indeed if it were not for the high verbal correspondence in the John Baptiser material, followers of the Farrer theory would have a very difficult case to present.

The Farrer theory again let me down recently when I looked for themes in Mt rejected by Lk, beginning with Sandmel’s observation that Lk rewrote Mt’s law theme (my lecture notes on this were broken up into several posts so its easier to click on either of the tags/labels ‘Lecture Notes’ or ‘Lk’s use of Mt’ below).