Source Theory

2011-03-11T11:13:00.004+11:00

Matthew to Replace Mark?

An article by David C. Sim, "Matthew's Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?." New Testament Studies, 57, pp 176-192

Abstract:

Most scholars acknowledge Matthew's debt to Mark in the composition of his own Gospel, and they are fully aware of his extensive redaction and expansion of this major source. Yet few scholars pose what is an obvious question that arises from these points: What was Matthew's intention for Mark once he had composed and circulated his own revised and enlarged account of Jesus' mission? Did he intend to supplement Mark, in which case he wished his readers to continue to consult Mark as well as his own narrative, or was it his intention to replace the earlier Gospel? It is argued in this study that the evidence suggests that Matthew viewed Mark as seriously flawed, and that he wrote his own Gospel to replace the inadequate Marcan account.

That the author of Mt made much use of Mk indicates a degree of acceptance I presume Sim also mentions this point, I'll peruse the article next visit to college.

2009-07-20T17:33:00.002+10:00

Rethinking the Gospel Sources, Volume 2
I notice that Delbert Burkett's second volume is now available (Rethinking the Gospel Sources: The Unity and Plurality of Q), published by SBL. I'll be ordering a copy next week.

2009-05-14T18:23:00.003+10:00

Conjectural Date of Gospels
Recent discussion over at the Synoptic List has again got me wondering at how Matthew, Mark and Luke are presumed to have been written decades apart. That any of them were written even a decade apart is really only a conjecture, based on a hypothesis of literary dependence which does not really require such a conjecture. Actually the two notions are a bit circular since literary dependence is also based on the notion that the Gospels are written decades apart!

The three synoptics may all have been composed within one year of the other two. It is strange that scholars often give dates for Matthew and/or Luke that are a decade or two after Mark, when what they really want to say is merely that, say, Matthew evidences some knowledge of Mark. Perhaps I should add it as another myth to the eight myths/misassumptions previously mentioned (later converted to eight positive assertions here). To convert this ninth myth into a positive assertion would be to say that Matthew, Mark and Luke likely derive from roughly the same time period. It is difficult to determine whether noticeable editorial changes or detectable differences can be put down to different dates of composition (rather than to editing/retelling styles and/or different paths of 'traditioning' and/or different locales).

2009-03-22T14:16:00.006+11:00

Published Introductions to the Synoptic Problem

David Stark's New Testament Interpretation blog has a series of posts reproducing the diagrams of synoptic problem solutions given in Kümmel's NT intro. The 'Synoptic Problem' tag will bring up the set of diagrams so far. Kümmel's presentation of the Synoptic Problem was one of the six I evaluated in my undergrad essay "Solving the Synoptic Problem for Students?"

My essay was written back in 2001 or 2002 (a few years before I had internet access at home) and 'Part A' evaluated six printed/published presentations on the Synoptic Problem, namely:

(1) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "The Priority of Mark and The 'Q' Source in Luke," (1970);
(2) Werner George Kümmel from his, Introduction to the New Testament (trans. 1975), 38-80;
(3) Robert Stein's classic book from 1987, The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction;
(4) Christopher M. Tuckett's entry for the Anchor Bible Dictionary (vol 6, 1992), 263-270;
(5) David L. Dungan's book, A History of the Synoptic Problem (Anchor Bible Reference Library, 1999);
(6) and two chapters from John S. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q (chapter 1 and chapter 6).

Kümmel's presentation received a 27% rating according to my criteria drawn from a 'student perspective'. Kloppenborg's presentation (in Excavating Q) faired best with 47% but should have been rated higher than that because I had only based my evaluation on 2 of 3 relevant chapters in Excavating Q (I later realized!)

Would be good to know if other students have similarly evaluated other published presentations on the synoptic problem. I guess nowadays students instead go online for introductions to the Synoptic Problem which might explain why there are still not very many introductions/presentations published (compare my 'top ten recommended books for students' to the right).

2009-01-18T10:25:00.002+11:00

Neville's Review of Burkett

David Neville has reviewed Delbert Burkett's Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 84/1 (2008) 135-173. Neville helpfully provides some history and context for previous Urmarkus theories before addressing Burkett's arguments against direct literary dependence between any of the synoptic Gospels.

I was wondering whether to summarise some of it here. I think for now I will just say that Neville is as usual good with assessing arguments.

2008-11-29T11:39:00.005+11:00

The Problem Never Completely Resolves
We cannot say much about what exactly the sources looked like that preceded the synoptic Gospels, only that that direct dependence does play a large part in the end result. Even if we do conclude that Mark is the earlier written Gospel it seems that Mark is still somewhat secondary to earlier sources. Mk 13 for instance looks to be older material very unlikely to have been freshly penned by the Gospel author. Also I have previously indicated my own theorizing that most of the healing stories apparently predate our written Gospels, although in these cases they would likely have existed only in oral form. So Mark is not necessarily the oldest 'source' of shared material.

So students should be aware that hypothesizing a chronology for dating Matthew, Mark and Luke still does not completely (re)solve the problem of Gospel sources. It merely gives us a simplified ‘working hypothesis’ for supposing how a particular Gospel author may have put their own stamp on the material which we suppose to have been already available to the author (and in many cases material likely already known by the audience).

I'm perpetually agnostic concerning 'Q.' How is it that the material in Matthew and Luke concerning John the Baptizer is written virtually word-for-word? This would be the result of someone copying slavishly from a written source. So if the text in Matthew is not being copied here into Luke (or theoretically from Luke into Matthew) whether by a secondary Gospel author (or inserted by a scribe within the first hundred years of copying) we must suppose that both have here accessed the same written source concerning John the Baptizer. Yet the other shared material in Matthew and Luke (and not found in Mark) is less likely to be from the same shared written source since everywhere else the doubly-shared material in Mt-Lk is phrased independently by both authors making it impossible to know much about the immediate source of such traditions or whether these traditions originated from the very same source as the John-Baptizer material. How can we conclude the same way (all stems from a singular written source?) with this differing evidence?

So the precise sources of all the triply and doubly shared traditions are still largely unknown even after having ‘solved’ the problem of the likely order the Gospels were published. There will always remain the problem of whether an earlier version of Mark, or Matthew or Luke was known or accessed by any of the other Gospel authors (aurally or in written form) on top of the problem of other pre-Gospel traditions.

2008-09-21T13:10:00.003+10:00

Improving Definitions
Recently I visited the Wikipedia article on the Synoptic Problem to read the definition there. I decided to help clarify it by adding a few more words to the definition. This was my first experience of editing a Wikipedia article. This inspired me to write my own definition on my own wiki-site. I hope to include more of the information found here on this weblog, but in a more readable format. I'm still looking at various options for site hosting but currently I'm experimenting over here at http://sites.google.com/site/sourcetheory/

2008-07-27T12:26:00.004+10:00

An Example of a Textual Critical Approach
This blog is always at risk of being neglected. Especially when I have nothing new to add.
So this doesn't happen completely, the present post acknowledges Randall Buth's post on ευθυς in Matthew & Mark as a good example to students of the synoptic problem, because of its text-critical approach. This is not surprising in this case given Buth's text critical involvments (a shorter version of his post can be found at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog.

2008-06-22T15:10:00.005+10:00

Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency
A book which looks worthy of a look is that by Terence C. Mournet, Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency: Variability and Stability in the Synoptic Tradition and Q (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). It is Mournet's revised doctoral thesis supervised by James D. G. Dunn so it may also help shed some light on Dunn's unclear perspective concerning what counts as oral sources in Mt & Lk (Mournet, like Dunn, presupposes some form of the Mk-Q hypothesis). When I get hold of a copy I hope to comment on it here.

2008-05-15T12:28:00.006+10:00

Matthew According to Patristic Citations
Given that early church fathers often quote from the Gospel of Matthew it would be interesting to see what Matthew would read like when constructed entirely from such quotations. Our critical Greek text of Matthew (NA27) depends basically on fourth century manuscripts, however, reconstructing a text of Matthew according to patristic quotations would yield a much earlier text (although perhaps a less accurate text if the quotations of Matthew were drawn from memory and/or give a harmonized/mixed quotation influenced by other Gospels).

But I would still like to see what Matthew looks like when so reconstructed. Peter Head has recently pointed out (here & here in answering a question of mine on Synoptic-L restated here) that it is only for Luke's Gospel that we have extensive amounts of papyri text. Understandably textual criticism for the Gospels cannot usually give to patristic citations the same 'weight' (if much at all) as actual Gospel manuscripts but it would be an interesting experiment to see what Matthew looks like when having to rely solely on early (second to fourth century) citations. Of course, this would leave many gaps in such a reconstructed text since we would probably be lucky if altogether we got 50% of Matthew. I think such an experiment may benefit not only textual criticism but also studies in the synoptic problem.

2008-04-05T15:40:00.007+11:00

Oxford Conference Papers Uploaded

Monday 7th April begins the Oxford Conference "designed to mark the centenary of the landmark conversations that occurred in Oxford" in 1908. Most papers have now been uploaded and I have added a link [no longer working].

UPDATE: I wrote 1908 in haste. The original Oxford conference ran from 1894-1910 publishing its results in 1911.

2008-03-14T13:37:00.010+11:00

Tim's Eight Synoptic Problem Affirmations

I was recently asked (by Keith Dyer) whether I could put together a more positive counterpart to my Eight Synoptic Problem Myths/Misassumptions. So I have converted my negatives into positives to counterbalance those Myths/Misassumptions posted here in November. Myths 6, 7 & 8 were already negating negatives, but now here they are all eight in positive form!

Affirmation 1: Differences between Source Theory solutions are due in large part to differing definitions of what exactly is the Synoptic Problem (i.e. what kind of task is involved? how should we legitimately go about 'accounting for' the presence of similar synoptic data) and these differing conceptions determine whether solutions are either Intra-Gospel or Extra-Gospel solutions. Those source theories which attempt to explain the presence of (virtually) all literary data within the three synoptic Gospels by recourse only to the three synoptic Gospels (without bringing other 'external' sources into the question) might be classed as 'intra-Gospel solutions.' These solutions perceive the parameters of the problem as a literary problem similar to the problem of having to decide which of three student essays have been plagiarised of out three suspiciously similar-looking essays. Thus the Farrer theory, for example, has Luke dependent on the other two (i.e. a Mk-Mt hypothesis) in order to account for the presence of (virtually) all of the synoptic agreements whilst remaining agnostic about Matthew's non-Markan sources (and Mark's sources).
The second category of solutions suppose that the problem is identical to the larger task of source criticism and so involves imagining the other 'non-Gospel' sources which might have played a part in the construction of the three synoptic Gospels, thereby defining the task entirely differently. Some source theories, in line with this larger conception/definition of the problem, may thus include some hypothesising about how the composition of fourth Gospel relates to the composition of the other three synoptics (and will in effect dilute the definition of the labels 'synoptic problem' and 'synoptic Gospels'). This second category of solutions can be categorised as offering 'extra-(synoptic)-Gospel solutions'. Hence a theorist presupposing the second definition of the synoptic problem may suppose that it be completely legitimate to draw conclusions about Matthew's use of various 'sources' or he or she might perhaps differentiate between non-Markan and non-Matthean source material utilised in the Gospel of Luke (see for example Ron Price's Three Source Hypothesis).
These two differing presuppositions largely account for the inability to agree on whether one can legitimately speak about Matthew's different 'sources' and whether such hypothesising makes one's source theory any more or less 'plausible.' 'Two-Source' theorists (postulating a Mk-Q hypothesis) suppose that the increased specificity of the theory makes for a more plausible theory since it gives account of two major sources behind both Matthew and Luke (i.e. it 'accounts' for more of Matthew's data than does the Farrer theory). The perceived superiority or perceived plausibility of any particular source theory is thus directly related to the perceived definition of what is the task and problem under investigation. In my blog posts I presuppose the second category of the synoptic problem but only after attempting to begin with the first category for as long as the first category will allow. Thus I would agree in beginning with the task as defined by Farrer (“On Dispensing with Q”):

“…our first supposition is not that both draw upon a lost document for which there is no independent evidence, but that one draws upon the other. It is only when the latter supposition has proved untenable that we have recourse to the postulation of a hypothetical source.”

Affirmation 2: The kind of story, the purpose, audience and 'genre' of each Gospel should help determine something about synoptic sources used. Mark appears to have been written to be performed orally. Matthew may have been rather familiar with Mark in this mode (in a 'performed oral mode' i.e. in secondary orality). Matthew's 'church instruction manual' displays some fondness for oral teaching whereas Luke does not appear to be written in such fashion. I suppose that Mark's Gospel uses popular stories about Jesus to tell a challenging story of God's kingdom/empire enacted on earth, in the figure of Jesus, as an alternative non-violent kingdom/empire in conflict with the current notions of kingdom/empire. I see that Mark's first audience was likely in Caesarea Philipi and had suffered the violent tortures of gladiatorial sports and being thrown to wild animals (after 70 CE -- thus Jesus is meant to be taken as an anti-war voice against both Rome's violence and those who seek to fight Rome's violence). Matthew utilises many of the same stories, because of their increasingly popularity, in order to guide and instruct the new community of believers who have become suspect of rejecting the Judaism of the time and who must redefine what true righteousness is (Matthew is composed in a slightly later time period than Mark, further away from the threat of Rome's war against Judaism and its persecuting powers -- the real enemies in Matthew are the Jewish leaders in whom Matthew's audience have lost faith i.e. they are the ones to whom people should have been able to, but can no longer, depend on to provide true leadership and in Matthew they are blamed for all sorts of things). This Jesus has even more to say concerning his true followers and promises an end to those who are false believers. Luke's story provides a real biblical drama written in an even more 'biblical style' in an attempt to provide even more historical perspective on the early Jesus movement. Luke's Jesus does not distance himself from many sectors of society and appears as an inspirational spiritual leader for all but the self centred greedy minded folk to follow. Theoretically there is no initial reason why Luke cannot have utilised Matthew given Luke's larger perspective and longer length would naturally put Luke later in time.

Affirmation 3: Matthew's sources appear mainly to have been of an oral nature. Even many of Matthew's biblical quotations may have been made indirectly (again secondary orality). Excepting the John Baptist traditions and the use of (or oral familiarity with) something resembling canonical Mark, there is little reason to postulate other written sources for Matthew, this leaves little room for 'Q' other than being a bunch of various traditions (without designating anything unified like a 'set' of traditions or a single document).

Affirmation 4: Some remnants of Markan vocabulary, genre, theology and structure can be seen in both Matthew and Luke, suggesting that Mark (or similar to Mark) was known and utilised in the composition of both Matthew and Luke.

Affirmation 5: The Farrer theory, though initially theoretically superior, breaks down upon examination. The author of Luke's Gospel appears to be a more competent writer so that the notion that Luke copied verbatim from Matthew the John Baptist sayings contradicts Luke's use of the remainder of the shared (allegedly) 'Matthean' sayings material elsewhere which is highly rewritten. Each time I have expected to see evidence of Matthean vocabulary in Luke, I have been disappointed. For one example, see synoptic-l message 9923 (Nov 17, 2004) where I looked at Luke's non-use of Matthew's favourite 'Judgment Day' expression. Once in Matthew (12:41-42) Luke's preferred Judgment Day expression appears to be used by Matthew (a shared source?) whereas Matthew's most used expression (Mt 10:15; 11:22 , 24; 12:36) is not found at all in Luke, thereby suggesting against the idea that Matthew is Luke's source. See also my follow-up post (on Luke's mission sending passage). See also my attempt here on this blog to find remains of Matthean theology in Luke's alleged rejection of Matthew's law theme parts 1, 2, & 3.

Affirmation 6: A large proportion of the overlapping (and likely some of the singularly attested) synoptic sayings material already existed prior to Jesus' use of such sayings (and also of the evangelists claimed used by Jesus). Jesus of course would have put his own spin on traditional wisdom material but it is overly naive to expect that Jesus would have invented from scratch all of his sayings as brand new sayings (and that these were then all handed down verbatim from disciple to disciple and to finally to evangelist). So far I think Dunn comes close to expressing how Jesus was remembered (in terms of his impact) in a similar fashion but does not as far as I know emphasise the presence of similar sayings material already predating Jesus.

Affirmation 7: More knowledge of ancient compositional techniques will assist in evaluating how each Gospel was likely composed. I suppose that an author would consulted a written source more sparingly then modern authors. Also I suppose that the notion of an 'author' was entirely different. An ancient author such as a Gospel author was 'a community voice' utilising the common knowledge of the community in a context that spoke loudly and would be appealing to that community. Hence all knowledge utilised was 'traditional' to some degree (it being very difficult and unlikely to say something entirely new and unheard of). Luke need not have depended on Matthew for information about Jesus (as though his knowledge and sources were running low!)

Affirmation 8: Form criticism should not be thrown out. I suggest that the notion of seeing 'individual units of traditions' stems from the fact that many of the sayings already existed in various forms prior to Jesus' and the evangelists' use of them. Categorising sayings into their various 'forms' does not necessarily indicate only something about their later use (by Jesus and the evangelists and those in between) but also those beforehand who already made use of something similar.

Hopefully the above affirmations are in line with this blog's purpose in encouraging students to think for themselves and to look at the assumptions for how a theory resolves a problem (and the type of problem being solved).

2008-02-03T11:36:00.000+11:00

Introductory Lecture?

I should have mentioned Horace Jeffery Hodges' posts on plagiarism from 2005 which I think could make for an intersting way of introducing students to the synoptic problem.

UPDATE: I should also provide the link to Mark Goodacre's response.

2007-11-09T17:48:00.000+11:00

My blog in a nutshell: Eight Synoptic Problem Myths and Misassumptions

Given that my first year of posts largely attempted to dispel certain myths and misassumptions concerning synoptic source theories which might otherwise cloud students from clear thinking and since it is not clear how often I will be able to keep postings going here I thought to dot-point the following myths (and comments):

Certain synoptic source theories are more theologically and/or pastorally superior than others. Actually whether one solution could be is very difficult to demonstrate without at the same time maintaining several assumptions about what one already considers theologically/pastorally ‘superior’ or ‘inferior.’
Matthew, Mark and Luke are of the same genre. Actually each author, though employing many similar traditions (and narrative additions), tells a slightly different kind of story.
There is a consensus concerning what the ‘Q hypothesis’ is. Actually the Q hypothesis is taken to mean different things by different people.
‘Markan redaction’ is prevalent in both Matthew and Luke. Actually the presence of Markan style and vocabulary in Matthew and Luke is not so prevalent (is it a case of deliberate avoidance or evidence against Mark as source?)
The closest verbal agreements between Matthew and Luke indicate a common written source which, for example may mean that Luke copied either Matthew’s Q source or Matthew. Actually the high verbal agreements in the John Baptizer speeches are simply anomalous for all the major source theories—i.e. how it is that Luke and/or Matthew suddenly turn into slavish scribes? Such agreement is rather unexpected even if Luke has utilized Matthew.
There was a distinct ‘oral period’ of transmission where the synoptic material was transmitted (and by implication derived from/translated from Jesus’ own words). Actually most of the synoptic traditions (besides the shared healing stories) appear as further ‘takes’ on already traditional materials (i.e. common debates and sayings/teachings not necessarily initiated first by Jesus—cf. the teachings in James).
Unlike in literary dependence, there are no layers in the handing down of oral traditions (a point made by Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses). Actually research on oral traditioning has still a long way to go before deciding for or against this one.
Form criticism got things completely wrong. Actually even if the authors of Luke and Mark believed (and/or wanted readers to believe) that the Jesus traditions stemmed from the authority of eye-witnesses (viz. Bauckham’s thesis), one need not dispense with the whole form critical enterprise (especially if we grant recognition to the comment on 6 above).

2007-09-05T16:09:00.000+10:00

Revisiting Past Posts in the Future

I had thought that I would have finished recapping the topics covered during my first year of blogging by now. Instead, it seems I will be revisiting them at a slower pace. Today I mention the topic Claiming Theological and Pastoral Significance (for one's source theory).

I discussed the topic in three posts (here, here, & here) and concluded that despite the claims for significance being made there appears little evidence that appealing to pastoral and theological 'implications' can be shown to have real differences in terms of significant differences since it is almost impossible to state what such implications would be (or should be). Farmer's source theory cannot be seen as any more superior than other source theories based on its alleged pastoral significance, given the highly subjective nature of such criteria (and its use). Who is to say whether reducing, increasing or re-ordering Gospel sources makes for a 'better' overall source theory simply because it might appeal theologically to lay persons and their preferences for early sources on the life of Jesus?

Similarly Kloppenborg's 'theological stakes' were not very significant at all. The Gospel of Mark is rather combative on any source theory as well as having downplayed the notion of Jesus as apocalyptic Judge (again, from the perspective of any source theory). Even Kloppenborg's implications of the 'Q hypothesis' seem rather stretched. One has to take Q as a full blown document with its own complete theology (i.e. produced by Christians who did not see the need for giving an account of Jesus' death). Yet because Kloppenborg makes the point that Paul's theology was not necessarily representative of normative theology of that time then do not the Gospels on almost any source theory post-date Paul and consequently provide a more integrated/culminated interpretation of the significance of Jesus' death (and their various perspectives allow for different interpretations of Jesus' death--Luke for example has Jesus' death as more of a necessary event than a salvific one, so it's not really Kloppenborg's Q hypothesis that makes the difference Kloppenborg claims).

2007-08-18T14:23:00.000+10:00

Happy 1st Blogiversary to me!

I haven't dedicated as much to this blog as I would have liked to but fortunately the postings have not yet ceased!

The poll on the Q hypothesis has caused some confusion about what it asks and will need to be redone. Perhaps I will replace it with a different poll.

There still remains more summaries to come of the past year's posts...

2007-08-15T16:03:00.000+10:00

A Year of Source Theory Blogging - Part Three

I wrote several posts last September trying to ascertain what teachers were teaching regarding the Q hypothesis seeing that the symbol 'Q' is used to mean various different things. I received some feedback from Stephen Carlson and Mark Goodacre on the issue, both who prefer to maintain that the Q hypothesis supposes a written source to account for the common Mt-Lk material (and both of whom believe that Luke actually copied the material from Matthew rather than Q).

I have now added a poll on Q to the sidebar which will run for the remainder of the year, but I may choose to run it indefinitely since the progress of results are always available anyway.

2007-08-12T13:44:00.000+10:00

A Year of Source Theory Blogging - Part Two (Dunn)

Recapping my four previous posts on James Dunn's source theory [Aug 27; Oct 14; Dec 9; Dec 28]: Dunn's theory has an unresolved tension in that both Mk and Q are regarded as simultaneously written and oral sources. Whether Dunn regards 'Q' as being an oral source (or sources) is still not completely clear--Dunn has only explicitly argued that the first layer of Q (Q1) be seen as 'oral ' [see his "Q1 as oral tradition," in Markus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner (eds.) The Written Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 45-69]. I concluded humorously that "It seems Dunn wants to have his Q and eat it too!" Perhaps Dunn eventually intends to demonstrate that the remainder of 'Q' should also be seen as oral.

However, what is more surprising is Dunn's article "Matthew's Awareness of Markan Redation," in F. van Segbroeck et al (eds.), The Four Gospels--1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck, (3 vols.; BETL 100; Leuven University Press), 2:1349-59, in which Dunn argues that Matthew recognised Markan redaction in Mark and so avoided it consciously. Dunn appears to suggest that this indicates that Matthew was already familiar with many of the stories written in Mark and/or that Matthew used his Markan source in an 'oral mode.'

I am not aware whether other scholars have drawn attention to this but it seems to have anticipated Delbert Burkett's assertion that Markan redaction is suspiciously absent is Matthew and Luke. Whereas Burkett sees such an absence as undermining the notion that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source Dunn sees it as evidence that Matthew could readily recognise Mark's own redaction of oral traditions. There is something persuasive about such an argument and I wish other scholars would comment on it.

Somewhere in my posts on Dunn I mentioned that when we speak of the 'oral period' we really should recognise that we are merely referring generally to the period prior to the Gospels being written down (and published?) since we do not know whether it was really a distinct period of 'oral transmission.'

Also I mentioned that the healing traditions appear to share less verbal/phrasing aggreements than other traditions which may be a consequence of them being widely used oral traditions. I have not researched this properly, but it deserves more attention (as a good candidate for oral story-telling that Matthew and Luke need not be completely dependent on Mark for these stories).

I also mentioned two reviews of Dunn's source theory:
David Neville, "The Demise of the Two-Document Hypothesis? Dunn and Burkett on Gospel Sources," in PACIFICA 19 (Feb 2006), 78-92.
Dennis Ingolfsland, "Jesus Remembered: James Dunn and the Synoptic Problem," Trinity Journal (Fall, 2006), 187-97.

Each of these reviews sees Dunn's source theory as undermining the Mk-Q hypothesis. But it is still not clear exactly what Dunn's source theory entails for Mark and 'Q.' I am amicable to seeing most of 'Q' as potentially stemming from oral sources. I am also comfortable with seeing the authors of Matthew and Luke capable of recognising (and avoiding) Markan redaction (so as to maintain a more 'oral mode' of writing).

However, like Dunn, I am not willing to abandon literary dependence and I think Dunn has tried to incorprate oral and written together in what seems to be an impossibly complex and contradictory task. I wish I knew what to call such a theory (I wonder if Dunn has named his theory yet)?

2007-08-06T17:01:00.000+10:00

A Year of Source Theory Blogging - Part One

In less than two weeks this blog will be a year old so for the next couple of weeks I will present a series of posts bringing together the previous year's blogging.

This blog has intended to focus on "Introducing the Synoptic Problem to students" as "A blog on the synoptic problem aimed at furthering student thought and participation." There are already websites around introducing the synoptic problem (see sidebar) and many of these are certainly more helpful and informative than most introductions available in print. Yet students need to be encouraged to see and understand the types of arguments being used. We should be seeing more students (and eventually more scholars) agnostic as to the 'best' source theory rather than settling for what one's lecturers espouse (e.g. 2ST, Farrer, Griesbach).

Students should be encouraged to look at the assumptions for how a theory resolves a problem (and the type of problem being solved). My own experience with the Gospel pericopes does not yet indicate the nature of the non-Markan sources appearing in Luke (granting that Luke depended on something almost identical to Mark). I can now see this agnosticism present throughout my past year's blogging. OK, now for a year's recapping and distillation of thoughts part one...

This blog began when I posted my lecture notes for BN101 held at Whitley College August 2006. Here I used the terminology look-alike gospels as a student-friendly description for the 'Synoptic Gospels.' The lecture emphasised the three kinds of similarities:
similar CONTENT (displayed in a Venn diagram),
simliar PHRASING (displayed in a Synopsis), and
similar ORDER of passages/pericopes (as displayed in Allan Barr's diagram/chart).
It is these three features (and the lack of these three features held in common with the fourth Gospel) which suggests evidence of a literary relationship between the Synoptic Gospels. The 'problem' (or type) of this relationship is more so a modern problem arising as a historical enterprise to explain the use of 'sources' though pre-modern responses demonstrate some awareness of a concern with the problem of Gospel differences (thought to potentially undermine the historicity or veracity of the Gospel accounts). Ironically, it is not now the differences but the similarities in CONTENT, PHRASING and ORDER which present reason to suspect direct copying and often thought to be potentially more devastating (in terms of historicity).
My initial lecture notes helpfully grouped arguments for Markan priority into three categories:
Flawed Arguments (order of pericopes; length of pericopes; lower/higher Christology);
Inconclusive Arguments (difficult passages-Mark has more of them; vocab statistics); and
Substantial Arguments (editorial fatigue; tight plotting of Mark).

What I could have made clearer is that those who oppose Markan priority are basically correct that Markan priority is more of a belief (or 'working hypothesis') than a scientific fact given the current tests and results are rather tentative and often reversable. Assuming Mark to be a source of both Matthew and Luke makes reasonable sense of all three Synoptic Gospels (but so do other source theories).

My initial interest in the synoptic problem is mentioned briefly in my third post and in the latter part of my sixth post. Basically as an undergraduate student I found the introductions to the synoptic problem available in print very disapointing and unhelpful so I wrote an essay demonstrating this(part A evaluating six standard intros; part B looking at arguments for and against Matthean posteriority). The essay is made available in the side-bar (Solving the Synoptic Problem for Students?).

Thanks to Stephen Carlson in January I had to correct my earlier assertion that Henry Owen (1764) was the first to suggest direct literary dependence (interrelationship) since it appears that the notion might be dated even earlier (e.g. Hugo Grotius, John Mill, J.J. Wettstein). However I concluded that we still need to distinguish between:

(a) those who believe that the later Gospel compositions were written with some knowledge of the predecessors work (Augustine’s position); and
(b) those who believe that an author fully ‘depends’ on an earlier work for the material (without which they would probably lack the material).

The latter category has produced various models all claiming some notion of 'dependence' but due to the belief that certain material would have (or could have) been available in more than one document or in the form of oral traditions (rendered even more complex by secondary and tertiary orality--i.e. as a written work develops an oral life of its own) it is impossible to know whether Luke's Gospel depends on the text/document of Matthew's Gospel for all the overlapping material (and/)or whether Matthew and Luke shared a common source or whether Matthew's Gospel (or portions of it) had entered into a second level of orality and could be recalled/remembered by the author of Luke.

To update on an older exchange between Carlson and myself (see link in sidebar) which debated whether Luke's dependence on Matthew should be seen as any more plausible than the two's dependence on shared source/s (i.e. Mk-Mt-Lk vs. Mk-Q-Lk). I think our definitions of plausibility were not identical. What is it that would make us perceive that the Mt-Lk double tradition (1) originated with Matthew's text and/or (2) was only available to Luke via Matthew? So neither the Mk-Q or Mk-Mt theory should be presupposed as more logically plausible since even though the Mk-Q theory demands a common hypothetical source (Q) the Mk-Mt theory demands that Luke owes all of its 'Q' material solely to the text of Matthew making the Farrer theory less agnostic about the material, which could actually represent multiple traditions/sources. Only at a basic mathematical/logical level does Farrer hold the advantage by simplifying the Mt-Lk overlap. Yet only the John Baptist traditions share a close enough verbal similarity (phrasing) to demand literary dependence for this material (which would either indicate very little direct borrowing from Matthew or give us an extremely small Q!)

My next post will review my posts on Dunn's source theory and attempt to bring some clarity to my earlier disorganized posts.

2007-08-03T12:39:00.000+10:00

Celebratory Overview Coming Up

This blog is almost one year old, so in my next post I will draw together the insights posted here over the past year, as a celebratory/birthday overview. Although this blog receives very few visitors (15-20 views a week) I still think it has been a worthwhile endeavour and hopefully an overview will help establish this.

2007-07-25T12:51:00.001+10:00

Michael Pahl's Source Theory

Michael Pahl (weblog: the stuff of earth) has two relevant blog posts on his solution to the synoptic problem (his preamble and proposal). Unfortunately he doesn't specify why he sees Luke's use of Matthew more plausible than an oral-Q source/sources which is intriguing given his emphasis on oral traditions. Was Luke running short on oral sources for the Mt-Lk-double-tradition(s) and had to turn to the gospel of Matthew for it/them?

2007-07-24T11:35:00.000+10:00

With Your Own Team of Scholars!

This blog has encouraged raising questions more than simply giving answers, so here's a question for all you Synoptic Problem fanatics:

What is the ideal methodology you would recommend for a team of choice scholars under your direction to take in attempting to investigate and solve the synoptic problem? What premises (and why) would you begin with and what data are we still lacking in order to be able to completely solve the synoptic problem?

2007-07-04T16:18:00.000+10:00

Syriac Priority/Primacy

I've been frantically finishing off my master's thesis for the end of June (hence the absence of June posts). One of my footnotes mentions the theory that the Greek NT, rather than being composed in Greek, is the result of being translated from Syriac. What could be the basis for such a hypothesis?
A key argument for the book length article by Raphael Lataster, “Was the New Testament Really Written in Greek? A Concise Compendium of the Many Internal and External Evidences of Aramaic,” edition 1c, March 2006, http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/ treats as “undeniable evidence” the point that the numerous Greek manuscript variants offer translation differences due to the polysemy of Peshitta words. Thus Peshitta words are treated as inherently polysemous as though they are responsible for producing (at least) two different Greek translation equivalents observable in Greek manuscripts.

But it is erroneous to assume that Greek words are not naturally as polysemous, or that Syriac terms are more ambiguous than their Greek counterparts. To use one of Lataster’s examples, certain Greek manuscripts have PULH whist others have thURA in Lk 13:24 which, for Lataster, indicates that both are attempts to translate the Syriac noun tar(o which can mean either ‘door’ or ‘gate.’ But this assumes that in Greek PULH only means ‘gate’ and thURA only means ‘door.’ BDAG, however, indicates that thURA means either ‘door,’ ‘doorway,’ ‘entrance,’ ‘gate,’ and that PULH likewise can mean either ‘gate’ or ‘door.’ Hence the key assumption for Lataster appears to be based on a mistaken notion that words in the translated ('target') language are inhernetly less flexible/more specific in meaning than corresponding words in the source language.

2007-05-19T13:07:00.001+10:00

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).

2007-05-19T13:07:00.000+10:00

Bauckham Colloquium

I'm not very up-to-date on things at the moment, but I should mention the online colloquium beginning today with Richard Bauckham on the Biblical Studies Discussion List:

We are thrilled to be able to announce that Richard Bauckham will be our guest on the Biblical Studies list for an online colloquium May 20-26. We will be discussing his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and we invite you to join us.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblical-studies/

2007-04-07T10:15:00.000+10:00

Gospel of Thomas

On one of the email groups I subscribe to there was a question concerning the direction of dependence between GThomas and the synoptics. Here is a copy of my response:

GThomas has two characteristics which immediately come to my mind:
(1) the sort of content seems to overlap quite a lot with the Mt-Lk 'Q' material,
(2) there is some indication of redactional elements from Mt & Lk present in Thomas.

I guess the combination of these two points is why the final version of Thomas is often believed to also have existed in an earlier (pre Mt Mk LK?) form (hence I suppose the whole directionality debate). There appears to be two camps if I recall:

(1) Thomas is early (say 50s)
(2) Thomas is late (say 150s)

I guess I was influenced by Christopher Tuckett, "Thomas and the Synoptics," NovT XXX, 2 (1988), 132-157, who demonstrated knowledge of Lukan redaction, e.g.:

Th 5 "there is nothing hidden that will not be manifest" which Tuckett argues agrees with Lk's redaction of Mk's version of the saying.
Th 16 "divisions" = Lukan redaction
Th 55 "not worthy of me" = Mathean redaction
Th 20 Markan elements of mustard seed parable in Mk (as against 'Q' version) (i.e. "smaller than all the seeds"; "earth"; "branch"; "shelter")
Th 9 Markan feature of duality (double "on account of not having").

Recently Mark Goodacre has mentioned his arguement that Thomas 79 must be dependent on Lk 11:27-28 given that Lk has composed this passage.

UPDATE: For some reason blogger is displaying an incorrect date. The above post should be dated 10:15 am April 7, 2007.

2007-03-24T12:06:00.004+11:00

Lk's use of Mt? (lecture notes part three)

My opinion on the likelihood of the theory that Lk used both Mk and Mt. . .
I think the Farrer theory rightly questions the assumptions that Lk’s version of the Mt-Lk Double-Tradition (‘Q’ material) is less redactional than Mt’s. Luke should be considered as an author who has shaped and interpreted his sources (just like the author of Mt has, and maybe even more so). So the theory is better than assuming that Lk provides us with the original order of Q and/ or the original wording. But there is not enough clear evidence to show that Lk used Mt as a source for all of the ‘Q’ traditions. We simply do not know the extent of Mt or Lk’s non-Markan sources. Future studies on the Mt-Lk overlap of traditions will definitely be welcomed.

The Law and The Gospel: Gospel as Invitation and The Need for Repentance (Pharisees Think They Don’t Need it)
· Only some Pharisees were convinced Jesus' disciples broke the Sabbath (6:1-5) See Exod 34:21 & Deut 23:25 for laws.
· Blessed is anyone who takes no offence at Jesus (7:1-50) · Jesus tells the self-righteous lawyer "Go and do likewise" (10:37)
· If one wants a future/salvation/life/to be acceptable . . . one has to recognise the need for repentance (13:1-5) · Be Humble or Be Humbled (14:11)
· Leaders are refusing to enter (14:16-24)
· In the eyes of the religious leaders the Gospel is undermining their authority as custodians of the Law and Prophets. They see the Gospel as threatening, rather than as exciting and part of God's continued plan of salvation. (16:16-24)
· The Law and the Kingdom/Reign of God, (Rich man poor man, 16:19-31) thus. . . · Lk tends to agree with the overall import of Scriptures (‘Law and Prophets’) as affirming Jesus’ behaviour and message i.e. If the religious leaders actually did believe the Law and the Prophets, they would not be offended by Jesus' behaviour and message. (16:29)
· Hence "The Kingdom/Reign of God is already within your grasp" its potential exists now! (17:21)
· Difference between Pharisee and the tax collector -- one recognises the need for repentance (18:10-14) cf. Deut 26:10-15 on model prayer.

Bibliography
Eric Franklin, Luke Interpreter of Paul, Critic of Matthew (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994).
Mark Goodacre, The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), chapters 5-7.
Mark Matson, “Luke’s Rewriting of the Sermon on the Mount,” in Mark Goodacre and Nicholas Perrin (eds.) Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 2004), 43-70. [online @ http://www.milligan.edu/administrative/mmatson/rewrite.pdf] Mark Allan Powell, “The Religious Leaders in Luke: A Literary-Critical Study,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 109, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), 93-110: “Excursus: A Brief Comparison with Matthew,” 108-109.

Texts For Discussion [I've uploaded them in pdf]
(Translation is taken from the NET Bible)

Lk as critic of Matthew? Lk as reaction to Mt's portrait of Jesus?
In Mt the Pharisees are irredeemably opposed to Jesus (and the kind of kingdom he represents). Has Lk rejected the Matthean perception of the Pharisees? Mt calls them "evil" whereas Lk appears to have held out hope for them. It is difficult to argue why or how one author has rejected themes present in another author. How would we know if Lk was opposed to certain aspects of Mt’s presentation of Jesus? The Farrer theory requires that we find remnants of Mt in Lk. But at the same time requires that the material has (apparently) been completely rewritten!

Mt 11:13// Lk 16:16. Jesus only discusses the law once in Lk so this pericope is very interesting. It is a response to the Pharisees who were denigrating Jesus’ message (of grace and repentance). Jesus in effect replies (Although his answer depends on how the verb is read…!): “Don’t worry, you may see all kinds of unsavory people entering the kingdom but it’s not by bending the rules—the rules are still the same, of course the law is still the law despite what you Pharisees have done to it [allowing adultery through divorce]!”

Jesus (Not) in Competition with the Temple (Markan themes rejected)

In the ‘Plucking Grain on the Sabbath’ controversy (Mt 12:1-8// Mk 2:23-28// Lk 6:1-5) Jesus claims to be more important than the Temple in Mt. Does Lk reject this notion or is it omitted because it is not in Lk’s source?
Jesus and the Temple (cf. Mt 27:40// Mk 15:29// Jn 2:19-21) Lk never acknowledges that people thought Jesus had threatened to destroy the Temple (other than predict its doom in Mt 24:1-2// Mk 13:1-2// Lk 21:5-6).
Lk omits the incident of Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree (in Mt and Mk Jesus’ actions in the temple are related to his cursing of the fig tree as symbolic of cursing the Temple).
Mt 21:12// Mk 11:15// Lk 19:45-48. Jesus’ actions in the Temple are less controversial in Lk. Note the difference (the chief priests get upset not because Jesus’ actions against the sellers is controversial but because his teaching is too influential—reiterated again in Lk 21:37-38).
Jesus Death as Atoning for Sins? (Mt 20:28// Mk 10:45) Lk omits this saying. Why?

2007-03-24T12:06:00.003+11:00

Learning more about Gospel of Thomas

I was delighted to receive several comments regarding my previous post on the Gospel of Thomas. I was inspired by the comments to want to learn more about GThomas and so I joined the GThomas group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gthomas

It will, of course, take me some time to work out my own opinion about the relationship (if literary) between GThomas and the synoptics. Like the synoptic problem it doesn't seem to be an easy one to decide.

2007-03-24T12:06:00.000+11:00

Lecture notes part two for BN203/303, March 21, 2007

Traditions Taken From ‘Q’ or From Mt?
Does one’s source theory make any difference when interpreting Lk?

I will begin by introducing the following points:

Lk appears to reject Mt’s birth narrative. Is Mt’s narrative too hostile? Jesus arrives in Lk more peacefully without causing antagonism or turmoil. Mt could well have been a catalyst for Lk. Mt provided Mk with birth narratives and resurrection stories which paved the way for Lk to do the same sort of thing.
Lk is not afraid to provide a new context for old material (which is how we would expect educated persons/rhetorically trained to write).
The Farrer theory supposes that Lk was respectful of the traditional material but not of its editorial use in Mk and Mt (which he knew to be that of Mk’s and Mt’s) i.e. Lk (& Mt) could recognise redactional features from another evangelist and so felt free to leave or modify such elements—but Lk respected Mk’s contexts for material more than Mt’s (but it is more practical to follow one as a chronological base and it is not surprising that Lk chose Mk since Mk was an older Gospel—by the time Lk writes most Christians will have already heard Mk read on at least one occasion) whereas Mt was more like a Church manual, a teaching manual and was in fact based on Mk (which Lk could easily see). Lk therefore recognised that Mt’s arrangement of material was clearly Mt’s own preference serving Mt’s own purpose and so Lk felt free to make his own arrangement using the same kind of material (i.e. Lk used Mt primarily as a source for more sayings).
Has Lk ‘added’ four woes (against the rich) to the blessings found in Mt 5:3-12 (Creative addition?). Scholars have often presumed that many differences are due to ‘Q’ whereas Lk may be shaping the material as much (or more) than Mt has.
Lk has discarded heaps of material in Mt on Instruction for the Church. Was there a problem with Mt’s portrait of Jesus?
In Lk Jesus is never harsh on the Sadducees (i.e. unlike Mt’s portrait of Jesus, in Lk Jesus never rebukes/ condemns the Sadducees). Why? Has Lk deliberately removed this condemnation for some reason?
Similarly Lk’s Jesus never condemns the scribes. Why not?
Pharisees eventually disappear and play no role in plotting Jesus’ death (or handing Jesus over). Pharisees are favourably portrayed in Acts.
Lk omits almost two whole chapters in Mk (Mk 6:45-8:46) was this because Lk did not want to address issues of dietary laws until Acts 10?
Lk reduces the focus off the law (Does Lk see Mosaic law = custom?) Lk does not oppose the Law/Torah but tends to be more so concerned about the ‘moral law’ of welcoming those considered to be outsiders/ outcasts and caring for the poor.

Jesus (Not) a Lawgiver (see previous post)

The remaining lecture notes will have to be posted separately (as part three) since blogger is not being very obliging. . .

2007-03-17T11:06:00.000+11:00

Lecture Outline for BN203/303

I'm likely giving a lecture next Wednesday in the "Luke" course on the difference in interpreting Lk on the Farrer theory (i.e. if Lk used Mt instead of Q). The lecture may only be for one hour. Here is the outline so far:

The Farrer theory produces two main differences for our interpretation of Lk:

(1) It makes Lk considerably more creative as an author (scholars have tended to assume that Lk preserved more of the original order and wording of Q than Mt did).

(2a) It means that Lk has treated Mt differently than he treated Mk (Lk kept Mk’s chronology and sayings largely in tact), in other words. . .

(2b) It makes Lk critical of Mt (i.e. not only does Lk not stick to the order and wording of Mt but also Lk deliberately rejects themes important to Mt’s portrait of Jesus).

The Farrer theory implies that we should not underestimate Lk’s creativity and ability to transform and omit material found in Mt (and so we should not assume that Lk is simply a compiler of ‘Q’ traditions, replicating the order and wording he already found). I.e. the bulk of overlapping material Lk shares with Mt is taken by Lk directly from (and transformed from) Mt’s Gospel. How then has the resulting material changed in the process? The first theme we will look at (supposedly rejected by Lk on the Farrer hypothesis) is Jesus (Not) a Lawgiver.

Jesus (Not) a Lawgiver. In Mt Jesus is the Lawgiver for the New Community of believers (Mt’s emphasis has Jesus providing Instruction for his Church virtually providing a Church Instruction Manual, cf. the Didache). On the Farrer theory this presentation of Jesus would be deliberately critiqued by Lk. The following three points were made by Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1974). I have slightly expanded them since Sandmel barely gave them a sentence each:-

1. Many of the same commandments given in Mt’s Sermon on Mount are relayed in Lk but not in the form of new commandments (i.e. Jesus not a lawgiver as in Mt where Jesus is giving out ‘new and improved rules on living’ i.e. Mt 5:21-43 “You are familiar with the teaching on . . . now I give you an even stricter one to abide by. . . .”) since in Mt Jesus is portrayed extending the same laws even further. Lk tones down the contrast by avoiding the notion that Jesus gave out ‘new’ commandments. There is only one noticeable contrast (in Lk 6:27 [a remnant of Mt?] “but to you who are listening I say. . . ”) which is not contrasted with older familiar teachings (as in Mt) but is simply given as an elucidation of the previously mentioned blessings and miseries (i.e. to keep on loving their overlords and slanderers from verses 6:22-23 as model behaviour).

2. The Lord’s Prayer in Mt has Jesus give as instruction. In Lk instead it is the disciples who asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. 3. Mt 22:34-40// Mk 12:28-34// Lk 10:25-28. Unlike the other accounts, when Lk comes to relaying the greatest commandment it is not Jesus who gives the commandment.

However. . . what about Lk 18:18-24 where Jesus does relay the commandments!

For a more recent attempt to explain Lk’s modification of Mt’s Sermon on the Mount, see Mark Matson, “Luke’s Rewriting of the Sermon on the Mount,” in Mark Goodacre and Nicholas Perrin (eds.) Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, 2004), 43-70. [or online @ http://www.milligan.edu/administrative/mmatson/rewrite.pdf]

It is difficult to argue why or how one author has rejected themes present in another author. How would we know if Lk was opposed to certain aspects of Mt’s presentation of Jesus? These notes are not finalised, and I'm wondering whether to concentrate further on this theme, or introduce another theme.

2007-03-02T17:40:00.001+11:00

Oral Culture, Hypertext Culture

Loren Rosson has an interesting post here comparing oral culture and hypertext culture.

2007-03-02T17:40:00.000+11:00

Lk's use of Mt

Semester is just beginning here in Melbourne, and I have been asked to give a lecture on what difference it makes to interpreting Lk if Lk has used Mt (as well as Mk).

So I am about to put together some more lecture notes which will then be included here.

2007-02-24T16:53:00.000+11:00

Source Theory Logo

I've recently added an icon (logo) to the blog, as well as adding a link to Mahlon H. Smith's website, A Synoptic Gospels Primer. Click on "synoptic problem."

UPDATE: Apparently the picture icon is not yet working properly. Hopefully I can solve the problem soon, should be easier than solving the Gospel relationships!

UPDATE: Icon in web address seems to appear more regularly when "www" is present.

2007-02-18T14:20:00.000+11:00

Mk 9:1 a failed prediction?

I notice a recent post of James Crossley (Dating the Synoptic Gospels) in which he suggests dates for the canonical gospels. He has a book arguing for a extremely early date for Mk (late 30s) "largely based on issues of law observance." In his recent post he uses eschatological predictions as a indication of date for the other canonical gospels.

I am not going to enter the debate about dating but will only comment here on the relevance of Mk 9:1 as a failed predication:

And he was saying to them, "Amen I tell you that there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the empire of God having come with power."

In his post James Crossley uses eschatological predictions as a chronological indicator and so Mk 9:1 is treated as a predication of an imminent kingdom:

There are predictions of an imminent kingdom within the lifetime of some of Jesus’ audience (Mark 9:1) and a prediction that the second coming of Jesus will occur within a generation (Mark 13:30).

It is usually assumed that Mk 9:1 presents a failed predication but this is to misunderstand its context in Mk 9:1 in which Jesus has just tried to challenge the disciples' understanding of what God's empire or "kingdom" (basileia) was about (Mk 8:32-33) and Jesus is pictured as challenging the notion of what is true power: followers of Jesus will save their lives by having them destroyed; the Human One will be ashamed of those who are ashamed of Jesus' non-violent kingdom-mission; to attempt to save oneself from physical death is in some sense seen as anti-kingdom and anti-true-power (8:38). In this context we should be willing to take the following mention of "power" (dunamis) in Mk 9:1 in a redefined way.

If we see that the notion of "power" in Mk is not to be equated with natural conceptions of power, then we might take the predication as having come true for all those who did see Jesus' power of resurrection at work. Would not seeing the increased number of believers (who believed in the resurrection and power of Jesus) be seeing the kingdom come with power? Arguably the whole of Mk is to challenge and redefine notions of power so I don't see why we should take 9:1 as a failed predication.

2007-02-13T13:02:00.000+11:00

Eight Steps to Solving the Synoptic Problem?

Mark Goodacre has had the sudden urge to simplify the synoptic problem in eight steps over at his weblog.

2007-02-10T19:14:00.000+11:00

Bauckham attempting too grand a theory

I’ve managed to read a few more pages of Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and at times I get the sense Bauckham is attempting to address too many issues, without managing them sufficiently. For instance Bauckham follows Dunn in asserting that oral transmission should not be understood using a literary model:

We should think of each performance of an oral tradition as differing from others, but not in such a way that each builds on the other. With oral tradition there is no linear development, layer on layer. [p248]

Dunn does a good job of showing, through study of a range of examples from the Gospels, that parallel texts in the Gospels are best understood as varying performances of tradition... [p257]

As we have seen, against the form-critical conception of oral tradition operating like successive editions of a literary text, Dunn insists that each performance of a tradition is a performance of the tradition as such, not a further development of the last such performance. There are no layers of tradition. . . [p259]

But it seems difficult to maintain the supposition that there are no layers when it comes to oral transmission. How could the preceding performance cease to exist or cease to have any effect on the current performance? It seems a bit circulatory (and overconfident) to use the written Gospels as evidence for this (as Dunn does) against a written model.

It would be difficult to know when differences in the various Gospel accounts are non-editorial and free from any layers. Are the aphorisms and parables that Bauckham and Dunn have in mind to be taken as written versions of various oral performances independent from all other performances (oral and written) in all three synoptic Gospels? Some traditions (particularly in Mk) may have been written to be performed orally, but can we assume the same thing for Lk? Why see Lk or Mt as dependent on Mk for any of their traditions, if they each already knew them independently from Mk? This would seem also to do away with using a literary model for aphorisms and parables found in Mk and re-used in Mt and Lk. Is Bauckham aware of the ramifications of following Dunn?

At the same time it seems Bauckham also wants to warn us not to distinguish too sharply between written and oral transmission, doubting the opinion that "before the Gospels the Jesus tradition was purely oral and made no use of writing" [p251-2] and when it comes to memorization, oral traditions are suddenly to be understood on an analogy to the written model:

Although Dominic Crossan has argued that a sharp distinction should be made between these two [memorizing material from books or oral material], such a distinction is inappropriate in a society that, though predominantly oral, did make use of written texts. [p280]

2007-02-03T16:42:00.000+11:00

Group Discussion of Bauckham

Since I haven't managed any spare reading time this week, I will simply mention the following group discussion lead by Joseph Codsi. I reproduce his post from the crosstalk group:

This is an invitation to discuss Richard Bauckham’s last book, Jesus and the Eyewitness - The gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K., 2006.
Please go to the following group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/historical-disciples

Sign in, go to ‘files’ and open the folder ‘Jesus and the Eyewitnesses’. I will upload documents to this folder as they become available. To post your comments, use the group’s E-mail: historical-disciples@yahoogroups.com

I propose to go through the book one chapter at a time. There are 18
chapters.Chapter 1 - From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony.- The Historical Quest and Christian Faith- Introducing the Key Category: Eyewitness Testimony- Samuel Byrskog and the eyewitnessesQuestion: “Is Bauckham’s ‘Jesus of Testimony’ any different from the ‘Jesus of the faith’?Joseph CodsiBeirut, Lebanon

I should perhaps also mention the review of Bauckham over on Chris Tilling's blog appearing in sixteen parts.

2007-01-27T19:33:00.000+11:00

Form Criticism

I’m now up to page 260 in Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and I am wondering about what students might make of form criticism according to Bauckham.

I am not an expert when it comes to form criticism and that is probably why I pity the student who wishes to understand whatever it is that the form critics bequeathed and the value of it. For example I might take Bauckham’s summary of what form criticism is and what we have subsequently gained from it, in the following quotes:

It is a curious fact that nearly all the contentions of the early form critics have by now been convincingly refuted, but the general picture of the process of oral transmission that form critics pioneered still governs the way most New Testament scholars think [p242].

[Schmidt pioneered the argument that:] The units (pericopes) preexisted the Gospel as distinct traditions transmitted orally until Mark first put them into writing and supplied the "string" on which they are now threaded like pearls. . . This insight opened the way, for the first time, to serious study of the oral phase of transmission of the gospel traditions. This is what the form critics undertook to pursue.
That the individual units of the Synoptic Gospels are close to the oral forms in which they previously existed and that in oral transmission they were not necessarily linked together as they are in the Gospels remain, in my opinion, the most significant insights of form criticism and have not been refuted [p242-3].

But I would have to disagree with several elements here. First Bauckham seems to be targeting a perception of form criticism as a theory of oral transmission:

There is no reason to believe that the oral transmission of Jesus traditions in the early church was at all as Bultmann envisaged it.

However, Baukham is possibly misrepresenting "the whole form-critical enterprise." Broadly speaking Bauckham is not diametrically opposed to Bultmann since the notion of there being ‘individual oral units’ contained in Mk but predating the Markan Evangelist is simply an assumption or presupposition that both he and Bultmann share (i.e. that there was a period of ‘oral transmission’ for much of the Gospel ‘traditions’ and as one which requires no testing!). It is no surprise then that form criticism discovers units of tradition (since this is what it presupposed)! Of the nine criticisms that Bauckham provides against form criticism he conveniently does not mention the one made by Joanna Dewey:

Form criticism has customarily assumed that the small episodic units to be discerned in the Synoptic Gospels were the individual units of oral tradition, and that Mark composed the Gospel from these bits and pieces of oral tradition and perhaps a short written source or two. All that we know or can infer about how tradition operates suggests that this assumption of form criticism is wrong, deriving more from the critics’ own immersion in print culture than from how tradition operates. Studies from the fields of folklore, oral tradition, and oral history all suggest that traditions are likely to coalesce into a continuous narrative or narrative framework quite quickly.
Tradition generally is remembered by gathering stories around a hero (fictional or real), not by remembering disparate individual episodes. [Joanna Dewey "The Survival of Mark's Gospel: A Good Story?" JBL 123/3 (2004): 495-507]

The reason I say "conveniently" is because Bauckham makes favourable use of this article of Dewey’s a few pages earlier!

Secondly, and perhaps more relevant for students, is the point that the study of a theory of oral transmission is not necessarily the ‘primary goal’ which form critics undertook to pursue. According to my Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels form criticism had several goals, the first being to identify the various forms or subgenres:

The original form-critical agenda included three main tasks: classifying the original pericopes (self-contained units of teaching or narrative) according to form, assigning each form to a Sitz im Leben ("life situation") in the early church and reconstructing the history of tradition (see Tradition Criticism).

Thus the first goal would be the categorization of the forms (which I believe would be an important legacy of form criticism even if the results have been modified over time). Are students to take Bauckham as inferring that all three goals of form criticism were illegitimate or that form criticism should be equated only with the early form critics.

Finally, the presupposition that knowing something about the form of a tradition could provide clues as to the community who preserved it or shaped it (and the history of such a community), may have been over enthusiastically embraced by early form critics but I fail to see how it would help to presume that the two have no relation whatsoever (which I doubt Bauckham actually wishes to imply) or that the enterprise itself is completely flawed. More helpful for students is the dictionary article on Tradition Criticism in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels:

Two other disciplines overlap with tradition criticism [the second is redaction
criticism]. The first is form criticism, which in theory focuses on the form in which various types of traditions circulated, but in practice has included the study of how such forms have changed over time and at which period of oral transmission a given form may have arisen. When it moves from categorization to historical analysis, form criticism means the same as tradition criticism. It is because of this overlap that one cannot say when the methodology was first used in modern NT studies, for many of the form critics were in fact doing tradition
criticism.

So perhaps Bauckham should have taken up his problem with tradition criticism rather than form criticism?

2007-01-21T16:31:00.000+11:00

Henry Owen not first to argue direct copying?

Stephen Carlson on his weblog hypotyposeis recently had a post on the early proponents of the utilization hypothesis (i.e. early scholars who saw direct copying of one Gospel to another). When talking about scholars espousing ‘direct dependence’ we should probably distinguish between two types of dependence:
(a) those who see that the later Gospel compositions were written with knowledge of predecessors (Augustine’s position) and
(b) those who recognize that an author fully ‘depends’ on the earlier work for the material (without which they would probably lack the information).
The first category would remain agnostic whether the author is ‘relying’ on an earlier work or whether they simply show some knowledge/familiarity of the earlier work when writing their own version.

I had previously taken Henry Owen (1764) as the first person to espouse the second category of dependence because I had thought any persons prior to Owen would simply have been considered heretics and feared for their lives and consequently never got around to articulating or demonstrating a theory of dependence.

Stephen Carlson translates a passage from 1716 of LeClerc mentioning direct dependence in which it seems that the second category might have already been espoused by others. I asked Stephen who these might be and what type of dependence they saw. Stephen’s helpful reply is found in his post Early Proponents of the Utilization Hypothesis.

The "they" that Le Clerc referred to in 1716 should be the early modern "Augustinians," such as Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and John Mill (1645-1707), who, along with J. J. Wettstein (1693-1764) and others, were more explicit than Augustine in fact about the utilization of prior gospels.

Stephen then provides a quote each from Grotius, Mill and Wettstein indicating they each held to a model of direct dependence. Thank you Stephen for these (especially the translation of a passage from Grotius whom I have been meaning to find out more about).

I will have to revise my understanding of the beginnings of the utilization hypothesis and update my lecture notes for BN101.

2007-01-14T17:01:00.000+11:00

Papias' opinion of the Greek Gospels

I haven’t read many books over the last two years so I’m enjoying any chance I get to continue reading through Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (I’m up to page 229). I’m questioning Bauckham’s opinion of Papias’ view of the Greek Gospels:

Thus Papias is concerned throughout with two aspects of each Gospel: its origin from eyewitness testimony and the question of "order." In both cases he wants to explain why a Gospel with eyewitness origins lacks proper "order." [page 224]

Papias himself, however [unlike Eusebius], seems to have been interested, not in arguing for the apostolic origin of the Gospels he discusses, but rather in explaining how Gospels which were agreed to be of apostolic origin came to differ so much in their "order." [p226]

But is it merely the chronological order that Papias is concerned about? Papias may simply not be very impressed with the Synoptic Gospels because they are not in his opinion written by apostles (or the "seven"[!] disciples of Jesus) and so are not any more impressive than his own books on Jesus. The Greek Gospels would only be providing that which Papias himself was also able to provide by having also relied on eyewitness testimony of others. This would explain why, unlike most other people, Papias was not so very impressed by that which was contained in such books and why he does not really seem to be defending them after all.

I would have liked Bauckham to have addressed the notion that Papias was censored by Eusebius. There are only two sentences I noticed addressing the notion:

Alternatively, Eusebius has omitted something of which he did not approve. He had his own ideas about the origins and differences among the Gospels (see especially _Hist. Eccl._ 3.24.5-16) and is likely to have suppressed material in Papias that was not consistent with them.

These sentences only relate to it the likelihood "that Eusebius has omitted some material" prior to the "Therefore Matthew" quotation. Didn’t Eusebius have access to Papias’ five books and only quoted a few lines. Isn’t this showing him to be a little suspicious of Papias considering Eusebius’ purpose should have been helped by depending more on Papias? Hmm.

Is Papias defending the Greek Gospels? Bauckham suggests that Papias is not necessarily responding to critics but he may be intending "to set any such misgivings [differences between the Gospels] to rest." [p229] But it seems Bauckham is assuming that Papias must have thought more highly of the Greek Gospels than he gives evidence for. Bauckham says,

Given this limitation, [that Mk was only complete in the first stage of the historian’s task] Papias valued Mark’s Gospel because of its scrupulously accurate record of the _chreiai_ as Peter related them. [p228]

but he has not sufficiently demonstrated that "Papias valued Mk’s Gospel" though perhaps Bauckham simply means "Mark, in Papias’ opinion, at least was accurate in reproducing Peter’s preaching."

2007-01-06T21:58:00.001+11:00

Transmission models

The synoptic problem is usually solved with literary theories and such source theories might be categorized according to which Gospel is dependent on the others (e.g. Lukan posteriority) or source of the others (e.g. Markan priority) for their literary traditions. But what of categorizing (and incorporating) oral transmission theories? I’m not aware of any comprehensive list of transmission theories and it would appear that there is an increasing number of oral transmission models on offer. I wonder if any or all of them are just as compatible with any literary model? And I wonder why the two are not more often treated together when articulating one’s source theory? The following three are the oral transmission theories usually named (with various labels):

Form-critical model (traditions generated in and for the community who transmitted them).
Rabbi-disciple model (rabbinic-like memorization where Jesus taught his disciples to memorize his teachings).
Informal controlled model of Ken Bailey (control exerted over certain types of traditions by the community but anyone could participate in transmission process).

There are of course various other transmission models (of which I only have a more vague understanding) such as those of Werner Kelber, Vernon Robbins, James Dunn, and Richard Bauckham (and of course the no-oral-transmission model of Michael Goulder). It would be helpful if scholars in future could articulate not only which literary source theory they subscribe to, but also which transmission model they find most attractive and how such a model is to be integrated into their overall source theory. I think that it is much less helpful to compare and discuss literary theories whilst ignoring theories of transmission.

Perhaps one could also appeal to various transmission models according to the type of tradition? Or perhaps each Gospel author should be explained by recourse to a slightly different oral source theory? I get the impression that no one model can yet claim to explain the whole pre-literary process behind all of the Gospels (from every stage of every tradition—i.e. from birth to inclusion in the first written account) and I guess this is one reason why literary models usually dominate the discussion.

Admitting oral source models into one’s source theory does make a difference. Otherwise one can categorize source theories incorrectly and speak, for example, of the ‘Goulder-Goodacre theory’ which are really two very different composition theories since, unlike Goodacre, Goulder supposes that the non-Markan traditions in Mt and Lk do not stem not from any oral sources.

2006-12-28T22:47:00.000+11:00

Dunn and Burkett

One aspect of the synoptic problem is particularly unclear, and I wish someone would at least bring some clarity in discussing it. I think it is relevant to mention Delbert Burkett's approach here because it is really the flip side of Dunn's approach (discussed here and here) where I made observations regarding our inability as yet to know whether we can properly distinguish between an oral source and a written source. And an extension of this is our inability to recognize "re-oralization" of a tradition (i.e. deliberately writing in an "oral mode").

I must mention another article of Dunn's, "Matthew's Awareness of Markan Redation," in The Four Gospels--1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck, ed. F. van Segbroeck et al.; 3 vols., BETL 100 (Leuven University Press), 2:1349-59, in which he proposes that Matthean avoidance of so-called Markan redaction is often due to Mt not knowing it to be from his own tradition and thus avoiding it by inserting his own oral version (i.e. rather than making a literary/editorial 'change' the decision is already made for him to simply include his known version).

It seems like a pre-empted answer to Burkett's reasoning as to why Markan redaction is so mysteriously missing from both Mt and Lk if one assumes a theory of Markan priority. Is Markan redaction missing from Mt & Lk because they didn't know those parts (as per Burkett) or because Mt and Lk recognized these parts as somehow foreign sounding and so simply replaced them with their own known/home version of traditions (per Dunn)?

There is something appealing about Dunn's approach in that certain Markan redactional features missing in Mt and Lk (and highlighted by Burkett) are not so surprising when we grant the Evangelists the ability to recognize and avoid Markan redaction. And I think this would answer Burkett's objection that Mk cannot be the source of Mt and/or Lk. It also seems like an attempt to save the two-source theory!

Strangely, Dunn also wishes to see the relative lack of variation in the synoptic passion accounts as evidence that it was "relatively more fixed at a very early stage." But can we really have it both ways? A presence of variation indicates oral (i.e. against redactional changes) and a lack of variation indicates oral? Would not a lack of variation indicate more literary dependence according to Dunn's own logic?

2006-12-22T16:31:00.000+11:00

Bauckham's source theory part 2

I can answer the question I had last post. A few pages further Bauckham does acknowledge that other traditions attached themselves onto eyewitness traditions but apparently does not (yet) concede anonymous ones (but I guess I'll have to keep reading). From page 131,

These three Gospels [Mk, Lk, Jn] all use the literary device of the inclusio of eyewitness testimony in order to indicate the main eyewitness source of their story. This does not, of course, exclude the appropriation also of material from other witnesses, and we shall see that these Gospels also do that.

2006-12-16T11:22:00.000+11:00

Bauckham’s source theory

I managed to seize a few hours of reading time on Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, bringing me so far up to chapter 6 (out of 18). I was quite impressed with Bauckham’s perspective on Papias (chapter 2) i.e. that Papias doesn’t refer to anonymous oral traditions (rather oral history connected to eyewitness testimony).

On the other hand where I left off reading Byrskog’s book was on page 137:

As a parallel to the development of the Q material, Migaku Sato brings attention to the phenomenon of "Fortprophetie" behind the Old Testament prophetic writings. The disciples of a prophet continued to prophesize, and they di so by employing the languagge of the prophet master himself, the "Meistersprache". This is most evident in the book of Isaiah…both Second Isaiah and Third Isaiah – at least according to Isaiah 60-62 – linked their prophetic message substantially with the tradition attributed to Isaiah of Jerusalem. And they never identified themselves as independent prophets; they remained anonymous, assuming the identity of the prophet master to whom they adhered. Even external influences from other prophets, which might have been somewhat foreign to the Isaiah tradition, were integrated and attributed to the one specific prophet of Jerusalem.

So whereas Byrskog’s model would affirm anonymous disciples adding anonymous traditions to the one tradition (of ‘Jesus the Only teacher’) Bauckham’s model drops all anonymity and goes for named informants and named disciples. But I wonder whether he is going to discuss the difference between what collectors (of traditions) thought they were collecting and what exactly had been collected. It is surely on thing to pass along that so-and-so said/taught such-and-such a thing, but is Bauckham also going to argue that just because people thought nothing else had accumulated to the tradition that nothing else had accumulated? I guess I’ll have to keep reading.

I was pleased to see in chapter two Bauckham interacting with Dunn in a footnote (n71 p34):

Dunn here simply assumes that the Gospels were primarily the product of the community tradition, but this is not at all how Luke 1:2 represents the matter.

Bauckham would believe rather that Luke did try to behave as an oral historian would. Lk’s "eyewitnesses" "from the beginning" apparently refers to those who were personally familiar with the events but even more interesting to me is that parekolouthekoti means “thoroughly understood” or “informed familiarity” (following Moessner). I.e. Luke intends to tell ‘the whole story’ [my phrase] because he now knows/understands ‘the whole story’!

2006-12-09T17:52:00.000+11:00

Gospel memorization model

I have just seen and read the following little journal article:
Dennis Ingolfsland, "Jesus Remembered: James Dunn and the Synoptic Problem," Trinity Journal (Fall, 2006), 187-97.

Ingolfsland criticizes Dunn's adherence to the two-source theory rather than "follow his method to its logical conclusion" but it is not clear to me what exactly Ingolfsland would say is Dunn’s method. Instead Ingolfsland goes on to propose his own solution to the synoptic problem (or is it the logical conclusion of Dunn’s method?) that Gospel authors like Luke were taught to memorize previous Gospels like Mk and Mt:

There is nothing improbable with the assumption that local church elders taught potential leaders to learn gospels like Mark or Matthew by memory [footnote 46]—a common teaching method in both Greek and Jewish cultures of the time.
Luke’s extensive knowledge of both Matthew and Mark may imply that he himself had memorized those gospels. [footnote 47]

I doubt this is the logical conclusion to Dunn’s method. And I’m also not sure that this solution is new. There may be similar versions of this type of ‘composition model’ already. In fact I guess one could accept this model and still be a Farrer theorist—or does the Mk-Mt hypothesis imply textual dependence (rather than literary memorization)?

There really are many more types of composition models than most introductions to the matter would care to admit. I’m looking forward to reading Bauckham’s eyewitness model.

2006-12-05T09:53:00.000+11:00

Synoptic-L

It will be difficult for me to post over the next two weeks. I'm already about two weeks behind reading emails but I see that Synoptic-L has been a little more active recently.

2006-11-25T13:09:00.000+11:00

Hebrew proto-Matthew?

On 3rd Nov Jim Deardorff commented on my August 20th post ("still looking for a satisfactory source theory"). He observes that I omitted reference to the source theory he ascribes to—that of a modifed Augustinian Hypothesis. In this scenario a Hebrew (proto)-Mt is the source used by Mk and by Lk (who uses both). Later on Hebrew (proto)-Mt is translated (and updated) into the Greek version we now know. I quote here the substance of Deardorff’s comment:

Matthew, written by a man of strong Jewish background, contains alot of anti-gentile statements. How would this have affected subsequent Gospel writers who had been engaged for years or decades in evangelizing gentiles?

In Rome, the writer of Mark, if following Matthew, is easily viewed as strongly anti-Jewish. He portrayed the Jewish disciples (even the Jewish people) as unworthy of Jesus, upon comparing many parallel passages of Mark & Matthew. He removed Matthew's anti-gentile comments and slurs. The writer of Luke valued the Judaic teachings in Matthew more favorably, and so re-instated much of what Mark omits from Matthew. However, he did so in totally different contexts, thereby showing his disdain for the writer of Matthew and its statement that Jesus had come only to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So he went out of his way to show his preference for pro-gentile Mark over anti-gentile Matthew.

The reasoning is given as an attempt to explain why Mt is somewhat anti-Gentile while Mk seems somewhat anti-Jewish. But how can we say that being anti-Gentile (if indeed it is) is any more likely to be written earlier? And can Mk really be labelled anti-Jewish? These are hardly strong arguments but they should nevertheless be accounted for by one’s source theory. So how might, for example, the Farrer theory (Mk-Mt-Lk) take the above observations into account? I guess there is little anomalous here since Mt is seen to have corrected Mk’s overly Gentile portrait of Jesus and finally Lk tempers Mt’s overly ethnic portrait [very few source theories have claimed much in terms of describing how Jn relates to the Synoptics].

Though not mentioned here by Deardorff I believe this modified Augustinian hypothesis is actually based on Papias’ brief statement concerning Mt ("So Matthew composed the oracles in the Hebrew language and each person interpreted them as best he could"). I don’t know how confident we can be in knowing to what Papias was referring or to what Papias was thinking of here. "Q" has been one contender for the Hebrew oracles but Deardorff would see a proto-Matthew as source for our Greek Mark. Papias is writing in the early second century and he mentions the notion as a tradition and we don’t really know what he had in mind. In a small e-list I belong to (GPG), E Bruce Brooks has asserted that by the time Papias is writing there would be local versions/translations (including a Hebrew translation) of the Gospels in existence and that Papias’ tradition knew of a Hebrew Gospel (translation). I would support and articulate this tendency by saying that it does seem that early Christian documents were originally published for a rather wide public (i.e. Greek—indeed the Gospel was supposed to be an important Announcement/Proclamation) and over time more local translations were made for local communities. The earliest Christian documents were, after-all, written by the Jewish Paul in Greek and as a Christ-believer he seemed interested in evangelising widely and so using Greek was his best option. This tension (between a Greek gospel and an initial Aramaic-speaking group of disciples) has never really been successfully resolved to my knowledge. It would seem that a document’s language should be appropriate to its purpose but I don’t know yet how exactly to use this idea. I see little reason to publish Jesus’ teachings in a local Aramaic dialect since this would only serve a small group/purpose. Publishing in Hebrew makes more sense since it is a more appropriate medium suited to a Jewish teacher and for a Jewish audience (hence outside the Greek Gospels Jewish parables are apparently only preserved in Hebrew). Local dialects are simply not very suited to wider publication and when it comes to spoken dialects the variety of informal and formal is even more tailored to individual contexts. How does this help us to understand the Gospel sources? I’m not sure.
I suggest Papias is handing down a tradition that knows/assumes that Hebrew is the most appropriate language in which to render the oracles of a Jewish teacher/prophet. We would need more evidence than this "tradition" to be able to demonstrate that any of the Greek Gospels are translations made from Hebrew. Until then I will remain rather suspicious of Papias’ claim for Hebrew "oracles" composed by "Matthew" prior to being translated into Greek. Sounds too conveniently appropriate for what Matthew "must have done". I currently support E Bruce Brooks assertion that a Hebrew translation of Mt was a secondary development but I would be happy to be shown that reconstructing a Hebrew version of Matthew is something natural.

I have just now noticed Jim Deardorff’s website www.tjresearch.info/MAH.htm unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to take even a summary look at it yet

2006-11-04T12:03:00.000+11:00

No posts for November

Postings will resume at the end of November or early December.

2006-10-24T21:22:00.000+10:00

Different Source Theory Implications part 2

Previously when writing about theological implications for one’s synoptic solution, I was rather dismissive of the suggestion that there were any real differences between source theories. Let me quote the notion as expressed by Scot McKnight, "A Generation Who Knew Not Streeter: The Case For Markan Priority," chapter 3 in, David Alan Black and David R. Beck (eds.) Rethinking the Synoptic Problem (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 95,

Griesbach and Oxford proponents differ substantially; and the differences are enormous in implication. But they are united in this: the problem is worthy of study, and it makes a difference for interpretation, for history, for theology, and for pastoral theology.[footnote]55

55 J. S. Kloppenborg, "The Theological Stakes in the Synoptic Problem," in The Four Gospels--1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck, ed. F. van Segbroeck et al.; 3 vols., BETL 100 (Leuven University Press), 1:93-120, provides an excellent example of how modern scholars sort out the differences that various solutions offer.

I believe this to be grossly overstating the case. I have since tracked down Kloppenborg’s article and wish to comment here. Kloppenborg only compares two synoptic theories for comparison, and I guess the reason he chose to compare the Griesbach Hypothesis with the Two Document Hypothesis was because of the contrast in hypothesized sources for Griesbach’s theory (whereby Mk is no source at all and neither is Q). Although I would not see these two solutions as the top contenders it is foreseeable if one chose some "modified two-source theory" or "three-source theory" to compare with the Farrer theory there would obviously be even less difference. But even with these two contrasting source theories, Kloppenborg comes up with few results. In fact there are basically only three differences he asserts:

(1) On the Griesbach Hypothesis, the author of Mk "accentuates Jesus’ shunning of his family" and "views Jesus’ family as unbelieving opponents," "systematically vilified the disciples" and "omits any positive sign of the rehabilitation of the disciples, apart from the residual comments in 1428 and 16,7 (both taken from Matthew)" basically, "an eirenic view of Mark is not possible. On the GH, Mark is combative not complementary." But is not Mark’s theology rather combative on any source theory? I doubt very many would disagree with the above assessment of Mark’s theology even from the perspective of Markan priority. Mark strikes me as negating all kinds of views about Jesus (and those who supposedly knew Jesus) and I do not place Mk last.

(2) On the GH Mark has "removed from his christological portrait the motif of Jesus as the apocalyptic judge." But once again, this motif is still a conspicuous absence on the 2DH since this motif was present in Q (in canonical Mk Jesus is not the apocalyptic judge, which again seems deliberate to me—again points negatively made). This was, as I already suspected, disappointing for a section dealing with consequences affecting "christology, soteriology, ecclesiology" and Kloppnborg does himself admit that "for the most part it is not possible to argue that one scenario of development is more probable than another."

(3) Finally Kloppenborg brings out the theological implications of the Q hypothesis: "The most remarkable difference between Q and the narrative gospels lies in the valuation of the theological importance of Jesus’ death." Kloppenborg wishes to affirm that "the impression of normitivity, ubiquity and appropriateness" is an expectation that is merely generated by "the fact of a canon." In other words, Kloppenborg is saying that Paul’s theology of the cross "has mislead generations of scholars into thinking that this rhetoric was successful in promoting his vision and that this vision was representative of the various Christianities alive in the Mediterranean basin." I have no problem with this notion but I must ask, Would it not be considered Lk’s own intention (on the 2DH and the Farrer theory) to portray Jesus’ death as more martyr-like and less sacrificial (for sins)? For author Luke, Jesus’ death was necessary (rather than salvific) so again I don’t really see how Q makes much difference. Kloppenborg’s concludes "that the 2DH implies the existence of early Christians who did not (yet?) see the need of an account of the death of Jesus" but it is not only the 2DH that implies this.

Kloppenborg’s article is intended to raise "critical self-consciousness" "exposing the theologies which are implied by each source hypothesis" but I remain unconvinced that many differences exist, especially since they are not our only Christian documents from the first century.

2006-10-16T16:04:00.000+10:00

A note on "re-oralization"

In a comment to my most recent post (Dunn’s Source Theory part 2), Stephen Carlson asked me to post if I found out whence I got the term "re-oralization". It seems I read it in (a book I have only just begun reading): Samuel Byrskog, Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Boston; Leiden: Brill Academic 2000), 138-9, see "Conclusion [chapter 3]: Orality and Literacy as Re-Oralization." On page 139 Byrskog credits the term to Margaret A. Mills, "Domains of Folkloristic Concern: The Interpretation of Scriptures," in Susan Niditch (ed.), Text and Tradition. The Hebrew Bible and Folklore (SBLSS; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 231-241. I’ve only actually read Byrskog up to page 65, and I found "re-oralized" on page 16, but the fuller explanation is on page 139, where Byrskog (drawing on Mill) says that the term "describes scripture’s perpetual return to oral currency." Byrskog continues,

Re-oralization is somewhat similar to the phenomenon of "recitation composition" that Vernon K. Robbins has brought attention to, focusing on how an ancient writer perceived an antecedent oral or written text as a performance and how a new performance perpetuated as much or as little verbatim wording as was congenial to the writer.

Also on page 139, in a footnote [240], Byrskog provides a negative answer to an earlier question of mine on what term was used for this notion in William A Graham, Beyond the Written Word,

Graham does not, however, employ the term "re-oralization."

In the same footnote, Byrskog has also provided me a further two references to chase up to do with Graham’s work (the latter looks promising): Martin S. Jaffee, "Oral Culture in Scriptural Religion: Some Explanatory Studies," RelSRev 24 (1998), 223-230. David L. Balch, "The Canon. Adaptable and Stable, Oral and Written. Critical Questions for Kelber and Riesner," Forum 7:3-4 (1993), 183-205.

2006-10-14T14:05:00.000+10:00

Dunn’s Source Theory part 2

Previously I commented briefly on the source theory of James D. G. Dunn (it appears he is proposing that although "Q" eventually became a written document the Q traditions were still known and used in oral form by the Jesus communities and the Evangelists). I only just yesterday discovered that he has a book dealing more specifically with his source theory _A New Perspective on Jesus: What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed_ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005) and I wish to make several small comments.

Much of the book is really an introduction to Dunn’s source theory and it even includes a newer version of his "Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisaging the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition" published NTS 49 (2003): 139-75, as an appendix. I guess it goes to show just how relevant is one’s source theory to a quest for the historical Jesus and I have to admit that what Dunn is advocating about the earliest period of transmission is basically what I had been imagining already. But I also have some hesitation about Dunn’s so-called oral period. Dunn quotes p141 of Sanders and Davies _Studying the Synoptic Gospels_ (my copy arrived last Thursday, yay!) I give the original sentence:

"The problem is that we don’t know how to imagine the oral period neither how
long it lasted nor how oral transmission actually functioned."

Dunn also mentions that "one or two voices even question whether there ever was a period of oral transmission in the first place" providing two references in the footnotes (W. Schmithals and E. E. Ellis), neither of whom doubt the presence of traditions (instead they believe the traditions were simply literary from the very start). But Dunn overlooks the more skeptical position that the Jesus traditions could have developed much later, during the "written period." I would like to support Sanders & Davies point that we just don’t know how to imagine the oral period, but I would also like to suggest that to me the notion of an oral period is really just a negative one, and not much more. And by that I mean that it really means (for want of a better term) "pre-written period" i.e. "prior to the period when the Gospels were written." The terminology "oral period" might, misleadingly, seem to suggest a period where material stemming from Jesus is transmitted in unbroken fashion until the "written period." Dunn is to be congratulated for pointing out that the material was not necessarily memorised or handed down directly from Jesus himself, but more likely represented the impact that Jesus had (already) made on people as they began to remember him and his actions and teachings.
Dunn does not explicitly discuss the idea that perhaps some of the actions and teachings attributed to Jesus were due to them being (or seeming) appropriate to the kind of person Jesus was, the kind of things he did or said (or was thought to have done, or would have or might have done or said) even though the were things that were not necessarily unique to Jesus. But I think this possibility needs to be included in the discussion. There were plenty of proverbs, aphorisms, parables, and miracle reports circulating before and after Jesus. I presume that there was undoubtedly plenty of wisdom being passed down and recycled both in and outside synagogue (addressing morals, ethics) as well as prophecies made or interpreted from the Scriptures. It would be ridiculous to be able to claim originality for many sayings, and I don’t think we should read the Gospels as necessarily claiming complete originality but rather they provide traditions that were likely the best fit with Jesus’ intentions and of the kind of things that were important to him. Much of the wisdom teaching we find in James also turns up in "Q" material on the lips of Jesus. I suggest that this is: 1) because such wisdom was widely available and widely known and widely applied by numerous teachers, and, 2) that Jesus would be expected to be familiar with such things and obviously would have taught something similarly wise to those who wanted to know more about God’s reign, applying his own emphasis and adapting the common stock themes to his own context as good teachers did.

I am most surprised that in a book on the historical Jesus, Dunn has also overlooked what seems to me one of the strongest traditions—that Jesus was a healer. I understand that over time Jesus was recognised more and more in a prophetic role and a teaching role as the significance of his life and death and mission took on more meaning. But to me the healing traditions cannot be overlooked. I do not wish to evaluate the type of historical healing he did (or was thought to have done) since I cannot see how the healing of one’s body or mind or social being can be separated off in the first place. A Jesus who came to inaugurate God’s reign goes hand-in-hand with a Jesus who heals, and it seems just as likely that the latter preceded (as it assumed) the former. Otherwise I think we would need to deny both as somewhat unoriginal and as reapplied to Jesus (but I’m now a bit off-topic).

So what I’m suggesting is that the so-called "oral period" may well have included material being "transmitted" orally, but perhaps not in such an unbroken line of tradition as implied by Dunn’s theory (of remembering Jesus impact and then going over the stories again and again). I wish to uphold the point that we still cannot imagine what the pre-written period was like and how much people "remembered" and how much was told "in remembrance" of Jesus. We do not know whether the pre-written period should be granted as being as active (as the written period) in giving shape to the Jesus traditions, although I expect Dunn is largely on track for explaining some of the traditions. I applaud Dunn for calling attention that the importance lies in the significance of Jesus’ "impact." I am also suggesting that the healing traditions are probably quite old (and popular) traditions. Since we expect more variation with oral versions than we see in the synoptic Gospels (hence theories of literary dependence) there may be something still considerably "oral" about the shared healing stories (since they don’t share as many verbal agreements as some of the other traditions).

I also discovered that what I had been calling "secondary orality" Dunn calls "second orality" and I recall the term re-oralisation also being used by someone else which I think is even clearer. I wish I had the time and energy to find out who else deals with this phenomenon.

2006-10-07T14:48:00.000+10:00

Claiming Pastoral Significance

Despite my suspicion that there is not particularly much pastoral relevance to differing solutions to the synoptic problem, I now have come across a fourth reference arguing for such relevance. I discussed this previously.

Besides two references of William Farmer _The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem_ (Louisville: Westminster/John Knowx Press 1994 and his earlier "The Import of the Two-Gospel Hypothesis" Concordia Theological Quarterly vol 48 no 1 (1984), 55-60, and Kloppenborg’s "The Theological Stakes in the Synoptic Problem," in _The Four Gospels--1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck_ vol 1:93-120, there is now also what appears to be a lecture called "The Pastoral Relevance of Who Wrote the First Gospel" by Halvor Ronning filmed at the Jerusalem Perspective conference June 2006. Unfortunately it seems it is only available by purchasing the 8 volume set of DVD’s for $99 US

From memory the Jerusalem school’s source theory is that Lk wrote first, followed by Mk then Mt (but positing various other stages and sources as well I think) so presumably Ronning’s lecture espouses the pastoral importance of Lukan priority. Perhaps it is more comforting for congregation members to believe that the original Gospel author was highly educated (and made a jolly good first effort)!

2006-09-29T12:18:00.001+10:00

General musings

I must express my appreciation to those bloggers who have noticed this little blog of mine. I notice that Stephen Carlson, Mark Goodacre and Ben C. Smith (a guest blogger aboard Thoughts on Antiquity) have all mentioned me which means I now have a public profile to uphold! In Ben’s TextExcavation newsletter he mentions my new blog, saying,

it deals with one of my favorite topics, the synoptic problem. It is called Source Theory, and it is blogged by TimLewis (http://sourcetheory.blogspot.com), whose thrust of latehas been the Q source, never an easy one to tackle. Tim appears to be in much the same situation as I am; he seriously questions the Q hypothesis, but he does not seem eager to absolutely commit to any single one of the commonly available alternatives, if I am reading him correctly.

Yes this is basically correct. The simple solutions are really solutions of convenience and they are attractive because of their simplicity. Understandably the two-source theory divvies up sources according to overlap (the material overlapping Mk and that overlapping Mt-Lk) and labels them shared sources (Mk & Q) but then has to deal somehow with Mk-Q overlaps! I suspect that a superior solution should best explain not only the available data but also why other solutions are inferior (but we may not have enough data in the first place).

What we can estimate of the evangelist Luke and his Gospel account might throw some light on the synoptic problem. It would be great eventually to see a comparison done looking at Luke the composer, compiler, author and redactor according to the major alternatives (Mk-Q, Mk-Mt & Mt-Lk theories) to see which best explains our Lk. But on the other hand I am also not very optimistic about finding a solution, especially since we cannot know how oral material interacted with written material. In this vein, it might be worth mentioning a book by William Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion which I read quickly through a while back precisely because Graham's approach tries to include this idea and I think in the case of the synoptic problem we have to begin studying secondary orality (this is probably not the proper term since I think it usually applies to modern technologies and I can’t remember how Graham labels it exactly so I should try track his book down again).

Eventually I hope to write more focused posts, but at the moment I fear they are rather general.

2006-09-25T12:28:00.000+10:00

A collection of sayings of Jesus and John?

I still don't know whether Mt seems to be a more plausible source for Luke to have used than a simple sayings collection, especially when it appears that Luke must have treated Mt simply as a sayings source for Mt-Lk double tradition on the Farrer theory. In other words, I do not know how the Farrer theory (Mk-Mt theory) compares/competes with the two-source theory (Mk-Q theory) in terms of plausibility. But one thing that makes me question the standard Q hypothesis is its anomalous beginning--sayings of John the Baptist. Why would a collection of Jesus' sayings begin with sayings of John Baptiser? I must find out who else has commented on this strange feature of Q? In fact this feature alone is almost enough to convince me of Luke's dependence on Matthew--it contains by far the highest verbal agreement and unless some explanation could be found in terms of textual history and harmonisation, then we have here a strong argument for Lk copying Mt (rather than both copying a shared source extremely accurately--but why preserve John's words more carefully than Jesus'!)

[See also an exchange between me and Carlson on plausibility]

2006-09-19T12:16:00.000+10:00

So the real Q hypothesis is yet to stand up

My Q teaching survey will always be here for whoever wishes to add responses. But for now I guess I will have to keep on assuming that for many people what Q might represent as a hypothesis is not necessarily identical to what the Q hypothesis really is. That is, I will for now answer my own question by saying that I guess because Q was originally a hypothetical document, it must remain that way--no matter how free one feels to make Q serve as a convenient symbol for the Mt-Lk double-tradition (in whatever form/s Lk & Mt found it) one must still teach that the original Q hypothesis posits a document and thus remains the hypothesis. There will always be weakened versions of the hypothesis around (for practical reasons) but for whatever reason they are not considered the 'real' hypothesis.

It still strikes me as strange that many teachers would teach a weakened form of the Q hypothesis without making it clear to students the differences between the original hypothesis (of say, Streeter since he made it famous) and the weakened 'classroom' hypothesis. So Mark Goodacre's approach would stand out as distinctive in this regard in not failing to highlight to students the difference between two opposing source theories for the material, but only, it seems, because he chooses not to deal with oral source theories as relevant for solving the synoptic problem (instead he deals with these in form criticism i.e. prior to introducing students to source criticism). I am interested in how successful this splitting off of oral source theory from synoptic source theory in general might be. I guess what I consider to be the synoptic problem differs in that I think the synoptic problem is complicated by the fact that we have as yet no clear guidelines for ascertaining how much of the Gospels are composed from oral traditions and how much is dependent on written materials, and how much on material which could be both or somewhere in between (say, either oral material becoming more written or written material circulating as more oral). I can't say that these issues are distinct from the synoptic problem proper. But I can appreciate that teachers like Mark are teaching them separately to students (as a different approach on/within source theory in general). I guess it depends on what ones definition of the synoptic problem is--mine is broad: From what materials (and how) were the Gospels composed?

2006-09-14T22:56:00.000+10:00

Clarifying the Q survey

I must clarify that what the question is I wish to ask teachers introducing the Q hypothesis: What are you telling students the Q hypothesis is? because I suspect that not many teachers are persuaded in a single written Q source even if they hold to a two-source (Mk-Q) hypothesis. And I wonder are teachers are still telling students that the Q hypothesis is a hypothetical document even though they themselves may assume a modified 2SH with written and oral fragments comprising "Q". I recall my lecturers being quite confident of Markan priority but rather hesitant in what exactly Q was. I want to know if that was (ab)normal to teach "Q" is a "label" or umbrella term covering shared sources rather than a single document? Hence my quotes taken from Guthrie and from Barrett (and my allusion to Petrie's 1959 Novum Testamentum article). For example, how much of the double-tradition is considered oral traditions? Do oral traditions feature at all in what students are being taught about the double-tradition?

I have a suspicion that the survival of the notion of a Q document hypothesis is not unrelated to:

(1) What teachers teach about what is the consensus Q hypothesis,
(2) What teachers actually believe about the double-tradition,
(3) How teachers teach the Q hypothesis,
(4) What graduate students eventually take with them.

Are most students being taught that the standard Q hypothesis posits a single document?

2006-09-10T11:15:00.000+10:00

Surveying the teaching of Q: What do you make of it?

It is unfortunate that the widely used symbol Q is employed in different senses by different writers. - C. K. Barrett
The symbol Q may still be used as a convenient description of the common material, while each investigator must be left to make clear whether he is thinking of written or oral material or a mixture of both. - Donald Guthrie

None of the arguments against the existence of Q as a single source is fully convincing. . . It is thus best to assume that Q was a single source, available in Greek and probably in written form. - Christopher M. Tuckett

What is being taught in the classroom nowadays concerning the Q hypothesis? I would like to survey here what lecturers have been teaching lately (say within the last few years) concerning Q (the hypothetical sayings collection attested in the Mt-Lk double-tradition).

From my own observation of what students are taught I can see that not much source theory actually sticks. The letter Q seems to be something that does stick, however. Presuming everything taught did stick--what exactly was it that stuck? I am presuming that what different institutions teach could be placed on a "Q-spectrum" or "Q-continuum" ranging from "pro-Q" (Q is basically reconstructable) through to "sceptical-Q" (the Mt-Lk double tradition does not derive from a single written source or "sayings collection" prior to its inclusion in Matthew).

So for those teaching/introducing the synoptic problem to students, my three questions are:

(1) Where are you on the Q-spectrum? (What do you teach students concerning the Q hypothesis?)
(2) What is your teaching style regarding the Q hypothesis? (How strictly do you teach what you teach? I.e. are students encouraged to challenge what they are taught and come to their own conclusions? How do you introduce arguments for and against?)
(3) What do you think sticks with students regarding the Q hypothesis? (How much of what is taught do most students take with them?)

Please leave responses directly here as the comments can then be easily read by all those interested.

2006-09-08T16:37:00.000+10:00

Henry Owen's source theory

I have just received my own (photo)copy of Henry Owen, Observations on the Four Gospels (London: T. Payne, 1764) kindly donated to me. I am finding it quite illuminating reading from the first source-theorist to publish the idea that the Gospels were not independently composed (rather the later Evangelists "perused" the earlier ones). Owen is fully aware that the notion is new--I wonder whether beginning students would be persuaded by his logic, however. He seems to assume that the first three Gospels were written very early (early sixties) because of the testimony of the early church fathers and because

"the circumstances of things, and the necessities of the Church, seem to plead in favour of the earliest, rather than the latest dates. For we can hardly suppose, that the Church be left, for so many years as these dates imply, without any authentic account in writing of facts so highly important not only to its edification, but also to its very being." [p7]

Perhaps it is difficult for us to imagine a time when the Church had no written Gospels. But the Gospel was indeed originally a simple "message of salvation." The "word" of God was verbal/oral and the "story" of Jesus was proclaimed orally. I don't it strange that the Church survived without written accounts about Jesus. It is perhaps more strange that accounts appeared so soon--and by soon I mean by the end of the first century. I think the need for written Gospels would be felt more intensely as the Jesus/Church movement progressed more widely throughout the Greek-speaking world. I find something more local (and less "public") about the Gospel according to Mark (than Mt & especially Lk) which also suggests an earlier date to me. And I also think that having four written Gospels suggests slightly different audiences (in terms of times, places, or even genres) but also suggests some kind of independence. Obviously the author of the first written Gospel will have had no idea how many other written Gospels would be added in the future. And this is perhaps where the Owen-Griesbach theory falls down because it implies that Mk knew Mt & Lk and chopped out huge portions of material (as though criticising them). Mk is quite harsh on how dull the disciples of Jesus were and this could be taken as being a criticism of the kind of apostolic foundation portrayed by Mt & Lk. So I have to disagree with Farmer--I think putting Mk last creates more theological/historical problems (than simply putting Mt first).

And I find something suggestive about the emergence of four written Gospels in terms of suggesting a shared time-span--I suggest that the four could share a close time period of composition. Just as the mid-second-century saw a(nother) flurry of (apocryphal) Gospels, perhaps the first (canonical) four appeared within a relatively short time-span (immediately following the fall of Jerusalem) within, say, a decade (although Lk seems to have accessed even more sources which might suggest an even later date).

2006-08-30T15:10:00.000+10:00

Different Source Theory Implications?

I would love to see a decent book written for (or with) students dealing with source-critical methods and pressupositions. But perhaps even more relevant for NT students (especially those going into some pastoral or teaching capacity) is a resource dealing with possible differences that different source-critical methods entail. I'm usually less interested in theology than source criticism but what is the relationship between the two? What are the implications in terms of different interpretations (in exegsis & theology), different historical implications, and any different pastoral implications? I've seen various claims that different source theories imply such differences, but I have not seen much evidence. Two supposed differences I will comment on here.

One is obvious--history. Rearranging the order of composition will obviously imply a different Church history. But what would it look like? What would be the big differences? The most extreme case I can think of is when somone suggests that one or more of the Gospels were written very early (i.e. during Paul's lifetime c.50s CE) or very late (say during the second century c.120s). But even in such extreme cases I haven't seen how Church history should be re-written because little attempt is made to show how history is affected by even these extreme source-theories. If there are important differences in results--what are they? Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough, but most scholars put the Gospels post-Jewish-Roman war (or Mk during) between the 70s-90s and with these guesses not much seems to change if we swap them around, given that evidence of Church history also resides with Paul's letters.

So much for Church history. The other difference I have noticed commented on is in the field of pastoral implications. William Farmer has argued that there are definite differences between source theories. But he did so from the perspective that his theory was more in line with Christian theology and therefore correct! There seems to be unnecessary fear in this line of argument. Farmer's book, The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem (Louisville: Westminster/John Knowx Press 1994), argues for the superiority of the Griesbach hypothesis (2GH/Mt-Lk-Mk) because the concept of justification by faith is missing in Mk (and so Mk cannot have predated Mt)! I'm a little put off at how this kind of argument might work and I don't think students will follow the logic either. Here is a link to his argument in an earlier form ("The Import of the Two-Gospel Hypothesis") I quote part of the abstract which says that Farmer

shows that Jesus' parables of grace are absent from Mark and "Q". This would mean that someone other than Jesus was responsible for these parables. Farmer suggests that it is inevitable that this view will be disasterous for the preacher who has used these parables as a basis for his own sermons of salvation.

Here are four more quotes:

Therefore, the first import of the Two-Gospel hypothesis is that it restores to the person in the pew the same Scriptures thatthe clergy have. Everyone is on an equal footing. The clergy do not have some esoteric or elitest advantage of knowing about some unknown document or documents not readily available to the person sitting in the pew. This is a boon to communication.

Secondly, the Two-Gospel hypothesis takes the focus off ofthe question of which Gospel is first. To speak of Matthew as first in time implies to some that Matthew is also first in importance. The Two-Gospel hypothesis avoids the difficulty of suggesting that any one Gospel is more important than any other.

But how do we fare when we, who are in the Wesleyan tradition, stand in the pulpit and face a living congregation of sinnershungry for the Gospel, and we have a two-document understanding of the Scriptures? Let us first look in the Gospel of Mark. Do we find Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son in Mark? No, it isnot in Mark. Can we find it in "Q"? No, it is not in "Q". This means it is in neither of our two earliest and most reliable sources. Why not? Immediately a question is raised which provides critical grounds for some methodological skepticism.

What difference does it make? I suggest that, for those who wish to preach the Gospel with power and a clear critical conscience, the answer is close athand, no further than the Gospel itself.

I don't really see how his reasoning works (perhaps it only works if people are already told to be afraid of what Farmer seems to have feared), but I plan to track down an article by Kloppenborg which I hope deals with questions of theological implications because I'm sure students will want to know such things. Scot McKnight (in Rethinking the Synoptic Problem) refers to "The Theological Stakes in the Synoptic Problem," in The Four Gospels--1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck vol 1:93-120. So far it is very difficult for me to track down!

2006-08-28T16:49:00.001+10:00

my shrinking blog name

When I first uploaded my lecture notes onto this blogspot 10 days ago, I called it Source Theory Lecture Notes, then because I kept adding blog posts, I dropped the word Lecture. Yesterday I decided to drop the word Notes so that the title better matches the web address. Assuming I find nothing objectionable about the name Source Theory then the blog's name will remain. My wife's opinion was that Source Theory might imply that I was actually providing a source theory rather than commenting generally on source theory issues, but I'm happy with the title and I like to think that I will develop more confidence in a source theory of my own eventually, anyway.

2006-08-27T17:16:00.000+10:00

James Dunn's oral Q

James D. G. Dunn accepts the standard two-source theory (Mk-Q theory) except he seems to doubt that Q was a document. I am interested in commenting on what Dunn has argued in a recent article, "Q1 as oral tradition," in Markus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner (eds.), The Written Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 45-69 along with an article reviewing both Dunn and Burkett's source theories: David Neville, "The Demise of the Two-Document Hypothesis? Dunn and Burkett on Gospel Sources," in PACIFICA 19 (Feb 2006), 78-92.

The first point I wish to make is that Dunn seems to be trying hard not to challenge the two-source theory whilst at the same time undermining what the two-source theory (pre)supposes by his recourse to oral traditions. In this point I am in agreement with Neville's analysis of Dunn. But it is difficult to know just exactly what Dunn is advocating, because Dunn wishes to accept theoretically Q as a document but he wants also to treat Q1 (Kloppenborg's lowest strata or layer of Q) as material in an oral mode. One of the annoying things about Dunn is his reluctance to specify what he is actually arguing for. Dunn has apparently also argued elsewhere that Mt and Lk treat Mk in a similar oral mode of transformation--a point which further muddies his argument. Dunn wishes to keep the theory of literary dependence of Mt & Lk on Mk and Q but in an oral mode! It would have been more beneficial if Dunn could articulate and demonstrate what exactly he envisages--what is his source theory? Perhaps Dunn wants to say that it is impossible to know (without further research?) how we could tell the difference between Lk using an oral version of tradition and Lk redacting an already written version. If so, then why not say it this way? Perhaps we have also hit upon a problem already inherent in the two-source theory--the theory assumes that triple-tradition material originates with Mk, and double-traditions material (reconstructable "Q") originates with "Q" and any variations are due to authorial emendations/redactions. As far as I know this has never really been posed as a problem (except for say the Lord's Prayer existing in both written and oral versions) and so has remained dormant. But I suggest as a defective gene it was only a matter of time until it would become manifest. I think I would need to brush up on my history of source theory to check out its earlier manifestations. I suspect that many source theorists and Gospel commentators have been hiding under the umbrella of the two-source theory, whilst harbouring similar modifications as Dunn (and here I have to disagree with Neville who seems to think that the implications of Dunn's theory is in effect an erosion of the two-source theory when I doubt whether there has ever really been a two-source theory but it has more-so been a hiding place for those with there own version of a two-source theory--no one version of Q has been identical for starters!) And what are the implications for grafting on oral traditions into "the" two-source theory?

I suggest that there is as yet no way to combine an oral source theory with a written dependence source theory neatly. The whole synoptic problem begins because the variance between the first three Gospels is not considered enough for independently written works (we would expect more variation for Gospels based solely on oral stories) and so we construct a theory of literary dependence to account for the similarities. But now that our theory has almost elimated the need for oral traditions we face the following dilemmas:
(1) we have as yet no agreed way to detect the presence of oral material influencing the newly composed written texts;
(2) another unknown quantity thrown into the mix is the problem of secondary orality (oral traditions sparked off by written versions which seems to be hinted at by Dunn when he sees Mt & Lk using Mk in an "oral mode")! This would be one way of sticking to the two-source theory (by saying that Mt & Lk deliberately kept an oral "sound" or "flavour" to their rewriting of Markan material) but it is not exactly clear that Dunn is suggesting this or primary orality;
(3) can we know when we have discovered a tradition to be more oral-sounding unless we also could know whether redaction to written versions was deliberately made to be oral-sounding? Are there any guidelines here yet to follow?

It seems Dunn wants to have his Q and eat it too!

2006-08-25T16:40:00.000+10:00

Burkett's Rethinking the Gospel Sources. . .

and so am I. Delbert Burkett's 2004 book (vol 1 in a projected three-volume study on Gospel sources) raises some interesting implications regarding the difficulty of Markan priority (so he argues instead for a group of proto-Marks). Over the coming weeks I plan to respond to some of his points.

But I'm also planning to find time soon to comment on James Dunn's oral-Q theory ("Q" material = Mt-Lk double-tradition).

2006-08-23T17:30:00.000+10:00

Tails You Lose, Heads I Win?

I'm not sure yet if it has a technical name, but one argument I have seen used to bolster one particular source theory over another seems dodgy to me: that is to assume that by finding fault with another source theory, one advances one's own source theory. For example, supporters of the Griesbach theory (Mt-Lk-Mk) seem to get excited about finding fault with the logic originally used to build the Markan hypothesis (Markan priority). But a faulty argument used to support Markan priority is not necessarily a win for the Griesbach theory.

2006-08-23T12:45:00.000+10:00

The Six Presentations

Despite some obvious weaknessess in my essay "Solving the Synoptic Problem for Students?" (e.g. my referring to the statistics of Theodore R. Rosche), it's still worth having a look at my "Survey of Evaluation" (summarising results of Part A). These are found in a table with the Appendices at the end. It is clear from the evaluation results that the six presentations I evaluated were all inadequate--none of them even achieved a score of 50%. The presentations of the synoptic problem I chose to evaluate were ones which I found that students were generally being referred back to generally in the other literature:

(1) Joseph A. Fitzmyer's classic presentation, "The Priority of Mark and The 'Q' Source in Luke," (1970);
(2) Werner George Kummel's classic intro to the synoptic problem from his, Introduction to the New Testament (trans. 1975), 38-80;
(3) Robert Stein's classic book from 1987, The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction;
(4) Christopher M. Tuckett's entry for the Anchor Bible Dictionary (vol 6, 1992), 263-270;
(5) David L. Dungan's book, A History of the Synoptic Problem (Anchor Bible Reference Library, 1999);
(6) and two chapters from John S. Kloppenborg's, Excavating Q (chapter 1 and chapter 6).

Students were not really being invited into the discussion with these works. The questions that students might ask were not being answered by these presentations. I suggest that the best introduction to the synoptic problem for students would need to be one written in conjunction with students (or in response to student questions). For this reason, it would have been interesting to see how well Mark Goodacre's, The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze (2001) would fare based on the criteria I used (it arrived at my college library a few days before I handed in the essay) or even Sander's and Davies' Studying the Synoptic Gospels (1989) which I found difficult to access (I've only just managed to order one for an affordable price--soon to arrive).

Not for student participation?
At least that would appear to be the assumption and/or effect of reading most introductory books on the synoptic problem. However I was pleased to see one student struggling with their own questions here which is one perfectly good way of participating from a student perspective. There simply aren't many forums or groups designed for student participation. I had lots of questions but no where to submit them. I firstly tried writing a letter to David Dungan without any success. The first few questions I sent to synoptic list (e.g. here and here) went ignored (the newer 2005+ list is here), and I simply couldn't find who else was really interested in source theory who I could engage with. A fellow student from college was slightly interested (perhaps because I kept badgering him with my ideas) and together we managed to go once through the so-called Q material (Mt-Lk double tradition) in Greek to begin testing how much of it seemed like oral tradition. I then wanted to compare our analysis to the triple tradition material which we both agreed came from Mk. I wanted to compare the kind of agreement and variation we found. He did not wish to continue with it and I have yet to do it. I am more a group work person for some things--I just have yet to find someone else who has similar questions and who wants to get together (in person) and plough through it together (it doesn't help that I live in Cranbourne!)

2006-08-22T12:47:00.000+10:00

Essay Uploaded

I've added my 2002 essay to the sidebar (as a word doc and pdf). If there are problems downloading (I would appreciate knowing) there then it can be found online at:
http://www.esnips.com/web/timlewissWebResearch

2006-08-21T21:19:00.000+10:00

Solving the Synoptic Problem for Students?

This was the title of the essay I wrote in 2002. Who best to evaluate how the synoptic problem was introduced to students than me, a student?! The essay consisted of two parts: Part A "Evaluating Synoptic Problem Presentations" evaluated six introductions to the synoptic problem; Part B "Investigating Matthean Posteriority" looked at arguments for and against Matthean Posteriority (i.e. Mt used both Mk & Lk) one thing (among many) sorely lacking in all the synoptic problem presentations. I will see if I can make the essay available online as a pdf (or word doc file).

2006-08-20T19:54:00.000+10:00

still looking for a satisfactory source theory. . .

I first encountered the notion that the synoptic Gospels were not independently composed in December 1999 when I read Spong who was advocating Michael Goulder's theory (Lk used both Mk & Mt). The notion came as quite a shock (I was raised in very conservative churches, with no idea of what a Gospel commentary was let alone a synoptic source theory!), but it also seemed rather logical to me (perhaps the only logical thing about Spong!). Next, I went to my local library and discovered John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus, and was quite impressed by the logic of a reconstructed Q source behind Matthew and Luke (Yes Q is more interesting than Lk's use of Mk & Mt!). I was happy with this "two-source theory" until I read C. S. Mann's commentary on Mk based on the Griesbach theory (Mk used both Mt & Lk) unsettling me once again. Fortunately for my own sanity I returned to "orthodoxy" (hopefully also to the delight of my lecturers!) mid-1st semester into my BTheol after reading Kloppenbrog's Excavating Q.

I was impressed by Kloppenborg's sensible-sounding, even-headed discussion of various source-theories and his advocacy of the two-source theory. Conversly it did seem like other theorists had an axe to grind. Farmer and others seemed so resentful of being led up the garden path by previous scholarship (I recall the phrase "spoon-fed" used resentfully against the Q hypothesis) as though they wanted me to be upset with them. I then happily discovered the Huggins-Hengel theory in about Dec 2001 (i.e. Mt used Lk & Mk & and other pieces of oral-tradition) and I wondered why this theory was so unheard of (all the introductions to the synoptic problem merely said "No one argues for this theory.") However, further investigation did not vindicate it--one could easily argue for it but there were still no impelling reasons to my mind for interpreting Mt in light of Lk's Gospel. One needn't take recourse to Lk to explain Mt. I realised I would be tossed to-and-fro by every next book I read unless I could come to my own reasons/my own source theory.

More to come. . .(but no solid answers, sorry)

2006-08-19T15:21:00.000+10:00

Stay tuned for more

Despite my computer crashing yesterday whenever I tried using blogger, I've decided to keep adding further posts regarding my thoughts on the Synoptic problem.

2006-08-18T17:05:00.000+10:00

As an experiment, I have decided to put my lecture notes online using blogger. Hopefully this will help me to improve any further lectures I have occasion to do in BN101 concerning source analysis. So for any who find their way here feel free to add appropriate comments. I blame some errors on formatting problems!

So far the lecture notes only extend for the two-hour lecture in week three of BN101 (Interpreting the New Testament) "Source Analysis". Some handouts are presently too difficult for me to reproduce online. I will eventually get around to linking and referencing things proplerly.

Gospel Source Analysis
Differences between Gospel according to John & the other canonicals students may already have noticed listed on board in one column E.g. style/type of language; content (like ex/inclusion of exorcisms). Hopefully students will notice that the Gospel according to John does not have much overlapp in terms of CONTENT.

The following differences should be noted (preferably voluntarily by students!):

GJohn more reflective Gospel, with focus on Jesus’ mystical relation to the Father. Jesus claims a divine authority and speaks differently (symbolic speech).
‘Cleansing of the Temple’ takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (one of several trips down to Jerusalem over a three-year period rather than one year).
The Jesus performs ‘signs’ (semeia) designed to produce faith (whereas the synoptics have it the other way around--Jesus performs powerful deeds when people have faith.)
No healings of demon-possession (no exorcisms) in fact not many healings at all.
No Lord’s Prayer
No Temptation
No Transfiguration
No Sermon on the Mount (or plain)
No apocalyptic farewell speech
No institution of the Eucharist (instead Jesus washes the feet of the disciples)
No parables (the phrase "Kingdom of God" only used twice)
No proverbial sayings

Pericope Indexes/Gospel Tables ("Canons")

By the early 3rd century Gospel tables had been developed to act as an index for displaying the sections [pericopes] of each Gospel (the sections were numbered using red-coloured numerals linked to the sections in the text as there were not yet chapter and verses invented) so that someone could quickly find sections of each Gospel dealing with the same thing and to see at a glance which sections were found in only one or two (or three) Gospels. Eusebius based his ten tables (kanwn "canons") on Ammonius’ (3rd c.) and these are still published today in some Greek NT’s.

Dealing with Difference
The approach used by Origen (3rd c.) to deal with the different Gospels was to believe that the literal differences were historically unimportant. Origen allowed that the accounts given by the four Evangelists could be literally deficient but ‘spiritually’ true. Origen quote:

"I do not condemn them if they even sometimes altered history in the service of some mystical object they had in mind."

This approach was a little too subtle/nuanced for most (although compare Augustine's approach). The usual approach to solving the 'problem' of difference was by rearranging the 'pieces' to produce a single Gospel Harmony. Until the 18th century scholars sought to overcome the difficulty of difference so their energy went into trying to make the differences go away by harmonising any differences between the Gospels and by emphasising the overall unity of the Gospels (often at the expense of obliterating the individuality of each narrative). Tatian was perhaps the first to apply this approach. He unified the four Gospels into one by actually combining the text of all four Gospels into one single harmony (c.160 CE) called the "Gospel of the mixed-ones" in Syriac (euangelion da-mhalte) and "[One]-Through-Four" (diatessaron) in Greek.

How to Create a Harmony
The different order of Gospel events was thought to be the biggest difficulty to overcome. In order to create a Gospel harmony (increasingly popular in the 16th century onwards) one had to do two things:
(1) create a single order for all Gospel episodes (i.e. one had to decide on which Gospel order to follow or make adjustments to all four), and,
(2) decide which episodes describe the same events and which were simply different events (even though perhaps similar).

Apologetical/Theological Purpose of Harmonising
The goal was to ascertain the historical order of events lying behind the Gospels. The reason why so much effort was spent on harmonising any apparent differences between the Gospels (to create a single, unified historical account) was so as to defend the Gospels against any possible attacks by skeptics, non-believers or unorthodoxy in general. Harmonising was considered not only essential for defending against attacks (from outside) but also a way of making the Gospel message more appealing and believable (inside the Church). The harmonisers thought themselves to be at war and so sought to provide and defend a single Gospel narrative.

Harmonising meant discerning which Evangelists may have provided the correct historical order of an event. Since early tradition had it that the Gospel of Matthew had been written first (in Hebrew or Aramiac not Greek!) Mt’s order was usually taken to be the ‘real’ one. Mt-Mk-Lk-Jn became the standardised order in the West by the 4th century and at the same time also became the accepted order of composition.

Results of Harmonising
Augustine (4th c.) conjectured that all four Evangelists were aware of the original order of events but that the differences in order were because the Holy Spirit had caused each of the authors to write things differently for spiritual reasons. But even so Augustine felt the need to harmonise all four Gospels into one narrative. Augustine thought that the Evangelists who wrote 2nd, 3rd and 4th each knew the Gospel accounts which preceded them but Augustine didn’t elaborate on a theory of direct literary relationship besides saying that Mk looks like a shorter version of Mt. He believed that none of the Evangelists narrated the historical order of events (each was free to compose their own narratives) and in his attempt to harmonise the accounts Augustine concluded that Jesus must have given two Sermons (one on the Mount, one on the Plain), performed two cleansings of the temple, was anointed by Mary twice, and that there were four angels at the empty tomb. Osiander’s harmony (1537) went even further by having three Temptations, three healings of blind men near Jericho, three centurions’ sons healed, three anointings of Jesus of three different women, three cleansings of the temple, and having Jesus betrayed by Judas twice. Calvin (16thc.) compromised the difficulty by believing that at least one Evangelist must be seen as having given us the historical order for each event. Luther thought that people should just ignore inconsistencies among the Gospel events:

"If one account in Holy Writ is at variance with another, and it is impossible to solve the difficulty, just dismiss it from your mind."
Calvin wrote (A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke vol 1.):
"No fixed and distinct order of dates was observed by the Evangelists in composing their narratives. The consequence is, that they disregard the order of time, and satisfy themselves with presenting, in a summary manner, the leading transactions in the life of Christ. They attended, no doubt, to the years, so as to make it plain to their readers, in what manner Christ was employed, during the course of three years, from the commencement of his preaching till his death. But miracles, which took place nearly about the same time, are freely intermixed."

Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586) believed that the Sermon on Mount and Sermon on Plain were merely two versions of the same sermon, and that when more than one gospel agreed in their order of pericopae, then this indicated the actual chronology.

The New Gospel Source Theories of Owen and Griesbach: Harmonising Approach Dropped
In England 1764, Henry Owen was the first [updated correction see Jan 21 2007] to propose that the similarities between Mt Mk & Lk meant that "the Evangelists not only perused, but also transcribed, each others Writings." In Germany between 1774-1776, Griesbach published the first-ever "synopsis" designed to scrutinize the various Gospel differences and admitted to the "heresy" that he did not believe that the Gospel accounts could be fully harmonised into a single historical narrative and a few years later developed the same utilisation theory as Owen (Mt-Lk-Mk) to account for the similarities. With the 19th century came numerous new kinds of source theories, several suggesting that pre-Gospel documents or "fragments" were utilized by the Evangelists. The "synoptic problem" of explaining the literary similarities with recourse to the sources used by the Evangelists was in full swing and by the beginning of the 20th century, there developed a near consensus of a solution, known as the two-source hypothesis or Oxford Hypothesis.

Similarities More Intriguing than Differences
The new theories were due to the fact that the similarities were considered more interesting than the differences. Surely we should expect many differences for independently written accounts? It's when they look too similar that the question is raised: Why? Who is copying whom? Handout 1: Four accounts of feeding multitude with five loaves and two fish (Mt 14:13-22// Mk 6:30-45// Lk 9:10-18// Jn 6:1-15). Discuss observations. Add comments to list (regroup list into similarity of: CONTENT, ORDER & WORDING).

How the gospels were written - was there a literary relationship between Mt, Mk & Lk? In other words, was the overlapping material ‘plagiarised’? How would we know if two very similar essays were the result of plagiarism? Write down student answers (i.e. common content, wording & sequences). Discuss handouts: Diagram of overlapping material, 5000fed wording, & Allan Barr’s synoptic chart.

Luke’s Prologue: Read & Discuss.

Seeing that many undertook to arrange a narration concerning the happenings that have been accomplished among us, consistent with what those who were eyewitness and assistants of the word from the beginning handed down to us, it seemed fitting for me also having followed all things carefully from the top to write orderly for you most excellent Theophilus, so that you would know for sure about the matters which you were instructed.
Besides Lk 1:1-4, the Gospels do not inform us directly about…
When or where the Gospels were composed;
Who wrote the gospel accounts (the titles According to… may not be original but 2nd century tradition);
To whom exactly they were addressed (besides Luke’s ‘Theophilus’);
What they are (they each to varying degrees resemble ancient biography);
How they were composed/ exactly what sources were being used.

Timeline on whiteboard (c.5BCE – 100 CE) placing on Jesus’ ministry (c.30), Paul’s letters (c.50s) & approx. year Gospels written down (c.70-90). Note that: Approx. 50 yrs interval. Question of Transmission Process: the so-called Oral Period -Unfortunately no real consensus on how material was transmitted in this ‘period’ (3 contrary ‘control’ theories). We would expect more variation if due only to Oral retellings thus problem is likely also surface level Written Composition (i.e. copying: utilization, adaptation/ putting together of sources). Two columns on board: the Oral Period of Transmission vs. Written Period of Composition. Informal-uncontrolled? (Mk 1:28//Lk 4:14//Mt 9:26; Mk 8:27.30 & pars. Mk 9:38,40 & pars. Mt 28:11.15). Formal-Control? (Teacher-Disciple: Mt 10:1; 11:1; 12:49; 16:20-1; 18:1; Mk 2:18; 4:34; 9:9-10; 9:30-2; Lk 24:19). Or somewhere in between? (informal-controlled, see week four's lecture on Form Analysis see also Bailey who has a persuasive "middle-road" theory but lacks much evidence for it--see form analysis).

Students' Questions: Ask what do students think we can discover about the sources used in the composition of the Gospels? What do students think of the notion that some of the Evangelists made use of the previous accounts? Is there a way to test such hypotheses? Do students think multiple-source hypotheses are less convincing? (or simply harder to test?)

Definition of the Synoptic Problem

A definition of the Synoptic Problem is ‘modern’ in the sense it assumes that the similarities are due to some kind of literary dependence (whether directly or indirectly): Three Gospels look so alike (in content, wording & order) that the question (of why) demands an answer of literary interdependence i.e. possible literary (i.e. written/ editorial) relationships between the three Synoptic ("look-alike") gospels. Remember the three types of similarities:

(1) There is enough overlapping material to represent the overlaps in a Venn diagram.

(2) Their verbal similarities allow us to look at them in a synopsis to speculate on possible literary relationships. Griesbach first to publish a synopsis for looking at them in parallel columns in 1776 (hence ‘synoptic’ gospels ever since).

(3) The sequence/order of pericopes are also very similar (& able to be presented as Barr's chart does with connecting lines representing this).

Literary Dependent Theories: Utilization; Proto-Gospel/s; Multiple-Source Theories; Deutero-Gospels.
Anti Literary Dependent Theories: Tradition Hypothesis; Eta Linnemann & D. Farnell’s "ADHD" theory (Anti-Dependent Hyper-Dogmatic!) theory.

Is Mk one of the sources used by Mt and Lk? Most scholars believe/accept that Mt and Lk used Mk and "Q" (i.e. 2-Source-Theory) but often for dubious reasons. Synoptics evidence both dependence on material likely to be oral sources as well as written interdependence making the Synoptic Problem extremely complex and ultimately unsolvable (with the insufficient evidence we have to work with). There is no one theory able to explain all the data sufficiently.

Markan Hypothesis Priority: Handout 3: Some Useful and Useless Arguments for Markan Priority

Markan Priority Hypothesis

Arguing for Markan priority is surprisingly harder than it looks, and most of the arguments in the textbooks are seriously flawed.

-Stephen Carlson

Flawed Arguments

Order of passages supposedly dependent on Mk’s order. But see David J. Neville, Arguments from Order in Synoptic Source Criticism: A History and Critique (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1994).
Christology supposedly ‘lower’ in Mark (e.g. with less use of the vocative kurie) – Besides the idea merely presupposing the solution, kurie can mean simply "sir". Note also more ‘developed’ Christology in some letters of Paul (i.e. even earlier than Mk). See Peter M. Head, Christology and the Synoptic Problem: An Argument for Markan Priority (Cambridge, 1997), and review by C.D.F. Moule JTS 49 pt2 (Oct 1998), 739-41.
Markan passages longer relative to parallels in Matthew and Luke – But Markan passages are relatively shorter after Jesus enters Jerusalem. Writers sometimes enlarge and sometimes condense their sources with no known predictable patterns. See E.P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge, 1969).

Inconclusive Arguments

Mk has more theologically difficult passages in the portrayal of Jesus and the twelve disciples, making Mk more original if the more difficult reading is likely to be more original. Not only does this depend on a subjective estimation on what counts as more difficult, but the principle that "more difficult is original" is based on the results of redaction studies (ascertaining the individual editorial changes & agendas of the Evangelists) which already presuppose Markan priority! However, it is true that there are more reasons that can be given for writers wishing to edit Mk’s Gospel than vice-versa. (E.g. see Mark A. Matson, "Rhetoric in Matthew: An Exploration of Audience Knowledge Competency" [pdf online] who suggests Mt answers questions caused by Mk.)
Mk’s ‘poorer’ grammar improved by Mt & Lk merely fits a presupposed solution whereas writers sometimes improve their source’s grammar and sometimes spoil it.
Aramaic phrases in Mk were more likely avoided by Mt & Lk rather than added to Mt & Lk. In fact all three have Aramaic expressions unique to each!
Markan vocabulary being found in Mt & Lk parallel passages. Unfortunately characteristicly Markan vocabulary is missing from Mt and Lk but one study has shown that vocab occurring in Mt and Lk has a higher relationship to general Mk vocab in parallel passages (indicating either a Mark-like source or Mk as source). See http://www.davegentile.com/synoptics/main.html (but is the vocabulary pool statistically significant enough to be able to sufficiently test such things?)
Date of composition - it appears that when Mt and Lk were written, Jerusalem lay in ruins. Both Mt and Lk (Mt 23:27-39//Lk 13:34-35) relay a prophecy of doom ("behold you house is forsaken") naturally written down after the event was fulfilled (to publicly affirm that the prophet was true) whereas Mk gives no explicit indication of this. Conversely, the Roman-Jewish war seems to provide a reasonable context for Mark’s subtle anti -war themes (e.g. Mk 5:1-20; 9:14-29).
Mk’s shorter description of Jesus’ crucifixion (Mt 27:31b-54 // Mk 15:20b-39// Lk 23:26-48) [i.e. word count = 348, 278, 358] is all the more striking and more understandable if written first given that Mark’s Gospel primarily depicts Jesus as a alternate type of warrior who challenges contemporary understandings of violence and "power" under God’s reign with the cross climactically demonstrating Jesus facing death and violence head on. Mk’s relative brevity in comparison to Mt & Lk here would make more sense if written closer in time to the use of, or memory of (and/or threat of) crucifixion if written sometime during the Roman-Jewish war 66-73. [This is an argument of mine]
Mark’s Gospel is shorter so Mt and Lk must have supplemented Mk – It is perhaps more likely that more material would have been added to (rather than deleted from) a source assuming that writers tended to use as much source material as they could. But many 2nd-century Gospels were shorter than Mt and Lk. It is true that large-scale features (like Mk’s overall length) relative to Mt & Lk are easier to explain if Mk is earlier. In terms of explaining the whole of each Gospel, other source theories positing Mk as dependent on Mt and/or Lk have more difficulty. A satisfactorily theological, historical and literary portrait of Mk as posterior has yet to be written—only two books have ever been written on the supposition that Mk is based on Mt and Lk.

Substantial Arguments

Evidence of editorial fatigue – Certain inconsistencies in Mt & Lk appear to have been caused by using a source resembling Mk (perhaps the reason why Mt 14:15-23 has two evenings in one day!). Mt 8:1-4// Mk 1:40-45 unnecessarily reproduces Mk’s secrecy theme and looks to be from a source without "crowds" as in Mk. In Mt 14:5 it is Herod who wishes to kill John (unlike Mk 6:19 where it is Herodias, c.f. 6:20) so it makes less sense when Mt says Herod "was grieved" unless due to fatigue from copying Mk 6:26 as his source; also Mk always call’s Herod "king" which Mt appears to follow inadvertently instead of calling him tetrarch as he had introduced him in verse 1. Cf. also Lk’s setting of the miraculous feed set in a city but then calls it a wilderness place in line with Mk’s version. See Mark Goodacre, "Fatigue in the Synoptics" NTS 44 (1998), 45-58.
The tight plotting of Mark’s Gospel causes many scholars to doubt that it would have been constructed from something like Mt or Lk.

Handout 4 [back of handout 2]: Synoptic Problem Terminology

Terminology
Synoptic problem refers to the intriguing combination of similarities existing between the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke in terms of content (i.e. Venn diagram displaying overlapping material) wording (i.e. parallel passages can be presented side-by-side, that is, in a synopsis) and order (often two or three Gospels agree in supplying the same sequence or arrangement of sections/ episodes /pericopes). These 3 features are likely due to some kind of literary relationship.

Sondergut refers to material only found in one Gospel (often called special material).

Triple tradition refers to material common to all three synoptic Gospels, either to

(a) any pericope which occurs in all three synoptic Gospels;
(b) the complete set of pericopae contained in all three synoptic Gospels.

Double-tradition refers generally to any passages in common between any two synoptic Gospels. Many scholars use the term Double Tradition to refer exclusively to the Mt-Lk double tradition.

Q is another term used to designate the Mt-Lk double-tradition, usually for the purpose of indicating that Mt and Lk used the same source (Quelle = "source" in German). This supposes that Mt and Lk were written independently of each other, and that their common double tradition indicates a shared source, not merely unknown (like "X"!) but rather witnessing a definitive source (also called Q hypothesis) which can be reconstructed from the Mt-Lk double-tradition. There is a lack of consensus not only for reconstructing but delimiting Q! Q is sometimes called Sayings Gospel Q and in the 19th c. was equated by some with what Papias (early 2nd c.) referred to as the oracles or sayings (logia) arranged by Matthew in Hebrew/ Aramaic. No Hebrew/Aramaic collection of sayings has ever been discovered (but cf. Gospel of Thomas).

Markan priority refers either to:
(a) the hypothesis that Mk was written earliest of the Synoptics;
(b) the source-hypothesis supposing that canonical Mk is the source of Mt and Lk for any material held in common (except in the case of Mk-Q overlaps) used for differentiating from other source-hypotheses not supposing canonical Mk to be the source for Mt or Lk.

Two-source hypothesis (or two-source theory) refers to the combined hypotheses of Markan priority and the Q hypothesis supposing that these were the two sources used to compose both Mt and Lk. There are also other unknown sources implied in any source-theory to account for unique Sondergut material such as Lk’s Parable of Two Sons/ Prodigal Son, hence the two-source theory is sometimes called the four-source theory with the label L given for Lk’s sondergut and M given for Mt’s sondergut.

Griesbach theory (Mt-Lk-Mk theory also known as Two-Gospel Hypothesis) posits the order: Mt-Lk-Mk (i.e. Lk dependent on Mt; Mk dependent on both Mt & Lk.) William R. Farmer revived the hypothesis in 1964.

Farrer theory posits Mt dependent on Mk, and Lk dependent on both Mt & Mk.

Augustinian hypothesis refers to the theory implied by Augustine’s order Mt-Mk-Lk(-Jn). Many Augustinian-like theories include a more complex variation on this such as positing some influence from a proto-Matthean source or a Hebrew or Aramaic source in order to take into consideration the enigmatic tradition that the apostle Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic.

Proto-Gospel a pre-canonical version of any one of the four Gospels supposedly from which the canonical Gospel bearing its name was derived.

Ur-Gospel refers to a theoretical document from which all the synoptic Gospels supposedly derived.

Minor agreements refers to the phenomenon that on the two-source hypothesis:
(a) sometimes Mt and Lk agree together but against Mk in the triple tradition thus raising questions as to whether Mk could really be the source of Mt and Lk at these points (also called anti-Markan agreements) one solution has been to appeal to Mk-Q overlaps;
(b) there are also agreements of omission whereby Mt and Lk both agree in omitting something in Mk.

Mk-Q overlaps presupposes that Mk and Q are the two sources used by Mt and Lk and that some overlaps in content existed between Mk and Q which accounts for a phenomenon whereby material common to all three Synoptics (triple tradition) displays minor agreements between Mt and Lk against Mk (i.e. the two sources contained two versions of the same passage: one originating from Q and one originating from Mk).