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)

1. 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?
2. 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).
3. 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).
4. 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).
5. Jesus Death as Atoning for Sins? (Mt 20:28// Mk 10:45) Lk omits this saying. Why?

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.

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. . .

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.

Oral Culture, Hypertext Culture

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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?