HeretiKc

I'm interested in getting a survey of opinions on the construction and relationship of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Recently, I've been delving into a bunch of literature on the subject, checking out Kloppenborg, Goodacre, and others who have a lot to say regarding this. And now, your thoughts?

Thank you much.

Malachi151

Though option 2 is possible too, I think that Earl Doherty's recent work on Q is very compelling.

Niall Armstrong

Do also read Alan Garrow on the Didache at http://www.didache-garrow.info/ He has an original argument for Matthew having used Luke. But I, for one, came back from him with more arguments for the existence of Q

Steven Avery

Luke was the first circulating written Gospel, as can be inferred by the introduction. And the early dating is confirmed by his addressing the High Priest Theophilus.

Shalom,
Steven

pharoah

How in the world can you make this audacious claim when the author plainly says "many have taken in hand"? And what's your evidence that this Theophilus was a high priest? :huh:

pharoah

Praxeus, will you defend your claims or will you do the honorable thing and retract them if you have no evidence?

pharoah

I'm undecided on who used whom, although I lean slightly towards Luke using Matthew, but I definitely think that one of them used the other. The fact that both of them have a genealogy, birth narrative and common Jesus sayings are a possible indication that one was written as a corrective to the other.

Steven Avery

Hi pharoah,

The best studies on Theophilus come from the Richard H. Anderson paper and blog. (For me these come up better in Mozilla than Firefox.)

http://www.geocities.com/gospelofluk...ub/THEOSUB.htm
Theophilus: A Proposal

http://kratistostheophilos.blogspot.com/
dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos - Theophilos

Also my post has some other urls and references.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messia.../message/13544
Luke writes for 'most excellent Theophilus'

The sense is that the "many have taken in hand" was not an allusion to earlier gospels. Richard goes into this a bit in the blogs and it was discussed some on the synoptic-l list (especially posts by John Lupia).

My apologies for sounding overly dogmatic. I was simply responding to the poll. And I realize that there is a lot of point and counterpoint in these discussions. e.g. I would not agree with many of the 75 reasons that Richard has for Lukan chronological priority in the 3 lists of 25.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Splarnst

Gwhat gis gup gwith gthe gG's?

Nazaroo

Didn't the OP just finish saying he wanted OPINIONS, not evidences and detailed arguments?
:banghead:

-----------------------------

Here's my opinion. I'll back it up in some other thread.

Matthew came last. Its an ecclesiastical syncretistic mess, compiled from Luke, and the Letter of James, with the goal of synthesizing the apparent conflicting styles and doctrines of the two main early church leaders, James and Paul.

There is also a side-interest, of toning down some of the more problematic teachings, like the SOCIAL gospel so plainly and inconveniently found in Luke.

Mark is primitive, but not complete or 'pure' in the sense it did not use earlier written material.

Here's the sensible order:

Mark, John, (Ur-Matt?), GLuke, GMatt.

By the way, the Gs before Luke and Matt stand for 'Greek version of'