spin

The aim here is an attempt to understand better how each of the synoptic gospels were constructed and how they might relate to each other, given the evidence that they seem to share material with closely related language underlying similar stories, ideas and sayings. The merit of the gospel content is not object for discussion.

This survey is not about any truth or historical veracity contained in the synoptic gospels, nor was it designed for literalist bible readers.

The names "Mark", "Matthew" and "Luke" refer only to texts, not people. The "second source" mentioned in the choices above may perhaps be that the hypothetical source identified by scholars as Q. And to show that there is a literary relationship between Matthew and Luke, consider the following which compares Mt 3:7f with Lk 3:7f:

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Where the survey uses the word "creatively", please consider the notion of midrash from Jewish literature, which involves filling out the source material with what a writer thinks are their underlying or hidden implications.

It does not assume that oral sources are any more or less reliable than written ones. The content of written and oral sources may derive from either reality, misunderstanding or fabrication.

If you haven't before confronted notions as to how the gospels may have been constructed, you might like to research the issue before responding. You might start with Synoptic Gospels or this page by Stephen Carlson. Here is Peter Kirby on Q and the priority of Mark.

The following shows content relations between the synoptic gospels:

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This is a multi-choice survey, but please only choose one option for each number, eg for number #1 choose a, b or c.

outhouse

Decent poll, my votes in

tanya

Thank you for this post, spin. It is thoughtful, and well intentioned. Your diagram, a superb visual aide, as always, is highly instructive.

The merits of your provocative submission warrant a more exhaustive assessment. I would like to offer an opinion on the underlying premise of this poll, a response, which is too amateurish, to warrant inclusion in the poll proper.

My suggestion is that we lack information sufficient to provide a realistic answer to your thoughtful questions. I don't know whether Mark used other sources, or if he concocted the whole thing, and then Matthew and Luke borrowed parts, or if contrarily, Mark came along after Luke and Matthew were written and pieced together an attenuated version. Tatian comes to mind.

I view the situation as akin to analysis of the comedic routines of three early twentieth century artists:
Marx brothers;
Buster Keaton;
Charlie Chaplin;

Can we observe elements common to all three? Yes. Does that element of uniformity suggest an ontological relationship? Can we watch "The General", or "Night at the Opera", or "Goldrush", and deduce which movie drew inspiration from which other act, versus representing entirely original material, uninfluenced by competitors? Does Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first" routine derive from one of those three predecessor acts? Did Laurel and Hardy ("Way out West", late 30's) derive their tobacco routine independently from any other comedy group?

Is the brood of vipers in Matthew and Luke, evidence that one copied text from the other? Seems reasonable. Or, perhaps they both used some unknown source? How can we know the answer to that, looking at the text, available, to us, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus.

If we examine the actual Greek text, not the transcription of it, which you properly provided to us, but the photograph of the actual text of the codex, it strikes the casual observer, that there is considerable repetition, and, in that sense, the image appears to me, at least, as if Mark, Matthew, and Luke represented successive versions, evolving over time. Instead of asking whether Matthew borrowed from Luke, or vice versa, what about MM&L simply representing revisions of an original text, which had been copied, and recopied, over and over again, with a few changes added or subtracted, here and there, in different cities, during a couple hundred years, until Codex Sinaiticus was constructed?

Brood of vipers, then, represents a colorful addition to the original text, inserted perhaps, in Rome, and eventually carried over to Alexandria, but never making it to Epheseus, for example, before Constantine ordered construction of Codex Sinaiticus.

Did Q exist? Certainly possible. But, at this point, all we have available to us, are versions of Kata Markon, and so on, not Quelle. Then, why speculate about "oral traditions", and "Q", instead of examining more carefully our extant copies of the most ancient manuscripts.

Did Mae West "She done him wrong", "I'm no angel", borrow from Chaplin, Keaton, or Groucho?

Clivedurdle

GMark is a superb creative work by a master - (possibly woman?) probably originally written as a play using existing stories and scriptures, primarily Jewish, but also Greek. It might be Seneca's tenth work.

Other gospels are riffs from various perspectives.

Q does not exist.

Chili

Mark is a tragedy and I would call it the tragedy of tragedies that would suit Seneca very well.

Mark writes the cold naked truth without the Jewish influence and so has no 'spiritual highs' to give Sermons from, nor does he have a baby to make the idea of infancy known.

I think Luke removed that in Mark to keep only the mechanics in place so that he could add his own version of enlightenment that was 'spontaneous' and not an expected OT event wherein dreamers like Matthew would 'catch as catch can' and run away with just a portion of truth. Nobody can say this better than Boethuis in "The Consolation of Philosophy" here:

(bolding is mine)

This verse was taken from http://san.beck.org/Boethius1.html but I like the Penguin Classic "Watts" translation better.

So then both Matthew and Mark are tragedies that are only there to validate Luke wherein the intricate details of a divine comedy are presented, . . . which in the end does not even make them synoptic, I think, and so I go with with the Augustinian model wherein Luke was first.

Then let me add that contrary to Matthew's 'record,' Luke was written from his own 'prior by nature' point of view from where he "carefully traced the whole sequence of events from the beginning [as they happened to him]", and this includes the melancholy first that was 'involutional to him' (and only to him) in chapter 1 with the announcement of the birth of John who in the end is introduced as Mary's son and the firstborn indeed. So to Luke it was a total 'non-rational' event and not even part of a dream.

I so then see Luke as a 'first hand witness' account about his own life, and he did this to show how it was done right and so leave Galilee behind as a purging event on the way out.

Oh and let me add a picture that shows what this melancholy was all about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia_I

outhouse

the scriptures themselves are excellent source of information for this purpose..



prettty short to think it wasnt written by one person and a ending added later, as scrolls often deteriorated, id vote for addition/redaction over that.


independant of Paul, even if it was fiction as you state, theres no reason there wouldnt be oral traditions in these illiterate roman cultures, by people fooled into faith.


but really, is anyone discounting oral tradition in a illiterate culture??????????


So that leaves you trying to explain how a movement started wide and varied, in many different geographic locations so quickly with a simular central theme in a illiterate culture.

had it started as fiction as you request, it would have been geographically isolated, and spread from one point slowly.

It also leaves you asking why so many different people found this fiction so important it changed their lives so much that they would face persecution following this fiction.?


You biggest mistake with fiction, is trying to explain why authors wrote in a temple event and crucifiction, where enough people were alive who attended, who would flat know, someone was creating fiction.

yet nothing at all indicates from these cultures, they thought someone was pulling their leg, or purposely misleading them.








your fiction makes less sense, then the reality of what was written

outhouse

then that leaves you trying to explain how three different authors/scribes, shared identical common information, that lived in different geographic locations.

Clivedurdle

But communications were actually very good! We have for example almost complete correspondence of archimedes around the Eastern Med!

Minimalist

There is no evidence for "Q."

outhouse

3 different scriptures, is evidence.