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04-09-2006, 10:47 AM | #11 |
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Hi, Ben,
I do agree with you re: the wedding feast in Matthew 22.1-13 but still, generally speaking, I think there's a bit of inconsistency in what you're saying. Because I don't think that, overall, you differentiate sufficiently between the double tradition and the triple tradition. In so far as the double tradition (Mt + Lk) is concerned, there are many studies that show that the Lukan version of the double tradition is more original. That's why Q is numbered according to Luke's verse numbers. I fully agree with the Q scholars in this regard, and completely disagree with Goulder/Goodacre. IMHO Goulder/Goodacre's efforts to argue to the contrary in this area have failed entirely. As far as the triple tradition (Mt + Mk + Lk) is concerned, things are a bit more complicated here. Goulder/Goodacre claim to have found a small handful of instances where Lk seems to be fatigued with Mk. But... so what? This is just so silly! It's as if finding a couple of such readings completely settles the case for Markan priority over Lk. Nonsense! Because I have 1000 cases of Anti-Markan agreements, and they demonstrate conclusively that Mk wasn't the earliest gospel. So the score so far is 1000 to 6! (Assuming that Goodacre does have his 6 cases of 'Lukan fatigue'.) The whole thing is a joke! Cheers, Yuri. |
04-09-2006, 06:11 PM | #12 | ||||||
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You mention on your website that all three synoptics are late. Do you really care one way or another which was written first? Rather, it seems to me that you are much more concerned with the relative primitivity of their contents. Somewhere on another thread I agreed with you that Luke very often appears more primitive than either Matthew or Mark. Quote:
I am not an advocate of the Farrer theory, but I can admit that the minor agreements are consistent with Mark writing first, then Matthew copying from Mark, then Luke copying from both Matthew and Mark (in which case the agreements are simply those parts where Luke preferred Matthew to Mark). They are also consistent with Luke writing first, then Matthew, then Mark (in which case the agreements are simply those parts where Mark eschewed both Matthew and Luke and went his own way). They are also consistent with... well, you get the idea. What the minor (and in some cases major) agreements tends to prove, I think, is that Matthew and Luke were not independent of one another, mediated only by a Q text of some kind. As I continue my (temporarily slowed down) synoptic project, I keep adding to my bare list of agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark. I cannot guarantee that I am catching all of them, and I am consciously not listing agreements of omission, but it should be quite a long list when I am finished. Ben. |
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04-09-2006, 07:58 PM | #13 | |
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04-09-2006, 08:10 PM | #14 | |
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In the other example, however, Matt had three servants, but Luke first changes it to ten and then slips into referring to them as first, second, and the other. Stephen |
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04-10-2006, 05:44 AM | #15 | |
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I admit none of this is as clean as what Luke does with the ten and the three, but it does rather neatly fit the profile of what Goodacre describes regarding the handing out of cities. Ben. |
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04-10-2006, 08:17 AM | #16 | |
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I do not think so. There are undoubtedly several inconsistencies and clumsy expressions in Mark's Gospel, (25) incoherences that on the standard view Matthew and Luke have taken care to tidy-up. But this is different from the phenomenon of fatigue. The examples above are not merely cases where Matthew and Luke show signs of incoherence in relation to a coherent Marcan account. Rather, in most cases, Matthew and Luke differ from Mark at the beginning of the pericope, at the point where they are writing most characteristically, (26) and they agree with Mark later in the pericope, where they are writing less characteristically. It is not possible to find the same phenomenon in Mark.In order to show fatigue, it is not sufficient to have a muddle, inconsistency, or other tension in the text. It is also necessary to connect that tension to a specific sequence of agreements and non-agreements with a proposed source. I just cannot find that in the case of the parable of the wedding banquet. |
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04-10-2006, 12:59 PM | #17 | |||
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In the parable of the pounds Luke agrees with Matthew in the entrusting of funds, in the investment and noninvestment of those funds, and in the redistribution of those funds afterward (a sequence of agreements). In that same parable Luke also adds a subplot involving the rewarding of cities (a nonagreement with Matthew, the proposed source). The problem, as Goodacre notes, is that the rewarding of cities is in tension with the sequence that Luke purportedly takes over from Matthew. Likewise, in the parable of the wedding feast Matthew agrees with Luke in the sending out of invitations, the rejection of those invitations, and the resending out of impromptu invitations to different invitees (a sequence of agreements). In that same parable Matthew also adds a subplot involving the burning of an entire city and the kicking out of a guest for improper attire (nonagreements with Luke, the proposed source). The problem, as I see it, is that the burning of a city and the kicking out of an impromptu guest for improper attire are in tension with the sequence that Matthew purportedly takes over from Luke. These cases look very parallel to me. Standing back from the first example, forgetting the matter of fatigue for a moment, does it not look like Luke got into trouble because he tried to combine two different plots, one of which we find alone in Matthew? And, analogously, does it not look like Matthew got in trouble in the second example because he tried to combine three different plots, one of which we find alone in Luke? (This is not fatigue per se, of course, but rather a good reason why fatigue was possible; any failure to perfectly integrate a subplot might tend to betray possible sources.) As I mentioned, none of this is as clean as the matter of 10 and 3 in Luke; but I see it as a kind of fatigue nonetheless. Ben. |
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04-10-2006, 02:14 PM | #18 | ||||
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In fact, one could argue that in this case, it is Luke showing fatigue of Matthew. If Luke was editing Matthew, then he must have changed the king hosting a wedding banquet to an ordinary host of an ordinary banquet. This change would be to provide a better fit with Luke's teaching on humility in 14:7-14. However, Luke 14:22 at the end of the passage unexpectedly refers to the ability of the host to coerce people: "Then the master said to the slave, 'Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled." This coercion is what kings, not ordinary citizens, can do. Quote:
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04-10-2006, 04:58 PM | #19 | ||||||
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The account lacks cohesion: the man in Luke actually has ten cities now, so a pound extra is nothing.......and apparently Goulder (see note 43, citing Goulder, Luke, A New Paradigm, page 681): ...a mna is an absurd sum, a tip.It appears to me that Goodacre regards the wide difference between a pound and a city as fatigue in and of itself compared to Matthew. The note in Luke 19.24 is gravy: ...and, in any case, he does not have ten pounds but eleven. Quote:
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As for the burning of the city, how is it that in Matthew 22.4 the wedding feast is ready, then in 22.7 a military campaign is waged against the city of those that refused to come, then (τοτε, at that time) in 22.8 the wedding feast is still ready? Even if one can somehow connect the dots, the fact remains that Matthew has written up a confusing exchange of events. My best reason for this incongruity is that in the Lucan version there was no very long delay in the process of filling up the house. Furthermore, it looks to me like the two reactions in Matthew 22.5 were originally intended to be complete (μεν... δε), implying that all the invitees simply returned to their affairs (as they do in Luke!), ignoring the invitation; yet in 22.6, the part perhaps most likely to be drawn from the parable of the tenants, we hear about the rest (οι λοιποι). Quote:
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Of course the evidence of one pericope alone will not do to establish Marcan priority.If my case suffers from anything, it is from its being virtually alone as an example of fatigue (at least AFAICT so far) that points to Matthean dependence on Luke. Quote:
Ben. |
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04-10-2006, 06:10 PM | #20 | |
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Herod was dying in Jericho before the Passover and evidently dies too soon. There is a group of 50 Jews in route to Rome, with permission from Varus, to argue in front of the emperor for a rulership by a Syrian general acceptable to the emperor. When Herod dies, Archelaus takes over and ends up responsible for the deaths of 3000 (According to Josephus, _Antiquities_, Book 17, etc.). Archelaus goes to Rome, is accused by his own family and is defended by Nicholas of Damascus. Archelaus collapses at the feet of the emperor and is raised up by the emperor and appointed to rule. *These stories are Re-Valued into a story of a human sacrifice figure, a god/man.* The destruction of the Temple provides a cover for this re-valuation. This may even be the second or third Re-Valuing by the time it is redacted onto the gospels as we have them. I invite you to read the posts to see the alignment. I would welcome any comment you might have. Charles |
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