the_cave

Thanks, I'm looking at Kloppenborg's summary now. Very interesting--and I hardly find it head-spinning at all! Indeed, it resembles my own solutions to the synoptic problem--and that of Burkett (and we are also supported by David Ross' work online). I'm looking forward to learning more about Boismard's solution. I think any solution will need to resemble this level of complexity.

But do they? We actually have more texts than we think. We have GPet, Marcion's gospel, and evidence of alternate versions of Matthew (GHeb, GNaz, and so on). Indeed, we have more texts than any synoptic solution has ever accounted for! They synoptic problem can't be solved, IMO, without attention to other gospels. How to account for the Markan parallels in gJohn? Is Marcion derivative of gLuke, or the other way around? Where does GPet fall in any solution? I think these questions are part of the so-called synoptic problem.

Furthermore, many solutions can be simplified if we assume, for one thing, that there was no Q--there was only a proto-Matthew (or proto-Luke). It could be simplified even further if we assume that this Q-gospel was in fact the gospel of Marcion! (Though I don't think this will work; still, this just illustrates how creative solutions can eliminate the need to hypothesize unnecessary documents).

the_cave

I don't find it very helpful to call a deutero-Mark "Ur-Mark". Typically a proto-Mark is distinguished from a deutero-Mark, and Ur-Mark is used as a synonym for proto-Mark. The "Deutero-" in "Deutero-Mark" implies that there was a first version, does it not?

Again, if you'll read Turton's Commentary, you'll see that he reconstructs, using his chiasmic analysis, an earlier version of Mark that does contain Mk 6:45-56 (though in an earlier redaction) as well as Mk 7:1-23 and Mk 8:1-13 (again in earlier redactions), and Mk 8:22-26. This would account for nearly all the parallels you list between Mark and Luke
in the Great Omission. Meaning, Luke did omit that material, but there is no need to assume the rest of the Great Omission (i.e. 7:24-37, the Syro-Phonecian woman, and 8:14-21, the failed explanation of the feeding miracles) was already in Mark, because where there is no evidence of it in Luke, the best explanation is that it wasn't there in Mark in the first place.

That leaves just two unexplained parallels in your list: Mk 7:30/Lk 7:10, and Mk 8:15/Lk 12:01.

The first seems trivial, suggesting simply that the redactor who added the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman based elements of it off of the story of the centurion.

The second is more interesting and I could use it to illuminate some interesting synoptic theories, but I won't. I'll just note that if Mk 8:1-13 was actually part of an earlier Mark, Mk 8:15 could easily have been part of it (missing Mk 8:14, which wasn't added until later.) Luke has just taken this single saying and re-used it in what he thought was a
more appropriate place. Thus, original Mark would have included 8:...13,15,22...and the later redactor inserted 8:14, working 8:15 into the next pericope.

So, we would have an earlier version of Mark--a "deutero-Mark" if you will--that actually contained much (but not all) of the Great Omission material. Luke did omit some of this--in what I like to call the Not-So-Great-Omission. The rest of the missing material wasn't added into Mark until later, after which it became used by Matthew. (In fact I think Luke used all of the Not-So-Great Omission material one way or another, but that's a longer and more controversial post I'll get to someday, maybe.)

This by no means explains everything--for one thing, pesky Jairus shows up in Mark and Luke, but not Matthew--but it has the advantage of being evidence-based: Turton's chiasmic evidence provides a reconstruction of original Mark that includes exactly the passages we find traces of in Luke--and leaves out exactly the passages we find no traces of in Luke.

Now, have we created an unnecessary hypothetical text? In fact I don't think so at all. We have plenty of evidence for it, because this original Mark is none other than (drumroll please)

Secret Mark