Julian

Yes, and Mark is the middle term in Griesbach as well, which kinda makes a mess of the 2SH. How seriously is the Griesbach theory taken? Although it accounts for most of the synoptic diffculties it makes very little sense in a general way for an epitome of lesser quality to be produced post Matthew and Luke. Just my opinion but I cannot imagine that it enjoys much scholarly support.

Julian

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Ben,

In regard to reconstructing the text of the earliest proto-gospel, everybody who's interested in such things should read the excellent article by E. Jay Epp, _The Multivalence Of The Term "Original Text" In New Testament Textual Criticism._, Harvard Theological Review, 1999, Volume 92, No. 3, pp. 245-281,

(online version)
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bib.../original.html

In this article, Epp shows just how hard it is to know what the professional textual critics really mean by the term "Original Text". Is there such a thing, strictly speaking? Is it at all recoverable?

I'm amused to see some recent discussions in the new textualcriticism list,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/messages

such as in the thread "TC and scribal error", where _none_ of the participants seem to have read Epp's article...

They certainly do sound as if they've never read Epp's article!

So, in my view, realistically speaking, we can only work verse-by-verse trying to reconstruct the history of any given passage -- and that's a lot of hard work already! Reconstructing the whole thing is really beyond our means at this time.

Mark 9.20-27 is a colourful and detailed healing scene, where the amount of detail goes far beyond what we find in Mt and Lk parallels.

It's clear that the early Christians were very interested in the healing scenes. So I don't see anything all that surprising in HMt including this scene.

Perhaps the scene was added by a later editor? Who knows?

I'm certainly not saying that everything in the Hebrew Matthew is very early. There are clearly some later additions.

All the best,

Yuri.

S.C.Carlson

As Ben pointed out, it merely shows that Mark is the connecting link betwee Matthew and Luke but does not tell us priority.

Also, this pattern also an important exceptions, which lessens the force of the obsservation. For example, Mark ends John the Baptist's preaching with "... but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (1:8) while both Matthew and Luke continue this mid-sentence with "and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, etc." (Matt 3:11f. = Luke 3:16f.).

The answer under the Mark-Q theory is that Mark and Q happen to overlap here. Regardless of the reasonableness of this overlap, it is clear any exception to this pattern can be explained by a Mark-Q overlap.

Stephen

Julian

Yes, I noticed that one of the points of Sanders/Davies was for the 2SH to work Mark could not know Q. Their arguments being that, if Mark knew Q he would have used all of it and in cases where Mark partially overlaps Q and the double tradition shows agreement Q will need to be expanded making Q grow larger and larger.

I must admit that I do not agree with either of those objections. Mark was writing a polemical novel, possibly the first gospel, he would have no problems picking and chosing whatever material he felt that would help his agenda. Especially since Q might have been a prominent document at the time and he might have figured that whatever he didn't use was still around. Matthew and Luke were looking at a gospel, traditions surrounding it and probably a higher degree of theological pressure. They would have felt compelled, at least moreso than Mark, to include as much as possible.

Why is there a problem with a larger Q? It will never even approximate the size of Matthew, so who cares if we add a few more lines to eliminate triple tradition to double tradition segues?

Julian

ETA: After reading Stephen and Ben's comments, I now see why my earlier point about agreement does not advocate priority.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Who has done these calculations?

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

I wouldn't describe Mack, Funk, Crossan, and Kloppenborg as apologists in the usual sense of the word.

They think they found a way to get to the HJ through the sayings tradition. They assume that the sayings tradition is somehow more reliable for that purpose, and this is where the problem lies AFAIAC.

So I would simply describe what they are doing as wishful thinking. Because there's simply no proof that the sayings tradition is somehow more 'authentic' than anything else in the gospels.

And neither is there any proof that, in the earliest period, the sayings of Jesus were preserved separately from the rest of the gospels material.

I would say that the Passion Narrative was probably the earliest Christian proclamation, as well as Jesus' miracles. The teachings only came later, most likely.

In privileging the sayings tradition above everything else, Mack, Funk, Crossan, and Kloppenborg are simply building sand castles IMO... They are apologists only in so far as they're strengthening the belief in the HJ, although this was probably not the original purpose of their research.

All the best,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hi, Ben,

I've been reading this page of yours,

Redactional tendency and editorial fatigue.
http://www.textexcavation.com/redactedit.html

and I think it's quite good. It gives all sides of the story rather objectively.

That's how the Synoptic scholarship should be!

Best,

Yuri.

Zeichman

I would say this is an incorrect assesment. Crossan believes that some of the Miracle Traditions and some of the deeds traditions are accurately retained. Funk also accepts this as true.
I'm not convinced they would say that either.

I think Thomas points otherwise, plus the possibility (whether or not you accept it, Yuri) of multiple layers of Q. Their methodology is fairly consistent, and they certainly accept that miracle collections arose alongside Q and Thomas (Thus, signs and one or two other miracle sources). Mack makes this evident in "Who wrote the New Testament" and "A Myth of Innocence." Crossan dates the miracle source as early as Q1 and Thomas1 in his layering of strata in The Historical Jesus.

Vinnie

It is the same argument that is used against the GH. Mark surely would not have omitted a lot of the things he did if the text of Matthew or Q was directly in front of him. Thus, Mark cannot be dependent upon Q any more than he can be dependent upon Matthew. You would have to propose a method for going through Q (I presume we are generaly following Luke's ordering) where you look at all the Mark // Q overlaps and ask why Mark jumps around here and there and why he adds this but omits that.

You are supposed to be able to give a good redaction critical explanation of such things. Crossan speaks of redactional confirmation, "It is not really a second proof but a way of testing some postulated genetic relationship. If, for reasons such as those given in the preceding example, you postulate Matthean and Lukan dependence on Mark, you should be able to explain every omission, addition, or alteration in Matthew and Luke over their Markan source. Because, of course, we still have Mark"

Basically, if Mark knew Matthew he would have retained something like the sermon on the mount. A view of Mark that rejects such does not appear intelligibile from my viewpoint. Likewise, much of the rich Q material would have went into Mark. Instead we have doublets and other things.

So the independence of Mark and Q probably should be accepted as an axiom of the 2dh in my opinion.

You claim Matthew and Mark would have felt "compelled, at least moreso than Mark, to include as much as possible." If Mark knew of the sermnon on the mount or a lot of the Q sayings he does not have, he would have been compelled to incorporate them into his gospel. The omission of some material is more inexplicable than other material, however.


Vinnie

Vinnie

I wrote in my article:


----If you sit down and comb through all the material at times some of the arguments can be poorly constructed and look rather tenuous. For example, it has been suggested that Mark's poor Greek is an indication that this text was written first. It is supposed to be easier to see how Matthew and Luke would improve on the poorer Greek of Mark. But this is not a good method for determining the direction of synoptic relations. People rewrite material in their own style. It could work both ways. In the second and subsequent centuries, many of the apocryphal gospels have 'worse' Greek than Mark (worse according to the Attic standard). As EP Sanders notes, " Many authors, and no doubt many readers and hearers, preferred more colloquial and less elegant prose." Different prose for different audiences.---

Epitome of lesser quality is entirely subjective and depends on the audience. Thus, no direction of synoptic dependence can be established on this basis.

Vinnie