Vinnie

Vork, the text is only $20 American at Amazon over here.

Brian, what if one does not know Greek, is the book still worth it?

Vinnie

Toto

The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and Synoptic Problem

The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze

Luke: A New Paradigm (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series V 20) By Goulder is out of print, but Dove Booksellers lists a copy that is sort of affordable. (It's only money.)

edit: the case against Q is $21. The Synoptic Problem is $24.95. But Amazon will make you a special deal of both for only - uh - $45.95.

Vinnie

Brian, this is the statement I took exception with that wrote. Brown explicitly mentioned the Mark without Q thesis, if only in passing.He dismissed it on the same grounds and general arguments most would use to dismiss the GH, several of which he presented (how could Mark omit all that material?). Whether or not his arguments are valid is not exactly the issue I took exception to in your comments.

It is also my understanding that Q is the majority position. Second in line is the GH though this is a minority view itself isn't it. How about the Mark without Q case? More popular than I seem to know? I would think that a substantial minority rejects Q but holds to Marcan Priority (which virtually everyone but the GH proponents do).

I do agree with you that certian works should be referenced and his treatment here could have been better,

One question, why is Luke dependent upon Matthew and not vice versa? I will not be convinced by a tiny bit of Matthean redaction in Luke that could just as easily be attributed to scribal harmonization processes given the popularity of Matthew in the 2d century.

I would need to see a substantial case taking into account numerous details.

Vinnie

Nomad

It is not necessary to be fluent in Koine Greek, though it would obviously help. Goodacre does a very good job of laying the text out side by side in table format, and does offer translations, so this will help. The translations are almost painfully literal, but that is needed in order to understand syntax and word order within the original text, so in this sense he follows the example of Raymond Brown in Birth of the Messiah and Death of the Messiah. If you could follow these books, then you should do fine with Goodacre.

For what it is worth, I thought that Kloppenborg was much worse, not because of his use of the Greek (how could he avoid it?), but because he seems entirely uninterested in writing for the non-graduate type reader. As a result his writing is, in my opinion, often filled with unnecessary verbiage and complexity. He makes Birth of the Messiah look like See Spot Run (okay, maybe not that bad, but he could have tried to be a bit clearer). If it is worth anything, he gives what I consider to be the single best defence of Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, acting and talking like a Cynic Sage. Without claiming that Jesus actually was such a figure (Kloppenborg begs off from making any historical claims about Jesus at all), he absolutely shreds the arguments put forward by Tuckett, Witherington and Horsley against a Cynic like understanding of the double tradition sayings (which Kloppenborg insists on calling Q ). See the discussion in "A Dog Among the Pigeons: A Cynic Q?" (Excavating Q pgs. 420-432). Interestingly, though he demolishes (in my opinion) the arguments of Tuckett and Co., he does not come down solidly in favour of a Cynic Q either. He just thinks that the objections offered thus far suck, and that the topic deserves more examination.

As Kloppneborg Verbin concludes:

"I do not wish to suggest (by the above discussion) that the cynic hypothesis is without more substantial objections as a historical thesis. In my view, the case ofr a cynic-like Q has yet to be made effectively. There are, nevertheless, interesting and puzzling parallels with Cynicism that cry out for exploration, not simple dismissal. Beyond the many literary and argumentative parallesl is the fact, adduced by Goulet-Caze (1990), that in Roman times Cynicism flourished among disenfrancised persons..."
John S. Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q: The History of the Sayings Gospel, (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark Ltd., 2000), pg. 430-431

As much as I hate to admit it, after reading Kloppenborg on this point, I would have to agree. At a minimum we should be exploring how much Cynicism might have influenced Matt and Luke's presentation of Jesus in their Gospels.

Nomad

Vinnie

My after-Christmas book list right now:

Sanders Jesus and Judaism
Goodacre Case Against Q
Kloppenborg Excavating Q
Tolbert on Mark (forgot title)
Fitzmeyer Luke

There was a few more I just can't remember right now...

This all happens after Christmas when I am not so broke

Vinnie

Nomad

From Goodacre:

"Helmut Koester asserts with misplaced confidence that "all attempts to disprove the two-source hypothesis favor the priority of Matthew or some earlier form of Matthew which was possibly written in Aramaic." Likewise, Raymond Brown (Intro to the New Testament) spends twelve pages discussing the Synoptic Problem without even mentioning the Farrer theory or any propnent of it. Neithr Farrer, nor Goulder nor even Sanders are mentioned in Browns' bibliography to the Synoptic Problem. Worse still are occasions when the Farrer theory is misunderstood or misrepresented ass when Craig Blomberg describes Michael Goulder's "Luke: A New Paradigm" as a "defense of the Augustinian model," suggesting that one has "but to read" it to find out how implausible its theories are."
M. Goodacre, The Case Against Q, (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity PRess International, 2002) pg.12.

I have gone back to Brown's book, and gone over the relevant section, and I do not see where he mentions "Mark without Q" as a solution to the Synoptic problem, excepting in the context of the Griesbach hypothesis. He mentions Marcan priority only in the context of the Two Source Hypothesis (cf. Brown, Intro, pg. 114). The diagram he offers on page 115 shows the two theories side by side, and no other model is illustrated. If you have a specific reference that you are thinking about here, please offer it, as I could not find it, and apparently neither could Goodacre.

In Germany 2DH and Q are so dominent that there is no other position taken by any reputable German scholar. In North America the Griesbach hypothesis has a small, but vocal following, largely thanks to the work of the late William Farmer. That Farmer was a contemporary of Brown's suggests to me a large part of the reason that Brown gave it a sympathetic treatment, even as he rejected it in favour of a weak 2DH position (Brown was never crazy about the detailed written Q reconstructions of Robinson and the IQP, for example. In this sense his views mirrored those of Fitzmeyer and Meier, both of whom favour Q in a somewhat inexact form). Neither Germany, nor North America, until very recently, knew of the Farrer Hypothesis (based on Austin Farrer's seminal essay, On Dispensing With Q written in 1955), or gave it much credence. Goulder, and now Goodacre, are making certain that it is not so easily dismissed, though they have made significant enhancements to the original theory, and advanced even more powerful arguments in its favour than did Farrer himself. Goodacre's essays on "Editorial Fatigue" in particular are very convincing.

In England Q probably still dominates, at least that is the impression that I get from my discussions with Eric Eve and Goodacre himself, but Farrer enjoys considerable high profile support there. Griesbach is almost universally dismissed among British scholars.

There is a small group that favours Lucan priority and is known as the Jerusalem School. From there we have additional theories and models, enough to leave your head spinning, but none enjoy wide scholarly support.

The short answer is Luke's prologue in which he tells us that "many" have already written about Jesus, and he intends to try and make sense out of them. Since Mark alone does not constitute "many" and Luke obviously shares much material with Matt that is not found in Mark, then we have at least one other source, either Matt himself, or Q.

The longer answer requires considerably more space, and is covered mostly by Goulder in his book Luke: A New Paridigm. Goodacre considers the question in a similar manner, examining first how Luke treats the Marcan material, and then how he treats the material found in the double tradition. Since his redactional hand is equally apparent in both in similar degrees and style, while Matthew tends not to redact Mark nearly so radically as does Luke, the direction of dependence is generally thought to be either Q>Luke or Matthew>Luke rather than Luke>Matthew.

Actually, harmonization efforts play very little role in how either Matthew or Luke are treated by the early scribes, and we are pretty confident that we know what the original autographs of both happen to look like.

Then pick up either Goodacre or Goulder. It appears you already have the former on your wish list, so that should give you a reasonable argument as to why Luke is placed last on the list of Synoptic Gospels.

Nomad

Vinnie

P. 111 the heading is "Synoptic Problem.
P. 112 SOLUTIONS WHICH POSIT ONE OR MORE PROTO-GOSPELS
P. 113 SOULUTIONS IN WHICH MATT IS FIRST GOSPEL AND LUKE USED MATT

P. 114 --->

"SOLUTIONS BASED ON MARCAN PRIORITY. Mark was written first and both Matt and Luke drew on it. There is a form of this approach that goes on to hold that Luke drew on Matt as well, but it faces the difficulties recounted in the last paragraph."

Brown then states that the most common thesis is that Matt and Luke wrote indepdnent of one another based upon his summary arguments I now cite:

Brown raises "major arguments against Luke knowing Matt"

Brown asks why Luke failed to include the following Matthean additions to Mark: Matt 3:14-15, 12:5-7; 16:17-19; 21:14-16; 26:52-54.

Brown brings up clear contradictions. Luke vs Matthew's infancy narrative. Judas' death. These, presumably are a few examples. I agree with you that this one is not entirely probative.

In fact, Luke directly contradicts Matt (which he had in front of him) on several points. He also alters a good deal of Mark. Given his opening the Mark without Q position leads me to the conclusion that Luke was not overly fond of these two Gospels. He used them heavily but in another sense he had to set them straight. Implicit here appears to be a critique. That of course raises interesting theological questions but thats off topic right now. Maybe later.

At any rate, are there good grounds for claiming why Luke simply didn't use Matthew's account of Judas's death? He disagreed with it? Had a better account? At some point someone had a tradition that Judas died and it was taken diverging ways. The 2DH probably argue Matt and Luke did this. But here we see Judas is viewed by the early church as having died. Two theories become popular. Matthew included one and Luke simply the other. So this does not very probative as an argument.

Brown also raises an order argument: We know that Luke follows Mark's order closely. Why not Matthew's? Why does Luke place the Q material so differently from Matt with the exception of the words of JBap and the temptation story?

Brown then raises three objections and I think two of them are significant ones worthy of serious consideration.

This is a fair observation but very insufficient on its own. Luke says there were "many". Two doesn't appear to fit the bill to me. It could be 3, 5 ,7 or more for all we know. Of course we should not go too high but I don't think the number 5 is unreasonable. Two seems entirely unreasonable for "many". Maybe the translation is bad but "many girls at the party wore a red dress tonight" does not suggest, to me, that two girls wore the dress. I would guestimate more than that by the comment.

There is nothing here which requires or really is probative of the notion that Luke is dependent on Matthew. Luke could have known a bunch of texts (e.g. "many"), maybe he even heard about a Gospel (the one we call Matthew) and had misinformation about it. He may not have had any details but it still feasible could have contributed to his "many" line while using Q and Mark.

I would consider this a legit way of showing Lucan dependence on Matt rather than vice versa. Now I simply need to see the material and evaluate it.

I find Sander's arguments on Mark // Q overlapps interestingly. The more Mark // Q overlapps one proposes the more instances of verbatim agreements between Mark and Q we have. At what point must written dependence beyween Mark and Q be posited?

And if it is this kind of hurts Marcan priority as it eliminates the best argument there is against the GH.

Vinnie

Toto

Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel

How does this differ from
The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections , also by Kloppenborg?

Peter Kirby

The Formation of Q presents an exploration of the literary genre of Q, and in so doing advances a "layering" hypothesis for Q in detail. Excavating Q is more accessible to the general reader and provides a rounded introduction to Q research.

best,
Peter Kirby

Yuri Kuchinsky

Really, Nomad?

Well, I know that lots of folks do claim to be confident about such things, but this seems to be based mostly on Blind Faith...

Quote:

Then pick up either Goodacre or Goulder. It appears you already have the former on your wish list, so that should give you a reasonable argument as to why Luke is placed last on the list of Synoptic Gospels. Nomad

IMHO, this is where both Goodacre or Goulder fail. They are completely blind to all those early features of Lk, of which there are many.

Regards,

Yuri.