Diogenes the Cynic

I don't know that the dates would be common knowledge but it might have occurred to people that Judea could not have been subject to a census while it was still a client kingdom.

Peter Kirby

Or, more directly, that Quirinius and Herod could not be in charge at the same time. What I have suggested is that Luke has telescoped the end of Herod's reign and the beginning of Quirinius's rule.

Ted, do you think that the Gospel of John knew of a synoptic Gospel?

best,
Peter Kirby

yalla

In Mark 9.2 the author has JC and 3 friends going to a mountain to meet god, Moses and Elijah.The author of Luke has the same story, repeated near verbatim but with one change.He changes the original time introduction of "And after 6 days.." to "Now about 8 days after..".Now why would he do that? No idea, but it does show that "Luke" is not adverse to changing borrowed material for whatever purposes he considered relevant.So variations in the infancy and post- crucifixion sections from that of gMatthew are not necessarily evidence that borrowing by "Luke" did not not occur.The 8 days may be trivial in itself but it does show that "Luke" can make changes to acknowledged originals.

Ted Hoffman

AFAIK, John shows traces of multiple redactors. Some of them knew synoptic gospels. Yes.

Julian

Very well, I shall attempt to do so. I am following the discussion over at JM as well and based on Doherty's post I have some more stuff to add.

First of all, I suspect that 1:1-4 was a later addition for the following reasons. The author uses some very strong terms about himself and his story that seem overly self-aggrandizing. They are, specifically, "having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first" and "know the certainty of those things." Would an author writing about god really write those things about himself? To me, they read as some later writer really wants to emphasize the veracity of this particular gospel. It sounds almost political. A later writer would not have humility problems writing the intro whereas I suspect the authentic author would. It is also an obvious intro to add to enforce primacy of this gospel. The gospels clearly speak for different communities and this could be read in the context of a time where competition between communities were starting to grow, which would argue for a later dating of Luke.

Secondly, we know that Mark has been altered (Addition of 'Son of God' in 1:1 and everything after 16:8 come to mind) so it would be shaky reasoning to assume that the GMk that we have resembles the L and M versions to a degree where plagiarism arguments can be made.

Thridly, I have read and re-read Luke 1 and 2 and they clearly read as two events with considerable time between them. The strongest argument in favor of this feeling is Luke 2:2 which reads: "(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)" Why is that there if he has already established that this took place under Herod? He feels compelled to establish the following chapter in the timeline. Why not just let the events flow sequentially. I propose that the second entry to fix the moment in time is completely superfluous unless he needed to show that time had passed.

He could have simply said: Herod is king, Z and E have visions, E gets pregnant, Mary shows up to say hi, M gets/is pregnant, and blah blah blah. No problem with that format. That clearly shows that the events are sequential and reasonably close together.

What he does write is Herod is king, Z and E have visions, E gets pregnant, Mary shows up to say hi, Cyrenius has a census, nativity stufff and blah blah blah.

I assert that Luke 2:2 is meaningless and superfluous, as well as downright contradictory, unless understood in the context of time having passed. If, as Peter has suggested, the timeline has been compressed into nothing then why mention the census since time has already been established? Solely for the census to be the cause for Mary and Joseph traveling? Why? Surely a simpler reason could have been found. Actually, no reason is needed unless there were reasons of tradition, connecting the census to the nativity, that we do not know about.

All this argues against Luke knowing Matthew. There were undoubtedly many writings floating around at the time. Assuming only 3 gospels/narratives is quite a big assumption.

I suspect that both GMt and GLk have very late dates, are near concurrent and independent. Another thing to consider is Marcion's influence in this whole matter. What Luke did he know? Do we even know of a Luke before him? Marcion certainly had an agenda, did he guts to rewrite and damn the contradictions? Probably.

Julian

Amaleq13

As I mentioned before, I have read an argument to that effect but it doesn't appear to have been Helms as I thought. Does this ring any bells with anyone else? As I recall, they made a pretty good case.

Peter Kirby

Julian,

Thank you for your post. As a result I am forced to review my opinions on Luke 2:1-2.

While doing so I came across an entry in Carlson's blog. Knowing Greek, he points out a reading of Luke 2:2 that is grammatically correct. Under this reading, the registration to which Joseph responds, according to Luke, is not the same census as the one held under Quirinius in A.D. 6. Rather it took place sometime after Augustus's directive (8 BC?). It could have taken place under Herod.

Regarding your first argument, it is completely subjective to say that the original author would be too abashed to claim that he had investigated his subject thoroughly and wished his reader to have a certainty about what he wrote. You didn't know him.

Your second point is not an argument. Once there are reasons for thinking that Mark has been altered in a certain way, then there is an argument. The same goes for the satires of Juvenal or anything else we want to study. One doesn't dismiss a piece of evidence in Juvenal because there are known to be differences in the manuscripts at other locations.

Ted, since you acknowledge that John knew a synoptic, you should have no problem with one evangelist contradicting another evangelist that he knew or with evangelists writing their own stories, as Luke does in the infancy narrative. Also, as yalla points out, Luke doesn't hesitate to change and even to contradict the Gospel of Mark.

best,
Peter Kirby

Diogenes the Cynic

After reading SCC's argument about Luke 2:1-2, I am somewhat non-plussed. He rests a lot of his case on a partcular interpretation of a single word (prote) as a superlative rather than an ordinal. Personally I think it's a reach but my Greek isn't as good as his so I'll leave it alone and just point out that Judea did not become a Roman province until 6 CE and was not subject to census or tax under Herod. The census mentioned in 8 BCE applied only to Roman citizens and provinces of the Empire. Judea was a client kingdom in 8 BCE and Joseph was definitely not a Roman citizen.

Diogenes the Cynic

Good point about Luke changing Mark, by the way.

Toto

SCC's translation seems at odds with Carrier's here SCC defends his translation here, with some disputation from others.