yalla

For vinnie
Some time ago, a few weeks I reckon, there was a thread in this forum. referring to an article by Ken Olson on Q and how Luke was written. It went into detail about the logistics of ancient authors using multiple sources and the relevant problems and practices involved.
I just checked but couldn't find it but it is here somewhere. Maybe someone can help.

I reckon it will answer some of your questions as to why and how Luke probably wrote .
IIRC it made 2 main points...that criticism of the Luke copied Matthew scenario as physically improbable was not supported by the material used by the writer who asserted that conclusion.

Toto

Ken Olson on how Q was written

Vinnie

Sweet. Thanks.

S.C.Carlson

That's an interesting question. Mark Goodacre thinks it is because Luke had known Mark longer than Matthew and may have been spurred into writing his gospel when Matthew appeared on the scene.

In my view, another possible factor is that Matthew is pretty much a superset of Mark (at least 90% of it). Following Matthew as the main text would make Mark almost entirely irrelevant and make the result another edition of Matthew. Using Mark as the narrative backbone, however, gives Luke more flexibility to present the sayings of Jesus that he found in Matthew ("Q") and other places ("L").

A lot more, but I haven't counted.

The middle term argument shows which arrangements of direct and indirect dependence are possible, but it does not tell us the direction of the dependence. For those passages where Mark is the middle term, any of the following four arrangements are possible:

1. Matt -> Mark -> Luke
2. Matt -> Mark <- Luke
3. Matt <- Mark -> Luke
4. Matt <- Mark <- Luke

There are two arrows of dependence in either of two direction for a total of four possibilities.

In the great majority of the Triple Tradition (where all three synoptics present the same material), Mark is the middle term. Almost all of the remainder (about one-sixth?) features Matthew as the middle term. The places where Luke could be a middle term are insignificant.

Both the Two-Source and Farrer theories agree in using arrangement no. 3 to account for the bulk of the triple tradition, but disagree over how to account for the passages in which Matthew is the middle term.

As for the fatigue argument, it mainly shows which documents, as we now have it, cannot be the source for another. It is strictly a negative argument that eliminates a possibility, not one that establishes it. Fatigue in both directions may show a common source. According to Goodacre, Luke shows signs of fatigue both with Mark and Matthew, while Matthew shows signs of fatigue with Mark but not with Luke. This implies that Luke is not a source for Mark or Matthew and that Matthew is not a source for Mark. Goodacre could not found any cases of fatigue that might indicate a common source, but perhaps he didn't try hard enough. No Q proponent, however, has taken up Goodacre's challenge to find fatigue evidence that could contradict the Farrer theory and help establish Q.

From Mark 1 to Mark 6, Mark and Matthew often have a difference sequence of material. Luke follows Mark's arrangement against Matthew's over many different passages in this section, indicating that there is a literary relationship between Luke and Mark that cannot be accounted for by a common use of Matthew. (I haven't checked specifically for Mark's intercalations, so I don't have a ready answer for that.)

Stephen

Zeichman

None of those scholars believe that all or even most of the things in Q (Ehrman might say most) go back to Jesus. Your standard of an apologist is someone who believes we can, with some confidence, state that Jesus said something? How is this apologetics? I would not consider even Ehrman an apologist, as his goals are certainly not theological. If anything, Doherty can function as an apologist for atheists, legitimizing their disbelief in the Christian's Triune God.

So an apologist is now someone who believes something Jesus said is in the synoptic gospels? The term "apologist" is now beyond useless, lest we contrast it with "axe-grinding anti-Christian", which seem to be the only two options by your standards.

Please explain to me how your definition of apologist is useful. Virtually every one with a doctorate in New Testament literature (Robert Price being the only exception coming to mind) who is not styled an apologist.

Ben C Smith

Vinnie, I sympathize totally with this. I would love to boil my hypotheses down to a simple triangular theory like Farrer or Greisbach, but it just looks to me like something external to our three synoptic gospels has exercised quite an influence on all three (at least or perhaps especially Matthew and Luke) in different combinations.

Epitomes were not uncommon in antiquity. Though probably not from your two centuries of choice, 2 Maccabees is an epitome of an earlier work in five volumes.

Yes, in Mark 6.7-34 = Luke 9.1-11. I have a page on my site dedicated to the intercalations.

Yes, in Mark 2.4 = Luke 5.19. You can read about it on another page on my site.

Ben.

yalla

Gidday Zeichman,

My points are that by using Q, and ignoring the alternative, as a tool or mechanism to return to an historical JC, by claiming that this shows an unbroken sequence of oral and written tradition, some scholars, eg the ones I cited, are giving credibility to oral tradition, written tradition and an HJ.
Each of these are debatable but when presented as assertion it becomes faith and belief, not evidence based and reliant on a Q so open ended it can retroject way back.

Without Q scholars cannot claim a WRITTEN document that goes back to the 20's.
That only leaves oral tradition to pre-date Mark.
Q can be used, and is as my quotes show, to get back BEFORE all 3 synoptics to an HJ.

ZeIchman: "None of those scholars believe that all or even most of the things in Q (Ehrman might say most) go back to Jesus."
But that is precisely what Mack is saying.

B Mack "Who Wrote the NT?"
"The earliest layer of the teachings of JC in Q are the least embellished of any of his sayings in any extant document"
"Q will put us in touch with the first followers of Jesus....it documents the history of a single group of Jesus people for a period of about 50 years from the time of JC in the 20's until after..the 70's".
Note...pre any of the gospels, Q is being used to go back to an HJ.
Mt or L copying the other cannot do that.

More from Mack..same page..p.47.
"That means that Q puts us as close to to the historical JC as we will ever be. Thus the importance of Q is enormous".

I'm sorry I think that is quite clear.

Q is being used as a mechanism to verify an HJ.

Cheers,
yalla

I'll continue to try to explain how I see the situation. Between the brain and the screen there is a big gap.

Zeichman: "Your standard of an apologist is someone who believes we can, with some confidence, state that Jesus said something? How is this apologetics?"

That's a Christian, [if you add son of god]. A person who believes that JC existed, an HJ. As opposed to a mythicist or Buddhist whatever.
When Q, a hypothetical speculation, is used to claim that there is a direct line of sayings etc from that HJ [ which presumes his existence] to all 3 gospels it gives the gospels version a credibility that they would otherwise not enjoy. That level of credibility cannot be claimed if either Mt or L copied the other. Retrojection of " the teachings of JC'' stop at the earlier of the 2. Q puts it back decades further. Hence the preference for Q.

Doherty's "silence" is replaced by Q.

I don't think I can explain better.
cheers.

Zeichman

Ignore the fact that he said "the earliest layer" which gets rid of about half to two-thirds of an already rather short document. He, like most of the liberal/non-apocalyptic scholars do not affirm the historicity of sayings/deeds in the Q2 and Q3 layers, which makes up over half of the document. Thus, my previous statement stands as true.

So accepting an HJ makes one an apologist? A Christian apologist? The late Robert Funk was anything but a Christian apologist (cf. his anti-orthodox polemic in the end of "Honest to Jesus"). Likewise with Gerd Ludemann (his anti-Christian/Lutheran writings are well known). What I think I fail to understand about your definition is WHY that makes a scholar an apologist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but an apologist (whether Christian or otherwise) is one who uses scholarship (frequently pseudo-scholarship) as a means of justifying a theological position. I fail to see how Mack, Funk, Crossan, Kloppenborg, etc. accepting such a document as having any theological implications which could be considered apologetic.

Additionally, I think Ehrman does not accept the multiple layers of Q hypothesis, and I think he dates Q to roughly contemporaneous with Mark. I'm guessing you still believe is an apologist.

Julian

Looking at Sanders and Davies's book on the synoptics, this stood out:
Luke and Matthew begin to agree where Mark begins and end their agreement where Mark ends, both with pericopes and in regard to the gospel as a whole.

That, to my mind, is the strongest argument for Markan priority. Why does this argument not make this list? Is there something I am not seeing?

Julian

Ben C Smith

Because the Greisbach hypothesis would explain this same datum on precisely the opposite assumption, that Mark knew both Matthew and Luke, and conflated them. The sometimes-offered Greisbach contention that Mark combined Matthew and Luke primarily where they agreed would actually work for the infancy and resurrection narratives.

That Matthew and Luke would both start to agree and finish agreeing where Mark begins and ends is actually one of the usually proferred arguments for the independence of Matthew and Luke (already presuming Marcan priority), and is at least related to Mark being the middle term between them.

Ben.