andrewcriddle

I'm not sure what we are disagreeing about here. If Matthew used Mark and Luke used Matthew and Mark then both were using (reasonably faithfully) older materials.

I regard Matthew and Luke as having used "Q" rather than Luke having using Matthew but whether I'm right or wrong I don't see it as changing the basic point.

Andrew Criddle

dog-on

If the older material is Mark, we agree.

Q is a hypothetical and in my view an unnecessary apologetic device, (Q creates the basis for an apologetic argument that there was some pre-existing historical tradition besides Mark and Paul that accounts for the sayings of JC found in Matthew and Luke), that discounts Matthew's and later Luke's creativity.

PaulK

To me the evidence seems to show that Mark and Q (if it existed) were considered authoritative, and that given an authoritative source the authors of Matthew and Luke followed it reasonably faithfully (at least most of the time). But how can that be used to argue that Mark must have had an authoritative source ?

If the argument is that the authors of Luke and Mattew would not have written when they did not have an authoritative source, we cannot determine that just by looking at the sections where they did have such a source. And if they did write in the absence of an authoritative source, how can we know that Mark did not do the same ?

So I would say that the argument does not even properly look at the methods of the authors of Matthew and Luke.

andrewcriddle

I quite agree that this sort of argument cannot show that Mark must have had an authoritative source. At the most it can provide evidence by analogy that Mark probably had an authoritative source.

Andrew Criddle

Susan2

If LG was the Potter, it really does beg the question; who started throwing the mud?

PaulK

It can't even do that. The argument takes a selective look at Matthew and Luke and assumes that Mark must have been produced in the same way as the parts examined. Why those parts, rather than the more suspect parts like the Nativity stories ? Or, say, the post-Resurrection accounts ?

A decent argument would be based on showing that Gospel of Mark would be different in the absence of an authoritative source. And that question is not even considered.

andrewcriddle

Establishing that at least a substantial proportion of Matthew and Luke involves the moderately faithful use of earlier sources, establishes, by analogy, a probability that at least a substantial proportion of Mark involves the moderately faithful use of earlier sources. (Dunn considers several cases of synoptic parallels, his argument is not based only on the example quoted in the OP.)

At least that is the argument. It is certainly not in itself a conclusive argument. But it seems prima-facie plausible.

Andrew Criddle

PaulK

I disagree. You might as well argue that the author of Mark probably used a written source (which also used a written source and so on ad infinitum).

It is one thing to argue that the author or Mark would behave similarly given a similar situation (and even that would be weak if it rested on a mere two examples) it is another to argue that the situation really WAS similar.

Really the argument is not only extremely weak, it steps very close to begging the question since its plausibility depends heavily on the plausibillity of such a source in the first place.

The fact that it is used at all only shows how little ground we have for trusting the Gospels to be reliable.

Steven Carr

One assumes Dunn was giving it his best shot.

And if that is his best shot then the arguments for reliability of tradition are very weak.

Notice that Dunn can't even start to approach the reliability of the Jesus traditions the way a historian would - by analysing the sources used, the reliabilty of those sources, the degree of fact-checking done by those sources etc.

Failing historical methodology, he has to resort to Biblical methodology.

andrewcriddle

Dunn's argument here is not IIUC directed against the claim that there is no historical basis whatever for Jesus. Dunn does consider this claim briefly (maybe too briefly) later on in an appendix to the first chapter discussing the views of Professor G A Wells.

Dunn's argument here seems directed against the suggestion that, although there was a historical Jesus of some sort, the synoptic gospels are utterly unreliable as a historical source for Jesus. In this context the argument does seem plausible; ie if there was a historical Jesus living less than 50 years before Mark (Dunn assumes 'mainstream' dates for the gospels) and if Mark's successors are using earlier sources with reasonable fidelity; then Mark is probably using (with reasonable fidelity) sources going back to near the time of Jesus.

I may be misunderstanding you, but IIUC you are sympathetic to the idea that Mark has almost no previous account of Jesus to use as a basis for his gospel. If I'm correct about your views, can I ask why you regard Mark as so radically creative a writer ?

Andrew Criddle