maryhelena

Quote:

http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2010/2010.1/new_testament/ The Gospels as re-written Bible Scholars will explode the myth of The New Testament Bible scholars across the world have for many years believed that two of the Gospels of the New Testament - The Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Luke respectively were partly based on the content of a supposedly lost scripture referred to as "Q". In a new research project, researchers from the Faculty of Theology will attempt to establish that this lost scripture never existed. The Research Project at the University of Copenhagen, which has just been granted 4.7 million kroner by the Velux Foundation, has been titled "The Gospels as re-written Bible". During the next tree years a group of scholars will map the development of the four gospels in order to establish that the Gospel of Luke is not, as believed so far, a contemporary of the Gospel of Matthew, and that the shared content of the two is not to be explained by the existence of a lost scripture, but by the fact that the author of St. Luke's Gospel used St. Matthew's Gospel as well as that of St. Mark as basis for his own scripture.

What would be the repercussion for NT studies, the historicists and the mythicists positions, if Q is rejected?

andrewcriddle

This idea has been around for some time. See Mark Goodacre's The Case Against Q

Andrew Criddle

maryhelena

Thanks for the link. The technicalities over Q are a bit above my head - I'm interested in what would be the ramifications if Q was abandoned as an answer to the synoptic problem.

With this new university research grant - is it a case of what was on the fringe now becoming a prime time issue?

andrewcriddle

FWIW Mark Goodacre for example is an Associate Professor at Duke University. Although this is very definitely a minority position I don't think it should be regarded as a fringe one.

On the question of the HJ/MJ implications of rejecting Q:

a/ In general, abandoning Q probably makes it more difficult to recover a Historical Jesus behind the Gospel accounts.

b/ However, some specific Mythical Jesus proposals, eg Earl Doherty's, do make substantial use of arguments involving Q in their reconstruction of Christian Origins. Without Q these arguments would face significant problems.

Andrew Criddle

maryhelena

Thanks, Andrew - very interesting....

I've followed your link and am presently reading from this article:

http://www.markgoodacre.org/Q/monopoly.htm

So, lets see what my contrary mind can come up with...

PhilosopherJay

Hi maryhelena,

I think that saying that Luke was written 30-50 years after Matthew will help the mythicist case.

I suspect the group is going to try to put Mark and Matthew at 70-80 and Luke at 100-120. Currently we have a scholarly consensus (with very dubious evidence) of 70-90 for all three.

This is at least a step in the right direction. I have arrived at suspecting dates of 140-160 for Mark and Matthew and 180-190 for Luke a while ago.

The trick is really going to be figuring out the relationship between Mark and Matthew and various pre-New Testament text like Gospel of Thomas. It seems to be dialectical and complex. John also bares a more complex relationship.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

maryhelena

Hi, Philosopher Jay

That's what I will be looking out for - putting considerable distance between the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke. And also, maybe, to see that Luke is not doing some cut and paste job - but is his own man! Not that he is seeking to disagree with Matthew - just that he is about taking the Jesus storyline further along....something that will not necessarily be seen if the two gospels are dated close in time....

Yes, I think this news should be good for a mythicist position...

Chili

. . . a make-work project for unemployed scholars maybe?

From the gnostic point of view Matthew is clearly a Senacan tragedy and Luke is a divine Divine comedy. The only thing that they have in common is the rising action between rebirth and crucifixion as the crisis moment that brings change about, but wherein Matthew shows the tragedy and Luke presents the comedy.

Toto

Velux Foundation ?

This is an interesting project, but it's not clear what sort of methodology the project will use.

Chaucer

An interesting statistical analysis of patterns in the original Greek of Matthew/Luke plus the parallel sayings in them as a separate "bundle" (the so-called Q "bundle") has been attempted here:

http://www.davegentile.com/synoptics/main

I don't know if it's been peer-reviewed, and it probably doesn't affect the historicist/mythicist war, but it does throw an interesting light on the contention in the Copenhagen study in the OP that Luke may have been dependent (to an extent) on Matthew.

Does the study referenced here in this URL shed new light on the efforts of the Copenhagen study?

Thoughts?

Chaucer