yalla

Mark 10.46 is the story of the blind man sitting by the road when he hears that it is JC, so he asks JC for mercy and gets cured.
I am particularly interested in verse 47
"And when he heard that it was JC of Nazareth......"

Matthew 20.29 tells the same story with variations.
I am particularly interested in verse 30
"...when they heard that Jesus WAS PASSING BY....

Luke 18.35 tells the same story again with some changes.
I am particularly interested in verses 36 and 37
"and hearing a multitude GOING BY he inquired what this meant.
They told him "JC of Nazareth IS PASSING BY."

So 2 questions.
1. Is the healing of Bart. an alleged Q element? That is, is it included in the Q corpus?
2. Is the "passing by" that is common to both matthew and Luke, but not Mark, suggestive that one of them received it from the other?
cheers
yalla

S.C.Carlson

No, or at least not in the Critical Edition of Q (Robinson et al., eds.; 2000), which, if anything, tends toward the overinclusive side.

Actually, the source texts for "passing by" are slightly different verbs in the Greek. At Matt 20:30 it is παράγει (PARAGEI), but at Luke 18:37 it is παρέρχεται (PARERXETAI).

Stephen

Ben C Smith

Gidday, yalla.

(Always wanted to say that.)

I have a synopsis of that pericope up on my website, along with notes that include a count of the agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark, which I tally as follows:

1. Matthew 20.30 has παραγει (goes along) and Luke 18.37 has παρερχεται (comes along) where Mark 10.47 has only εστιν (is).

[The only agreement is in the prefix of the verb.]

2. Matthew 20.30 has the aorist indicative εκραξαν (shouted) followed by the plural participle λεγοντες (saying). Luke 18.38 has the aorist indicative εβοησεν (cried out) followed by the singular participle λεγων (saying). Mark 10.47 has the infinitives κραζειν (to shout) and λεγειν (to say).

[The agreements are the aorist indicative against an infinitive and the participle against another infinitive; there is agreement against Mark here only of form, not of word choice.]

3. Matthew 20.31 has the singular definite article ο and Luke 18.39 has the plural definite article οι, but Mark 10.48 lacks an article.

[Not a very big agreement.]

4. Matthew 20.33 and Luke 18.41 both have κυριε (Lord) where Mark 10.51 has ραββουνι (rabboni, master).

[This one is the most substantive agreement in the lot, IMO.]

There are also agreements in omission, of course, but I do not tally those in my notes.

Ben.

yalla

Gidday Ben,
You can say "gidday" as often as you want. Lets chuck some Aussie culture over your way.
Actually you are partly responsible for me noticing the similarity between Luke and Matthew in this example.

I was reading through old threads and following links and saw these 3 parallels on a site.
Later I read a post of yours where you used an example to consider something, fatigue and chronological sequence I think. I got a bit lost running all over the place.
Perhaps you remember writing this [brief version]?

Writers A, B and C write in that sequence.
A writes "I love a rollicking tale"
B reads, copies and alters A thus "I love a good story"
C reads A and B and chooses to write "I love a good story".

It occurred to me that if C had written "I love a rollicking story", or "I love a good tale" then that would show dependence on the previous 2 in that C has combined elements from both.

And that is what I suggest Luke has done here.
He has followed Mark [with a change of tense] and introduced "passing by" from Matthew [ignoring the 2 blind men and sticking to Mark's single] .
And, apparently, it's not from Q.

I didn't notice your other agreements, I'll look again, your #4, "lord" by the 2 as opposed to Mark's ''rabboni'' [an anachronism?] is interesting.
I tried looking at the Blue Letter Bible but frankly it's all Greek to me. The BLB gave various permutations for passing but seemed to agree that the 2 had something not in Mark.
I think this suggests Luke's knowledge of Matthew without hypothetical Q being involved.
Maybe not a major point.
But "suggestive''?
cheers
yalla

S.C.Carlson

FWIW, Neirynck also counts a word-order minor agreement, in which the (different) subjects precede the (different) verbs in Matt and Luke, but in the Mark the subject follows the verb.

Stephen

Ben C Smith

Yes, I decided against counting word order agreements... for now, anyway.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I doubt I have thought about it even once since writing it, but yes, I remember it now.

I agree.

The problem is that the agreement in this case is so very minor. Greek majors on adding (prepositional or adverbial) prefixes to verbs all the time, so the fact that both Matthew and Luke might do so here is not all that startling. It is when one gets a bigger collection of these minor agreements all in one spot that the redaction critics begin to take notice.

One example of such a collection of agreements might be the healing of the leper.

Matthew and Luke add Lord to Mark a number of times, occasionally in concert with one another, as here.

You are on the right track, I think, looking at the text on this minute level. I myself have become convinced just within the last year and a half (not coincidentally the amount of time I have been working on this synoptic project of mine) that Luke and Matthew are not independent of one another. What that means for Q is still in the air for me.

(It is after 11 pm here; what would the Aussie for good night be?)

Ben.

yalla

Gidday Ben
Love your website. I will delve into it in detail slowly.
Had a quick read of "Was Luke a crank?"
Are you familiar with Ken Olson's article on "How Luke was written'' which is directly relevant to the above?
cheers
yalla

oh its 10.30pm here, so "Good night", sorry no cute Aussie slang springs to mind.

JoeWallack

What's The BS



JW:
I don't know why Ben and SC (Christians) aren't telling you this but "Q" is generally thought to be Sayings/Teachings of Jesus. Since the BS (Bartimaeus story) is a Narrative it wouldn't generally be considered part of Q. Papias identifies the "Sayings" of Jesus and this probably refers to Q. Christian Bible scholarship hasn't come to grips with this yet and still wants to believe Papias referred to a Gospel Narrative.

Beyond this my own theory is that the Original followers of Jesus, Peter, James, El All, wrote Q which preserved the Historical Jesus' Teachings. "Mark", who didn't know Jesus, had Q available but deliberately ignored it, Rejecting the evidence of Historical Jesus and creating a Narrative of Impossible Jesus with emphasis of Jesus' supposed suffering and death as opposed to Jesus Life of Teaching. Paul already held the basic Jesus beliefs that "Mark" had, "Mark" just Turned them into a Gospel Narrative. That's why Paul has no knowledge of a Gospel Narrative. It hadn't been written yet.

Once the Gospel Narrative was created, "Matthew" and "Luke" added Q to it because it was available to them, "Mark" lacked it and their primary objective was to Convince people of Jesus. "Mark's" primary objective was to show How Jesus was Rejected by Everyone Close to him, especially his Disciples.

Ben and SC are straining at the Letter of Texts and missing the Spirit of "Mark". The BS story is an excellent example of "Mark's" theme verses "Matthew/Luke". The BS is the second Blind Man story Framed between the Transfiguration:

1) Chapter 8 - Blind Outsider Receives sight.

2) Chapter 9 - Transfiguration.

3) Chapter 10 - Blind Outsider Receives sight.

As Jesus is on The Way to the Goal of Jerusalem with the Disciples, along The Way a Blind Outsider Receives sight. In the heart of the Gospel, the Transfiguration, only the Disciples see (really) the Transfiguration (What Jesus really is) but they remain blind to the Significance. At the End of The Way another Outsider, who unlike the Disicples, has complete Faith in Jesus, receives his "Sight". All along The Way Jesus tried to make his Disciples understand the Significance of his suffering and Death but they remained Blind to it. So not only does "Mark" never show a Resurrection Family Reunion, he Explains why there isn't one (Ben).

Now comparing the BS stories consider How they've been affected by the different Themes of the Gospellers:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_10

Mark 10: (ASV)
51 "And Jesus answered him, and said, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind man said unto him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight.

52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And straightway he received his sight, and followed him in the way."

Notice how it ends Yalla, "followed him in the way." See how "Mark" uses "The Way" in his Gospel and that "Matthew"/"Luke" have exorcised it from their version. The emphasis by "Mark" is Bartimaeus represents a Replacement of the Disciples by an Outsider. "Matthew"/"Luke" rehabilitated "Mark's" Disciples as permanent followers of Jesus and so lessen "Mark's" Evidence of Disciple Replacement.

So keep in mind when evaluating possible agreement of "Matthew"/"Luke" against "Mark" (especially silence), is it Copying or Theme Motivated? (Yuri, look out!)



Joseph

DIE, n.
The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:

A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Mark_10

yalla

Gidday JW,
My question as to whether Bart is part of Q was really to eliminate that from the start.
You see I don't think there was a Q source at all.
But I wouldn't say that out loud cos I'm a minnow among sharks and I want to go real slow and avoid some of the rather nasty stuff I have seen here recently that I simply do not have the knowledge or inclination to combat, it's all Greek to me. [I've been lurking at a couple of heated threads of late].
Let the reader understand.

I think that Luke copied Matthew and both copied Mark a la Farrer/Goulder/Goodacre/Dunn.
They make sense to me.
So does Doherty.
But he, like you, goes along with the Q hypothesis and who am I?
So I am going to keep all that secret and tread carefully.
What I think got from Ben was that he has the suspicion Q may not be valid.
He gave 3 or 4 elements within the Bart. story that are mildly suggestive that there ain't no Q.
And his website is a great tool for going through other acknowledged non-Q material and seeing if there is similar material that is common to Matt and Lucy that can only be explained by dependence in some direction between those 2.
Thus refuting Q.
Maybe.

When it comes to the Papias stuff I am really sceptical that there is much there at all other than self-serving legend.

I agree with you [I'm sure that will thrill you] that "Mark" created the gospel narrative and that the story did not exist in Paul's time.
I then reckon Matt copied "Mark" and then also used mainly Tanakh material to create what later became M material and Q when Lucy copied some of it.
And Lucy did similar.
All with their own political/theological agendas.

I like your stuff about "Mark" rejecting the disciples and showing others [one of the two thieves for example] as accepting, believing and understanding JC when the disciples can't. They are the straight men in the comic duo [sort of Ernie Wise role from Morecombe and Wise] whose function is to allow the plot and its significance to be explained to the reader. Later Matt and particularly Lucy needed to rehabilitate their status for political reasons [apostolic succession stuff].
So I suspect that IF I do find non-Q agreements within Matt and Lucy that they will be strongly coloured with their individual political stances.
I mean basically its theological propaganda [thats not meant to be derogatory] all the way is it not?
"That you may know the truth"?
Even in the Bart story there is a hint of that, the change from ["Mark's"] rabboni/teacher, [an anachronism?] to "Lord".
Anyway I intend to lurk a bit, participate a bit, and research as much as I can with the limited resources at my disposal.
And take note of what blokes like you and Ben and S.C. et al say.
cheers
old yalla