Roland

I imagine that the biggest problem coming up with modern analogies is copyright laws and the fact that few authors choose to publish anonymously in this day and age. If anything like the Synoptic problem showed up now, there would probably be cries of "Plagiarism" heard throughout the land.

By the way, as the person who started this thread, I would like to thank all of you for your fine responses. I see that I still have so much to learn about all this, but your comments have been most informative.

S.C.Carlson

Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels (JBLMS 6; Phila.: SBL, 1951), 142, suggested just this analog, but his pupil Jacob Neusner, "The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature: The Cases of the Mishna, Tosepta, Sipra, and Leviticus Rabba," JBL 105 (1986): 499-507, explicitly disagreed with that. (This was after their falling out, of course).

Smith's response, "The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature: A Correction," JBL 107 (1988): 111-112, countered by arguing that the mere fact that the Jewish texts could be laid out in a synoptic format means they can fairly be said to have a "synoptic relationship." Because Smith virtually ignored Neusner's point that their relationship did not rise to the level that we see in the synoptic problem, it appears to me that Smith conceded that Neusner had the better of the argument. Given the vast scope of Smith's and Neusner's knowledge of this huge body of literature, I'd say that it's possible but in my opinion very unlikely that they missed a set of passages that does exhibit a proper analogy to the synoptic problem.

Stephen Carlson

S.C.Carlson

You might see it in classroom cheating?

Amaleq13

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by "where the preservation of published work is a fetish". Could you elaborate or rephrase it somewhat when you get the time?

My first thought was the movie business where the same story is redone numerous times but I'm not sure that qualifies.

Vorkosigan

There might be some parallels in historical writing of the Renaissance, where people coped Suetonius and Thucydides in presenting the history of Europe.

Another possible parallel might be ancient Hellenistic fiction, where you see many of the same structures and constructions as the gospels. Lots of the writers copy each other or previous writers. But I can't think of anything of the length. The issue isn't so much copying as it is the combination of long, long copying plus redaction plus insertion of new material.

Is anyone here familiar with non-western scriptures? Are there similar examples? Maybe I'll put a post in on H-Asia.

Michael

Peter Kirby

Amaleq13, I mean that we like to preserve everything that is published.

The many different versions of the Buddhist canon might count. There are multiple ways of arranging the dharma into systems, depending on the lineage of monks doing the preservation. That might be something to look into. If only they were in the same language, or even just in a language I could process!

Perhaps there is a book or movie that has been done multiple times... like, say, the Three Musketeers??

best,
Peter Kirby

Roland

Would something like "Hamlet" vs. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" qualify?

Amaleq13

Thanks for the clarification, Peter.

That was one that I thought of (thanks for reminding me to add it to my list of DVD's to own) as well as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Homer's Odyssey, Seven Samurai vs The Magnificent Seven and Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" movies and their samurai movie analogs.

I think we need more versions than one to actually qualify, though.

S.C.Carlson

For those who enjoy reading (good) Ph.D. dissertations, Bob Darrenbacker's one entitled "Ancient compositional practices and the Synoptic Problem" (2002) is available online at http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp05/NQ64776.pdf

Darrenbacker, who studied under Q-guru Kloppenborg, explores some possible ancient analogies to the synoptic problem, include the Josephus example we discussed here, as well some pagan/classical cases.

Toto

Warning: Darrenbacker's thesis is 18.65 MB - 354 pages