Rick Sumner

I should expand on this a little. It's unfair to Mack. It's how many, many, many scholars still apply Q. When it didn't mesh they stratified it. Crossan finds a Jesus without "divine genocide" (his unpleasant term, not mine). Horsley finds a single sermon from a social reformer. Allison and Ehrman think apocalypticism was more likely redacted out of sources than into them, and Q is the preaching of an apocalyptic prophet. Even Earl Doherty, who suggests part of the mythical Jesus owes itself to personified Wisdom, finds in Q the speaker being none other than Wisdom herself.

It's all so much easier when we can construct the evidence we need and call it a layer behind the evidence we have. Not that any of these are as ad hoc as Holtzmann was, of course, there's been too much scholarship on the matter for that type of thing to be necessary anymore. But Q, like Paul, is all things to all men.

spin

We often find a principal source being augmented with other sources, sometimes unknown. We are fortunate to have the major source for the epitome in AJ 13, but it is augmented by a lot of information. We simply don't have the same situation of three works that allow us to hint more closely at the sources.

What is seemingly unprecedented is having three related sources such as we do, not the use of lost sources.

I'm not sure about this claim. It is merely based on lack of knowledge. I once tried to see the relationship between Genesis, the Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees. I didn't think there was a simple dependence of the latter two on the first, but shared traditions (perhaps written) that lay behind them.

...then assume your desired conclusion...
You are aware that I'm not wedded to Q, but I find the alternative unable to deal with the evidence, right? I find efforts of simplifying complex traditions usually tendentious.

But then no one has shown that the Lucan writer has seen the musical.

Perhaps Q just has better explanatory power.


spin

spin

Well, thank you for that.

A nice variation on the Occam theme is Einstein's "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." The oversimplification of a Lucan writer using only Mark and Matthew has him picking out phrases from a passage in one text that aren't included in another version of the same narrative in a different text to create a new narrative, so as to have two narratives which are plainly the one narrative in Matthew.


spin

Rick Sumner

The application of the sources in this particular relationship is what makes my proposal "unprecedented."

That could be. It could be simply "lack of knowledge" that prevents us finding an abundance of examples for my proposal as well.

You have anything in writing? The Genesis Apocryphon is neat-o.

Due to the unique nature we both observed above, some circularity is inevitable. The only place to test our hypothesis is in the same place we developed it.

I think Q oversimplifies things more than MwQ ever could. It essentially eliminates a problem--Lukan creativity--and gives it a new name.

But whether you're wedded to it or not wasn't my point. I'm aware that the eyebrow raising endeavours I mentioned by other academics didn't apply to you personally. My point was that Q was born ad hoc. And it was.

I beg to differ. I think Goulder makes the case. I think the case is made stronger by Matson and Peterson's pieces in Questioning Q. I think someone with some real balls could take it farther, but everybody wants to run away from the infancy (even Goodacre breezes past). I'm of the general opinion that anything that serves Matthew's "Exodus" is Matthean invention. If Luke knows any of those he knows Matt.

I think the efforts outside of answering those--things like trying to explain Luke's "scrambling"--are moot until those are answered.

I'm afraid I don't get on that bus either. We're still divided over Diana.

Rick Sumner

I actually thought about giving him an oral tradition (probably influenced by Matthew's gospel) to cover it off without relying on Lukan redactive tendencies. But that seems to me to fall into the same trap I condemn with Q. But even if we allow that you're right, and it can't be resolved with Matthew and Mark alone, a tradition to that effect (written or oral, though I'd favour the latter) is next in line. It's a long trip from that to Q.

In other words, if we follow Occam (and Einstein's variation), Q material only exists where no other plausible explanation is tenable. Which certainly isn't the Q we've grown to know and love.

spin

Goulder, I assume you are still talking about the same article, is crap. He just doesn't get past his own presuppositions.

And you have trouble talking about substance.


spin

Holly3278

Personally, I don't believe in the "Q Gospel". I believe that each Gospel was written by who tradition says they were written by. In other words, Matthew was written or dictated to a writer by St. Matthew, Mark by St. Mark, John, by St. John, and Luke by St. Luke.

aa5874

Well, based on Occam's, the best theory can be that the author of Luke probably used gMatthew alone.

Once it is understood that gMatthew contains almost 100 % of gMark, then gLuke does not need gMark if he used gMatthew.

And Occam's theory has very little value in determining actual history.

angelo

There are practically no serious scholars that agrees with these sentiments.
All the gospels were written anonymously. Only much later were they given titles.

Rick Sumner

Heh. More about his entire career. You could punch his name in JSTOR if you're so inclined, or in Google Scholar to get a rough idea.

He's made a living on the Minor Agreements. Though it's not his entire case either, he, for example, and not Goodacre, is the one who first came up with "fatigue."

And suggesting the entire article is crap is a bit disingenuous (you might be right on Nazareth. Still contemplating). His case on the minor agreement in the passion is bedrock solid.

Just wouldn't be you without the thinly veiled insults, would it? You have trouble engaging without polemic.

Let's try the whole thing from the top. Start at the infancies, end at the passion, and see what we come up with.

I propose that the virgin birth is distinctively Matthean, invented in the tradition of "miraculous" births (though obviously trumping them), with the intent to serve the abuse of Hosea. I propose that nobody other than Matthew has any indication of any need for it. Including Luke.

But it's in Luke's gospel. Why?