Ben C Smith

In his recent article on Marcion and the synoptic problem, Matthias Klinghardt notes that canonical Luke had to have known Matthew as well as Marcion because some of the so-called minor agreements are not explained on the basis that Luke and Matthew were drawing on Marcion and Mark alone.

He does not bring forth very many of these minor agreements, but I agree that there are some that are perhaps compelling in this regard.

Nevertheless, one of the agreements he does bring forward is, I think, decidedly noncompelling. In Matthew 17.17 = Luke 9.41 Jesus addresses what he calls a faithless and perverse generation. In Mark 9.19 he addresses merely a faithless generation. IOW, Matthew and Luke agree against Mark in adding and perverse, and Marcion can be of no help, since Tertullian and Epiphanius (our principal sources on the contents of the Marcionite gospel) specify that Marcion lacks the phrase and perverse along with Mark.

But I do not think this particular agreement of Matthew with Luke is probative of very much. I think that both of them were drawing on a source outside Mark (and Marcion, for that matter), and that source is still extant. In Deuteronomy 32.5 (LXX) Moses calls the children of Israel a crooked and perverse generation; and, even more to the point, in 32.20 he calls them a perverse generation (same root word for perverse as in 32.5 and the synoptic saying, but with a different intensifying prefix), sons in whom there is no faith. These catchy sayings are surely enough to account for both Matthew and Luke independently adding perversity to their dominical words, echoing this Deuteronomic speech.

This suggestion is not original to me, of course, but I am often surprised how few people reckon with the possibility of mutual influence on Matthew and Luke from the LXX. This agreement even makes the list of impressive agreements in Hawkins, Horae Synopticae, pages 210-211, though he does mention one of the Deuteronomic parallels and may, with the wording of his introduction to the list to the effect that these cases seem to point to a common source, be thinking of Deuteronomy as the common source.

(I make this argument even as I myself think that Luke did indeed copy from Matthew in some way. I just do not think that this particular argument for him having done so is very persuasive, and it is important, nay, vital to clear the table of the weaker arguments in order to sift through the stronger.)

What do you think?

Ben.

yalla

KISS
Cut out the middle man Ben.
Why go:
1.LXX to "Matt"
and then in a [I]separate, coincidental /I]event:
2.LXX to "Luke", in the same place as "Matt"
Rather than:
LXX to "Matt" to " Luke", which requires no coincidence, just straight copying?

Ben C Smith

Your view:

1. Mark echoes the LXX (I presume you agree that all the this generation stuff comes from the LXX).
2. Matthew copies from Mark and adds a phrase from the LXX.
3. Luke copies from Matthew.

My (hypothetical) view:

1. Mark echoes the LXX with the this generation stuff.
2. Matthew copies from Mark and adds a phrase from the most pertinent context in the LXX.
3. Luke copies from Mark and adds the same phrase from the LXX.

Same number of steps, slightly different arrangement.

What you see as a separate, coincidental event is separate, but not (very) coincidental. Both Matthew and Luke may have copied from this same line in the LXX because they recognized (rightly, IMHO) that this is what Mark (or Jesus) was thinking of.

And, just to ensure clarity once again, please remember that I agree at present that Luke copied from Matthew; I just do not think this agreement is a particularly good reason for thinking so.

Ben.

spin

...mine and it's coming...
How would you explain the fact that Marcion doesn't contain and perverse? Isn't this a pointer to Irenaeus being in error about the relationship between Marcion's gospel and Luke?


spin

Ben C Smith

It is entirely possible that Irenaeus is mistaken (along with Tertullian and others). I doubt the fathers had any tradition of Marcion actually copying Luke; what they had was the text of Marcion alongside the text of Luke, and they assumed that Luke was first (actually, they do more than assume; they do mount arguments now and again, although their arguments do not always persuade the modern mind).

The jury is still out for me.

Ben.

spin

Thanks for the response. It all seems reasonable. I'll try to lift my head out of its stupor and get it around this stuff a bit more, as there may be further interesting frills.

In the meantime, this notion of "minor agreements" to me is somewhat suspect. It's just another proposal to describe the various phenomena that I could easily see as scribal cross-fertilization, ie one gospel being tainted by a scribe who knows the other well, or by a scribe omitting the offending phrase from Mark. (Then again, the only other "minor agreement" centers on Nazara, which I have attempted to explain as a later transposition in Luke for totally other reasons, ie to deal with confusion regarding the importance of Capernaum. I might need to look at others if I can once again get out of the stupor.)


spin

Ben C Smith

That is how a lot of two-source scholars see some of these minor agreements. And I do not doubt that at least some of them are indeed the product of scribal harmonization or error.

The only other minor agreement? Surely this is just a slip of the pixels. There are dozens more besides that one, though not all are as impressive as the Nazara agreement or the famous who hit you agreement, and the minor agreements (I call the more startling ones major agreements) shade into the so-called Mark-Q overlaps, too. (And, if we were to count agreements that are, to my mind, not much at all, such as Luke and Matthew agreeing in using the particle de instead of the conjunction kai, there are hundreds more.)

Ben.

spin

Oops, the only other minor agreement that I remember. That somehow didn't make it in. This hopefully shows my intention: "I might need to look at others if I can once again get out of the stupor."

I've picked up along the way that the Syriac versions jump around in form because of scribal tainting from Greek editions at times consciously, but others not.


spin

Ben C Smith

I figured it was just a slip.

I keep a running and very raw list of agreements on my website as I complete synopses (usually only during the summer months, when my time is more free). (These are positive agreements only, not negative agreements, the mutual omission of a word or words.)

Ben.

andrewcriddle

IMHO some of the 'minor agreements' are a result of our text of Luke having been later assimilated to Matthew.

This could be an example in which Marcion preserves the original text of Luke.

Andrew Criddle