Ben C Smith

I am quite certain that somebody in synoptic scholarship has run the stats on verbal agreements within the sayings of Jesus proper (the parts one would find in red print in some Bibles) as against the other parts of the tradition (such as stories, summaries, or seams). Does anybody know where I might find a percentage breakdown of this kind? (I am thinking Tuckett for some reason, but that may just be incorrect recall on my part.)

The sense that I get from running through the synoptic gospels is that the screws of verbal agreement are often tightened somewhat when someone is being quoted (and this seems mysteriously to apply not only to Jesus but also to John the baptist and others), but it would take actual stats to prove or disprove the matter.

Thanks.

Ben.

Julian

Maybe if you ask Peter Kirby very nicely, he might do that for you.

Seriously, though, he has been making some decent efforts to get some statistically meaningful numbers in terms of lexical analysis. Here is a discussion on the topic:

http://eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic....f88e05e36f45bf

Julian

Yuri Kuchinsky

Hello, Ben,

I think it's quite a commonplace in Synoptic scholarship that the degree of agreement in the double tradition (Mt + Lk, i.e. the sayings of Jesus) is greater than in the triple tradition (Mt + Mk + Lk).

I can't cite you any references off hand, but I think you'll find that quite a few scholars do comment about this.

Yes, I also find that "the screws of verbal agreement are often tightened somewhat when someone is being quoted"... Sorry, I don't know about the exact "percentage breakdown" for this.

Best regards,

Yuri.

Ben C Smith

Yes, I have read something to that effect somewhere. And the double tradition is mostly discourse material, so the implication is that sayings are tighter than stories.

What I am wondering is (A) whether it is sayings in general, and not just dominical sayings (I notice, for example, that the demon in the Capernaum synagogue is quoted nearly verbatim in Mark and Luke), and (B) if it is sayings in general, why? I could easily explain a high agreement rate in the dominical sayings as reverence for the words of the Lord. But how then would I explain a high agreement rate in the ravings of a demoniac?

Thanks.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

He might, but I think that such a study has already been done, and we could save him the trouble. Besides, what I am looking for is actually not as complicated as all that. Just a percentage agreement rate within two different kinds of synoptic material, quotes and other.

I have high hopes for that kind of linguistic analysis, but if I may speak frankly the math absolutely loses me. I like math; I really do. Loved integral calculus, for example. But with the statistical stuff I am just out of my depth.

Thanks.

Ben.