Vinnie

Would this increase the possibility of Matthew using an Aramaic sayings source? Or does all the content of Matthew's sayings appear to be "received" in Greek? Or is there no way to tell without the text of Luke?

Vinnie

Vinnie

Bump.

Chris Weimer

Hrm, if Luke knew Matthew, then some of the sayings would seem, to me at least, to come from a Semitic background - not necessarily linguistically, but culturally nonetheless. Matthew was definitely less Hellenized than Luke.

Solo

What is this, Chris, some Polluted Aryan Luke theory ?


would that be like, don't tell anything to the goiym ?

Jiri

Solo

[1] Unless it can be shown that Luke was specifically searching for an "Aramaic sayings source", the answer should be "no".

[2] The general scholarly consensus seems to be (I am no expert) that despite the Judaising and "pesher" style of argument, Matthew's primary sources (Mk, Q) were Greek and the gospel language was written in Greek originally. There has been some speculation that some of the "M" (and "N" B.W. Bacon) sayings may have had their origins directly in Aramaic (of the haggadic traditions in Syria). The Syriac versions of the gospel (Peshitta) are later translations from Greek unless you want shop for wisdom outside of the mainstream .

[3] there is a way to tell without Luke.

Jiri

Chris Weimer

Not at all. And I have no idea what warranted your sarcasm.

Oh this is cute. You must be all too unfamiliar with my position on Matthew.

Chris Weimer

I don't see how this is relevant to the question. What about Matthew using an Aramaic source forces the gospel itself to be written in Aramaic? Why can't Luke use a Greek Matthew and Matthew use an Aramaic source? He can. Whether he does or not is the question, but your statement is woefully ignorant of the fact that it is a possibility. Using an Aramaic source doesn't force the document to be in Greek.

While both Mark and Q were written in Greek, and while Matthew was written in Greek, Matthew's form of Q, which is more developed than Luke's, has many similarities to traditional Semitic and Jewish thinking. Although I suppose this has nothing to do with whether it was written in Aramaic or whether it merely contains an un-Hellenized form, that is yet to be seen conclusively. I'll hedge my bets that it all was Greek, at least at the time of composition.

Matthew exhibits many Semitic tendencies. Not to say linguistically, but he definitely wasn't from a Hellenized province as Luke apparently is.

Unless you planned on stringing two unrelated sentences together in the same paragraph, this doesn't follow what you said above.

Prithee, what way is this?

Solo

The idea of "cultural Semitism".

I must be.

Jiri

Vinnie

If Luke knows Matthew then the issue of Matthew's "Q" can hardly be known. Matthew may have used numerous sources. Is there any way to reconstruct a text like Q out of Matthew without an independent author such as Luke also using it? Q is already reconstructed on a speculatory basis. Remove Luke who is using Matthew instead and we would not have much to go on. Or am I incorrect on this point?

Vinnie

Solo

I am woefully ignorant about lot of things, Chris. The issue here however is whether you understand my answer. It appears you don't.

To understand my answer you would have to first read the question: the question asks, If Luke knew Matthew would this increase the possibility of Matthew using an Aramaic sayings source?

To that question, it is totally irrelevant to consider "whether Luke used Greek Matthew and Matthew used sayings in Aramaic". There definitely is such a possibility but it cannot be used as a test to determine whether that would increase the probability of Matthew using Aramaic. We assume Luke knew Matthew (personally I have no big doubt about it); does that increase or decrease the probability that Matthew used an Aramaic source or sources ? Plainly, it does not. What Luke does, has no bearing on the determination of where Matthew got his sources, except as I said, if we had evidence that Luke went to look to Matthew specifically for some original Aramaic material.

Elementary, dear Weimer.

Jiri