Freethought & Rationalism Archive

andrewcriddle · 03-29-2012, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

It is a striking example, but IMO it could in principle be explained by an oral tradition known to both Matthew and Luke. I don't think it requires Matthew and/or Luke to have access here to a written source other than Mark.

Andrew Criddle

But didn't you say that Mt & Lk working with oral traditions was not likely as some of their verbal agreements were too close ? Here we are talking a perfect copy of a block of five words. At any rate, there can be other explanations, e.g. "assimilation".

The bigger issue of course is, as jdl pointed out (and I argued against Doherty) the falsifiability of Q. What would make Q a falsifiable theory ?

Best,
Jiri

Hi Jiri

Some of the Q verbal agreements (or very near agreements) are longer than a single phrase.

For the rest, see my reply to jdl.

Andrew Criddle

yalla · 03-29-2012, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

I hate to disturb the fireside chat where Q has been consigned to the flames, and I’d rather chew tin foil than discuss Q yet again, but I need to raise some contradictions involved in some postings on the first page of this thread (which is as far as I’ve gotten). Someone pointed to Mark 2:19-20:

Quote:

Jesus said to them, “Can you expect the bridegroom’s friends to fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, there can be no fasting. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and on that day they will fast.”

Matthew (9:15), in taking this pericope from Mark, eliminated the middle sentence:

Luke 5:34-35 also takes from Mark, but shows the same deletion of the middle idea of Mark as is found in Matthew:

Quote:

Jesus replied: “Can you make the bridegroom’s friends fast while the bridegroom is with them? But a time will come: the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and that will be the time for them to fast.”

The problem with taking examples like this and using them to confidently declare that “there is no need for Q” or “this shows Luke used Matthew” is that it ignores two things: Can these examples be explained otherwise? And are there greater problems in postulating a use of Matthew by Luke which would override any confident use of examples like the above as though there were no other explanation for them? After all, Goodacre himself is rife with ad hoc explanations for the problems he faces in the no-Q position which are far more difficult to accept than alternate explanations for passages like the above.

For example, there is nothing unreasonable about postulating coincidence to explain both Matthew’s and Luke’s independent deletion of the middle sentence in Mark. Why? Because it is obviously redundant. It is virtually a repeat of the first sentence. Matthew and Luke could easily have both recognized this each on their own.

In addition, there is a logical anomaly involved in the discussion. In the example above, it is claimed that Luke’s deletion of Mark’s middle sentence was the result of Luke seeing it deleted in Matthew. This rejects the idea that, as I said above, Luke could have come to the conclusion on his own that the sentence was not needed. However, such a rejection implies that Luke was motivated by an urge/need/propensity to follow Matthew’s direction. If Matthew made a change to Mark, Luke saluted and said: “Read and obeyed!” However, this is simply not the case in Luke as a whole. One of the strongest arguments against the no-Q position is the fact that Luke in so many cases does precisely the opposite (requiring an endless ream of ad hoc explanations by Goodacre for why this is so). Luke in fact never reproduces Matthew’s positive redactions of Mark. What gives here? He only followed Matthew’s lead in *deleting* elements of Mark, but never in *adding* Matthew’s enlargements of Mark? (For example, Matthew’s insertion (16:17-19) of the “upon this rock” saying to Mark’s scene of Jesus asking “Who do men say that I am?” (8:28f). But Luke does not take over this Matthean addition to Mark’s scene. Goodacre’s ‘explanation’ for why Luke fails to do so is particularly lame, thus making the omission (and others like it) a very good argument against Luke having used Matthew.

Why is it that those here, and no-Qers in general, are willing and able to ignore or set something like that aside (and they are many since, as I said, Luke never takes over Matthean redactional additions to Mark, nor his ‘improvements’ of Markan expression that can otherwise be explained); instead they seize on a passage where both Matthew and Luke could easily have independently deleted a clearly redundant sentence in Mark and call this ‘proof’ no Q need have existed?

DNA’s statement: “He [Luke] is then treating this early Matthian text with the same sort of respect he shows Mark, but feels free to amend and alter the later redacted Matthian material to suit his own theological purposes” is thus groundless, for rarely if ever does Luke actually show any amendment or alteration of a Matthean redaction of Mark. In fact, in a further unlikely idea, Luke often shows a more primitive version of a Matthean passage. Is Luke going to “amend and alter” Matthew in a more primitive and difficult direction? Is he going to show a less developed form of a Matthean passage if he is taking it from Matthew? This is another of the strong arguments against a Lukan use of Matthew. (Of course, now we are seeing the postulation of an Ur-Matthew containing none of these redactions of Mark for Luke to take over. Fine, I suppose, anything is possible; but then why not accept the same state of affairs on the Q side, in which the agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark can be explained by them taking from an Ur-Mark which subsequently underwent some alterations of its own, destroying the triple agreement?)

There was some discussion here about the procedure by which an ancient writer used multiple sources in creating a new text. It seems the accepted wisdom has become the theory that rather than having both Mark and Matthew open on his desk at the same time, Luke redacted Mark first and then took up Matthew to make a further expansion and alteration. (I wonder at the wisdom of that theory, when wholesale alteration and insertion in an already written preliminary text would have been extremely difficult given the nature of writing materials at that time. No handy word processor on a computer screen.) But let’s suppose that were the case. Luke first gets to Mark 2:19-20. He either recognizes Mark’s middle sentence as redundant and doesn’t use it—in which case we have identified why it does not appear and we don’t need Matthew’s similar deletion of it to explain things. Or he has not considered it redundant and includes it. Then when his preliminary gospel has been written, he takes up Matthew. In the passage in question, he finds that Matthew did not reproduce Mark’s middle sentence. What is he liable to do? Say: “Gee, I didn’t see anything wrong with it, but I guess Matthew considered it redundant so I better eliminate it. Hand me that strigil, Onesimus, I gotta scrape off those words…oops, would you patch up this hole in the papyrus, Ony? I guess I should have just used up some of my precious ink to blot out the sentence and leave an ugly black mark across the manuscript…”?

Or would he simply have left the bloody sentence in?

Earl Doherty

Gidday Earl,
Firstly let me congratulate on your success over the years at stirring up the HJers.

Now on to some of your comment above.
I'm leaving for a long trip in an hour to pick up visitors from England so, unfortunately, this will almost be in the nature of a drive by comment cos I'm getting the hurry up from my wife already.
In the Mark section above Matthew omits a line.
So does Luke.
As you say, no big deal.
But ...a few verses later, same scene [I give the verses in my post] Matthew adds 2 words to Mark. Without looking I think they are 'spill' and 'destroy'. They are in the post.
And Luke adopts both these positive additions of Matthew to Mark.
Thats a bigger deal.
Partly because it refutes this from you, at least in this one instance.
"He only followed Matthew’s lead in *deleting* elements of Mark, but never in *adding* Matthew’s enlargements of Mark? "
He does.

Some time ago I recommended, in a private message to you, Olson's thesis where he examines the claim by Qists [Downing in particular] that Luke's literary treatment of Matthew and Mark is atypical of the normal practice of ancient writers.
He shows this claim to be incorrect.
There is a link in a post above.

Gotta go.
cheers, keep up the good work
yalla.

andrewcriddle · 03-29-2012, 02:07 PM

In the wine and wineskins pericope Matthew in Codex Bezae agrees with Mark rather than Luke. There is a real possibility that Matthew here has been secondarily assimilated to Luke.

Andrew Criddle

EarlDoherty · 03-29-2012, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

In the wine and wineskins pericope Matthew in Codex Bezae agrees with Mark rather than Luke. There is a real possibility that Matthew here has been secondarily assimilated to Luke.

Andrew Criddle

Yes, I have often stated one of my favorites principles that we ought not to risk a confident and sweeping argument about anything based solely on nitty-gritty wording in our extant mss. which come often a century or two after the presumed autographs. We do so at our peril, including mythicists.

Just the prospect of assimilation of one text to another during that long period of hidden activity by overactive editors and redactors is warning enough. (Incidentally, I can easily accept the common wording of "who is it that struck you" as quite feasibly being a case of assimilation.) Once that situation is realized, the whole anti-Q case based on this agreement or that becomes a pool of supposed concrete that has melted into sludge.

By the way, I won't be pursuing the Q issue any further at the present time, as I've got my hands full with certain anti-mythicists whose reliability has also melted into sludge.

Earl Doherty

Solo · 03-29-2012, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

But didn't you say that Mt & Lk working with oral traditions was not likely as some of their verbal agreements were too close ? Here we are talking a perfect copy of a block of five words. At any rate, there can be other explanations, e.g. "assimilation".

The bigger issue of course is, as jdl pointed out (and I argued against Doherty) the falsifiability of Q. What would make Q a falsifiable theory ?

Best,
Jiri

Hi Jiri

Some of the Q verbal agreements (or very near agreements) are longer than a single phrase.

For the rest, see my reply to jdl.

Andrew Criddle

Hi Andrew,

I don't doubt that some of the Q verbal agreeents are longer but this one (the assault on Jesus by the Sanhedrin counsels) is particularly difficult in what it proposes. One, this was a physical assault on Jesus by the Sanhedrin counsels (luke apparently felt uneasy about it); two, it suggests something that would not not make sense to someone in the street - Jesus asked to prophesy ex eventu. So I would not say this is an oral sort of material like "foxes have holes and fowls nests". This looks more like Luke saying, "yes, I know what this is !" when he sees it on paper and adding his own emendations.

Now if you really want to see a complex case, look at the Beelzebub incident in which Luke copies wholesale: the interesting thing is that while the compilers of Q see three separate units (refutation of Beelzebub accusation, Looting the the Strong Man, and Who is not With Me), though the units follow each other without break and one can isolate the sayings even further:

1) Jesus is accused of casting out demons by the prince of demons:

2) Jesus knows the thoughts of the accusers

3) Satan is divided against himself ? cannot be

4) And by whom do your sons cast out demons ?

5) But if I cast them out by the Spirit/finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you

6) strong man's house plundered

7) he who is not with me is against me

This is a pretty complex bunch of sayings for a sayings gospel, and the bunch is heavily spiked with a narrative elements (Q11:14 'he cast out a demon ...people were amazed).... 11:15 "some said" , 11:17 "he knew their thoughts", 11:19 "your sons" (Jesus addresses persons identified by narration), which makes it hard to credit it was sourced independently. Not only Luke reproduces the sequence, but also follows Matthew in walking into the Beelzebub controversy after a story substituting the Markan revelation that Jesus' family thought him insane. (Matthew actually builds an extra hedge against Mark's indiscretion in 10:25).

The supposed sayings source then has a firm narrative framework which belies the advertized nature of Q.

BTW, the question that both jdl and I asked you, was left unanswered. Do you or do you not believe the Q theory is falsifiable, and if yes then how ?

Best,
Jiri

Bernard Muller · 03-29-2012, 08:58 PM

to JonA,

Quote:

Obviously some cases of agreement are instances of harmonization. No one would deny this. I can see the argument you are trying to make, however, and it doesn't hold water. You are merely caricaturing the Q hypothesis by accusing Q proponents of blindly attributing all non-Markan material shared by Matthew and Luke to the Q document(s) when this is not at all how scholars work to reconstruct gospel source materials. There may be buckets of amateurs who operate in this method, but it is not the M.O. of professional critics.

I do not know what you are talking about. I am not caricaturing Q proponents. I am a Q proponent myself. Do not generalize on my comments on "Who is the one who struck You?". That's part of the story, not the whole one by a lot. Just read my webpage.

Adam · 03-29-2012, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

....

This is a pretty complex bunch of sayings for a sayings gospel, and the bunch is heavily spiked with a narrative elements (Q11:14 'he cast out a demon ...people were amazed).... 11:15 "some said" , 11:17 "he knew their thoughts", 11:19 "your sons" (Jesus addresses persons identified by narration), which makes it hard to credit it was sourced independently. Not only Luke reproduces the sequence, but also follows Matthew in walking into the Beelzebub controversy after a story substituting the Markan revelation that Jesus' family thought him insane. (Matthew actually builds an extra hedge against Mark's indiscretion in 10:25).

The supposed sayings source then has a firm narrative framework which belies the advertized nature of Q.
...
Jiri

Refer to my Post #20 earlier here for starters.
Regarding the above, now that Gospel of Thomas has demonstrated that Q material appears in gMark, we don't know how much other Triple Tradition material appears in Mark. I say there was a lot, much of it narrative. See from my Gospel Eyewitnesses thread my Post #74:
Q/Twelve-Source

and follow also the link to my Underlying article.
When Papias spoke of Matthew writing the Logia, the word in Greek implies more than just sayings, and would more likely refer to somthing like a gospel. That's what we get if we add in what scholars were starting to identify as the Twelve Source.

See my Post #151 in The Myth of Oral Communication of Jesus' Sayings and the Karma Chain Q2/Qumraner

for my differentiation of Q2 material in Greek as distinct from the earlier Aramaic Q1. There never was a document Q that corresponds to the overlap of Matthew and Luke. Q1 was written very early, the narrative portions soon added such as much of the difficult Beelzebub textual conundrum, and Q2 was attached after Thomas had already used Q1 but before the canonical gospels used it. Simplistic assumptions about the nature of Q leave the Q theory vulnerable to unfair attack from critics.

Q from very early times included narrative such as we find in Mark (as Twelve-Source). More narrative was added about John the Baptist in Q2 along with apocalyptic sayings that have still left Jesus branded as an apocalyptic prophet when the fact may be that this came from disciples of John the Baptist. You don't find that in gJohn nor in Q1 or L.

JonA · 03-30-2012, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernard Muller

Just read my webpage.

No thanks.

outhouse · 03-30-2012, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernard Muller

Just read my webpage.

No thanks.

agreed

in this case i'll follow K.I.S.S.

the more one tries to define something that doesnt exist, and does so with certainty,,,,,,, well they loose credibility.

I believe Q was a source that someone may have either cherry picked for content, or existed only in oral tradition

Solo · 03-30-2012, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarlDoherty

I hate to disturb the fireside chat where Q has been consigned to the flames, and I’d rather chew tin foil than discuss Q yet again, but I need to raise some contradictions involved in some postings on the first page of this thread (which is as far as I’ve gotten). Someone pointed to Mark 2:19-20:

Quote:

Jesus said to them, “Can you expect the bridegroom’s friends to fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, there can be no fasting. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and on that day they will fast.”

Matthew (9:15), in taking this pericope from Mark, eliminated the middle sentence:

Luke 5:34-35 also takes from Mark, but shows the same deletion of the middle idea of Mark as is found in Matthew:

Quote:

Jesus replied: “Can you make the bridegroom’s friends fast while the bridegroom is with them? But a time will come: the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and that will be the time for them to fast.”

The problem with taking examples like this and using them to confidently declare that “there is no need for Q” or “this shows Luke used Matthew” is that it ignores two things: Can these examples be explained otherwise? And are there greater problems in postulating a use of Matthew by Luke which would override any confident use of examples like the above as though there were no other explanation for them? After all, Goodacre himself is rife with ad hoc explanations for the problems he faces in the no-Q position which are far more difficult to accept than alternate explanations for passages like the above.

Earl, if you want to stay away from controversies, by all means, stay away from them ! Goodacre is an esteemed scholar. John Kloppenborg compliments Goodacre on his acuity and thoroughness. The fact of the matter is - as I showed you - you don't even understand critical portions of his argument. You totally messed up on the editorial fatigue problem, and are clueless about his handling of the minor agreements.

Quote:

For example, there is nothing unreasonable about postulating coincidence to explain both Matthew’s and Luke’s independent deletion of the middle sentence in Mark. Why? Because it is obviously redundant. It is virtually a repeat of the first sentence. Matthew and Luke could easily have both recognized this each on their own.

There is nothing obvious about the "cannot fast" being deleted. In fact, in Mark Jesus simply answers his own question, saying the disciples cannot do that while the bridegroom is with them. What is striking here is precisely the opposite: The rhetorical pose of Jesus is overwritten in Matthew and Luke seems to follow blindly after him and messes up not just the symmetry but the intended meaning of the response. Can they fast while the bg is with them ? No they cannot fast while the bg is with them. But in the days the bg is taken from them they will fast. This is a good rhetorical form that Matthew and Luke lose.

Quote:

In addition, there is a logical anomaly involved in the discussion. In the example above, it is claimed that Luke’s deletion of Mark’s middle sentence was the result of Luke seeing it deleted in Matthew. This rejects the idea that, as I said above, Luke could have come to the conclusion on his own that the sentence was not needed. However, such a rejection implies that Luke was motivated by an urge/need/propensity to follow Matthew’s direction. If Matthew made a change to Mark, Luke saluted and said: “Read and obeyed!”

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe it's all in your head....

.

Quote:

However, this is simply not the case in Luke as a whole. One of the strongest arguments against the no-Q position is the fact that Luke in so many cases does precisely the opposite (requiring an endless ream of ad hoc explanations by Goodacre for why this is so).

This is patent nonsense, Earl, and anyone who cares can quickly ascertain that your characterization of Goodacre method is grossly misleading. (See chapter 3 (page 46) in the google verson of his book).

Quote:

Luke in fact never reproduces Matthew’s positive redactions of Mark. What gives here? He only followed Matthew’s lead in *deleting* elements of Mark, but never in *adding* Matthew’s enlargements of Mark? (For example, Matthew’s insertion (16:17-19) of the “upon this rock” saying to Mark’s scene of Jesus asking “Who do men say that I am?” (8:28f). But Luke does not take over this Matthean addition to Mark’s scene. Goodacre’s ‘explanation’ for why Luke fails to do so is particularly lame, thus making the omission (and others like it) a very good argument against Luke having used Matthew.

How can you believe you can get away with such outrageous misrepresentations ? All it takes is someone opening Goodacre p.52 and your credibility goes down the drain. Why do you do this to yourself ?

Quote:

Why is it that those here, and no-Qers in general, are willing and able to ignore or set something like that aside (and they are many since, as I said, Luke never takes over Matthean redactional additions to Mark, nor his ‘improvements’ of Markan expression that can otherwise be explained); instead they seize on a passage where both Matthew and Luke could easily have independently deleted a clearly redundant sentence in Mark and call this ‘proof’ no Q need have existed?

:realitycheck:

Jiri

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03-29-2012, 02:07 PM	#63
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	In the wine and wineskins pericope Matthew in Codex Bezae agrees with Mark rather than Luke. There is a real possibility that Matthew here has been secondarily assimilated to Luke. Andrew Criddle

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