robto

Except for DCHindley, folks in this thread don't seem to have much of a clue what literary dependence/independence is all about. Mark and Luke are literarily dependent because massive chunks are nearly word-for-word identical. Same for Mark and Matthew. M (Matthew's source for non-Mark, non-Q material) is independent because it DOESN'T have massive chunks that are nearly word-for-word identical with Mark, Q, Luke, etc. Also, there are no elements of style, vocabulary, etc, that can be definitively linked with those other texts. This isn't just my opinion, it's the conclusion of lots of hard work from many scholars over many decades.

Ehrman is summarizing here: he's giving conclusions that are widely accepted in the scholarly community. He's not accepting uncritically, he's reporting the results of many deep, critical studies. If he doesn't give detailed reasoning for each of these conclusions it's because it's just a summary, folks.

badger3k

So what is "M" and "L"? I have to assume, with the attendant risks, that this is the supposed source of the non-identical material in Matthew and Luke, the stuff not written from Mark. Of course, we don't know what they are either - was it one source? Was it many stories? Did they originate with one source and diverge over time, or were changed for whatever reason? Were they material added to the gospels later? From what I can understand, the idea is that M and L are, like Q, supposed to be some sort of document (or just a source).

But why are they not multiple sources, such as Cynic sayings absorbed by early Christians as part of the Teachings of their Great Man (caps for relating to the theory that sayings will be attributed to those considered "Great Men" even if they never said it). Why not consider the possibility that some of what the writer(s) of Matthew or Luke simply made it up?

Just as a thought experiment, what if the writer of Matthew said, "I heard this tale of a miracle done by this pagan fellow, and surely Jesus must have done something better, so maybe if I put this in...." There doesn't have to be any bad motive - there was a lot of "pious fraud" done, as the people then had somewhat different ideas about standards than we have today, and this could be the case. Why does there seem to be this necessity to postulate a single source - is this just standard psychology in that we like simplicity (or an easy explanation)?

The only scholar that I am aware of using M and L is Ehrman. Is this a new idea? My access to the literature is limited, but in my (again limited) readings I have never run into this except for Ehrman's work. Any recommendations on researching (or semi-casual reading) on this?

DCHindley

Weeelll,

The question of what sources may have been used by the three "synoptic" gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke) has to start with how much detail they have in common to each other, or don't have in common. Each of the books are laid out in three columns (a synopsis) so that you can see which verses are related to which. Its basically a database in the form of a table where columns are books and rows are verses.

Here is Ben Smith's web page on the subject:http://www.textexcavation.com/synopt...em.html#nature

Here is a Venn diagram of the proportions of common and unique materials in each of the three books:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ic_gospels.png

What that relationship diagram shows as "Double Tradition" is the assumed source(s) commonly labeled "Q." What is labeled "Unique to Luke" is "L" and what is "Unique to Matthew" is "M."

This is from this Wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synopti...noptic_gospels

From this raw data, critics try to come up with hypotheses as to the literary relationships between the three books and other assumed sources. There are a ton of them, many specifically designed to confirm some POV about what "should" have occurred (e.g., to make them conform to things suggested by early Church Fathers, etc).

The best known is the one in which the authors of Matthew and Luke both paired good chunks of Mark with "Q" plus some unique stuff each of them came up with on their own, to create their gospels. "M" and "L" have been around as long as this hypothesis received its classical form, which dates back to B. H. Streeter's definitive statement of the case in 1924.

Clear as mud?

DCH

dog-on

Of course, there is the assumption of "sources", independent of the authors own imaginations. This assumption is based on the assumption that there is some actual history in these books.

What happens to this summary if, in fact, this is true:

1. Mark wrote the first Gospel.
2. Matthew directly cribbed from this Gospel, Luke did as well, but also knew Matthew.
3. Each writer added their own creativeness, without using any other sources.

a.) Where does "Q" fit into this scenario?
b.) Why isn't this scenario the most likely.

badger3k

OK - for some reason I've never seen or heard an explanation that "L" is material unique to Luke. Maybe the writers assumed the reader is familiar with it, or else I missed it. Appreciate it.

Edit - I guess I'm showing my age when I prefer to look for sources other than wikipedia. I never considered it for this.

renassault

There was a good article (forgot its name) that made a literary experiment where there are three groups of students A B and C, and each is given the same story to read. After reading it they are asked to write a summary. The first group isn't allowed to quote the source at all, the second is allowed to quote it only in summary, and the third is allowed to quote it verbatim. They alternated the three groups and the results pretty much confirmed that there was literary dependence amongst the Gospels (though the author's aim was the opposite, and would not admit it).

I completely agree about literary dependence, but as far as Markan priority, I'd have to heavily disagree there. Just laying out the pericopes of each Gospel and seeing what they have in common immediately shows the numerous gaps that Matthew and Luke have in common with respect to Mark (as much as a whole parable, albeit a short one, in Mark 4), along with numerous other pieces of evidence leads to the conclusion that they used an earlier version of canonical Mark.


Matthew or Luke could not have invented the special material because the material reflects early tradition which it is claimed went through processes of expansion not capable for one man who would invent the whole thing himself. Cynic sayings integrated in Jesus' speech? Unlikely.

All scholars have recognized the special materials. Any "Introduction to the New Testament" (Kummel, Marxsen, Perrin, etc.) shows that, so it's nothing new

andrewcriddle

This scenario might be true. Various modern scholars eg Farrer, Goulder and Goodacre have supported it.

It does, however have a number of problems. For example:
a/ Luke leaves out a lot of material that is found in Matthew, some of which seems in line with Luke's own emphases. ie Luke would probably have used it if he had known of this material.
b/ Luke at some points, eg the birth narratives and the death of Judas Iscariot, diverges drastically from Matthew.
c/ The order of the material found in Luke and Matthew but not in Mark is very divergent between Luke and Matthew. (Whereas the material in Luke Mark and Matthew occurs mostly in the same sequence.)
d/ For material found in Luke and Matthew but not in Mark the Lukan version sometimes appears more primitive. eg in a recent thread on this forum several posters felt that Luke 14:26 (about hating one's family) is earlier than the parallel in Matthew 10:37-39 (about loving God more than one's family).

None of these arguments are conclusive, but cumulatively they explain why most scholars prefer a common source used by Matthew and Luke to the use of Matthew by Luke.

Andrew Criddle

dog-on

In reality, I hold another view on where Luke came from.

Loomis

Yep. He seems kind of stupid.

Like this:It’s loaded. The likelihood he’s describing only comes into play if you first presuppose an HJ.



“Duh …”

Loomis

Not necessarily. Another possibility is that Luke was rewriting Matthew to fix the parts that conflict with Pauline theology. The anti-Pauline quips in the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5:17-19) are a good example. So are the zombies in Matthew 27:52-53 (they disagree with the Pauline teaching that Jesus would be the resurrected first - ala Colossians 1:18).

That’s a motive. It’s conceivable that Luke just deliberately dropped them.