maryhelena

Interesting....OK...maybe the gospel of 'Matthew' is the merging of the Q 'sayings' with the gospel of 'Mark'. A merging that took place sometime after 70 CE.

Going with James Crossley and his early date for the gospel of Mark (late 30s to middle 40s CE - something like that) the problem does present itself as to why 'Mark' was not able to utilize a Q source. Seeing that 'Matthew' was able to find Q some 30 years later...

That 'Matthew' was able to get hold of a 'sayings' source and 'Mark' was not able to do so, even though living closer to the purported gospel storyline, could indicate that 'Mark' developed his storyline far away in distance, not time line, from these purported events. If 'Mark' is the original template for the Jesus storyline - a basic foundational document - its place of origin could well have been just about anywhere - far away from the land of Palestine.

'Matthew', perhaps living closer to the ground, so to speak, closer to the geographical areas, and closer to whoever were the individuals relevant to early Christianity, was able to utilize 'sayings', oral traditions, that might well have been unknown, or unavailable in written form, to someone living outside the area. (the numbers of early christians at that time, according to the historicists, being small - I can't see any reason why 'Mark' would not have been able to find someone who knew about these 'sayings'....) The gospel of 'Matthew' could well be the merging of these two elements - the original Jesus template of 'Mark' with the 'sayings' source. If this is the case....scholars have been looking 'Q' in the face for a very long time...

The real issue with the 'sayings' is not that 'Matthew' merged them with the gospel of 'Mark' but the origin of those 'sayings' themselves. Were these 'sayings' the 'sayings' of some historical man that 'Matthew' found to be relevant, in and off himself, or were these the 'sayings' of every Tom, Dick or Harry that happened to be passing by?

I'm beginning to think that the Tom, Dick and Harry idea is nothing more than a version of the nobody Jesus that the historicists end up with - once they take away all the mythological 'clothes'. Mythicists need to take care that a Tom, Dick and Harry scenario, for understand the Q 'sayings', is like a nobody Jesus, just meaningless in trying to understand the gospel storyline...

Anyway, my thoughts for the day....

tradewinds

I think Luke was influenced by Paul and that is why he directs the writings away from Jews and more towards Greeks. It seems Q may have been a scribe around Paul's time, 50-60 CE.

maryhelena

Yes, it seems pretty plain - if 'Mark' is the early gospel and 'Matthew' a later gospel - the dating one gives to these gospels - the time lag between them - brings up big problems for the Q theory. 30 or more years between 'Mark' and 'Matthew' and suddenly, Q just drops out of the sky for 'Matthew' to use for his later gospel...Was 'Mark' really fast asleep, lazy, could not get off his behind and go out there and collect everything that was available to make his gospel the closer to the source document it could well have been...

One way out of all this for Q theorists is to put forth 'Matthew' as the original gospel - and 'Mark' just an edited, abbreviated version. But, methinks, such a position would meet up with resistence from the early 'Mark' scholars...

I think James Crossley, with his early date for 'Mark', is on the right track - for after all, if NT historians are taking it upon themselves to date 'Mark' by an 'apocalyptic handbill', prophetic boilerplate, then have they not left behind their historians objectivity and moved into the arena of prophetic interpretation - and thus are as liable as the next person to misinterpret said prophetic boilerplate...That method could well end up being a red-herring....

Chaucer

It's starting to look like that, isn't it? For the record, it was I who brought this up and thanks for referring to it.

Just thinking out loud here (I didn't expect to "go there" myself, but I'm wondering now if I sholdn't) -- This could raise another important question: Since I still see various problems with jettisoning Q altogether -- primarily because of the thematic issues you've spotlighted -- but since I still am disposed to take Gentile's statistics pointing to some Matthean quirks in Q passages identical in both Matthew and Luke seriously, I must now wonder if the general scholarly consensus viewing the Luke readings for Q as more authentic ought to be revisited. If the earliest Q (written) version comes from the author of Matthew (as intimated by Papias), then efforts to get as close as possible to any Q document should maybe concentrate more on Matthew than Luke, Matthew being presumably more familiar with what he first put down after all.

Startling, if so, knocking the presumption of greater Luke authenticity for Q into a cocked hat. This despite the odd disassembling of the inter-stitched Matthew structures for Q over in Luke, which does seem counter-intuitive. One would usually expect the more elaborate and inter-stitched structures to be in a later version rather than an earlier, making the less tied together structures in Luke -- if it's the later and less authentic recension? -- a surprise.

Ah, decisions, decisions!

Chaucer

youngalexander

Ahem, that is rather coy, considering that you know perfectly well that Gentile is plumping for the 3SH and interprets his results as favouring such a conclusion {my first post}.
He provides some background at {scroll to lower third of page}:

The Logia Translation Hypothesis.
Brian E. Wilson illustrates a solution to the synoptic problem -- based on the testimony of Papias -- presented at the 1999 meeting of the International Society of Biblical Literature.

Synoptic Gospels Sources
Ron Price's Three Source Theory addresses questions about the content of Q by proposing that Luke used both the synoptic sayings source & Matthew in composing his own gospel.

for those (maryhelena?) who wish to pursue it.

spamandham

There seems to me to be some equivocation of terms going on. Q has been used in the scholarly world to refer to some specific lost source of sayings collected together into a single manuscript.

In this thread, we seem to be using Q very loosely to refer to any collection of textual sources whatsoever that have Jesus sayings in them. That's a totally different beast altogether, and it doesn't seem appropriate to me to conflate the two ideas.

With this new definition of Q, Mark, Matthew, and Luke all form part of the Q continuum. I'm not opposed to the idea that Jesus sayings proliferated and the authors of the synoptics picked and chose what they liked, but that seems to me to be a different idea than what is formally known as Q.

JoeWallack

JW:
Because "Mark" rejects the significance of Q. I think the historical background is a follows:

1) HJ has a Teaching and Healing Ministry and followers.

2) HJ dies.

3) Followers promote HJ as Teacher and Healer. They may have considered him a martyr to some extent but emphasis is on T & H.

4) Followers document promotion with Q, T & H stories and sayings.

5) Papias refers to Q.

6) Paul, not a follower of HJ, changes emphasis of HJ promotion from T & H to martyr. Strategy is to ignore life of HJ and emphasize Passion of HJ.

7) With apologies to Mr. Doherty, "Mark" writes original Gospel narrative based on Paul's promotion of HJ. A preQuelle. What would have happened before Paul came.

8) "Mark's" style is ironically contrasting balance. The first half emphasizes Jesus' T & H, shows that this is what the historical disciples were interested in and that T & H is a distraction to what's really important, the Passion. "Mark's" emphasis here is just to describe Jesus as T & H but to minimize details of T & H and that is why Q is avoided. Note that the chronology of Q varies in "Matthew"/"Luke" because they had no narrative structure which had it.

9) "Mark" is split by the "Transfiguration" which is the transition to Passion. The second half of "Mark" emphasizes Jesus' Passion which the disciples are shown as having a Negative reaction to. This completes "Mark's" historical commentary. The historical disciples, who were the competition for Paul, promoted Jesus' T & H (including "the Law"), which Paul avoided, and Paul promoted Jesus' Passion which the historical disciples did not emphasize.

10) It's not until Acts, 2nd half of second century, that Paul is reconciled to the disciples (Justin c. 155, has never heard of Acts). Note that this puts dating pressure on "Luke". How can it be written 1st century if the same author writes Acts after 155?

So Q is available to "Mark" but largely not used because "Mark" wants to deemphasize the details. "Mark" knows his Gospel is not historical because it is the original Gospel. "Matthew"/"Luke" though take whatever exists as history and all that exists are "Mark" and Q so they use both.


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

dog-on

Are you talking about an Aramaic document, referred to by Papias?

Reasonable.

I think Luke/Acts is specifically anti-Marcionite, so mid second century seems to make sense here.

Thanks for the reply.

spin

Let's look at one small passage shared by the three gospels, the healing of the leper: Mt 8:2-4, Mk 1:40-45 and Lk 5:12b-16.

Matthew 8	Mark 1	Luke 5
2 and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying,	40 And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying,	12b there was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him,
"Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean!"	. . . . "If you are willing, You can make me clean."	"Lord, if you are willing, You can make me clean."
	41 Moved with compassion,
3 He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying,	He stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him,	13 And He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying,
"I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.	"I am willing; be cleansed." 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.	"I am willing; be cleansed." And immediately the leprosy left him.
	43 And He sternly warned him and immediately sent him away,
4 The Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer	44 and He said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer	14 And He ordered him to tell no one, "But go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering
the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."	for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."	for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."
	45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere.	15 But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

How do the theories meaningfully deal with what is manifested here?


spin

dog-on

Luke knew both Matthew and Mark, it seems.