Yuri Kuchinsky

Greetings, all,

I've already provided here some info about those "anti-Markan agreements" of Mt and Lk. There are about 1000 such agreements, i.e. where both Mt and Lk agree against Mk in those passages where they both, supposedly, were "independently copying from Mk".

So how could this be? How could both the author of Mt and the author Lk independently copy from Mk, and yet end up with something that was pretty clearly not copied from Mk? It seems like we do have a bit of a mystery here on our hands...

Now, having been made aware of this evidence, shouldn't some suspicion creep in, in the mind of a sceptical observer, that our canonical Mk wasn't really the source of Mt and Lk? And yet, I see quite a few members here still repeating it over and over again that Mk "clearly came first"!

So now I have an idea. If all this is true, i.e. that Mk was the source of Mt and Lk, who then proceeded to agree against Mk 1000 times, shouldn't this serve for us as proof of the existence of God? Indeed, assuming Markan priority, it does begin to look very much to me like this miracle of 1000 anti-Markan agreements may be seen as proof positive that it was really God himself who was guiding the hand of the Holy Evangelists Matthew and Luke, as they were in the process of copying from Mk! Thus, Markan priority is proof of the existence of God! What do you think about that!?

OTOH, if we don't assume Markan priority, then all bets are off... A whole range of other possibilities might be opening up, such as that the gospels weren't really 1c documents -- written up in one fell swoop, and then miraculously preserved ever after -- and that they were in fact undergoing extensive editing and re-writing by ecclesiastical editors for quite some time. In such a case, our anti-Markan agreements might be indicating that the texts of the gospels were still unstable, and cross-influencing each other even as late as the 2nd and 3rd centuries...

Is this real, or what?

Yuri.

Jayhawker Soule

A cursory reading of <a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/2sh/index.htm" target="_blank">2SH</a> suggests that this question is addressed by Burnett Hillman Streeter, "The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins, treating of the manuscript tradition, sources, authorship, & dates" and Frans Neirynck, in collaboration with Theo Hanson & Frans Van Segbroeck, "The Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke Against Mark with a Cumulative List". Unfortunately, this stuff is way out of my league.

But, Yuri, the situation is far different for you. If you are unaware of these works your assertions are pretentious and premature. If, however, you know of their arguments, I would expect an honest effort to present and defeat them. What we have here is neither, and this seems rather unprofessional to me.

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Yuri Kuchinsky

But why should I be unaware of these arguments? In fact, I'm aware of them all too well, having been a regular at the Synoptic-L for years, before I was expelled from there...

Also, more than once I've crossed swords with Mr. Stephen C. Carlson, the creator of this 2SH webpage.

<strong> Well, I'm simply asking, How could both the author of Mt and the author Lk independently copy from Mk, and yet end up with something that was pretty clearly not copied from Mk? Since this is such an extraordinary situation, then perhaps the Divine Intervention would explain it better than any other argument?

And of course I'm well aware of other possible arguments, and yet, as a critical scholar, I find them unsatisfying.

Yours,

Yuri.

Peter Kirby

Mark Goodacre would cringe reading this, and you know very well why.

best,
Peter Kirby

Yuri Kuchinsky

Yes, Peter, and Mark Goodacre, of course, rejects the existence of Q, as well as the 2ST, so I guess this will come as welcome news to all this massive academic Q industry that has developed in the last 20 years or so...

As a lot of people know, 2ST is the overwhelming favourite among NT scholars today. The only real opposition to this comes from the writings of the Matthean prioritists (the Griesbach Hypothesis), although currently they represent but a weak minority. All other Synoptic theories still remain on the far fringes at this time, including the Farrer Hypothesis, to which Goodacre and his mentor Goulder subscribe. It's a safe bet that, in North American Universities -- as opposed to England, where all these folks hail from -- most scholars never even heard of the Farrer Hypothesis...

And yet, mostly because of the Internet, in the last few years, Goodacre managed to gain some notoriety for his views.

So, yes, Goodacre has found a way to deal with those anti-Markan agreements, but this seems like just about the only thing that's going for him... (According to Goodacre, these agreements came about because Luke copied from Matthew, as well as from Mark.) Still, in every other way, the Farrer Hypothesis is just as dishonest as two of its main rivals. Because Goodacre et al still cling to the view that our canonical gospels are all 1c documents...

I'd say that, generally speaking, Farrer Hypothesis manages to combine the worst parts of both 2ST and Griesbach. From 2ST it borrows the Markan priority, and from Griesbach it borrows the general disregard of all those very early elements that are found in Luke.

Indeed, at least I agree with the 2ST theorists in so far as they point out that Luke happens to contain quite a lot of early textual material. And I agree with the Griesbachians in their critique of Markan priority. But the Farrer Hypothesis blithely closes its eyes to both of these very important themes, so it is probably destined to forever remain as a very marginal theory, just like it is now...

All the best,

Yuri.