INT.Chapter 2. Part 2.docx

Common dependence on one original gospel. In 1771 the German writer and literary critic G. E. Lessing argued that the relationships among the Synoptic Gospels could be explained if they had independently used one original gospel written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This proposal was adopted by others and r...

Common dependence on one original gospel. In 1771 the German writer and literary critic G. E. Lessing argued that the relationships among the Synoptic Gospels could be explained if they had independently used one original gospel written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This proposal was adopted by others and received modification at the hands of J. G. Eichhorn, who postulated the existence of several lost gospels as the sources for the Synoptic Gospels. The proposal has not met with much favor in the last one hundred years, although C. C. Torrey argued a form of it in 1933.25 Common dependence on oral sources. Shortly after Lessing had proposed an “Ur-gospel” as the solution to the synoptic problem, the German critic J. G. Herder argued that dependence of the Synoptic Gospels on a relatively fixed oral summary of the life of Christ explained the data better. This approach was expanded and defended at length by J. K. L. Gieseler in 1818.27 The view was more popular in the nineteenth century than it is today, but it continues to be argued by a few scholars.29 Common dependence on gradually developing written fragments. The important and controversial theologian F. Schleiermacher suggested that several fragments of gospel tradition existed in the early church and that these gradually grew until they became incorporated into the Synoptic Gospels. This thesis is no longer argued in this form, but Schleiermacher was apparently the first to argue that Papias’s “logia” refers to one of these fragments—a collection of the sayings of Jesus.31 Interdependence. The last basic solution to the synoptic problem maintains that two of the evangelists used one or more of the other gospels in constructing their own. Without necessarily denying the use of other sources now lost, advocates of this view argue that only borrowing at the final literary level can explain the degree of similarity among the Synoptic Gospels. This solution to the synoptic problem has been urged from early in the history of the church (e.g., Augustine; see below) and commands almost universal assent among contemporary New Testament scholars—with good reason. While the ability of first-century Jews to transmit traditions with a remarkable degree of accuracy must not be minimized (see the discussion of form criticism above), it is unlikely that the degree of agreement in the Greek text such as is illustrated above can be explained by recourse to oral tradition alone. Robert Stein draws attention to Mark 13:14 = Matthew 24:15 in this regard, where each of the evangelists directs a parenthetical remark to the reader. Moreover, as quoted above, Luke makes clear that he, at least, used written sources in writing his gospel (1:1–4). The hypothesis of a Semitic-language Ur-gospel encounters the same difficulty in explaining the remarkable agreement in the Greek text of the gospels. What is the likelihood that independent translators would come up with exactly the same wording in so many places? To be sure, we could propose a large Greek Ur-gospel as the source for all three gospels. But this hypothesis has three serious drawbacks. First, we would have expected so major a literary product in Greek to have been mentioned somewhere in early Christian literature—but it is not. Second, it is harder to explain the genesis of the three Synoptic Gospels if so significant a text already existed. And third, viewed as a comprehensive hypothesis, this theory has difficulty explaining the differences among the Synoptic Gospels. Theories of Interdependence. Only a theory that includes as a major component literary interdependence among the Synoptic Gospels is capable of explaining the data. One aspect of these data stands out as particularly determinative for the viability of proposed theories: the relationship among the gospels in the order of their recording of the events of the ministry. A study of the sequential parallelism of the Synoptic Gospels at this point reveals a significant fact: while Matthew and Mark frequently agree against Luke in the order of events, and Luke and Mark frequently agree against Matthew, Matthew and Luke almost never agree against Mark. This can be seen from the data in table 4 above. Note that Matthew and Mark agree, against Luke, in placing the accusation that Jesus casts out demons in the name of Beelzebul just before the so-called parables of the kingdom; and Luke and Mark agree, against Matthew, in putting the stilling of the storm and the healing of Gerasene demoniac just after these parables. At no point, however, do Matthew and Luke agree against Mark. To put it another way, at no point does Mark follow an order that disagrees with the other two (hence the lack of any bold type in the Mark column). This phenomenon has given rise to one of the most important arguments for the nature of synoptic relationships: the argument from order. It appears to require that Mark be the “middle term” in any scheme of relationships among Mark, Matthew, and Luke. In other words, Mark must have a relationship to both Matthew and Luke, whether he is earlier than both, comes between both, or is later than both. Figure 1 shows the four possibilities. Each of these schemes can explain the phenomenon of order. Moreover, we cannot exclude the possibility that there is a relationship between Matthew and Luke independent of their use of Mark. The argument from order, in and of itself, does not exclude dependence of Matthew and Luke on one another, although it requires that the evangelist who wrote last would have deliberately chosen to follow the order of the other two gospels, whenever they agreed. We thus have the six additional possibilities shown in figure 2. Figure 1 Synoptic Relations: Mark as Middle Term Figure 2 Synoptic Relations: Interdependence of Matthew and Luke Of the ten schemes, only three have received significant support in the history of the study of the question. The Augustinian Proposal. Taking its name from the famous North African theologian who first advocated it, this proposal holds that Matthew was the first gospel written. Mark then borrowed from Matthew, with Luke, finally, borrowing from both Matthew and Mark. Until the nineteenth century this was the standard view of those who saw a literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels. At that time, however, many began to prefer alternative proposals. Augustine’s proposal has not won many modern advocates, with a few exceptions.35 The “Two-Gospel” Hypothesis. As part of his ground-breaking critical approach to the Synoptic Gospels, J. J. Griesbach, while agreeing that Matthew was the first gospel written, maintained that Luke was second and that Mark was dependent on both Matthew and Luke. His proposal, dubbed the two-gospel hypothesis to contrast it with the two-source hypothesis, has enjoyed a considerable resurgence in popularity in the last thirty years. The “Two-Source” Hypothesis. While the two-gospel hypothesis views Matthew and Luke as the building blocks of Mark, the two-source hypothesis holds that Mark and “Q,” a lost collection of Jesus’ sayings, have been used independently by Matthew and Luke. Markan priority was first proposed in the 1830s, apparently independently, by Karl Lachmann and C. G. Wilke, while the full two-source hypothesis was advanced by C. H. Weisse in 1838. It was given its classic expression in an 1863 monograph by H. J. Holtzmann.39 Finally, in a work that stands as the high-water mark in source criticism, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924), B. H. Streeter posited the existence of two other sources in addition to Mark and Q: “M,” the material peculiar to Matthew’s gospel, and “L,” the material peculiar to Luke’s gospel. This “four-source” hypothesis was an attempt to provide a comprehensive explanation of the origin of the gospels through source criticism. Streeter even suggested dates and provenances for his sources. His resultant scheme may be diagramed as in figure 3. Streeter took source criticism as far it could be taken (some would say beyond), and his was the last major work in the discipline to appear for some time. Not everyone agreed with the details of his scheme, and most contemporary gospel critics are skeptical about the existence of M and L as written documents and about the chronological and geographic conclusions he reached. (Some scholars use M and L simply to denote, respectively, material peculiar to Matthew and Luke.) But most scholars thought that Streeter and his predecessors had clearly proven the two-source hypothesis in general, and this explanation of gospel origins was generally assumed by those, such as the redaction critics, who were working on other aspects of the gospels. Figure 3 Streeter’s Four-Source Hypothesis As noted above, however, this is no longer true. The two-source hypothesis has been subjected over the last thirty years to serious criticism, most notably by advocates of the two-gospel, or Griesbach proposal, but also by others, some of whom maintain Markan priority while questioning the existence or nature of Q. To the extent that these challenges have introduced some caution into what was often an overly dogmatic and simplistic reconstruction of gospel origins, they have had a salutary effect. The two-source theory has been appropriately dethroned from the status of being an “assured result of scholarship.” Nevertheless, properly nuanced, it remains the best general explanation of the data. In the sections that follow, we will examine the evidence for and against each of the two sources of the two-source hypothesis. Markan Priority. Until the nineteenth century, most Christians assumed that Matthew was the first gospel to be written. This tradition, which became the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, must be respected, particularly since it appears to be bolstered by the second-century testimony of Papias, as cited by Eusebius (see below). Nevertheless, it does not settle the issue. Many gave Matthew priority on the inadequate grounds that he was the only apostle among the synoptic evangelists. Another equally strong tradition holds that Mark wrote his gospel based on the preaching of Peter (see the introduction to Mark), and this makes Markan dependence on Matthew difficult. Since Lukan priority is rarely argued, the main alternative to Matthean priority is Markan priority. Why have so many scholars been convinced that Mark is the gospel that lies at the basis of both Matthew and Luke? The following are the most important arguments. The brevity of Mark. Mark is considerably shorter than both Matthew and Luke: 11,025 words as against 18,293 and 19,376, respectively. It is not Mark’s relative brevity per se that provides evidence for Mark’s priority (it cannot be demonstrated that the shorter is necessarily the earlier), but its brevity taken in conjunction with its close relationship to Luke, and especially to Matthew. Over 97 percent of Mark’s words have a parallel in Matthew; over 88 percent in Luke. It therefore makes more sense to think that Matthew and Luke have taken over much of Mark, expanding it with their own material, than that Mark has abbreviated Matthew and/or Luke with the omission of so much material. To be sure, it is possible to argue that Mark is a deliberate condensation of Matthew and Luke—as proponents of the two-gospel theory maintain. But it would be a strange condensation that generally lengthens the narratives taken from these other gospels while omitting things like the Sermon on the Mount, the birth narratives, and the appearances of the risen Lord. Put simply, this argument runs: “Given Mark, it is easy to see why Matthew was written; given Matthew, it is hard to see why Mark was needed.”46 The verbal agreements among the gospels. As we illustrated earlier, at many places the three Synoptic Gospels manifest a remarkable degree of verbal parallelism. But careful study reveals that while all three accounts sometimes agree (as in table 2), Matthew and Mark frequently agree, as do Mark and Luke, but Matthew and Luke agree less often. As with the argument from order, this phenomenon can be explained as long as Mark is the middle term of the three. It is much more difficult to explain if Mark is not the first, however, because on any other hypothesis, recourse must be had to the supposition of a deliberate and unlikely method of composition. With the Augustinian hypothesis, we would have to think that Luke almost always chose to use Mark’s wording rather than Matthew’s; with the two-gospel hypothesis, we would have to assume that Mark almost never introduced any wording of his own. While possible, both procedures are less likely than the alternative. (The minor agreements between Matthew and Luke are discussed below.) The order of events. We noted above that a comparison of the order of events in the Synoptic Gospels reveals a situation similar to what is observed about the verbal agreements: Matthew and Luke do not agree against Mark. This phenomenon was noted by Lachmann, who argued, furthermore, that this situation was best explained if Mark was the prior gospel. As with the verbal agreements, the phenomenon of order can be explained by other hypotheses. For example, Luke might have determined to follow Mark’s order when he diverged from Matthew (on the Augustinian explanation), or Mark might have decided never to deviate from Matthew and Luke when they agreed. Again, the virtue of Markan priority is that it provides a natural explanation for this phenomenon rather than having to postulate an unlikely compositional procedure on the part of one of the evangelists. Mark’s awkward and more primitive style. It is generally agreed that Mark has more grammatical irregularities and awkward constructions than do Matthew and Luke. This, it is argued, favors Markan priority, because the natural tendency would have been for later authors to smooth out such irregularities (a similar criterion is used in textual criticism). Similarly, Mark preserves more Aramaic expressions than does either Matthew or Luke in their parallels with Mark. It is easier to see, it is argued, why Matthew and Luke would eliminate or translate Aramaic expressions that would be unintelligible to their Greek-speaking readers than why Mark would have added such Aramaic expressions without a basis in his sources. Mark’s more primitive theology. Many scholars find many more theologically difficult statements in Mark than in Matthew and Luke, and this suggests (again, paralleling textual-critical principles) that Mark is the earliest. An example is Mark 6:5, where the evangelist claims that, because of the unbelief of the people in Nazareth, Jesus “could not do any miracles there.” In the parallel verse, Matthew says that Jesus “did not do many miracles there” (13:58). It is argued that it is more likely that Matthew has removed the potentially troublesome implication that Jesus was incapable of working a miracle than that Mark has added it. This argument has some weight, but it is not as decisive as the ones above. Not only could one argue about which evangelist has the more difficult statements, but one also must take into account the effect of each evangelist’s compositional purposes and theology. This makes it much harder to be sure about the direction of borrowing. The same objection applies to the related argument that redaction critics have found it more plausible to explain Matthew on the basis of Mark than vice versa. At least in some pericopes, there would be disagreement about this, and the sparsity of redactional studies assuming Matthean priority means that most of the data will be on one side in any case. While not all of equal weight, these arguments taken together make a strong case for thinking that Matthew and Luke have independently used Mark’s gospel in writing their own. “Q”. As we noted above, Schleiermacher was the first to posit the existence of a collection of Jesus’ sayings as a source for the gospels. His suggestion was taken up by Weisse as the second main source of the two-source hypothesis. Like Schleiermacher, some critics think that Papias refers to this document in his famous statement about the logia (see the discussion in the introduction to Matthew), but this is doubtful. At some point toward the end of the nineteenth century, the source became known as “Q”; just how and where is a matter of debate. Most proponents of Markan priority think that a sayings source such as Q must have been used by both Matthew and Luke. The reason for positing the existence of such a written collection of Jesus’ teaching is that there are approximately 250 verses common to Matthew and Luke that are not found in Mark. Most, though not all of this material, consists of teachings of Jesus. Many of these verses exhibit a degree of verbal parallelism that favors the existence of a common written source in Greek (see the example in table 3 above). The simplest explanation for this phenomenon would be dependence of one gospel on the other. Against this, however, is the lack of agreement between Matthew and Luke in their ordering of events and the general lack of verbal agreements between them. These factors strongly suggest that Matthew and Luke did not use one another; hence, the need to posit an additional source. Considerable effort has been expended in seeking to reconstruct this hypothetical source, and the degree of certainty with which the hypothesis is entertained by some may be gauged from the fact that a book has even been written entitled A Theology of Q. Others go so far as to claim that Q was the first “gospel” and provides us with the earliest and most authentic picture of Jesus.52 But despite these claims, there is considerable debate about Q, and we must consider below some of the main arguments for and against the hypothesis. In addition to the argument from verbal agreement in non-Markan material, there are three main arguments for the existence of the Q source. The agreement in order. A number of scholars have discerned in the non-Markan material common to Matthew and Luke (sometimes called the double tradition) a similar order. Such a similar order would argue for a single written source. But the agreement in order is not all that clear, and this argument has limited force at best.54 Doublets in Matthew and Luke. “Doublets” are accounts that appear more than once in a single gospel. It is argued that these occur because the evangelist in question is following Mark at one point and Q at the other. An example is Luke 8:17 and 12:2, in both of which Jesus says “there is nothing hidden [concealed] that will not be disclosed, and [or] nothing concealed [hidden] that will not be known.” The first is paralleled only in Mark 4:22 and the second in Matthew 10:26. The assumption is that Luke has taken the first from Mark and the second from Q. Such doublets suggest the existence of a common source in addition to Mark; they are insufficient to show, however, that Q must have been a single written source. Different placement of Q material. The non-Markan material shared by Luke and Matthew is put in different contexts, Matthew grouping much of it in his five great discourses, Luke generally leaving it scattered throughout the gospel (mainly in 6:20–8:3 and 9:51–18:14). This phenomenon is easier to explain if both were making independent use of a common source than if Luke was using Matthew. These arguments have convinced most scholars that Matthew and Luke have access to a common non-Markan tradition. Probably most of these think that Q was a single written document. But other scholars disagree. They prefer to think of Q as a series of written fragments or as a combination of written and oral traditions.57 But other scholars are not convinced that we need to posit the existence of any such tradition, arguing that it is far simpler to think that Luke has used Matthew. Since Luke’s knowledge of Matthew would seriously undermine the evidence for Markan priority, most of those who deny the existence of Q also deny Markan priority. But some maintain both Markan priority and the use of Matthew by Luke.59 The strongest argument in favor of Luke’s use of Matthew, and therefore against the two-source theory as a whole, is the existence of what have been called minor agreements between Matthew and Luke and against Mark. These consist both of agreements in the order of particular verses or sayings, and of wording. How can these be explained if Luke and Matthew have not used one another? Whether we even attempt such an explanation will depend on how convinced we are by the arguments above that Luke did not know Matthew. If we concede the strength of these earlier arguments, then several such explanations are possible: (1) overlap of Mark and Q, with the agreement of Matthew and Luke being the result of their common use of Q; (2) coincidental redaction of Mark in the same way; (3) textual corruption, based on the known tendency of scribes to harmonize gospel accounts; and (4) common use of oral traditions that may have overlapped with Mark. These minor agreements demonstrate that the history of gospel origins was probably more complex than any single-source hypothesis can explain. But they do not overthrow the strength of the case in favor of the two-source hypothesis. A source like Q remains the best explanation for the agreements between Matthew and Luke in non-Markan material. Almost certainly some, if not a substantial portion, of Q was in written form. But we must probably allow for more than one written source and for some mixture of oral traditions as well. Proto-Gospel Theories. Partly in order to fill in some of the gaps left with the two-source hypothesis, partly because of early Christian testimony, and partly because of internal indications, various scholars have posited the existence of an earlier edition of each of the Synoptic Gospels. Lachmann, one of the first proponents of the two-source theory, worked from the assumption of an original gospel, arguing that Mark was the closest to that original. Some modern scholars, noting the problem of the minor agreements and some elements in Matthew and Luke that are difficult to explain if these evangelists were using the canonical Mark, have suggested that one or both may have used an earlier edition of Mark. This hypothesis must remain doubtful. The minor agreements are not all of the same kind; many cannot be explained by positing dependence on an “Ur-Mark.”65 More basically, we must question the assumption that dependence on a different source must be used to explain all the changes Matthew and Luke have made in their Markan source. Source criticism takes too much on itself when it presumes to explain every line in Matthew and Luke with reference to a written source. The influence of eyewitness accounts, various oral traditions, and the evangelists’ own theological purposes must be allowed. When these factors are taken into account, the need for an Ur-Mark disappears. Much more popular has been the thesis that Matthew wrote an earlier edition of his gospel. In this case, however, the motivation is only partly a more satisfactory explanation of synoptic relations; more important is the apparent reference to such an earlier edition in the second-century remark of Papias (quoted by Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16): “Matthew collected the oracles [τὰ λόγια (ta logia)] in the Hebrew language [Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ (Hebraidi dialektō)], and each interpreted [ἡρμήνευσεν (hērmēneusen)] them as best he could.” If Papias is referring to a gospel written in Aramaic or Hebrew, he must be referring to an earlier Semitic edition of our Greek Matthew, since later church fathers appealed to Papias to prove the priority of canonical Matthew. It has been popular, then, to suppose that a Semitic Matthew was the first gospel written; that Peter, or Peter and Mark together, used that edition in composing Greek Mark; and that Greek Matthew then made use of Mark.67 The stubborn tradition that Matthew was first written in Aramaic or Hebrew, along with the widespread belief in the early church that Matthew was the first gospel, renders the hypothesis of a Semitic “first edition” of Matthew attractive. Clearly, however, if such an edition existed, the canonical Matthew is not simply a translation of this Semitic original. Matthew does not read like “translation Greek”; more important, Matthew has probably, as we have seen, used Greek Mark in composing his gospel. And there are other problems for the supposition that Mark has used a Semitic-language Matthew. Strong early tradition views Mark as composing his gospel on the basis of Peter’s preaching (see the introduction to Mark’s gospel). But then it is hard to imagine how Mark could also be using an earlier edition of Matthew. Moreover, Papias may not be referring to a gospel at all (see the discussion in the introduction to Matthew). All in all, the hypothesis of an earlier, Semitic-language edition of Matthew cannot certainly be either proven or disproven. The evidence for a proto-Luke comes from within Luke itself and rests on three considerations: (1) the greater amount of special material in Luke in comparison with Matthew and Mark; (2) Luke’s tendency to “go his own way,” even in material shared with Matthew and Mark (especially in the passion narrative); and (3) the fact that Luke includes material from Mark in blocks rather than scattered evenly throughout the gospel. These phenomena have suggested to many scholars that Luke had composed a first edition of this gospel with the use of Q and L (his special material) and then later integrated Mark into this initial work. While the case remains unproven,69 the hypothesis is an attractive one (see discussion in chap. 5). Conclusion. The two-source hypothesis provides the best overall explanation for the relationships among the Synoptic Gospels, but two caveats must be introduced in conclusion. First, the process through which the gospels came into being was a complex one, so complex that no source-critical hypothesis, however detailed, can hope to provide a complete explanation of the situation. Granted that at least one of the evangelists was an eyewitness, that various oral and written traditions unrecoverable to us were undoubtedly circulating, and that the evangelists may even have talked together about their work, the “scissors-and-paste” assumptions of some source critics are quite unfounded. Indeed, some source critics assume processes of collection and editing quite unlike anything we know of from the ancient world.72 Recognizing this complexity, along with the stubborn persistence of phenomena that the two-source hypothesis cannot satisfactorily explain, we should treat this hypothesis more as a working theory than as a conclusion set in concrete. Especially important is the need to be open to the possibility that, in a given pericope, an explanation based on the two-source hypothesis may not fit the data. For a given text, we thus may conclude that Matthew is more primitive than Mark, or that Luke has followed a special eyewitness source rather than Mark, or that Matthew has relied on his own remembrance or written notes rather than on Q.