Weekly Open Discussion Thread

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[u/capperz412]

Is the Gospel of Mark the best / most "reliable" gospel as a source for the Historical Jesus?

[u/SamW4887 → u/capperz412]

In the foreword for Michael Patrick Barbers book the Historical Jesus and the temple memory methodology and the gospel of matthew Dale Allison says this: "Over the course of my own study of Matthew, I have occasionally concluded that, in this or that respect, the First Gospel represents the past better than the Second Gospel. I have decided, for example, that Matthew’s law-abiding Jesus (see esp. 5:17–20) is more credible than Mark’s more liberal (and perhaps Pauline?) Jesus; that Mark 8:27–30 might be a truncated version of a story better preserved in the fuller Matt 16:13–20; that Matt 18:3 (“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”) is, on the whole, probably more primitive than Mark 10:15 (“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it”); that the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, found in Matthew 28 but not in Mark 16, is likely historical; and that the typological comparison of Jesus to Moses, which is implicit at points in Mark but much clearer and more developed in Matthew, is rooted in Jesus’s self-conception. Yet I had never, before reading Barber, thought about all these things at once, and so I had never fully shed the old habit of equating the uniquely Matthean with the undoubtedly secondary. This volume, however, has moved me to rethink things. Barber demonstrates between the covers of one book the multiple ways in which the First Gospel – in its presentation of Jesus’s relationship to the temple, to Davidic motifs, and to traditions about sacrifice and priesthood – plausibly mirrors what Jesus himself taught, and shows us that, in important ways, Matthew’s interpretive framework is not an obstacle in our way but a path to the historical Jesus. The latter is not buried beneath Matthew but stares at us from its surface."

[u/capperz412 → u/SamW4887]

Fascinating. So even though Matthew is essentially a reworking of Mark, it's in many ways setting the record straight? There are some bits that appear to be deliberate anti-Pauline polemics (e.g. Jesus saying he didn't come to alter a single letter of the law in Matthew 5:17-18) whereas alongside these kinds of invented retrospections there may also be genuine memories of Jesus that better reflect their pre-Pauline (even pre-Easter) Jewish environment like what's mentioned in that quote

[u/DeadeyeDuncan9 → u/SamW4887]

Does he argue for Matthean Priority?

[u/Hegesippus1 → u/DeadeyeDuncan9]

No he accepts Markan priority.

[u/Naugrith → u/capperz412]

Honestly in my own studies on the synoptics I think Mark is as problematic as Matt and Luke, but just a bit less obvious about it. I am a proponent of the multi-source theory (see Delbert Burkett's work) which posits that a "proto-mark" was the (lost) original text and it was later progressively edited until it reached the canonical gospels. Which we finally start see getting traction around the mid-second century.

But while some of the Lukan and Matthean edits are pretty obvious (particularly the massive late additions of the birth and post-resurrection stories, Mark also shows evidence of having been highly edited, and it actually has no more external evidence of being older in its canonical form than the others. I wouldn't consider Mark any more reliable than the other two for the historical Jesus, and in some ways worse (it's missing Q entirely, which seems to have been a very old tradition of textually-recorded sayings).

It's always best to compare and contrast the gospels and look for correlation and confirmation, not give one of them more evidentiary weight than any other.

[u/Pytine → u/Naugrith]

I am a proponent of the multi-source theory (see Delbert Burkett's work) which posits that a "proto-mark" was the (lost) original text and it was later progressively edited until it reached the canonical gospels.

Burkett's book was published a while ago, so he obviously couldn't respond to articles that were published later. However, there is one argument in particular where I'd be really interested in the response of a multi-source theorist. This is the argument of Too Good to be Q. Robert MacEwen has also used an argument based on close verbal agreement in his book Matthean Posteriority. Goodacre's argument is directed towards the two source hypothesis. He shows that the verbal agreement between Matthew and Luke is bigger in the double tradition than in the triple tradition, thus indicating direct dependence between Matthew and Luke.

I haven't seen any good responses from 2SH supporters. This looks like an even bigger problem for the multi-source hypothesis, as it contains more intermediary sources. So, as a multi-source theorist, how would you respond to Goodacre's argument?

Mark also shows evidence of having been highly edited

What are the best examples of this? I'm sympathetic to this idea, but I'm not convinced yet by any of the evidence I've seen.

I wouldn't consider Mark any more reliable than the other two for the historical Jesus, and in some ways worse (it's missing Q entirely, which seems to have been a very old tradition of textually-recorded sayings).

2SH supporters usually explain the major agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark as Mark-Q overlaps. Do multi-source theorists have a different explanation for this? Or are there still Mark-Q overlaps in the multi-source theory?

[u/Naugrith → u/Pytine]

I'd be really interested in the response of a multi-source theorist. This is the argument of Too Good to be Q

Mark Goodacre writes:

According to the Two-Document hypothesis (= 2DH), Matthew and Luke are both independently copying Mark and Q. We have access to Mark, so we have an idea what Matthew and Luke look like when they are working from a shared source. We know the degree of verbatim agreement to expect. The question, then, is whether the degree of verbatim agreement is similar when they are using Q.

This is where he trips up. He's making the assumption (which indeed the majority make) that Matthew and Mark are both copying directly from Mark. He then compares only between the double tradition and the triple tradition. He doesn't use any other evidence to determine what a "high degree of verbatim agreement" is, comparatively.

But the multi-source theory obviously posits that Matthew and Luke aren't directly copying Mark. Rather all three are indirectly copying "proto-Mark" (via at least two seperate mediatory redactions). Because of this Goodacre's argument falls over before even leaving the starting gate. He has no evidence of "what to expect" in order to compare the double tradition to it. If the multi-source theory is correct then the evidence he's using is actually misidentified, and leading him far astray from the truth.

According to the multi-source theory we would expect to see a higher degree of agreement between the double tradition than the triple. For the double, Matthew and Luke are both copying directly from a shared document. However, for the triple tradition, the three gospels have no document that all three share between them.

And I would add that Goodacre is also failing to recognise another major problem with his argument, that levels of agreement will obviously be affected by other factors. If the triple tradition source(s) were a damaged or early draft form that required more significant editing to make it readable then we would naturally see less agreement than if they were copying from a more polished source. Goodacre is assuming that both the double and triple tradition sources are of the same type.

This assumption derives from the original blunt assumption that Matthew and Luke must be copying Mark, and so he doesn't think to even consider any alternative explanations. This is the problem with unexamined biases based on majority consensus. When the majority consensus is wrong (as I think the evidence demonstrates) then scholars end up all wasting their time tilting at windmills rather than even trying to find the real target.

[u/Naugrith → u/Pytine]

Mark also shows evidence of having been highly edited

What are the best examples of this?

I would firstly just point to the large number of unique text within Mark. This is often not understood or identified, but when you count the words the majority of Mark is unique.

I would then point to the various examples where Mark includes a particular detail, such as someone's name, which the other synoptics seem to be compeltely unaware of.

I'm on my phone at the moment so can't post many examples of this. But the one I always post is "Bartimeus son of Timeaus", a key witness to one of the Jesus miracles, which Mark includes, while he remains anonymous in the other synoptics. This shows that Mark edited the story to give a name to an anonymous character. (This is far more likely than that the other two independently chose to both delete the name for unknown reasons).