What before *Ev: a teamwork, a school

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

The only questions (in my mind, at least) is (1) whether

1. the author/s of G.Mark used *Ev (before or after the Marcionites acquired it); or
2. the author of *Ev used G.Mark; or
3. G.Mark +/- *Ev were written concurrently
   (and 'in-company', ie. by authors were in the same community or school +/- in the same room)

This is a very fitting and intelligent summary of the questions at hand. Well done.

I don't agree with that.

imho the question remains whether Mark used Matthew and Luke (or Marcion, whoever likes it) or whether Matthew and Luke/Marcion used Mark. Everything else is, in my opinion, the wrong question.

[MrMacSon]

I very much agree with this:

It's pretty clear that the earliest form of the narrative was much closer to Gnostic thought than orthodox. The Gospel of John shows clear signs that it was originally quite Gnostic and portrayed two Gods, with the Jews being followers of the evil God and not having knowledge of the Good God, who was the Father of Jesus. Also this Gospel originally more clearly stated that Jesus came directly from heaven and was not born from a woman. This Gospel was revised a changed to be more orthodox by someone who disagreed with the original writer.

With the Gospel of Mark we can see the revision of scenes that had to have originally been created by one writer and were then modified by later writers.

A good example of this is the temple cleansing scene and its use of the fig tree.

The original writer created the narrative as a literary allusion to Hosea 9. Later writers didn't understand this allusion and thus re-wrote the scene without an understanding of why it was written the was it was, and thus disrupted the literary references. And we can see this pattern over and over again where in Mark the original construction of the scenes is preserved because there are clear literary parallels to the scriptures, but in other Gospels those parallels are lost or degraded.

In other instances the later writers have identified the references, ad when they do they tend to build on them or point them out, as Matthew often does by saying "this happened to fulfill the prophets." etc.

The birth narratives aren't just some "market differentiation", they are theological responses to interpretations of the story that claimed Jesus was a Spirit from heaven. In order to show that Jesus was not a Spirit from heaven, narratives depicting his earthy birth were invented. Indeed, the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke both appear to be independent reactions to the docetic appearance narrative now found in Ascension of Isaiah. Luke especially contains language that directly responds to language in Ascension of Isaiah.

• I agree (though they may well have been responding to any number of a variety of docetic and previously-called-gnostic theologies, as Peter has pointed out)

It is clear that the patristic witnesses were very wrong about where they thought the Gospel came from and how they were produced. But people seem to think that surely there couldn't have been versions of the Gospel and Christian literature that the patristic fathers were completely unaware of. But the evidence really is to the contrary.

The patristic fathers knew very little. They were very, very wrong about this material. There were likely many versions of the Gospel stories that they had no knowledge of at all. There are actually huge gaps in our knowledge of the narrative development and we do not possess ANY copy of the original narrative. The original narrative has been entirely lost and [some] patristic fathers never saw and never knew about it. But the Gospel of Mark is the closest thing we have to the original narrative. Yet, even it has substantial revisions from the original.

• While some of the patristic fathers were ignorant of the narrative development, some were rewriting history
  ie., some were outright gaslighting

That there are layers of revision, with opposing theological views, is apparent. This wasn't a matter of simultaneous co-production, but a narrative being passed along and reacted to by different writers over time.

• The time frame may have been quite short eg. a matter of a year or less;
  'simultaneous co-production is possible for G.Matthew and G.Luke
  (and even for versions/editions of G.Mark and *Ev; or G.Mark and some of the Pauline epistles ...)

But this point is worth noting:

But the production of these versions was not cooperative, it was competitive, and it wasn't a matter of simple differentiation.

• though I think it applies differentially to various groups of early Christian literature
  eg., no texts are as close as G.Matthew and G.Luke (and G.Mark)

[MrMacSon]

The only questions (in my mind, at least) is (1) whether

1. the author/s of G.Mark used *Ev (before or after the Marcionites acquired it); or
2. the author of *Ev used G.Mark; or
3. G.Mark +/- *Ev were written concurrently
   (and 'in-company', ie. by authors were in the same community or school +/- in the same room)

This is a very fitting and intelligent summary of the questions at hand. Well done.

• Cheers Peter

I don't agree with that.

imho, the question remains whether Mark used Matthew and Luke (or Marcion, whoever likes it); or whether Matthew and Luke/Marcion used Mark. Everything else is, in my opinion, the wrong question.

There's also the question of whether Mark was eventually edited to include material from Matthew and Luke: to align with them.

Though that would be an editorial / redactional process, not an author -related or -driven one ...

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

I don't agree with that.

imho, the question remains whether Mark used Matthew and Luke (or Marcion, whoever likes it); or whether Matthew and Luke/Marcion used Mark. Everything else is, in my opinion, the wrong question.

There's also the question of whether Mark was eventually edited to include material from Matthew and Luke: to align with them.

Though that would be an editorial / redactional process, not an author -related or -driven one ...

This could theoretically be possible. In this case, however, we can completely stop asking questions about a priority because then it can never be answered. You can then of course fall back on Irenaeus.

[rgprice]

I think for sure Mark was edited to conform back to Matthew. As far as "schools" go, surely any "school" would imply some sort of coherent thought or framework. I don't think there was any such coherence at the beginning.

However, there certainly could have been some school involved in the redactions that took place to create the canonical Gospels, that could have all happened within some group of people working together, indeed it almost certainly did.

That Mark was revised in the presence of the other Gospels should be obvious.

We all have to acknowledge at least one way that all of the Gospels were revised in the presence of each other, and this is the giving of their titles, "The Gospel According to X".

At minimum these titles were all given to the Gospels collectively. Once we acknowledge that, then we acknowledge that the Gospels were modified in each other's presence.

Now look at John Ch 21. Everyone knows this was a late addition, but it is also in every single copy of John we possess. This chapter was added by the creators of the four Gospel collection, with influences of the other Gospels, which is why it adds the mention of James and John Zebedee, which are *not* present in John 1-20. So clearly we have to admit that John was revised in the presence of the other Gospels. Again, once we acknowledge that the editors of the collection were revising one Gospel and giving titles to all of them, why would anyone think that they weren't conforming the other Gospels? Obviously it was possible.

So, was there some team of people involved in the creation of the canonical Gospels? Yes, almost certainly. But these were editors, not authors of the original narrative. I'd say that this team could have produced Matthew, have produced canonical Luke, edited John, edited Mark, written Acts, written the Pastorals, and edited all of the other epistles that Irenaeus had in hand.

But, by the time this "team" got involved, much had already been done by prior writers who did not share the same theology and ideology of this team.

**Edited to add the word "not", which was originally left out.

[MrMacSon]

... As far as "schools" go, surely any "school" would imply some sort of coherent thought or framework. I don't think there was any such coherence at the beginning.

However, there certainly could have been some school involved in the redactions that took place to create the canonical Gospels, that could have all happened within some group of people working together, indeed it almost certainly did.

I agree there wouldn't have been coherence in a school at the beginning, but it's likely that there was a coherence for and in the development and framing of [early versions of] Matthew and Luke, in likely middle stages of the development of the texts, at least.

I'm thinking of what we know of schools of rhetoric in the Greco-Roman world, eg.,

The five canons of rhetoric, or phases of developing a persuasive speech [and/or argument], were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric)

via things like the known progymnasmata, the rhetorical exercises taught to and undertaken by students at schools of rhetoric.

• See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progymnasmata, eg., (including but not limited to):
  
  
  
  Fable (mythos)
  ... There are three forms of fable: the rational form (where characters are men and women), the ethical form (where animals are protagonists), and a third form involving both. What all three have in common is they each have a moral, stated before the story begins or after it has concluded. In Aphthonius's handbook, the first exercise was to create a fable that followed the three forms.
  
  Narrative (diēgēma)
  This elementary assignment was to simply write a narrative (not to be confused with fable). It is assumed that this training is a result of Aristotle's theory of categories and introduces students to the four values of narrative, which is perspicuity, incisiveness, persuasiveness, and purity of language. The content of the narrative exercise in the progymnasmata is either political, historical, or based on fiction ...
  
  Anecdote (chreia)
  Students were asked to take an action or saying of a famous person and elaborate on it. They were to develop the meanings of these actions or quotations with the framing under the headings of praise, paraphrase, cause, example of meaning, compare and contrast, testimonies, and an epilogue; anecdote is something that is frequently used in the Bible.
  
  
  Personification (ēthopoeia)
  Students used personification or ethopoeia by forming a speech ascribed to the ghost of a known person or of an imaginary or mythological character from past, present, or future times. This exercise was intended to request students to perform it with clarity, conciseness, and floridity.
  
  
  
  

and one of Aristotle's different types of rhetorical 'proof':

pathos
the use of emotional appeals to alter the audience's judgment through metaphor, amplification, storytelling, or presenting the topic in a way that evokes strong emotions in the audience

I think it's less likely that an actual school was involved in the final redaction/s of the canonical gospels: that would more likely have been done in council

[Giuseppe]

Mark's priority is a consensus solution, not a proven solution. It's simply a vote for your favorite hypothesis that has yet to be proven.

People these days seem to have no idea what Markan Priority even means and how this thesis has become established over a course of almost a hundred years of discussion.

Frankly, 100 years of discussion are not necessary to decide on the priority of a gospel with only the baptism in the incipit, over a gospel with the miracolous birth in the incipit.

A minute is sufficient (the time to write this post by myself).