New book by Dennis MacDonald

[Giuseppe]

Book overview
Must the Synoptics Remain a Problem? elaborates MacDonald’s methodology for solving the conundrum of Gospel intertextuality: the Q+/Papias Hypothesis and the reconstruction of the Logoi of Jesus. He argues that the reconstruction of Q by advocates of the Two-Document Hypothesis have committed themselves to two flawed presuppositions: (1) that Luke did not know Matthew, and (2) that Mark did not know Q. MacDonald, however, insists that Luke knew Matthew and, more importantly, that Mark not only knew Q but was its earliest imitator and a crucial third witness for its restoration. In his opinion, the most important criterion for reconstructing the lost Gospel is evidence of ‘reversed priority,’ that is, when a Gospel written later contains older wording that the equivalent in his sources. His reconstruction of the Logoi of Jesus is not merely a larger conventional Q (whence Q+); it is a radically different kind of book, an imitation of the Book of Deuteronomy for presenting Jesus as the promised prophet like Moses.
What makes MacDonald’s proposal most revolutionary is his integration of the quest for the lost Gospel within Mark’s mimesis of the Homeric epics to rival Vergil’s Aeneid. By stripping away the evangelist’s indebtedness to classical Greek poetry, Mimesis Criticism unearths a coherent literary work by a Jewish admirer of Jesus. In other words, Homer the most influential of all Greek poets, indirectly contributes to the recovery of the long-lost Gospel and the source informing all three Synoptics. If MacDonald is right, the Synoptics should no longer be a problem.

https://www.amazon.com/Must-Synoptics-R ... textuality

[Giuseppe]

MacDonald agrees with the fact that the his reconstructed Q+ assumes already a Passion Story even if it doesn't describe a such story. MacDonald thinks that the assumption was a collateral effect of a historical crucifixion, and from this POV he is exactly the opposite of the Earl Doherty's view that Q didn't know still a Passion story.

But what if both are wrong, and Q+ had a Passion story, only one that has been enormously expanded by Mark? In that case, there is not so much free choice in terms of available options, given that the more probable Earliest Passion Story was along the lines of a Roman crucifixion ordered by an anonymous "Governor".

I sometimes have told my students that the real hero of the Q document may be the author and not Jesus, and Jesus may have been the opportunity for the author to show his own radical vision of Judaism. I don’t know if that’s helpful, but it could be that the real hero of the Q document is the author.

(confession by prof Dennis MacDonald to dr. Richard Carrier)

The step from the celestial "rulers of this age" to the anonymous Roman "Governor" was very short, given that the mere mention of the latter shortened rapidly the times otherwise necessary for a such abyssal metamorphosis from the celestial myth to the earthly "remembered history". Who could doubt the Roman responsability of the crucifixion when the doubt itself implied going against the same presumed Roman executors of the crucifixion? The Romans in the Earliest Passion Story worked here as a meme that, once entered, couldn't be more extirpated. But only mitigated by a lot of apologies.

The real fortune of Jesus compared to other dying and rising gods was the crucifixion as part of the celestial myth. Without it, no trace of Romans required , and without Romans, no trace of a recent past required.

[Ken Olson]

Book overview
Must the Synoptics Remain a Problem? elaborates MacDonald’s methodology for solving the conundrum of Gospel intertextuality: the Q+/Papias Hypothesis and the reconstruction of the Logoi of Jesus. He argues that the reconstruction of Q by advocates of the Two-Document Hypothesis have committed themselves to two flawed presuppositions: (1) that Luke did not know Matthew, and (2) that Mark did not know Q. MacDonald, however, insists that Luke knew Matthew and, more importantly, that Mark not only knew Q but was its earliest imitator and a crucial third witness for its restoration. In his opinion, the most important criterion for reconstructing the lost Gospel is evidence of ‘reversed priority,’ that is, when a Gospel written later contains older wording that the equivalent in his sources. His reconstruction of the Logoi of Jesus is not merely a larger conventional Q (whence Q+); it is a radically different kind of book, an imitation of the Book of Deuteronomy for presenting Jesus as the promised prophet like Moses.
What makes MacDonald’s proposal most revolutionary is his integration of the quest for the lost Gospel within Mark’s mimesis of the Homeric epics to rival Vergil’s Aeneid. By stripping away the evangelist’s indebtedness to classical Greek poetry, Mimesis Criticism unearths a coherent literary work by a Jewish admirer of Jesus. In other words, Homer the most influential of all Greek poets, indirectly contributes to the recovery of the long-lost Gospel and the source informing all three Synoptics. If MacDonald is right, the Synoptics should no longer be a problem.

https://www.amazon.com/Must-Synoptics-R ... textuality

i have not yet read Dennis R. MacDonald new (Feb 2024) book Must the Synoptics Remain a Problem?: Two Keys for Unlocking Gospel Intertextuality, but if he is allowing that Luke knew Matthew, I will be interested to see his methodology for distinguishing Luke's use of Q+ from Luke's use of Matthew without violating either Occam's razor or his own presuppositions.

Best,

Ken

[Giuseppe]

Luke's use of Matthew

personally, if there is something I would assume under any Gospel X priority, is that Matthew follows Luke and not vice versa. Bruno Bauer has given a good example of this just talking about Luke 7:18 (being in its natural place in Luke, while being terribly dislocated in Matthew). See here:

The riddle is solved. Luke, the first successor of Mark, is also the first to have dared to assume, besides the mere fact of baptism, a personal connection of the Baptist with Jesus as the Messiah and to include it in the type of the Gospel history. But he still has him doubtingly ask whether he is the Messiah. Matthew is bolder, already drawn much more into the train that led the religious category of their completion, and ascribes to the Baptist the knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah even before the baptism; he should therefore actually leave out the story of his message, but he writes it, without noticing the contradiction, following Luke, because he is interested in the statements that Jesus is said to have made on the occasion of the Baptist’s doubting question.

(my bold)

So yes, I conclude that the hypothesis Q is even worse than the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis.

[Ken Olson]

Luke's use of Matthew

personally, if there is something I would assume under any Gospel X priority, is that Matthew follows Luke and not vice versa. Bruno Bauer has given a good example of this just talking about Luke 7:18 (being in its natural place in Luke, while being terribly dislocated in Matthew). See here:

The riddle is solved. Luke, the first successor of Mark, is also the first to have dared to assume, besides the mere fact of baptism, a personal connection of the Baptist with Jesus as the Messiah and to include it in the type of the Gospel history. But he still has him doubtingly ask whether he is the Messiah. Matthew is bolder, already drawn much more into the train that led the religious category of their completion, and ascribes to the Baptist the knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah even before the baptism; he should therefore actually leave out the story of his message, but he writes it, without noticing the contradiction, following Luke, because he is interested in the statements that Jesus is said to have made on the occasion of the Baptist’s doubting question.

(my bold)

So yes, I conclude that the hypothesis Q is even worse than the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis.

It seems that you are once again appealing to an authority to support a position you have taken. Could you put the argument you quoted from Bauer into your own words?

In particular, where does Matthew ascribe to the Baptist the knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah even before the baptism, and what is the contradiction to which Bauer refers?

Best,

Ken

Yes, I've read Bauer's larger case in the given link and I see some severe problems with it, but I thought we'd start with the bit you quoted.

[Giuseppe]

In particular, where does Matthew ascribe to the Baptist the knowledge of Jesus as the Messiah even before the baptism, and what is the contradiction to which Bauer refers?

Simple:

But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

(Matthew 3:14)

There Matthew means clearly that John the Baptist recognizes who Jesus is (i.e. the Messiah) even before Jesus comes to the baptism, which makes absolutely inconsistent, in Matthew 11:3, the doubt of John the Baptist expressed so clearly in “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”.

PREMISE: I am personally disgusted a priori by any 100% APOLOGETICAL attempt of removing the skeptical-dubitative tone of that question “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” by claiming that the question was rhetorical et similia. The reader is advised.

[Peter Kirby]

PREMISE: I am personally disgusted a priori by any 100% APOLOGETICAL attempt of removing the skeptical-dubitative tone of that question “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” by claiming that the question was rhetorical et similia. The reader is advised.

I'm not familiar with any of this. Who makes these attempts, what are they saying, and what's wrong with it?

[Giuseppe]

PREMISE: I am personally disgusted a priori by any 100% APOLOGETICAL attempt of removing the skeptical-dubitative tone of that question “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” by claiming that the question was rhetorical et similia. The reader is advised.

I'm not familiar with any of this. Who makes these attempts, what are they saying, and what's wrong with it?

I go to memory, but someone (obviously a fool Christian apologist) has claimed that with that question John the Baptist was already assuming that the answer was "yes" and that he was only going to confirm officially the messianic status of Jesus (what he had done informally already before).

[Peter Kirby]

PREMISE: I am personally disgusted a priori by any 100% APOLOGETICAL attempt of removing the skeptical-dubitative tone of that question “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” by claiming that the question was rhetorical et similia. The reader is advised.

I'm not familiar with any of this. Who makes these attempts, what are they saying, and what's wrong with it?

I go to memory, but someone (obviously a fool Christian apologist) has claimed that with that question John the Baptist was already assuming that the answer was "yes" and that he was only going to confirm officially the messianic status of Jesus (what he had done informally already before).

Oh, ok. I see what you mean.

So you're arguing from the inconsistency that Matthew took one from an earlier source of some kind (not necessarily Luke?), while Matthew 3:14 reflected the author's own redactional tendencies.

There may indeed be some merit to your argument, but I'd also like to know what Ken Olson thinks about it.

[Giuseppe]

(not necessarily Luke?)

well, in Luke's infancy story you have the embryon of John the Baptist who recognizes telepatically the embryon of Jesus the Messiah. Evidently the embryon of John the Baptist was more intelligent than the adult (and doubting) John the Baptist. Moral of the fable: where the inconsistency is removed entirely is in *Ev, not even in Luke. Hence, this is a strong argument to make *Ev precede both Matthew and Luke. And to examine, more accurately than it has been done until now, the question of John the Baptist in Mark.