Stone wrote:In a way, asking just where the scholarship on these differences in the various apparent layers/strata can be found is sort of like asking just where the science can be found with respect to natural selection.
And in most ways, it is not.
http://www.bible-researcher.com/hebraisms.html
The Semitic Style of the New Testament
by Michael D. Marlowe
Self-published online.
Some biographical details about Michael D. Marlowe:
After I got my bachelor's degree in English Literature I decided to get some formal training in Biblical Studies, and so I entered the Master of Arts program at the closest seminary, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. I concentrated in the biblical languages, and received the MA degree in 1994.
Concerning the Bible, I believe that it is the inerrant, living and powerful word of God.
http://www.hjkeen.net/halqn/hbrwgsp2.htm
assessing the arguments of
The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition
by
James R. Edwards
The book referenced is on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Gospel-Dev ... 0802862349
Publisher Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Some biographical details about James R. Edwards:
James R. Edwards is the Bruner-Welch Endowed Professor of Theology at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. His other books include Is Jesus the Only Savior? the 2006 Christianity Today Book of the Year in Apologetics.
A synopsis from an Amazon review:
In this controversial book, Edwards argues convincingly that the author of the Gospel of Luke incorporated Mark and the so-called Gospel According to the Hebrews (mentioned over 75 times in ancient Christian/patristic literature), along with other oral and/or written traditions. Taking Luke's introductory statements at face value (1:1-4), Edwards argues that Luke clearly used some sort of ancient Hebrew (not Aramaic) document. This document Edwards identifies with the obscure, yet much talked about, Gospel According to the Hebrews (i.e., Hebrew Gospel).
James F. McGrath makes a comment:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringo ... ition.html
This leads naturally to the subject of the fourth chapter, namely the strikingly high number of Semitisms in Luke. This chapter includes another problematic statement related to the linguistic question: “Luke…does not appear to have been a Jew, and it is unlikely that he thought in either Hebrew or Aramaic” (p.128). Apart from the problematic way of depicting how one’s native language affects speech in another, Edwards ignores the fact that Aramaic in its various dialects was not spoken only by Jews. Luke could have been a non-Jew from Syria, for instance, perhaps one raised bilingually, as many educated individuals would have been in that place and time. But this is never considered. Although Edwards draws on sources with linguistic expertise that make a strong case for Luke’s Gospel containing Hebraisms and not merely Semitisms of a vague or indistinct sort, he also mentions the fact that Semitisms and Hebraisms are found not only in the Gospel of Luke, but also in the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s second volume. This cries out for explanation, since there is no reason to think that the Hebrew Gospel included an account of the early post-Easter church. Be that as it may, Edwards certainly draws attention to a feature of the Gospel of Luke, which is especially characteristic of Luke’s special material, that deserves more attention. Why Edwards decides to coin the phrase “hyper-Semitic” as a way of referring to these verses is beyond me (pp.145-146). On the whole, however, Edwards’ prose is delightful to read, even if one is not persuaded by a particular argument.
Another review comments:
http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org ... -tradition
Enter James R. Edwards and his daring take on the complexities surrounding the Synoptic riddle. In his recent publication The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, he argues, “the high concentration of Semitisms in Special Luke—those portions of Luke that are not shared in common with Matthew and/or Mark—can be accounted for on the assumption that they derive from the original Hebrew Gospel” (p. xxi). Several basic planks support this thesis. First, there is a near 400% increase in Semitisms in Special Luke over Semitisms that occur in Luke that also occur in Matthew/Mark. Because Luke was a Gentile, this increase, so the argument goes, suggests a Semitic source.
This book review notes that the "standard explanation" among scholars is in opposition to the thesis of this book:
http://www.dts.edu/reviews/james-r-edwa ... nt-of-the/
Chapter 4, “Semitisms in the Gospel of Luke,” and Appendix II are the most valuable contributions of the book. Scholars have long struggled to explain why Luke’s Greek has so many evident Semitisms, and the standard explanation—that Luke consciously imitated the style of the Septuagint—is inadequate. Though Semitisms appear clustered in the first two chapters of Luke, they occur throughout the book. Even more striking is the fact that they appear most frequently in material unique to Luke; Edwards so identifies 653 of 703 Semitisms (p. 141).
John S. Kloppenborg appears to be less generous:
https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tjt/summa ... nborg.html
The thesis that the Synoptic Gospels derive in some fashion from a source written in Hebrew or Aramaic has been mooted since the time of Lessing in 1778 but largely fell out of favour in the twentieth and twenty-first century. While hardly anyone doubts that the Synoptic tradition in part embodies materials that originated in an Aramaic-speaking culture, few are prepared to argue that written Semitic sources stood behind the Synoptics. Eusebius and Jerome knew a text closely related to Matthew, and written in Hebrew characters, but this so-called Gospel of the Nazoreans is usually regarded as a retro-translation of Greek Matthew into Aramaic or Syriac. Epiphanius quotes from a gospel that he assumes was a mutilated version of Matthew in use among the Ebionites, but careful examination shows it to be a conflation of Matthew and Luke in Greek. Distinct from these is yet another “Gospel of the Hebrews” known by Origen, Clement, and Jerome, and whose sayings diverge much more strongly from their Synoptic counterparts. In the volume under review, Edwards attempts to revive the notion of a single Hebrew gospel, not as the source for the entire Synoptic tradition, but only for Luke’s special material and some of what is normally ascribed to Q.
Edwards’s thesis develops in several stages: first, he surveys the Patristic allusions to and quotations of a “gospel according to the Hebrews” and concludes that these diverse citations all come from a single Jewish Christian (Hebrew) gospel. Next, he urges that this gospel has strong affinities with Luke. Then he argues that Luke’s special material displays a high incidence of Semitic formulations, betraying Hebrew rather than Septuagintal influence. These arguments then form the basis for a conclusion that the Hebrew Gospel must be the literary source of Luke’s special material.
None of these arguments is very successful, mainly because they lack both precision and close attention to the features of the texts he tries to analyze. For example, in his analysis of the Ebionite gospel’s citation concerning John the Baptist (in Panarion 30.13.4–6), Edwards’s enthusiasm to detect a strong Lukan component in the fragment causes him to fail to note that Epiphanius’s baptizōn is Markan, that the mention of the Pharisees comes from Matthew 3:9, and that the phrase “all came out to him” comes from Mark and Matthew rather than Luke. And though he concedes that the mention of John’s odd clothing is in Matthew and Mark, not in Luke, he tries to discount the import of this observation by declaring that this detail probably belonged to the “public domain” (69; similarly, 75). Thus details that the “Hebrew Gospel” shares with Luke point to a special relationship with Luke; details shared with Matthew are dismissed as indicators of literary affinity with Matthew. This is a “heads I win, tails you lose” argument.
Throughout, the slimmest similarity to Luke is evidence of contact with Luke, while similarities with Matthew are discounted, mitigated, or ignored. For example, the analysis of the baptismal scene in Panarion 30.13.7–8 acknowledges Lukan elements, but it misses “he saw,” which comes from Matthew or Mark, “the spirit entered into him” which is Markan, the plural of heavens and the phrase about the opening of the heavens, which are closer to Matthew than to Luke, and John’s demurral, which is entirely Matthaean. In his attempt to derive all of the citations of the “Gospel of the Hebrews” from a single gospel, Edwards also ignores the fact that Panarion 30.13.4–6 (normally ascribed to the Gospel of the Ebionites) has a baptismal scene different from that reported in Jerome’s Contra Pelagianos 3.2 (usually ascribed to the Gospel of the Hebrews or the Gospel of the Nazoreans). More careful attention to details might have helped Edwards to see that these gospel fragments are not strongly Luke-leaning, nor do they evidence a source for Luke. On the contrary, as most scholars have seen, Epiphanius’s gospel is a harmony of Matthew and Luke, not one of their sources.
Particularly unsatisfactory is Edwards’s discussion of scholarship on...
Two more reviews are accessible on the SBL site:
http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7382_8043.pdf
In addition, it seems
that Edwards ignores or quickly dismisses as “public domain” (above) non-Lukan
material in the Hebrew Gospel—even redactional material from Matthew. I find Edwards’s
mathematical calculations difficult to accept, especially when he does not take enough
care to distinguish between “Special Luke” and “unique to Luke.” This is an important
methodological distinction, for the latter can—and often does in Edwards’s work—refer
to Luke’s redactional changes to Markan material. If Luke introduced Semitisms to
Markan material, might he also have added Semitisms in Special Luke? Edwards would
argue that this cannot explain the differences in the frequency of Semitisms in Special
Luke compared to triple- and double-tradition material—according to his calculation,
“nearly four times higher” (e.g., 152; cf. 142, 145: “almost a 400% increase”). In addition,
on Edwards’s theory, Luke may have been inspired by the Hebrew Gospel to add
Semitism to Mark, but the paucity of Hebrew Gospel material and the lack of careful
distinctions make it difficult to assess the accuracy of Edwards’s statistical comparisons.
In his Q-adieu, Edwards does not include some clearly Q material (e.g., the Lost Sheep,
Luke 15:4ff.) and gives no explanation for omission of Mark-Q overlap material from
consideration. Moreover, even though I can agree that some work on the hypothetical
source Q has become more speculative than seems judicious, Edwards does not challenge
the Q hypothesis on the basis of its strongest underpinnings: Q no longer rests on
Schleiermacher’s (mis)use of Papias but rather on Markan priority (which he supports)
and the independence of Matthew and Luke (which he does not deny, although he flirts
with Matthew’s dependence on Luke). I can hope with Edwards that a copy of the Hebrew
Gospel surfaces, but until then, or at least until more careful study and argumentation is
offered to substantiate Edwards’s new Synoptic paradigm, I must remain grateful for the
rich presentation of the Hebrew Gospel but quite unconvinced of this new paradigm.
http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7382_8044.pdf
Edwards’s second appendix, “Charts of Semitisms in
the Gospel of Luke,” along with his linguistic discussion in chapters 4 and 5, offers a
convenient resource for future Synoptic scholarship. Yet it is not unlikely that specialists
will raise questions regarding the particulars of Edwards’s argument in these chapters.
They will also likely raise an occasional eyebrow with turns of phrase like “hyper-Semitic
verses” (145–46), “qualified Septuagintism” (158, emphasis original), and the assumptions
implicit in a statement like “for although Luke may have been able to translate Hebrew,
he does not appear to have been a Jew, and it is unlikely that he thought in either Hebrew
or Aramaic” (12, emphasis original). (The latter could be taken to imply that one’s
ethnicity, rather than one’ familiarity with a language, determines one’s ability to think in
a language.)
There are some additional weaknesses with The Hebrew Gospel as well. Edwards’s overall
proposal regarding Synoptic origins is much more speculative in nature than is his work
on the Hebrew Gospel itself. It is doubtful that many will be persuaded to connect the
dots regarding Gospel origins in quite the way that Edwards does.
Foster Paul has also published a mostly-negative review:
"The synoptic problem and the fallacy of a hebrew gospel"
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/book- ... rew-gospel
The thesis of this book is controversial to a wide variety of legitimate experts and has not made a considerable, positive impact on scholarship; for the most part, reviewers disagree with important parts of the author's thesis. Without even talking about the
huge gulf in the quality of evidence that can be amassed, that is quite
unlike the hypothesis of "natural selection" as part of the explanation of biological evolution.
Now that I get to your Google Books 'citation', it is completely clear that you've copied and pasted some links from the first page of results in Google for the phrase "
gospels strata colloquial Aramaic idiom". Almost as if you might have overextended yourself beyond what you could already support with legitimate references to well-established scholarship (of which you were previously aware), so you had to go hunting for them while putting on airs about this being as established as "natural selection" (as if anyone would believe that!).
Your Google books reference is to:
The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll: I QIsaTM
By Edward Yechezkel Kutscher
And it is entirely
unclear what you hope to establish by such a reference.
The word "gospels" is in this book, on this page, but it has essentially nothing whatsoever to do with your point.
The next webpage cache represents a 1910 introduction to Mark as part of a commentary, where the author states, "It is true that in Mark’s Greek there are more traces of Semitic idioms than even in Matthew or John." This establishes that the author believes that these are good examples of semitic idiom in the Gospel of Mark. It does not establish that this claim has been well-received by other scholars and stood the test of time.
The last link, from 1909, may actually be the most-balanced and in-depth presentation referenced, coming from the most reputable scholars mentioned so far, in this list of links. It still suffers from the same problem as the previous; we should like to know how well the particular claims have fared and what criticism has been made by other scholars of them.
The supposedly 'more advanced' sort of discussions (surrounding 'these textual distinctions') at the link kick off with:
Luke would never have done THAT to Matthew.
This is perhaps one of the most often heard objections to the "Mark-without-Q" idea. It was in my mind 10 years ago, and some version of this objection has been with me up until the last couple of weeks. Some reasonable and intelligible motivation for Luke acting like this was needed.
One of the most initially attractive things about the "Q" hypothesis is that the material does look like a list of sayings of Jesus.
My very small new proposal is that Luke believed that the gospel of Matthew was based on sayings of Jesus recorded by the disciple Matthew, just as Pappias would believe this at a later date. If Luke believes this (even though on other grounds I believe this is not true), and also regards Matthew as a whole as a contemporary work opposed to his viewpoint in many ways, particularly on the question of the inclusion of gentiles, then Luke has a reasonable and intelligible motive for his actions. He disregards most of Matthew, but pulls out of it what he believes to be authentic sayings of Jesus. To me, this possible explanation for Luke's behavior greatly strengthens the "Mark-without-Q" idea.
It also allows "Mark-without-Q" to reasonably and intelligibly explain why the saying-like structure exists, something that attracts people to "Q" in the first place.
You know, somehow I'm not intimidated and don't feel that this is any sort of "pretty deep end."
Maybe the folks at Synoptic-L ought to hang out here more, come to think of it...
The general impression I get, Stone, is that you are someone who tries very hard to
sound intelligent and tries very hard to
seem as if he is conversant with a wide variety of the issues under discussion, to a greater extent than his audience (who therefore shouldn't question him and should just take everything said at face value) ... when you really just have a very
narrow, biased, and limited view of the literature, and your confidence (which is not an act) is proportional to your own ignorance, which you hope to cover up by
sounding well-educated and widely-read, as if
merely using stilted formal language and talking down to your reader as if to an inferior demonstrated that.
Well, that doesn't impress around here. Try harder. Get some better evidence from some better sources.
(Although your initial bluster is already completely suspect, since you didn't lead with any better sources than the ones you did, laced as they were with ridiculous references to how wonderful and obvious all this abundant evidence is--a rhetorical technique meant to conceal that the cupboard is bare.)
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
) where the methodology for the mechanisms behind natural selection can be found. How to choose which textbooks is a tricky question, but not a hard one, since they can be found anywhere. Same with these distinct layers in the textual strata that I and Bernard have tried to unwrap here.
