Horizontal Synoptic Solution
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
For those interested in my Jerusalem-vs-Galilee Hypothesis, I have not yet here stated one additional wrinkle. I have not encountered opposition to my theory that John 21 was very early, nor whether it was initially attached to Mark 16:1-8. (That is, no one has bothered to contest what I have been saying.) I have suggested that the rest was deliberately removed and eventually replaced by Mark 16:9-20 as we have it. However, this is over-simplified, John 21 may have been removed as an upgrade for use after John 20. In the remaining Mark tradition someone likely summarized his recollection of what might have been removed, and voila, we have something like Matthew 28:9-20 (likely enough without 28:11-15 yet inserted). Someone else may have made a copy removing this replacement, instead preferring the Mark 16:9-20 we now have. Alternately this someone may have found the Marcan abridged text and added these verses that at this point represented an extreme statement of the Jerusalem textual school. And of course someone else had a text that excluded the original removal of John 21 without any of the replacements, voila the Alexandrian text (and B, Sinaiticus, etc.) that ends truncated at Mark 16:8.
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
Are you basing your conclusions on a close analysis of the Koine Greek in John 21, or what?Adam wrote:For those interested in my Jerusalem-vs-Galilee Hypothesis, I have not yet here stated one additional wrinkle. I have not encountered opposition to my theory that John 21 was very early, nor whether it was initially attached to Mark 16:1-8. (That is, no one has bothered to contest what I have been saying.) I have suggested that the rest was deliberately removed and eventually replaced by Mark 16:9-20 as we have it. However, this is over-simplified, John 21 may have been removed as an upgrade for use after John 20. In the remaining Mark tradition someone likely summarized his recollection of what might have been removed, and voila, we have something like Matthew 28:9-20 (likely enough without 28:11-15 yet inserted). Someone else may have made a copy removing this replacement, instead preferring the Mark 16:9-20 we now have. Alternately this someone may have found the Marcan abridged text and added these verses that at this point represented an extreme statement of the Jerusalem textual school. And of course someone else had a text that excluded the original removal of John 21 without any of the replacements, voila the Alexandrian text (and B, Sinaiticus, etc.) that ends truncated at Mark 16:8.
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
No, my reference to B and other Alexandrian texts is that there in NO Greek (of any type) for Mark 16:9-20. Almost everyone agrees that the style there is much different , anyway. That's Lower Criticism. That Matthew after 28:8 was an earlier attempt at replacing the gap after Mark 16:8 is Higher Criticism, the comparison between the Synoptics. It also may have been a Q ending that never stood together with the Lukan-Johannine Resurrection accounts.
I hypothesize a removal of John 21 after Mark 16:8 for use in its current place, but that the first replacement (if not simply Q) for it was a generalized recollection by someone who wrote Matthew 28:(9-10)(11-15), 16-20. That substitution was not available when Mark 16:9-20 was affixed later by someone with no knowledge of John 21 or who deliberately omitted all Galilee or Peter references.
As for Luke 24, the early verses were reworked to correct or diminish the Galilee connections.
I hypothesize a removal of John 21 after Mark 16:8 for use in its current place, but that the first replacement (if not simply Q) for it was a generalized recollection by someone who wrote Matthew 28:(9-10)(11-15), 16-20. That substitution was not available when Mark 16:9-20 was affixed later by someone with no knowledge of John 21 or who deliberately omitted all Galilee or Peter references.
As for Luke 24, the early verses were reworked to correct or diminish the Galilee connections.
Re: Teeple's John 21 with Commentary
Not sure about "Orthodoxy-shaking". I guess people just know the gist of it. James Tabor had a few blog posts about this, for example here, plus the links in there regarding the Jerusalem vs. Galilee traditions and their different ideas about resurrection (also in this post). He also points out that Mark 16:9-20 is just a short summary of what the other three gospels say.Adam wrote:Or if that does not interest you, how about my potentially Orthodoxy-shaking speculation that the Resurrection accounts derive from two (or more) competing schools of early Christianity, that Mark 16:9-20 is the extreme statement of the anti-Peter, anti-Galilee faction of which Luke 24 (without 24:12) and much of John 20 are an earlier, milder version as against a Galilee-preeminent school seen in Mt.28:Mk16:1-8 and John 21.
Whatever you think of his "Jesus tomb" business (well...), I found those analyses regarding these points quite convincing.
Re: Teeple's John 21
I remain surprised that no one has countered my Thesis of seven written gospel eyewitness accounts of Jesus, but understand this as outside the Weltanschaung of anyone here. (Even the Christians are too conventionally orthodox to favor my radical new approach.) Perhaps the similar non-response to my John-21-as-source-of -Mark-16 was due to it not being taken seriously, considering that I might just be trying to get a rise out of you guys. But I was seriously entertaining whether there is Docetism hiding in the earliest gospel texts, and I see enough interest here in similar Marcionism and Gnosticism that I thought someone would reply. Raising no action here, I have gone to the internet to find if Aristion, Cerinthus, or Docetism would bring up interesting links. (I have read scholarly stuff on Docetism in the Gospel of John, but find nothing linked to these texts. I need to find out what scholars are saying about Docetism not just in the Gospels of Peter and John, but also Luke 24 and Mark 16:9-20.) Surely some of this stuff must interest you guys. Or is the only way I can raise a comment is to tease Stephan Huller for how much his latest salvoes against Mythicism seem to support my extreme historicism?
My latest thoughts on John 21 as the original ending to Mark come around to my usual rationale for the Urevangelium underlying the Synoptics. The text was disparate, combining Aramaic and Greek sections. Alternately in the case of the end of Mark, we might suppose that a long section was at the end that included a beginning section that was to be inserted where E enters John 20 at 20: 15, 25 and such that are not in any Synoptics. I continue to tout John 21 as my thing, but must reiterate that such rationalizations as I make here do not diminish the basically unrelated Thesis of seven written gospel eyewitnesses. What follows is my latest on my John 21 idea—it has not changed much from my view of seven month ago, but it features some nuances on textual peculiarities.
My April 20 posting of Teeple’s John 21 showed clearly that the SOURCE therein was the Anarthous Editor E, which makes difficult any attempt to claim John 21 was the early ending of the Urevangelium. It would work better if it were in the same style as to S Source within John 20 (and John 18 and 19). But let’s suppose it was indeed there early-on, was detached, and by the time it was appended to John 20 it had to be translated into Greek by the same scribe who did the E Editor within John. An early detachment makes feasible that its former position was known vaguely by the author of Matthew 28, in which Galilee is THE place where the Eleven go as directed to see the resurrected Jesus.
John 20 is so like Luke 24 (except for the Walk to Emmaus, 24:13-34) that the early presence of John 21 is hard to explain with my early take-off of Luke 24 from the Urevangelium. However, simply posit that the squelching of Galilee was deliberate (or the accidental consequence of it not getting translated as early from Aramaic to Greek), that the Jerusalem school was aware of the John 21, but wanted all mention of Galilee removed, and this was easy to do as John 21 had not yet been translated from Aramaic to Greek. This is not extremism in scholarship—the evidence does seem to be that there was some animosity between the two parties. The author of Luke 24 apparently did have a version in front of him like Mt-Mk verses 1-8 of their last chapters, but chose to rewrite what the two angels or men said. No longer were they directing the disciples to Galilee, but reminding them of what Jesus had promised there. This does not mean that this Luke 24 author necessarily denied the Galilee appearances of Jesus, but that he had to correctly insert the several Jerusalem events. Assuming he no longer had the John 21 passages in front of him, he could not make good use of the vague Mt. 28:16-20, and nothing about going to Galilee got into the final version.
Reviewing, John 21 gets cut off and layed aside. It is remembered enough to wind up as much of Mt. 28:9-20. Luke 24 gets this, reworks the first 8 verses, and finishes without any Galilee appearances. However, this Luke 24 still did have available the basics as now found in John 20, so this was included as more useful than vague Galilee stuff. Thus there must have been more than one text available for Luke 24: the same early text as seen in John 20 from which John 21 had already been removed, and a like text which still did have John 21 handy in Aramaic and to which various S (or other Source) verses in Greek had already been added. There is no simple division between the style of John 20 and John 21. Both have S elements and both have E elements, but in John 21 the “source” elements are all in E style.
Now, as for Q it is commonly assumed that there was no Q Passion Narrative nor Resurrection account. I have contended that the early writing of the Passion Diary by John Mark meant that various gospels of Jesus’s life simply ran up to the Passion and stopped. The Signs Gospel , so much of John 1 to 12, seems absent thereafter. The Synoptic Passion Narrative does have insertions, like much of the Trial before the Sanhedrin, but this may have be Q material even though much is missing in Luke. Its absence in John gives us warrant for supposing there was a Q Passion Narrative after all. Now this Q (Twelve-Source) may indeed be the source of the early Resurrection verses that Luke 24:1-8 had to revamp. It was available in the Urevangelium that came to him
But since John 21 does match with the later strata of Johannine text, I can’t necessarily stand upon assuming a scribe’s later translation of an Aramaic text. A Q text without any Galilean detail seems weak, however—if so early, why would we have such a vague presentation as we find in Mt. 28:16-20 (though Bultmann and others don’t find that a problem). The latter works better as a distant remembrance of something already known in greater detail. And why is Mt. 28 so lacking all the Luke 24 and John 20 Jerusalem appearances? Was not just John 21 but also John 20 removed or lost? Or maybe missing because not soon enough translated from Aramaic into Greek? Nothing of Mt. 28, not even the first 8 verses, seems like either John 20 or 21. So we come most likely to a Q origin of Matthew 28 and of Mark 16:1-8. There is no unique Q Passion Narrative, but there is for the Resurrection. Basically Mt and Mk have no common material with Luke and John, except that Luke does take the trouble to rework the early verses that he would otherwise skip. Luke found no occasion to utilize the Galilean directions and appearances—they were too vague. If Mt had a Q from an eyewitness, wouldn’t it have had more vividness? So wasn’t Mt 28 largely added to Q, a Resurrection source that mysteriously had so little Resurrection? Fits better with an original John 21 that was the Q story. But that Q in Galilee was not desired for use in Luke, who detached it from which it emerged as the only Q portion of John?!
My latest thoughts on John 21 as the original ending to Mark come around to my usual rationale for the Urevangelium underlying the Synoptics. The text was disparate, combining Aramaic and Greek sections. Alternately in the case of the end of Mark, we might suppose that a long section was at the end that included a beginning section that was to be inserted where E enters John 20 at 20: 15, 25 and such that are not in any Synoptics. I continue to tout John 21 as my thing, but must reiterate that such rationalizations as I make here do not diminish the basically unrelated Thesis of seven written gospel eyewitnesses. What follows is my latest on my John 21 idea—it has not changed much from my view of seven month ago, but it features some nuances on textual peculiarities.
My April 20 posting of Teeple’s John 21 showed clearly that the SOURCE therein was the Anarthous Editor E, which makes difficult any attempt to claim John 21 was the early ending of the Urevangelium. It would work better if it were in the same style as to S Source within John 20 (and John 18 and 19). But let’s suppose it was indeed there early-on, was detached, and by the time it was appended to John 20 it had to be translated into Greek by the same scribe who did the E Editor within John. An early detachment makes feasible that its former position was known vaguely by the author of Matthew 28, in which Galilee is THE place where the Eleven go as directed to see the resurrected Jesus.
John 20 is so like Luke 24 (except for the Walk to Emmaus, 24:13-34) that the early presence of John 21 is hard to explain with my early take-off of Luke 24 from the Urevangelium. However, simply posit that the squelching of Galilee was deliberate (or the accidental consequence of it not getting translated as early from Aramaic to Greek), that the Jerusalem school was aware of the John 21, but wanted all mention of Galilee removed, and this was easy to do as John 21 had not yet been translated from Aramaic to Greek. This is not extremism in scholarship—the evidence does seem to be that there was some animosity between the two parties. The author of Luke 24 apparently did have a version in front of him like Mt-Mk verses 1-8 of their last chapters, but chose to rewrite what the two angels or men said. No longer were they directing the disciples to Galilee, but reminding them of what Jesus had promised there. This does not mean that this Luke 24 author necessarily denied the Galilee appearances of Jesus, but that he had to correctly insert the several Jerusalem events. Assuming he no longer had the John 21 passages in front of him, he could not make good use of the vague Mt. 28:16-20, and nothing about going to Galilee got into the final version.
Reviewing, John 21 gets cut off and layed aside. It is remembered enough to wind up as much of Mt. 28:9-20. Luke 24 gets this, reworks the first 8 verses, and finishes without any Galilee appearances. However, this Luke 24 still did have available the basics as now found in John 20, so this was included as more useful than vague Galilee stuff. Thus there must have been more than one text available for Luke 24: the same early text as seen in John 20 from which John 21 had already been removed, and a like text which still did have John 21 handy in Aramaic and to which various S (or other Source) verses in Greek had already been added. There is no simple division between the style of John 20 and John 21. Both have S elements and both have E elements, but in John 21 the “source” elements are all in E style.
Now, as for Q it is commonly assumed that there was no Q Passion Narrative nor Resurrection account. I have contended that the early writing of the Passion Diary by John Mark meant that various gospels of Jesus’s life simply ran up to the Passion and stopped. The Signs Gospel , so much of John 1 to 12, seems absent thereafter. The Synoptic Passion Narrative does have insertions, like much of the Trial before the Sanhedrin, but this may have be Q material even though much is missing in Luke. Its absence in John gives us warrant for supposing there was a Q Passion Narrative after all. Now this Q (Twelve-Source) may indeed be the source of the early Resurrection verses that Luke 24:1-8 had to revamp. It was available in the Urevangelium that came to him
But since John 21 does match with the later strata of Johannine text, I can’t necessarily stand upon assuming a scribe’s later translation of an Aramaic text. A Q text without any Galilean detail seems weak, however—if so early, why would we have such a vague presentation as we find in Mt. 28:16-20 (though Bultmann and others don’t find that a problem). The latter works better as a distant remembrance of something already known in greater detail. And why is Mt. 28 so lacking all the Luke 24 and John 20 Jerusalem appearances? Was not just John 21 but also John 20 removed or lost? Or maybe missing because not soon enough translated from Aramaic into Greek? Nothing of Mt. 28, not even the first 8 verses, seems like either John 20 or 21. So we come most likely to a Q origin of Matthew 28 and of Mark 16:1-8. There is no unique Q Passion Narrative, but there is for the Resurrection. Basically Mt and Mk have no common material with Luke and John, except that Luke does take the trouble to rework the early verses that he would otherwise skip. Luke found no occasion to utilize the Galilean directions and appearances—they were too vague. If Mt had a Q from an eyewitness, wouldn’t it have had more vividness? So wasn’t Mt 28 largely added to Q, a Resurrection source that mysteriously had so little Resurrection? Fits better with an original John 21 that was the Q story. But that Q in Galilee was not desired for use in Luke, who detached it from which it emerged as the only Q portion of John?!
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
Olek, if you are playing the "scholar" game, I am sure you can find someone to support what you want to believe. Whatever it is.
That's the great thing the current state of Christian scholarship. Everybody wins!
Or...does everyone really lose?
That's the great thing the current state of Christian scholarship. Everybody wins!
Or...does everyone really lose?
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
McGrath’s MacDonald?
Regarding Jesus and the Gospels, the 2013 Review of Biblical Literature mostly suggests all is quiet regarding historicity of Jesus. Bart Ehrman’s latest books we can expect to show up next year. Meantime even Martin Hengel’s (d. 2009) latest only shows up now, the 2010 translation of Saint Peter. He relies on Acts and on Mark as by John Mark. He gives a chronology of 50 crucial NT events. (266-268)
Out in 2012 was Marcus Bockmuehl’s Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory. He finds commendable to direct “attention away from the sorts of anonymous or indeed freely inventive processes once imagined by form critics.” (Quoting from page 9-10.) He even states “author of Matthew was closer to Peter than the author of Mark (who was also close)”. But he does not see Peter in Q at all. (287-289)
Also conservative in Robert McIver in 2011 in Memory: Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels. He holds for basic reliability with eyewitnesses at the gist level, with “variations one might expect of various eyewitness reports of the same event”, refuting form critics skepticism. (307-310).
However, there has been no time yet to review books responding to Dennis R. MacDonald’s 2012 Two Shipwrecked Gospels. James M. McGrath gave a highly laudatory review that this would challenge all prior solutions to the Synoptic Problem. His “Q+/Papias “ solution is not compatible with any current minimal Q or vertical gospel-as-source solutions. His Q+ is based on Deuteronomy (remember he is the scholar who sees Homer in the NT), which in turn was used by all three Synoptic writers, but is closest to Matthew—thus explaining Papias’s confusion whether it was simply a different translation of the same gospel. He held that Luke was later than Papias (330-332).
Reading McGrath’s praise of MacDonald, I had to consider what I would have to do to revise my views. Then I recollected that I had already responded in 2013 (though mostly using John Kloppenborg’s more detailed review) with my revival of Eichhorn with my Horizontal Synoptic Solution. I had always believed that Q was bigger than the Double Tradition, so I was ready to absorb Q+. I needed to get more of a reliance of Luke upon a Proto-Matthew type of Q+, however. For me this meant that an Urevangelium used by Luke grew by some textual additions before this evolving Grundschrift was ready to be the basis for both Matthew and Mark. All three Synoptics have pericopes clearly drawing from the source text and not from either of the other two gospels.
The Horizontal Synoptic Solution is independent of but complementary to my Thesis of seven written eyewitness records of Jesus underlying the canonical gospels. That these seven are difficult to detect is understandable considering now that they did not just get added in layers neatly one on top of another.
They were gathered into a source text (Q+ in several stages, whatever) that were further transcribed into our gospels. Their outlines are discernable because the Urevangelium remained for a long time split into Aramaic and Greek pieces. This meant that certain parts got translated by different scribes, and these can be traced to authors who wrote in Aramaic as against Greek.
Is anyone aware of other writers responding to McGrath’s challenge to absorb the insights MacDonald has brought us? At least here we have something in response—my own work in my threads “Horizontal Synoptic Solution” and “Ur-Marcan Priority?...”
Regarding Jesus and the Gospels, the 2013 Review of Biblical Literature mostly suggests all is quiet regarding historicity of Jesus. Bart Ehrman’s latest books we can expect to show up next year. Meantime even Martin Hengel’s (d. 2009) latest only shows up now, the 2010 translation of Saint Peter. He relies on Acts and on Mark as by John Mark. He gives a chronology of 50 crucial NT events. (266-268)
Out in 2012 was Marcus Bockmuehl’s Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory. He finds commendable to direct “attention away from the sorts of anonymous or indeed freely inventive processes once imagined by form critics.” (Quoting from page 9-10.) He even states “author of Matthew was closer to Peter than the author of Mark (who was also close)”. But he does not see Peter in Q at all. (287-289)
Also conservative in Robert McIver in 2011 in Memory: Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels. He holds for basic reliability with eyewitnesses at the gist level, with “variations one might expect of various eyewitness reports of the same event”, refuting form critics skepticism. (307-310).
However, there has been no time yet to review books responding to Dennis R. MacDonald’s 2012 Two Shipwrecked Gospels. James M. McGrath gave a highly laudatory review that this would challenge all prior solutions to the Synoptic Problem. His “Q+/Papias “ solution is not compatible with any current minimal Q or vertical gospel-as-source solutions. His Q+ is based on Deuteronomy (remember he is the scholar who sees Homer in the NT), which in turn was used by all three Synoptic writers, but is closest to Matthew—thus explaining Papias’s confusion whether it was simply a different translation of the same gospel. He held that Luke was later than Papias (330-332).
Reading McGrath’s praise of MacDonald, I had to consider what I would have to do to revise my views. Then I recollected that I had already responded in 2013 (though mostly using John Kloppenborg’s more detailed review) with my revival of Eichhorn with my Horizontal Synoptic Solution. I had always believed that Q was bigger than the Double Tradition, so I was ready to absorb Q+. I needed to get more of a reliance of Luke upon a Proto-Matthew type of Q+, however. For me this meant that an Urevangelium used by Luke grew by some textual additions before this evolving Grundschrift was ready to be the basis for both Matthew and Mark. All three Synoptics have pericopes clearly drawing from the source text and not from either of the other two gospels.
The Horizontal Synoptic Solution is independent of but complementary to my Thesis of seven written eyewitness records of Jesus underlying the canonical gospels. That these seven are difficult to detect is understandable considering now that they did not just get added in layers neatly one on top of another.
They were gathered into a source text (Q+ in several stages, whatever) that were further transcribed into our gospels. Their outlines are discernable because the Urevangelium remained for a long time split into Aramaic and Greek pieces. This meant that certain parts got translated by different scribes, and these can be traced to authors who wrote in Aramaic as against Greek.
Is anyone aware of other writers responding to McGrath’s challenge to absorb the insights MacDonald has brought us? At least here we have something in response—my own work in my threads “Horizontal Synoptic Solution” and “Ur-Marcan Priority?...”
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
I used to blame encyclopedias for blatant over-simplification of the gospel-writing process, but apparently this traces to Rudolf Bultmann’s Geschichte in 1921 (repeated in 1957). According to Bo Reicke in The Roots of the Synoptic Gospels in 1986, “Bultman actually started with the result to which he wanted to come.” (p. 15) “Bultmann treated Mark and Q as two source documents absolutely established and universtlly accepted, and he emphatically denied the existencde of any Gospel before Mark.” (p. 9 and note 28 quoting the German original.)
Reicke wrote so much like an American that I was surprised to find that he translated his own book from German into English. Reicke himself over-simplified the early Proto-Gospel hypothesis of Lessing and Eichhorn, apparently never himself wanting to deal with the Gothic type the relevant books are in. He is quite right that Eichhorn (and Marsh, not mentioned by Reicke) had much too complicated a set of texts. Yet Reicke himself allowed quite a variegated origin of the texts.
I like his anglicized work, and would prefer now to use “Evolving Proto-gospel” as a better term than “Evolving Grundschrift”. Mark grew in several stages to become what the mid-19th Century called “Ur-Marcus” (somewhat larger than our Mark, though the same term was later used for “Proto-Mark” that did not include the large passages missing in Luke.
The proper understanding of the growth of the Synoptic gospels starts with recognizing that the Passion Narrative was written first, so the earlier segments should not be noted as lacking information about the Crucifixion. True, Q in its earliest stages was probably sayings from Jesus’s preaching, but they were tacked in front of the Passion Narrative along with relevant narrative. This Twelve-Source may have consisted of these sayings plus explanatory narrative tacked in front of the Passion Narrative and any Resurrection accounts similar to John 20 and perhaps John 21. At this time the more primitive account as in John 20 added more details about the empty tomb, telling the disciples to go to Galilee. This in itself preceded the Luke 24 revision that downplayed and reinterpreted the Galilee injunctions.
This Twelve-Source/Q/Passion Narrative text was initially in Aramaic as indicated by the looser textual agreements in passages found in both Mark and Luke. Thus it probably preceded its merger with the other text that gave the story before the Passion Narrative, what should most properly be called Greek Proto-Mark. (I used to call in “Greek Ur-Marcus”, but this latter term would most properly imply a document bigger than our Mark.) Here verbal agreements are very close. Differentiating between initially Aramaic and Greek elements in the Passion Narrative is tricky, however, indicating as I say that the Passion Narrative was available to both developing texts and/or to the merger of the two documents. The originator of Q/Twelve-Source would be expected to be Matthew (consider his “autograph” in Mark 2:13-14). Proto-Mark was John Mark’s own expansion of his Passion Narrative based on what Peter told him. The combined document can be called Ur-Marcus because it included 80% of our current Mark plus a lot of Q material that was available to Luke but not used by Mark. However, this document cannot be called “Proto-Luke” because that term is already in use for an assumed almost-complete Luke that included all of Q and L.
I continue to view this “Evolving Proto-gospel” (as I now call it) as having been first used by Luke, as evidenced by so much (20%) of Mark that is not in Luke, at the same time as there is so much close textual correspondence between these two gospels. (This is also, of course, an argument for Luke being early, in spite of so much current denial of the obvious earliest-possible-date of 62 A. D.) Yet when Luke used it it had no L in it, nor did he have room to insert very much into the body of the text. Thus Mark and Matthew know nothing of L, even though a lot of it wound up in later versions of the Gospel of the Hebrews, as proved by James R. Edwards in 2009 in The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. My explanation for this is that the L in Proto-Luke was in Aramaic and thus it was conveniently attached to the mostly-Aramaic proto-gospel that underlay the Greek texts of Matthew and Mark that were drawn from it.
The text Mark used was bigger than the Ur-Marcus used by Luke, with the addition of at least the 20% of Mark that is shared only with Matthew. Mark did not have an agenda to include a lot of sayings, so the substantial amount he did (particularly in Mark 7) may have been just a tiny amount of the M material available to him. This stage in the process brings in some new names that may indicate new contributors of text. The name “Andrew” is almost unique in Mark among the Synoptics, and pericopes naming James and John are more frequent. Yet that still could just indicate further specificity by the presumed earlier source, Peter.
In any case it is true that each of the first two gospels has pericopes that seem closer to the original that we can call at this point Proto-Matthew. This latter more closely holds the order of Mark—Matthew was the point in the whole process where the most re-ordering of material was done. In spite of appearances this does not necessarily mean Matthew is farther from historicity—Marcus Bockmuehl tells us that the author of Matthew seems closer to Peter than even the author of Mark does. (Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory, 2012, review in RBL by Finn Damgaard p. 288). Nevertheless , the M material in Matthew does not seem as likely close to Jesus. Proto-Matthew may be best to assign to this extra involvement by Peter, with secondary additions to Matthew coming from someone else.
Place, not just people, is important to understanding the origin of the Synoptics. Caesarea was new and very Roman, perhaps the place for the final redaction of Mark while many evangelists were there as seen by the Pauline captivity letters (Reicke, 165). Q and L could both have been obtained there (169, 173). Yet even if Luke and Acts were written there, they may have been transported soon afterward as Acts tells us, accounting for the lack of direct references to Luke-Acts in subsequent decades. The texts were simply far away, as Acts closes with Paul in Rome.
In spite of being German, Reicke argues for early dating, though himself following upon Adolf Harnack a century ago who pioneered scholarly acceptance of early dating. (Reicke, 174-178).
Reicke wrote so much like an American that I was surprised to find that he translated his own book from German into English. Reicke himself over-simplified the early Proto-Gospel hypothesis of Lessing and Eichhorn, apparently never himself wanting to deal with the Gothic type the relevant books are in. He is quite right that Eichhorn (and Marsh, not mentioned by Reicke) had much too complicated a set of texts. Yet Reicke himself allowed quite a variegated origin of the texts.
I like his anglicized work, and would prefer now to use “Evolving Proto-gospel” as a better term than “Evolving Grundschrift”. Mark grew in several stages to become what the mid-19th Century called “Ur-Marcus” (somewhat larger than our Mark, though the same term was later used for “Proto-Mark” that did not include the large passages missing in Luke.
The proper understanding of the growth of the Synoptic gospels starts with recognizing that the Passion Narrative was written first, so the earlier segments should not be noted as lacking information about the Crucifixion. True, Q in its earliest stages was probably sayings from Jesus’s preaching, but they were tacked in front of the Passion Narrative along with relevant narrative. This Twelve-Source may have consisted of these sayings plus explanatory narrative tacked in front of the Passion Narrative and any Resurrection accounts similar to John 20 and perhaps John 21. At this time the more primitive account as in John 20 added more details about the empty tomb, telling the disciples to go to Galilee. This in itself preceded the Luke 24 revision that downplayed and reinterpreted the Galilee injunctions.
This Twelve-Source/Q/Passion Narrative text was initially in Aramaic as indicated by the looser textual agreements in passages found in both Mark and Luke. Thus it probably preceded its merger with the other text that gave the story before the Passion Narrative, what should most properly be called Greek Proto-Mark. (I used to call in “Greek Ur-Marcus”, but this latter term would most properly imply a document bigger than our Mark.) Here verbal agreements are very close. Differentiating between initially Aramaic and Greek elements in the Passion Narrative is tricky, however, indicating as I say that the Passion Narrative was available to both developing texts and/or to the merger of the two documents. The originator of Q/Twelve-Source would be expected to be Matthew (consider his “autograph” in Mark 2:13-14). Proto-Mark was John Mark’s own expansion of his Passion Narrative based on what Peter told him. The combined document can be called Ur-Marcus because it included 80% of our current Mark plus a lot of Q material that was available to Luke but not used by Mark. However, this document cannot be called “Proto-Luke” because that term is already in use for an assumed almost-complete Luke that included all of Q and L.
I continue to view this “Evolving Proto-gospel” (as I now call it) as having been first used by Luke, as evidenced by so much (20%) of Mark that is not in Luke, at the same time as there is so much close textual correspondence between these two gospels. (This is also, of course, an argument for Luke being early, in spite of so much current denial of the obvious earliest-possible-date of 62 A. D.) Yet when Luke used it it had no L in it, nor did he have room to insert very much into the body of the text. Thus Mark and Matthew know nothing of L, even though a lot of it wound up in later versions of the Gospel of the Hebrews, as proved by James R. Edwards in 2009 in The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. My explanation for this is that the L in Proto-Luke was in Aramaic and thus it was conveniently attached to the mostly-Aramaic proto-gospel that underlay the Greek texts of Matthew and Mark that were drawn from it.
The text Mark used was bigger than the Ur-Marcus used by Luke, with the addition of at least the 20% of Mark that is shared only with Matthew. Mark did not have an agenda to include a lot of sayings, so the substantial amount he did (particularly in Mark 7) may have been just a tiny amount of the M material available to him. This stage in the process brings in some new names that may indicate new contributors of text. The name “Andrew” is almost unique in Mark among the Synoptics, and pericopes naming James and John are more frequent. Yet that still could just indicate further specificity by the presumed earlier source, Peter.
In any case it is true that each of the first two gospels has pericopes that seem closer to the original that we can call at this point Proto-Matthew. This latter more closely holds the order of Mark—Matthew was the point in the whole process where the most re-ordering of material was done. In spite of appearances this does not necessarily mean Matthew is farther from historicity—Marcus Bockmuehl tells us that the author of Matthew seems closer to Peter than even the author of Mark does. (Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory, 2012, review in RBL by Finn Damgaard p. 288). Nevertheless , the M material in Matthew does not seem as likely close to Jesus. Proto-Matthew may be best to assign to this extra involvement by Peter, with secondary additions to Matthew coming from someone else.
Place, not just people, is important to understanding the origin of the Synoptics. Caesarea was new and very Roman, perhaps the place for the final redaction of Mark while many evangelists were there as seen by the Pauline captivity letters (Reicke, 165). Q and L could both have been obtained there (169, 173). Yet even if Luke and Acts were written there, they may have been transported soon afterward as Acts tells us, accounting for the lack of direct references to Luke-Acts in subsequent decades. The texts were simply far away, as Acts closes with Paul in Rome.
In spite of being German, Reicke argues for early dating, though himself following upon Adolf Harnack a century ago who pioneered scholarly acceptance of early dating. (Reicke, 174-178).
Re:John 21 as Source
My idea for John 21 as the original ending of Mark after 16:8 turns out not to be new. In 2007 James McGrath wrote about it.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringo ... ended.html
He seems to be saying that B. H. Streeter had the idea first a century ago in his book on Mark.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringo ... ended.html
He seems to be saying that B. H. Streeter had the idea first a century ago in his book on Mark.
Re: Horizontal Synoptic Solution
Perhaps Steve Mason (and almost everybody else) is wrong about his assumptions!
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/mason3.shtml (As linked in "Galatians 3:1: Jesus crucified in Galatia?" by RecoveringScot)
The above from Mason may make my case for the Evolving Proto-Gospel (that I formerly called the Horizontal Synoptic Solution). Mason goes to great lengths to get around the fallacy that arises from assuming that our Mark necessarily preceded both Matthew and Luke. Since “the gospel” as a noun became so ubiquitous among Christians thereafter, the obvious implication here is that the texts without “the gospel” are the earliest. For the gospels, the Proto-Matthew employed towards Matthew and Mark thus comes later in sequence than Luke. The Gospel of John was in a different chain of transmission, but its lack of “gospel” helps indicate that it’s early. These implications perfectly fit my Proto-Gospel that was first used by Luke and only next in series was utilized towards Matthew and Mark.
Additionally, the “Memoirs of the Apostles” we know from Justin fits best with the Proto-Gospel that would seem to many modern scholars to be Diatessaron-like. Early quotes from cited gospel texts are not exactly like any of our four gospels. The only change it makes in my Evolving Proto-Gospel theory is that some copies of it must have been made. That they were multi-linguil would help explain why they disappeared in time.
I wrote a lot about my Evolving Proto-Gospel analysis developing it in “Ur-Marcan Priority…”
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... p?f=3&t=14
and here in “Horizontal Synoptic Solution”
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... ?f=3&t=222
but my changes and complications warrant a new statement here.
Though my theory revives Eichhorn somewhat, it is probably better to start with the Modified Two-Document Hypothesis. In it Q is acknowledged to have been available in creating the Gospel of Mark. Q is generally agreed now to include more than one stratum. Based on lack of exact verbal parallels, I hold there was an Aramaic Q1 underlying Matthew and Luke. A similar lack of verbal parallels between Mark and Luke identifies for me Aramaic Twelve-Source material among the Triple Tradition. The latter would be later than Q1, but probably joined with it by the time it was used in constructing any of our gospels. Similarly there is a Q2 of such frequent verbal parallels that it must have been in Greek, and it was probably combined early with Proto-Mark of the close parallels between Mark and Luke. Mason’s research would support my contention that these two documents did not mention “the gospel” nor did the Gospel of Luke that was the first gospel to be taken off from the Proto-Gospel. But at the time Proto-Luke was made, various insertions were made into the text that appear exactly the same in one or more of the other Synoptics. These insertions were entered in exactly like in Luke (which was Proto-Luke after the remaining Aramaic portions were translated into Greek,to which L was translated and added), whereas the ordinary Lukan passages are not so word-for-word. No long insertions by Luke, the later L materials, were included among these.
No one claims Luke was written before Paul wrote, so the absence of “the gospel” in Luke that even this close associate of Paul stuck close by his texts that were earlier and pre-Pauline. My position is that Proto-Mark was written when Peter and John Mark collaborated in 44 A. D, and the Q1/Twelve-Source was even earlier. I hold that L was also from an eyewitness, so it could likewise have been written very early. In contrast, I admit that Matthew and Mark as we have them were written decades later, so the presence of “the gospel” in them supports my Evolving Proto-Gospel hypothesis that Proto-Luke was written before Proto-Matthew. I don’t claim to know who wrote the latter, but his view and the later Mark’s was more influenced by Paul than Luke was.
After use by Luke, the Proto-Gospel became Proto-Matthew when M was added, including use of the words “the gospel”. This was abridged to form basically the canonical Mark (with four extra chapters not available to Luke, helping show that Luke came first). before it was radically rearranged to create our Matthew. At a later time this Evolving Proto-Gospel was further enlarged by adding the L material from Luke. Observe at how many stages the early Christians could have been using and referring to what they called “Memoirs of the apostles” or the “Gospel of the Hebrews”, any of which would have been like the Diatessaron: the Proto-Mark used by Luke, Proto-Matthew, Matthew, and the Gospel of the Hebrews. Most of these would have varied at least slightly from our canonical texts.
Mason readily admits that many will come to different explanations than his. He advocates such re-thinking. Consider his conclusion:
Mason's insights also tie in with my older thesis, my radical rethinking that there are seven written eyewitnesses accounts as sources within the four gospels. Since Paul wrote largely in the '50's, and the seven sources I have identified do not use the term "the gospel", this argues for a still earlier date for the sources. Four of the eyewitnesses I find in John, which never uses the term. Another (Simon) I find only in Luke. The other two, Peter and Matthew, are found in the Triple Tradition,but "the gospel" does not appear in the earliest Synoptic, Luke. Paul's terminology "the gospel" had only spread to the gospels during the editing towards Mark and Matthew. So though these two eyewitnesses do have the term "the gospel" in some editions, it would seem the earlier sources did not have them and do go back as I say to 44 A. D. when John Mark and Peter got together and wrote Proto-Mark.
(Find my Gospel Eyewitnesses at the Oct 10, 2013 post labeled Peter Kirby "OBVIOUSLY NOT MY IDEAS")
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... p?f=3&t=14
.That in itself is perhaps not surprising, but now we come to the data that really upset the applecart. Within the NT collection, distribution of to euangelion is in no way proportionate. The genuine and disputed letters of Paul, although they occupy somewhat less than a quarter of the NT (about 32,445 of 138,000 words), account for 60 of the 76 occurrences of the neuter singular. Now, Paul’s letters are the earliest Christian writings to have survived, belonging to the first generation after Christ (roughly 30 to 65 CE). The Gospels belong to the next generation, from 35 to 100. Of the non-Pauline material in the NT, Mark is the heaviest user with 8 occurrences (including the long ending), all of these with the article. Thus, Paul (including pseudo-Paul) and Mark together account for fully 67 of 72 occurrences of to euangelion. By contrast Matthew, though most scholars think that its author used Mark as a source, taking over more than 90% of the earlier text and adding about 50%, has only 4 occurrences of this noun. Most surprisingly, although it also used Mark as a source, Luke omits the noun altogether and Acts has it only twice, though this “double work” accounts for nearly half (25) of the NT’s 54 occurrences of the cognate verb euangelizō. John has no trace of the word group in any form, and the hypothetical sayings Gospel Q along with the structurally similar Thomas lack the noun. Hebrews also omits the noun, though it has the verb twice
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/mason3.shtml (As linked in "Galatians 3:1: Jesus crucified in Galatia?" by RecoveringScot)
The above from Mason may make my case for the Evolving Proto-Gospel (that I formerly called the Horizontal Synoptic Solution). Mason goes to great lengths to get around the fallacy that arises from assuming that our Mark necessarily preceded both Matthew and Luke. Since “the gospel” as a noun became so ubiquitous among Christians thereafter, the obvious implication here is that the texts without “the gospel” are the earliest. For the gospels, the Proto-Matthew employed towards Matthew and Mark thus comes later in sequence than Luke. The Gospel of John was in a different chain of transmission, but its lack of “gospel” helps indicate that it’s early. These implications perfectly fit my Proto-Gospel that was first used by Luke and only next in series was utilized towards Matthew and Mark.
Additionally, the “Memoirs of the Apostles” we know from Justin fits best with the Proto-Gospel that would seem to many modern scholars to be Diatessaron-like. Early quotes from cited gospel texts are not exactly like any of our four gospels. The only change it makes in my Evolving Proto-Gospel theory is that some copies of it must have been made. That they were multi-linguil would help explain why they disappeared in time.
I wrote a lot about my Evolving Proto-Gospel analysis developing it in “Ur-Marcan Priority…”
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... p?f=3&t=14
and here in “Horizontal Synoptic Solution”
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... ?f=3&t=222
but my changes and complications warrant a new statement here.
Though my theory revives Eichhorn somewhat, it is probably better to start with the Modified Two-Document Hypothesis. In it Q is acknowledged to have been available in creating the Gospel of Mark. Q is generally agreed now to include more than one stratum. Based on lack of exact verbal parallels, I hold there was an Aramaic Q1 underlying Matthew and Luke. A similar lack of verbal parallels between Mark and Luke identifies for me Aramaic Twelve-Source material among the Triple Tradition. The latter would be later than Q1, but probably joined with it by the time it was used in constructing any of our gospels. Similarly there is a Q2 of such frequent verbal parallels that it must have been in Greek, and it was probably combined early with Proto-Mark of the close parallels between Mark and Luke. Mason’s research would support my contention that these two documents did not mention “the gospel” nor did the Gospel of Luke that was the first gospel to be taken off from the Proto-Gospel. But at the time Proto-Luke was made, various insertions were made into the text that appear exactly the same in one or more of the other Synoptics. These insertions were entered in exactly like in Luke (which was Proto-Luke after the remaining Aramaic portions were translated into Greek,to which L was translated and added), whereas the ordinary Lukan passages are not so word-for-word. No long insertions by Luke, the later L materials, were included among these.
No one claims Luke was written before Paul wrote, so the absence of “the gospel” in Luke that even this close associate of Paul stuck close by his texts that were earlier and pre-Pauline. My position is that Proto-Mark was written when Peter and John Mark collaborated in 44 A. D, and the Q1/Twelve-Source was even earlier. I hold that L was also from an eyewitness, so it could likewise have been written very early. In contrast, I admit that Matthew and Mark as we have them were written decades later, so the presence of “the gospel” in them supports my Evolving Proto-Gospel hypothesis that Proto-Luke was written before Proto-Matthew. I don’t claim to know who wrote the latter, but his view and the later Mark’s was more influenced by Paul than Luke was.
After use by Luke, the Proto-Gospel became Proto-Matthew when M was added, including use of the words “the gospel”. This was abridged to form basically the canonical Mark (with four extra chapters not available to Luke, helping show that Luke came first). before it was radically rearranged to create our Matthew. At a later time this Evolving Proto-Gospel was further enlarged by adding the L material from Luke. Observe at how many stages the early Christians could have been using and referring to what they called “Memoirs of the apostles” or the “Gospel of the Hebrews”, any of which would have been like the Diatessaron: the Proto-Mark used by Luke, Proto-Matthew, Matthew, and the Gospel of the Hebrews. Most of these would have varied at least slightly from our canonical texts.
Mason readily admits that many will come to different explanations than his. He advocates such re-thinking. Consider his conclusion:
Edited to add:In my view, then, we all benefit from a constant return to basics. If we force ourselves to return to the basics over and over again, not to recite the catechism of received opinion but actually to rethink what we are doing and why, to kick the tires again and check the worthiness of our assumptions and categories, our work will never become old. When it comes to rethinking the human past, there will always be much to do.
Mason's insights also tie in with my older thesis, my radical rethinking that there are seven written eyewitnesses accounts as sources within the four gospels. Since Paul wrote largely in the '50's, and the seven sources I have identified do not use the term "the gospel", this argues for a still earlier date for the sources. Four of the eyewitnesses I find in John, which never uses the term. Another (Simon) I find only in Luke. The other two, Peter and Matthew, are found in the Triple Tradition,but "the gospel" does not appear in the earliest Synoptic, Luke. Paul's terminology "the gospel" had only spread to the gospels during the editing towards Mark and Matthew. So though these two eyewitnesses do have the term "the gospel" in some editions, it would seem the earlier sources did not have them and do go back as I say to 44 A. D. when John Mark and Peter got together and wrote Proto-Mark.
(Find my Gospel Eyewitnesses at the Oct 10, 2013 post labeled Peter Kirby "OBVIOUSLY NOT MY IDEAS")
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... p?f=3&t=14
Last edited by Adam on Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.