Horizontal Synoptic Solution

[Adam]

[Managed to recover from Word my original Dec 21 that I accidentally edited instead of replied to. The below is actually unedited, not the six times it says it was edited:]
My posting yesterday December 20 followed the usual Mark into Luke (or Matthew) , then directed back to Mark again. Yes, that was partly to show (eventually) that Luke (in an earlier Ur-Lucas form, or the Urtext from which Ur-Lucas was written) preceded Mark, but in the later stage this would be canonical Mark (or something close to it) whereas the first stage I presented for argument was a hypothetical Mark at an early Ur-Marcus stage. The Minor Agreements make clear enough that the Two-Document Theory cannot stand on a precursor canonical Mark, yet its defenders still abound, even to the extent of arguing that Luke cannot be early because it must be after a Mark presumed to be 65 A.D. or later. I used to give biblical scholars the benefit of the doubt that such nonsense appeared only in encyclopedia articles or in Introduction textbooks, but “top” scholars of the Oxford Hypothesis do seriously contend for such nonsense, not the more reasonable views of the Modified Two-Document Hypothesis. Yet even the latter still do not recognize that the Q in Mark demands a more basic recasting of a solution to the Synoptic Problem. Yet their views are more sensible than the other standard answers to the Synoptic Problem. I concede that the dimensions of the Urtext do not necessarily equal all the Triple Tradition plus all the Double Tradition. If that large, it was certainly a composite from several sources. My main point has always been that the Triple Tradition is not distinct in nature from the Double Tradition; an Aramaic source(s) and a Greek source(s) cut across both.
My inspiration yesterday argued that since sizeable presences of exact verbal agreement were at the beginning of the text, this must have been from insertions into an Urtext, a process that soon proved unworkable. This insight was helped along by a day or two of frustration (and subsequent migraines) trying to read the Gothic type in German from 200 years ago that I was trying to read. Again from Hathitrust.org, photocopy was available of Eichhorn’s more developed 1804 views in the 1807 Journal fur auserlesene theological….
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=h ... =1up;seq=8 (but getting to Hathitrust.org try full view search, fulltext, for Eichhorn, auserlesene, urevangelium, Gabler or such)
( I have read in Gothic before, but never this bad, where the letter “I” has three forms and there are characters almost identical in appearance for as many as three letters. All capital letters are elaborate and indistinguishable.) As with Herbert Marsh, I find that Eichhorn uses little beyond the Triple Tradition for his documents A and B that led to Matthew and Luke (but with some leeway, 78), and D gives what we define as Q used in these two gospels (84). The Urevangelium is wherever Mark and Luke overlap (86). He opposed Griesbach’s larger original (Matthew, that is, 87). Eichhorn gives the obvious argument that such Synoptic agreement as there is cannot come from three independent translations from Aramaic, but one prior Greek document is just as unthinkable. Eichhorn (nor anyone else I have ever found) never thought of an original text partly in both languages, so he elected for the cumbersome multiple intermediate texts from which each gospel consulted more than one (81-83). Eichhorn recognized as his predecessors Semler, Lessing, and Corrobi with larger urtexts (77).
Another great discredit to scholarship is how inaccurate is practically everything that has been written or diagrammed about Johann Eichhorn's Urevangelium. You would think that if all they were saying about him was a few sentences, that at least that much could be right. Looks like scholars have been passing on to each other for almost 200 years what is now at about 90th hand. Better than trying to read Gothic, I guess. And Herbert Marsh was forgotten even before Eichhorn. Can't have either of these being credited with the Two-Document Theory when it's easier to give the awards to Germans who published in Roman type. The irony is that these two said regarding sources about what has become standard for two centuries, while the Urevangelium Theory has been regarded as disproven because these two saddled it with a multitude of translated texts not integral to the theory. The theory should have been revived once the Gospel of Thomas was discovered in 1945. (This paragraph edited in.)
I only see as necessary an intermediate text leading to Luke, whereas Eichhorn sees at least three even with the “simplification” that each gospel writer consulted at least two of these translation from the Urtext. I see it as sufficient that a common text got reused that continued to have all the original readings (half of them still in Aramaic) along with at least two sets of interpolations that introduced such exact parallels as we see between Luke and Matthew and between Mark and Matthew. Each writer could introduce yet more changes in his version (two layers from the Urtext to Luke, plus any changes both before the end-of-the-line Urtext=Proto-Matthew and any interpolations from the first to write between Mark and Matthew). Awaiting further proof is whether the direction of interpolation has to be Luke before Matthew and Mark (as seems the case from Luke’s non-use of Mark 13=Matthew 24), and whether Mark preceded Matthew (as indicated by Matthew’s apparent insertions in Matthew 24).

[JoeWallack]

Horizontal Synoptic Solution
...a Passion Narrative within Q
...something like the Gospel according to the Hebrews
...a sayings source unknown to ancient traditions (though the Gospel of Thomas turned up anyway).
...Q
...not just the Double Tradition but also the Triple Tradition,

JW:
Bingo!

Vat is this son of man doing here?

JW:
Ya know Adam, I try, I really try. But when I see you ignoring exponentially better evidence that "Mark" had sources of Imagination, The Jewish Bible, Paul and Josephus rather than historical witness...I just go berserk!

One more chance before the faux button, what is your evidence in 153 words or less that "Mark" had a primary source of historical witness?


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

[Adam]

Hi, Joe, Merry Christmas!
Nice present, you giving me this opportunity!
It’s only as recently as Dec. 14th I posted on this thread,

Seven of the chapters of Mark come after Jesus crossed the Jordan into Judea (Mk 10:1). Was John Mark hearing Jesus there and approaching him as the rich young ruler (Mk 10:17-25, maybe to 31)? Few major teaching encounters precede this.

But I have been saying for over a year that John Mark (or as back-up, Peter) is the source of the Passion Narrative source as in Teeple’s “S” in the Gospel of John. You probably mean, however, “Was there an eyewitness for the totality of Mark as we have it?” I respect Vorkosigan’s chiastic structure in the canonical Mark, but I don’t tout an eyewitness for whatever in Mark is not paralleled in Luke, and that leaves even the Passion account open for comparison with the Jesus tale by Josephus at the Fall of Jerusalem. Even the first 15 verses, though mostly paralleled in Luke, constitute a severe abridgment (of Q, as paralleled in chapters 3 & 4 of Matthew and Luke) that erased any eyewitness traces to Peter or Matthew or anybody. However, consider the usual skeptical argument that Matthew could not have been any eyewitness writer of canonical Matthew because the latter copies Mark. All good scholars now accept that Schleiermacher was wrong to think Logia meant sayings only, so a combined sayings/narrative source (or two or three) that scholarship has found underlying Mark (and Matthew) could be what Papias was writing about that the Apostle Matthew wrote. (Not that there aren’t lots of “scholars” out there who are still telling us that a Q of sayings is refuted because antiquity does not tell us of any such thing as a Q of sayings. But their false argument actually supports me that such a Q-like text like the Gospel to the Hebrews is the Urtext I propose.) As Mark looks split between an Aramaic source and a Greek source, external tradition would tell us the other source was the Apostle Peter.

As for the Q insertions into the Passion Narrative, see my OP in this thread, Nov. 24th for the substantial number of verses in Matthew 26 through 28:7 I label as “Q2” or just “Q”.
I’m open to argument as to whether the Urtext includes all the Triple Tradition, all the Double Tradition, or even some material found now only in one gospel (probably at least some M or L). I’m insistent that it can’t be just the Double Tradition with no Triple Tradition (Q in the orthodox scholarly rendered obsolete by the Gospel of Thomas) nor just the Triple Tradition with no Double Tradition (the classic Marcan priority that inevitably resulted from the postulates of Eichhorn and Marsh).

[JoeWallack]

JW: One more chance before the faux button, what is your evidence in 153 words or less that "Mark" had a primary source of historical witness?

Hi, Joe, Merry Christmas!
Nice present, you giving me this opportunity!
It’s only as recently as Dec. 14th I posted on this thread,

Seven of the chapters of Mark come after Jesus crossed the Jordan into Judea (Mk 10:1). Was John Mark hearing Jesus there and approaching him as the rich young ruler (Mk 10:17-25, maybe to 31)? Few major teaching encounters precede this.

But I have been saying for over a year that John Mark (or as back-up, Peter) is the source of the Passion Narrative source as in Teeple’s “S” in the Gospel of John. You probably mean, however, “Was there an eyewitness for the totality of Mark as we have it?” I respect Vorkosigan’s chiastic structure in the canonical Mark, but I don’t tout an eyewitness for whatever in Mark is not paralleled in Luke, and that leaves even the Passion account open for comparison with the Jesus tale by Josephus at the Fall of Jerusalem. Even the first 15 verses, though mostly paralleled in Luke, constitute a severe abridgment (of Q) that erased any eyewitness traces to Peter or Matthew or anybody. However, consider the usual skeptical argument that Matthew could not have been any eyewitness writer of canonical Matthew because the latter copies Mark. All good scholars now accept that Schleiermacher was wrong to think Logia meant sayings only, so a combined sayings/narrative source (or two or three) that scholarship has found underlying Mark (and Matthew) could be what Papias was writing about that the Apostle Matthew wrote. (Not that there aren’t lots of “scholars” out there who are still telling us that a Q of sayings is refuted because antiquity does not tell us of any such thing as a Q of sayings. But their false argument actually supports me that such a Q-like text like the Gospel to the Hebrews is the Urtext I propose.) As Mark looks split between an Aramaic source and a Greek source, external tradition would tell us the other source was the Apostle Peter.

As for the Q insertions into the Passion Narrative, see my OP in this thread, Nov. 24th for the substantial number of verses in Matthew 26 through 28:7 I label as “Q2” or just “Q”.
I’m open to argument as to whether the Urtext includes all the Triple Tradition, all the Double Tradition, or even some material found now only in one gospel (probably at least some M or L). I’m insistent that it can’t be just the Double Tradition with no Triple Tradition (Q in the orthodox scholarly rendered obsolete by the Gospel of Thomas) nor just the Triple Tradition with no Double Tradition (the classic Marcan priority that inevitably resulted from the postulates of Eichhorn and Marsh).

Simon Peter: Does God have a return policy? If he gave me that sotted voice argument, I'd give it back.

JW:
Either you are unwilling or incapable of simply explaining why you think "Mark" has a primary source of historical witness. Does not matter which. Foe it is.


Joseph

ErrancyWiki

[Adam]

Have you forgotten, Joe,
That my basic thesis I have been presenting for over two years in Gospel Eyewitnesses (presented in my format helpfully copied in by Peter Kirby Oct. 10th in my other thread, "Ur-Marcan Priority?..." still labeled as if it is his ideas), for which see
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14#p495
Look up the first, fourth and fifth eyewitnesses therein enumerated, namely John Mark, Peter, and Matthew. These are sources within Mark, not the totality of it, as at least 4 chapters seem to be later from the final author.

[Peter Kirby]

(presented in my format helpfully copied in by Peter Kirby Oct. 10th in my other thread, "Ur-Marcan Priority?..." still labeled as if it is his ideas), for which see
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14#p495

There. Labeled it for you.

[Adam]

Thanks, Peter.
Yes, they're OBVIOUSLY no one's ideas but mine.
Dale Adams

[Adam]

The details regarding my Urtext hypothesis include explaining the conflations in Mark, which would seem to require that Mark be later than both Luke and Matthew. Yet in general some partial verse in the Urtext (picked up by Luke) might have acquired additional verbiage on the way to becoming Proto-Matthew. If Mark picked up both parts, but Matthew picked up just the insertion, Mark’s version would look like it had originated the insertion. Or suppose Luke inserted what he substituted, but Matthew had ignored this marginal gloss, while Mark picked up both. In both cases Luke and Matthew would be opposite in content, Mark full.

Consider Luke 4:40-41. Maybe the Urtext read, with insertions bracketed “That evening [Now when the sun was setting] they brought them to him”
With Luke winding up with his much more picturesque and exact (not ambiguous whether it was in the hours preceding or following the SUNSET) “Now when the sun was setting, they….brought to him”
Where Mark 1:32 conflates them “That evening, at sundown, they brought to him”
But Matthew ignores the marginal gloss and sticks with the flat “That evening they brought to him”.
(Using key verses selected by Orchard-disciple Dennis Barton, 2012, with RSV) http://www.churchinhistory.org/s3-gospe ... m-trad.htm

Here’s a well-known Minor Agreement (NJB):
Luke 22:63-65: Meanwhile the men who guarded Jesus were mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and questioned him, saying, and “Prophesy! Who hit you then?” And they heaped many other insults on him.
I would regard the Urtext reading, “The men who guarded Jesus were beating him along with others pummeling his face mocking, “Play the prophet! Who hit you then?”

Since I say Luke was first, it is simple that “Then they spat in his face” got inserted before the Proto-Matthew that is the base for both Matthew and Mark, like Mark 14:65 that reads, “Some of them started spitting at his face, hitting him and saying, ‘Play the prophet!’ And the attendants struck him too.” (That last sentence comes up new in Mark, unless encapsulated in the preceding sentence the way I show it.)

But Matthew 26:67-68 reads, “Then they spat in his face and hit him with their fists; others said as they struck him. ‘Prophesy to us, Christ! Who hit you then?'”
By Marcan priority, how can that last sentence arise independently in both Luke and Matthew? Regard it as inserted in Luke, however, and Mark can easily disregard that as a marginal gloss while Matthew chooses to use it. Notice how only Luke explains how Jesus would not be seeing to know who was hitting him, indicating that a word so clear as “blindfold” was not in the Urtext.
(These key verses found in WordIQ, “Griesbach Hypothesis”) http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Griesbach_hypothesis
This method can presumably similarly explain Triple Tradition anomalies. I suppose the big objection is that its flexibility makes it non-falsifiable.

[Adam]

http://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Gospel-Dev ... 0802862349
Another indication that my Horizontal Hypothesis is correct is that it explains almost all the writings ancient and modern about the Gospel according to the Hebrews. You can confirm for yourself almost all of the following by reading the free preview portions of James R. Edwards “Introduction” in his 2009 The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. (I myself purchased the whole book, indispensable for its Appendix II: Semitisms in the Gospel of Luke.)
Everyone hears about Papias saying that the Apostle Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew and many tried to translate it into Greek. Several modern scholars agree, such as Hilgenfeld and Handmann. Nicholson even said Matthew even wrote the Greek version as well, before also writing the Hebrew version (xxix). With my Horizontal Hypothesis some Aramaic writings from this Matthew fit well, particularly for Q1 and a Twelve-Source. In setting aside Marcan priority, a larger role for the Apostle Matthew can work as tender of the Grundschrift until first used for the Gospel of Luke, with it possibly coming back to him, though I personally can’t see him as adding the M material or even the additions shared between Matthew and Mark.
Hugh Schonfeld (who later wrote The Passover Plot) in 1937 acknowledged a Hebrew testimony source. (xxxiii). I see an Aramaic Grundschrift in at least Q1 and the Q narrative underlying Mark. Pierson Parker in 1940 and later the Jerusalem School with Lindsey and Flusser saw its Semitisms as underlying the material unique to Luke (xxxiii, xxi, as did Bartlet and Dunderley earlier, xxii). My Hypothesis allows this part to have been added during the composition of Luke even though it was not in the original Grundschrift, and later to have been added to the text after the Synoptics were completed.
Judging by so many of the passages cited from the Early Church Fathers as in the Gospel of the Hebrews, non-canonical materials were also added. My Evolving-Grundschrift Hypothesis allows this document that grew towards and during the writing of the Synoptics to keep growing afterwards. Most students of the problem came to the conclusion that one or several versions of the Gospel of the Hebrews was actually merely a second-century replica of the canonical Matthew (xxv, xxvi). My theory allows some truth to this. My theory sees one or two or three documents so much used up that only better (and expanded, apparently) copies of them to be available for consultation.
The very latest scholarship, as Edwards notes about Amphoux and Beatrice, is getting back to the Gospel of the Hebrews as a major source (xxxiv). Edwards himself is still too rooted in Marcan priority to argue well about the non-existence of Q. He should like me be seeing the Gospel of the Hebrews as under not just Luke but all the Synoptics, including Mark.

[Adam]

Lots of you guys are following my stuff, but closer attention is warranted, From my other thread yesterday:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14&start=20

Edited to add:
Ironically, such Two-Document Hypothesis scholars as Bernhard Weiss and Benjamin Bacon expand their Q to a size we would expect from such Urevangelium proponents as Eichhorn and Marsh. Completing the paradox, the latter two so limited their proto-gospel theories and/or methodologies to just the Triple Tradition, leading inevitably to Two-Document proponents Weisse and Holtzman.
Compounding the irony, none of the critics regarding either of these schools have noticed or commented upon such a paradox.

Well, I have solved my own paradox impugning Bible scholarship. Compare the above with this excerpt from my Dec. 21 posting in this current thread:

( I have read in Gothic before, but never this bad, where the letter “i” has three forms and there are characters almost identical in appearance for as many as three letters, such as "b", "d" and "h", the last looking like "n" and one of the forms of "i". "f" is flanked by "t" and "l" in addition to being imitated by "s" (as in English of 200 years ago as well). All capital letters, standard for all nouns, are elaborate and indistinguishable.).....
Another great discredit to scholarship is how inaccurate is practically everything that has been written or diagrammed about Johann Eichhorn's Urevangelium. You would think that if all they were saying about him was a few sentences, that at least that much could be right. Looks like scholars have been passing on to each other for almost 200 years what is now at about 90th hand. Better than trying to read Gothic, I guess. And Herbert Marsh was forgotten even before Eichhorn. Can't have either of these being credited with the Two-Document Theory when it's easier to give the awards to Germans who published in Roman type. The irony is that these two said regarding sources about what has become standard for two centuries, while the Urevangelium Theory has been regarded as disproven because these two saddled it with a multitude of translated texts not integral to the theory. The theory should have been revived once the Gospel of Thomas was discovered in 1945. (This paragraph edited in.)

Have you now figured it out? Yes, it's not scholarship in general, but German pride and laziness, not bothering to read Herbert Marsh in English nor even Eichhorn in German burdened with Gothic type. Here Germans are reputed to be so thorough, but reading in their own language was too burdensome if in Gothic type. Easier to read what some other German has said about Eichhorn than to read him (in Gothic type) or Marsh (in English, back when any decent scholarship was in Latin, French, or German). Did Bernhard Weiss not see that his version of Q was bigger than Eichhorn's implications? As for Benjamin Bacon, he can be excused at a century's remove for trusting Germans whom he thought he could assume had been thorough enough to read Eichhorn or to tell about the Englishman Marsh.