Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2017 2:13 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2017 5:06 am
There are elements of Matthean style all over the Matthean version of this pericope, are there not?
I would add the word order „λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς“ (only the order verb+object+Jesus in last position, not the concrete phrase) used by Mark only in a few cases, imho to emphasize the authority of a saying, but is more frequently in Matthew if I have not overlooked something.
Insisting that the subject be "Jesus" but giving the saying verb leeway for tense and mood, I get 15 instances of this expression in Matthew and only 6 in Mark. Given that Mark has just under a third fewer words than Matthew over and against fewer than half as many instances of this syntax, it would seem that Matthew does favor it a bit. So good call.
I think so far we are discussing essentially only word choice as one element of style. I agree that word choice isn’t a sufficient argument against the use of sources (in the conventional sense of oral and written traditions). But I think it is an argument against the usual arguments in favor of the use of sources because these arguments do not consider the thorough work of a redactor as Matthew was.
Well, words
and phrases, as well as a bit of grammar (the subordinating clauses, and now the syntactical point you added above) and theme (placing this pericope after the Sermon). But yes, words and phrases were my starting point.
I am honestly no longer sure what the "usual" arguments are for source criticism, since I have read so many different takes on the subject and have personally rejected most of them as not having any probative value. This is why I have taken to studying what Matthew and Luke did to Mark (assuming Marcan priority), as well as what other gospels potentially did to the synoptics (always with an eye toward the possibility that we have our stemma set up in reverse order sometimes), and only then looking to see if we can find the same kinds of signs in Mark that we find in Matthew and Luke and others. I have given examples of this sort of thing before, and I both have and am working on others.
In this particular pericope, for example, the key indicator I find for Matthew having used a source is that he starts off with "great multitudes" in 8.1 before Jesus' usual injunction to silence in 8.4, a meaningless gesture if "great multitudes" have witnessed the event.
Even if we did not have Mark at hand to which to compare Matthew, it would look suspiciously like a case of Matthew having mislocated a pericope which someone else had devised. It would look like Matthew was concerned to point up Jesus' Mosaic character and healing abilities, and either did not notice or did not care that Jesus was enjoining silence in a situation in which it was already too late to keep the secret.
But wait. This sounds familiar, does it not? William Wrede,
The Messianic Secret, pages 124-125:
The public nature of the miracles does not accord with the command to keep silence about certain miracles.
....
How are we to explain the fact that in the Gospel [of Mark] the activity and so the nature of Jesus comes so much into the limelight and is so widely known, if he is constantly concerned to conceal it?
The most obvious idea is that [Mark] the evangelist has taken over traditional materials in which the idea of the secret messiahship was not present....
Of course, we know that Wrede was not content with this "obvious" idea; he took it even further and argued that even the messianic secret itself must have been found among Mark's traditional materials, writing (for example) on page 145:
Is the idea of a messianic secret an invention of Mark's? The notion seems quite impossible.
This can be seen from Mark itself. In it, the entire life of Jesus is shot through with the various motifs of this idea. The individual conceptions occur in a multiplicity of variants. In them there is much that is unresolved. Material of this kind is not the work of an individual.
I have still not decided whether Wrede was right to go further like this, but I cannot help but ponder that "obvious idea" of his: perhaps this contradiction which runs right through the middle of Mark
is the result of two different notions, two concepts not conceived by the same mind, but rather forced together implausibly: (A) Jesus was the son of God, and therefore worked mighty miracles, and (B) Jesus' messianic character was a great secret until his resurrection. This "obvious idea" scans the entire gospel from a high altitude, but Matthew 8.1-4 shows us what it might look like on the ground, as it were. For in this pericope Matthew has created
exactly the same contradiction where none need have existed before (since the parallel in Mark 1.40-45 is one of those pericopes in which no one is said to have witnessed the miracle except the healed man himself, and Matthew has eliminated the part of the pericope in which this one and only necessary witness proclaims the event far and wide) simply by having relocated the pericope to a situation involving "great multitudes" (a favorite Matthean theme).
And notice that not even Matthew's penchant for introducing "great multitudes" has to be his own idea: Mark, too, speaks early and often of "a great multitude," the only real difference being the singular versus the plural. All that need have happened is that Matthew inherited both his taste for big crowds (all those multitudes around Jesus) and his interest in the messianic secret (all those injunctions to silence) from the tradition which preceded him (Mark, at least,
ex hypothesi), and in this pericope the two tendencies created a tangible discrepancy.
So, for me, the obvious question is: if this happened to Matthew, might it not also have happened to Mark? We are still light years from actually
reconstructing any such materials which may have come before him, but noticing how Matthew writes himself into these kinds of internal contradictions using Mark may inform our perception of what might be going on with Mark using other materials, as well.
ETA: Clearly, I am not at a point where I am able to suggest a wholesale source behind Mark which would explain every Marcan tension between miracles worked and silences enjoined. That kind of reconstruction is beyond my grasp, at least for now and perhaps until new and relevant papyri are unearthed. But the bare idea that these internal tensions might have resulted from the use of sources is supported by the existence of such tensions in Matthew and Luke, too, in such a way as to make clear that their sourcing of Mark was the cause. 1 Chronicles also contains some internal contradictions which are easily explained as the result of having used something like Samuel or Kings as a source. So, when I find internal tensions of a similar nature, say, in Mark's passion account, and when I notice numerous other factors which make the passion account stand out and which would support the idea of a source behind our extant text, naturally it is going to make me take notice.
The following is Matthew's work: ....
But the same would also apply to Mark if Mark was only a redactor. From his stable word choice one would see that he did at least the same thorough work as Matthew.
If I understand you correctly, I agree completely. But this means that style cannot help decide sources, at least not by itself. Authors often overwrite their sources beyond practical recognition. If they do this, then we are basically waiting for them to slip up, as it were (to commit an "error" that betrays their use of a source), though they themselves might not view it as a slip, since other things are far more important to them.
Besides the classical synoptical arguments, some of my points that Matthew used sources would be the considerable differences in the form of the stories (the transferred Markan pericopes on the one hand and Matthew's own stories on the other hand which are not really pericopes)....
While I agree that Matthew has added tracts of material which does not divide up very neatly into pericopes, he has also added lots of material which
does, especially parables:
8.5-13. The healing at the request of a centurion (L).
8.18-22. Following Jesus (L).
9.32-34. The healing of a dumb man.
13.24-30. The parable of the tares.
13.33. The parable of the leaven.
13.36b-43. The explanation of the parable of the tares.
13.44-46. The parables of the treasure and the pearl.
13.47-50. The parable of the dragnet.
13.51-52. Things new and old.
16.1-3. Discerning the times (L).
18.11-14. The parable of the lost sheep (L).
18.23-35. The parable of the unforgiving servant.
20.1-16. The parable of the laborers.
21.28-32. The parable of the two sons.
22.1-13. The parable of the wedding feast (L).
24.45-51. The parable of the faithful servant (L).
25.1-13. The parable of the virgins.
25.14-30. The parable of the talents (L).
25.31-46. The parable of the sheep and the goats.
27.3-10. Thirty pieces of silver and the field of blood.
27.62-66. The guard at the tomb.
28.11-15. The bribing of the guard.
28.16-20. The great commission.
(The ones marked with an L in parentheses are also found in Luke.)
This is not an exhaustive list, but I believe every single item thereupon takes the form of a pericope, easily marked off from its context. So this presses the question: if the stuff added by Matthew which is
not easy to divide into pericopes (mainly discourse materials, I believe) is an argument that Matthew used sources for the tidier pericopes, does that mean that all the units above come from sources? They did not come from Mark, however....
Conversely, if pericopes are such a feature of Mark, what about those parts of Mark which are not easy to divide into pericopes? Do they then come from a source?
And there is not only the „καὶ“ and the historical present, but also the repeated use of special words and phrases, the repeated use of Latinisms and Semitisms, the preferred form of the pericope (even in the passion narrative are little units), the structure of the text in doublings, chiasms and intercalations....
Since you mention intercalations, let me suggest that not all intercalations are of equal merit in Mark. I myself am content to view the following six as good, solid Marcan examples of tightly woven sandwiches containing thematic links across the parts:
The family of Jesus and the controversy over Beezebul (Mark 3.20-35).
The daughter of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman (Mark 5.21-43).
The mission of the twelve and the imprisonment and death of John the baptist (Mark 6.7-34).
The cursing of the fig tree and the temple incident (Mark 11.12-24).
The plot to kill and the anointing of Jesus (Mark 14.1-11).
Peter at the fire and Jesus before the high priest (Mark 14.54-72).
But what about those intercalations in Mark which seem so different than these? What follows is a section that both features one such intercalation and also exhibits a section of Marcan text which is no easier to break down into pericopes than anything in Matthew's discourses. I have coded the intercalation itself:
Mark 9.33-50:
A1 33 And they came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, "What were you discussing on the way?" 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. 35 And sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all." 36 And taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 37 "Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me."
B 38 John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to hinder him because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not hinder him, for there is no one who shall perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. 40 For he who is not against us is for us. 41 For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward."
A2 42 "And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea."
43 "And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, 44 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than having your two feet, to be cast into hell, 46 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell, 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."
49 "For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
(Verses 44 and 46 are textually questionable, but they do not affect the overall point here.)
Does this intercalation resemble those six masterpieces listed above to you? I confess it does not to me. The bit about the "strange exorcist" feels more like an interruption than an intercalation to me; indeed, it literally separates "these little ones" from their natural antecedent, the children discussed before the interruption.
And then, on top of this, the final part of the intercalation leads directly in to a stream of sayings which I have divided into "pericopes" artificially, based solely upon content. The sayings seem to be linked only in the loosest sense; this entire section simply does not look like a Marcan pericope or a Marcan string of pericopes. Does that mean it is not Marcan? I myself am not prepared (yet) to go that far, but the idea has been nagging at me for a while.
In short, to suggest that Marcan words, phrases, themes, styles, and motifs are an argument against sources leaves open the possibility that where these elements fail in Mark we may have evidence of sources, does it not? (I am not saying this for my own sake; I am not convinced that this is enough to posit sources, at least not until I am more on top of how it works in Matthew and Luke and other derivative gospels. But it seems to be a natural consequence of what you are saying.)
All these characteristics give a big fat Markan layer. If Mark was just a redactor imho he did a very hard, detailed and careful work. I think that also the unusualness of passages is part of that layer. Who can with absolute certainty say why Mark's Jesus „sternly charged“ the leper and „casted him out“ and what the puzzling end of the pericope should mean „so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town“? And this second part of the story is the greater part of the pericope and not only a little addition. One can only try to interpret it as best as possible. But such puzzling twists and turns are not an exception in GMark but the rule, starting with the „false“ quote of Isaiah and ending with the flight of the silenced women from the tomb.
imho if one tries to argue for sources of Mark he has to start with this layer in his mind and the knowledge how difficult it is to interpret something as a sign of sources in GMark.
I appreciate this note of caution, but it is also the case that I do not seek sources just anywhere or everywhere in Mark (at least not yet). I seek them only where I see the same kinds of telltale signs which I find in Matthew and Luke when they have manipulated Mark, signs which I would not expect to appear in every instance. There may be pericopes in Mark which he has derived from another text whose very existence I will
never be able to demonstrate, simply because in this case Mark overwrote his source so thoroughly and left no telltale signs for us. As I said above, we are basically waiting for the author to slip up, and certain authors may slip up less than others.
I have downplayed style as a key to determining sources for reasons outlined above, but my mind is open. If you know of examples of how Matthew or Luke (for example) changed styles as a result of sourcing either each other or Mark, and if those examples do not appear in Mark, then that might mean something. I do not see how it could override information already gleaned from the kinds of tensions and internal contradictions I have been talking about, since it is perfectly conceivable that Mark sourced some parts of his narrative but not others; it would, however, add to our overall knowledge of how these kinds of interconnected textual relationships might work.
ETA:
...the plain points of some stories and the refinement of other stories and the indifferent use of metaphors (the meaningless trees in Matthew 7:17ff against the solid allusion to Isaiahs vineyard and so on).
Is this not simply to compare a poorer part of Matthew with a richer part of Mark? (And also to assume that Isaiah's vineyard derives from Mark and not from Matthew, which has it too?)
What if we deal with a poorer part of Mark?
Mark 4.26-29: 26 And He was saying, "The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; 27 and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows — how, he himself does not know. 28 The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. 29 But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come."
Is the seed here any more meaningful than the tree in Matthew 7.17-20? Are not both just a metaphor?