Dating the Lord's Prayer

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billd89
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Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by billd89 »

Given the general consensus of a First C. AD date (c.95 AD) for the inception of the Didache, is it reasonable to assume the 'Pater Noster' in its earlier Greek or Hebrew form probably dates a generation or two earlier? Older?

I dont buy late dater arguments that everything appears at the last minute in these manuscripts; on the contrary, evident borrowing here there & everywhere leads us to rightly assume, "It's older, duh!" (The copy isnt, the content is.) What's the immediate Jewish catechetical tradition for the Prayer, in Antioch? c. 60 AD?

References? Thx.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Ken Olson »

billd89

I think it's probably post-70. There's a two stage argument for that.

(1) In Mark 11, Jesus prophetically predicts the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, when he says:
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11.17)
The argument for that is based on those quotations being metaleptic allusions to their larger context in the prophets Jesus is quoting.

Jesus also curses the fig tree (Mark 11.12-14) and it withers (Mark 11.20-24) on either side of his visit to the temple. I take the fig tree to represent the temple (or, more longwindedly, the traditional temple cult in Judaism that came to and end in 70).

Immediately after that we have:
22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. 24 So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11.22-2).
This seems like a non-sequitur, unless we take Jesus to be addressing the issue of how sins will be forgiven in the absence of the traditional sacrificial temple cult. How sins might be forgiven after the destruction of the temple in 70 was an issue not only for Christians, but for Jews as well and it addressed in the Talmud (I gave a paper on this at an SBL conference).

(2) I follow M.D. Goulder in thinking the author of Matthew composed the Lord's Prayer, primarily based on references to prayer in Mark. Mark 11.25 provided the raw material for both the opening address to the Father in heaven in Matt 7.9 and the forgiveness of debts in 7.12, though Jesus's explanatory comment in 7.14 is actually closer to Mark 11.25 (which Matt omits from its Markan context in Matt 21).

So:
(1) the temple is destroyed in 70 CE
(2) Mark 11.25 explains how sins can be forgiven in the absence of the temple (i.e, after 70).
(3) Matthew composes the Lord's Prayer using Mark 11.25.

Best,

Ken
Bernard Muller
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ken Olson,
I think it's probably post-70. There's a two stage argument for that.

(1) In Mark 11, Jesus prophetically predicts the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, when he says:
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11.17)
I don't think Mark 11.17 addressed the destruction of Jerusalem. Rather, "Mark" was justfying Jesus' disturbance in the temple.
Jesus also curses the fig tree (Mark 11.12-14) and it withers (Mark 11.20-24) on either side of his visit to the temple. I take the fig tree to represent the temple (or, more longwindedly, the traditional temple cult in Judaism that came to and end in 70).
I think the story of Jesus cursing a fig tree which withered later is true. However that happened in the proper season (summer) and in Galilee.
So why would "Mark" transpose the story (season and place)? Likely to suggest that one day after the disturbance, Jesus was still a free man (I don't believe in that: why would Jesus be allowed to re-enter the temple after he made the disturbance?). The time interval about the cursing and the weathering probably was not heard by the eyewitness which allows "Mark" to go with one day after.
Immediately after that we have:
22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. 24 So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11.22-2).
This seems like a non-sequitur,
Yes, it is non-sequitur. Immediately "Mark" had Jesus talking about faith, (nothing like that in the fig tree story). Then "believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you" does not take in account Jesus did not order the fig tree to wither.

I rather think "mark" tried to deflate the negative aspect of the fig tree story and go on a tangent away from it.
(3) Matthew composes the Lord's Prayer using Mark 11.25.
First, the Lord's prayer is Q material which I already explained in this forum:
gLuke does not have the so-called Bethsaida mini gospel except "Luke' knew about this in it:
Mk8:15 "take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." in the missing block reappears in Lk12:1b ("Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy") and Mt16:6,11 ("beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sad'ducees.").
"Luke" did not get any Bethsaida mini gospel, which is included in gMatthew (14:24-16:13a) and gMark (6:47-8:27a), but had the leaven saying regardless: from where? Obviously not from gMark or gMatthew but from a separate Q document.

Secong the Lord's prayer fits very well what could be hear from a humble Jew to other rural Galileans (sometime hungry) and lacks later Christian tenets:
Q Lk 11:2-4 "Father, holy be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation [to rebel?]."
also in Mt 6:9-13

That also fits a saying which I think is authentic:
Lk 12:29-31 "And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you."
also in Mt 6:31-33

See http://historical-jesus.info/86.html

So I think the Lord's prayer comes from Jesus himself.

Cordially, Bernard
Last edited by Bernard Muller on Tue Apr 06, 2021 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

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This is the passage I was thinking of, in which two Rabbis discuss how the sins of Israel may be atoned for after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. It is from the Avot of Rabbi Natan, which is not actually part of the Talmud, but often published with it as a supplement to the Pirke Avot. The text is fairly late - perhaps 8th or 9th century, but the main character, Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, lived at the time of the temple's destruction (he speaks with Vespasian in the next passage) and is traditionally held to have founded (or re-founded) Rabbinic Judaism at Jamnia after 70 CE after the destruction of the temple.
ON ACTS OF LOVING-KINDNESS: how so? Lo, it says, For I desire
mercy and not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6). From the very first the world
was created only with mercy, as it is said, For I have said, The
world is built with mercy; in the very heavens Thou dost establish
Thy faithfulness (Ps. 89:3).
Once 1 7 as Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai was coming forth from
Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed after him and beheld the Temple
in ruins
.
"Woe unto us!" Rabbi Joshua cried, "that this, the place where
the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid waste!
"
"My son," Rabban Johanan said to him, "be not grieved; we
have another atonement as effective as this
. And what is it? It is
acts of loving-kindness, as it is said, For I desire mercy and not
sacrifice"
(Hos. 6:6).18
For thus we find concerning Daniel, that greatly beloved man,19
that he was engaged in acts of loving-kindness [all his days. For
it is said of him, Thy God whom thou servest continually, He will
deliver thee (Dan. 6:17).] 2 0
Now, what were the acts of loving-kindness 2 1 in which Daniel
was engaged? Canst thou say that he offered burnt offerings and
sacrifices in Babylon?
Verily it had been said, Take heed to thyself
that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that
thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of
thy tribes, there shalt thou offer thy burnt offerings (Deut. 12: 1 3 -
14). What then were the acts of loving-kindness in which he was
engaged? He used to outfit the bride and make her rejoice, accompany
the dead, give a perutah to the poor, and pray three times
a day—and his prayer was received with favor; as it is said, And
when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his
house—now his windows were open in his upper chamber toward
Jerusalem—and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and
prayed, and gave than's before his God, as he did aforetime
(Dan. 6 : 1 1 ).
(The Father According to Rabbi Nathan (1955) translated and edited by Judah Goldin).
The point of the passage is not just that Daniel could atone for sins through acts of loving-kindness, but that he could do this in Babylon during the captivity when no temple in Jerusalem existed. This means acts of loving-kindness were effective by themselves and not just as an adjunct to temple sacrifice.

Best,

Ken
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

It is inherently difficult to date a literary expression by comparison with a historical event based solely on a finding of shared meaning between the expression and the event.

The principal reason is that our human capacity to connect disparate things by shared meaning is boundless.

Example: Suppose for the sake of argument that you know nothing about the song "Why we build the wall" except its lyrics and that it is a number in the musical Hadestown, which opened on Broadway (= the principal live theater district in the US) in 2019 and won eight Tony awards that year. The climactic lyrics are:

We have work and they have none
And our work is never done
My children, my children
And the war is never won
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That's why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free
We build the wall to keep us free

What historical circumstance did the lyricist (Anaïs Mitchell, 1981-, born in Vermont) have in mind when writing those lines?

Would your answer change if you found out that the song was written in 2006, and that the lyrics first existed in their present form verbatim no later that 2012?



The second reason is that sometimes the wrong answer approximates the correct answer. The wall that you might first have thought of, while not a causal factor in the composition of the lyrics, very likely was a causal factor in Mitchell's decision to include that song in her Broadway show.

It is not unusual for exclusive hypotheses to apprroximate each other (in this case "Trumpian politics influenced both the composition of and interest in the song" versus "Trumpian politics influenced renewed interest in an already existing song"). The evidentiary amount and quality needed to distinguish reliably between mutually approximating hypotheses can easily be burdensome to muster. I got lucky and found a vid with a business record posting date.

Postscript: The show closed along with the rest of Broadway in 2020 because of the plague. That, too, shall pass, Jesus and Dr Fauci assure us. One causalty of the plague was the Trump presidency and with it, the wall that was such a hot topic in 2019.

It is possible that when the show reopens, there could be changes, and this song will be replaced or revised. I don't know, but I bet not. It's integral to the plot, it's a rare featured number for a bass voice (Patrick Page was nominated for a Tony, but the category was won by his fellow cast member André De Shields). Catchy, too. Here's Patrick Page as Hades in a promo on satellite radio:

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Ken Olson
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Ken Olson »

References: My reading of Mark 11.17 (the temple) and Mark 11.12-14 (the fig tree) is dependent on Richard Hays, “Can the Gospels Teach Us to Read the Old Testament?,” Pro Ecclesia 11.4 (2002) 402-418; reprinted in Richard Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (2014).

Mark 11:15-19: Prophetic Action in the Temple. Let us begin with Mark 11:15-19, the climactic scene in the Temple where Jesus, in an act of prophetic street theater, overturns the tables of the moneychangers (Mark 11:15-19). A full reading of the event requires careful attention to the commentary provided by Jesus' words in the Temple after driving out the merchants and moneychangers, commentary in which we find a fusion of OT texts from Isaiah and Jeremiah:
Is it not written,
"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations"?
But you have made it a den of robbers.
(Mark 11:17)


The first quotation, from Isa 56:7, belongs originally to Isaiah's vision of an eschatologically restored Jerusalem in which God's deliverance has been revealed (56:1). One salient feature of this redeemed order is that Gentiles 'will come to Mount Zion to worship alongside God's people:
These [foreigners] I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations
Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. (Isa 56:7-8)
By citing this passage, Mark portrays Jesus' protest action as an indictment of the Temple authorities for turning the Temple into a bazaar, cluttering the outer "court of the Gentiles" and making it unsuitable as a place of worship for the Gentile "others" who might want to gather there to pray. By driving out the merchants, Mark's Jesus clears the way, figuratively, for the restored worship of the kingdom of God, in which all nations will participate along with the returning exiles of Israel. Thus, Jesus' action looks forward to the eschatological redemption of Jerusalem.

At the same time, Jesus' accusation that, in contrast to the eschatological vision, the Temple authorities have made God's house "a den of robbers" (σπήλαιον ληστών) alludes forcefully to Jeremiah's Temple sermon (Jer 7:1-8:3). In this well-known passage, God instructs Jeremiah to "stand in the gate of the Lord's house" and deliver a scathing denunciation and prophecy of destruction. In order to appreciate the force of the "den of robbers" allusion, we must recall the context in which Jeremiah first used this arresting phrase:
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD/' For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are safe!" — only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers (LXX: σπήλαιον ληστών) in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the LORD. (Jer 7:3-11)
Jeremiah's judgment oracle concludes with a declaration that the Lord intends to destroy the Temple (Jer 7:13-15). Consequently, when Jesus storms into the Temple, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and invokes Jeremiah's image of the Temple as a den of robbers, there can be no doubt that the allusion is meant to recall the wider context of Jeremiah's prophetic tirade, and that the action foreshadows the Temple destruction which is later specifically prophesied in Mark 13:l-2.

Just in case we might miss the allusion, however, Mark provides one more telling clue that links Jesus' jeremiad with the Jeremiah passage. The cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14,20-21) frames Jesus' Temple action with an enacted parable of destruction for the unfaithful, unfruitful nation. While the meaning of this parable might be self-evident even without an OT precursor, the story of the withered fig tree explicitly echoes the judgment oracle of Jer 8:13:
When I wanted to gather them, says the LORD,
there are no grapes on the vine,
nor figs on the fig tree;
even the leaves are withered,
and what I gave them has passed away from them.


Thus, Mark's narrative casts Jesus in typological relation to Jeremiah. Just as Jeremiah had spoken of Israel as an unfruitful, withered fig tree, Jesus performs a symbolic tree-withering act that prefigures the fate of Israel — or, at least, of the Temple. Just as Jeremiah condemned the prophets and priests who spoke false deceptive words of peace and comfort while practicing injustice and idolatry, so Jesus takes up the mantle of Jeremiah to condemn the Temple establishment once again. The phrase "den of robbers" and the image of the barren fig tree provide the imaginative links; for the reader who grasps the connection, the outward-rippling implications are clear. As judgment fell upon Israel in Jeremiah's time, so it looms once again over the Temple.

Thus, Jesus' action in the Temple acquires its full significance only when we are taught by the OT to understand it in relation to the prophetic words of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Note carefully that neither Isaiah nor Jeremiah prophesied ]esus' turning over of the tables of the moneychangers. (We find here no formula quotation: "He did these things in order to fulfill what was written in the prophet....") Rather, Jesus' action acquires its intelligibility when it is set in typological relation to Isaiah's vision of an eschatological Jerusalem and Jeremiah's word of judgment against the city and its Temple. (Hays, "Can the Gospels Teach Us," 406-409).

Hays' theory is developed in greater detail by his student Daniel Kirk in "Time for Figs, Temple Destruction and Houses of Prayer in Mark Mk 1:12-25," CBQ 74 (2012) 509-527.
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Ken Olson »

References: On the Lord's Prayer being Matthew's composition based on Mark, see M.D. Goulder, "The Composition of the Lord's Prayer," JTS 14.1 (1963) 32-45.

https://academic.oup.com/jts/article-ab ... m=fulltext

It's not freely available, but you may have institutional access and the bound periodical can be found in many libraries.

I defend Goulder's position in Ken Olson, "The Lord's Prayer (Abridged Edition)," in Marcan Priority without Q: Explorations in the Farrer Theory (2015) edited by John Poirier and Jeffrey Peterson, 101-118.

https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/b ... ed-edition

Also not generally available for free, but in some academic libraries.

I recapitulate Goulder's position at the beginning of the paper and clarify the argument a bit, but the main focus of the paper is that there are no solid arguments for the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer being earlier and I deal especially with he arguments of the International Q Project in the Docuemta Q volume on the Lord's Prayer.

https://www.amazon.com/11-Prayer-Editor ... 9068317881

Also, of course, not freely available, etc.

Best,

Ken
Bernard Muller
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ken Olson,
I wonder how Goulder, Farrer and yourself handle:
gLuke does not have the so-called Bethsaida mini gospel except "Luke" knew about this in it:
Mk8:15 "take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." in the missing block reappears in Lk12:1b ("Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy") and Mt16:6,11 ("beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sad'ducees.").
"Luke" did not get any Bethsaida mini gospel, which is included in gMatthew (14:24-16:13a) and gMark (6:47-8:27a), but had the leaven saying regardless: from where? Obviously not from gMark or gMatthew but from a separate Q document.

Just curious.

Cordially, Bernard
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Ken Olson »

Bernard Muller wrote: Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:03 am to Ken Olson,
I wonder how Goulder, Farrer and yourself handle:
gLuke does not have the so-called Bethsaida mini gospel except "Luke" knew about this in it:
Mk8:15 "take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." in the missing block reappears in Lk12:1b ("Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy") and Mt16:6,11 ("beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sad'ducees.").
"Luke" did not get any Bethsaida mini gospel, which is included in gMatthew (14:24-16:13a) and gMark (6:47-8:27a), but had the leaven saying regardless: from where? Obviously not from gMark or gMatthew but from a separate Q document.

Just curious.

Cordially, Bernard
Bernard,

I've been meaning to get back to you about that and your other claimed instances of Lukan priority in the earlier thread. I started writing a long reply, but never finished it. Fortunately, I have finished the section on Bethsaida.
Bernard: About a strong argument for Q:
gLuke does not have the so-called Bethsaida mini gospel except:
Mk8:15 "take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." in the missing block reappears in Lk12:1b ("Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy") and Mt16:6,11 ("beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sad'ducees.").
"Luke" did not get any Bethsaida mini gospel, which is included in gMatthew (14:24-16:13a) and gMark (6:47-8:27a), but had the leaven saying regardless: from where? Obviously not from gMark or gMatthew but from a separate Q document.
There’s a joke about a professor who advises one of his graduate students that when he’s explaining his theory and gets to his most controversial conclusion, he should raise his voice and say “OBVIOUSLY” before stating it. (There’s another version of this joke concerning lawyers). Obviously (sometimes ‘clearly’) is a word that sends up a red flag to attentive readers. I can think of one scholarly paper where the author used those words only when she was about to state and doubtful claim that had not been demonstrated. Granted, the word is occasionally used validly, as when granting a point to the opposing which one then goes on to address.

It is not at all obvious that Luke could not have gotten his material for 12.1b from Mark 8.15 and/or Matt 16.6, 11 unless one first establishes that he did not know either Mark 6.47-8.27a or Matt 14.24-16.13a, as indeed you claim he did not. Also, Luke has considerable material parallel to Matt 16, not just the saying on the leaven of the Pharisees (Signs Matt 16.2-3/Luke 12.54-56), The Sign of Jonah (Matt 16.4/Luke 11.29). The International Q project places those in Q, unlike the leaven of the Pharisees (presumably because that is in Mark).

In effect, you’re making an argument from silence to explain Luke’s Great Omission of material from Mark 6.46 – 8.26. The argument from silence is a valid argument (i.e., the premises, if true, prove the conclusion) but is not always a sound argument (the premise that a given writer would have mentioned X had he known it is difficult to prove and susceptible to counterargument). In this case, while several influential scholars, notably including Helmut Koester, have proposed that the form of Mark that Luke knew was missing the material in the Great Omission (Mark 6.45-8.26), this is not the majority opinion of Lukan commentators working on the theory of Markan priority.

Luke and Acts, the two longest books in the New Testament, are close to the same length and some scholars have suggested that each would have filled a standard scroll of 31 or 32 feet. Luke would have had to make his gospel longer if included the Bethsaida section (so called because the first and last pericopes in it both specify Bethsaida as their location Mark 6.45, 8.22; it also specifies the predominantly Gentile locations of Tyre in Mark 7.22, the Decapolis in Mark 7.31, and Dalmanutha in Mark 8.10). If he was limiting the size of his gospel, there are several reasons he may chosen the Bethsaida section as suitable for excision.

First, there are a number of doublets that essentially repeat material and themes from elsewhere in Mark which Luke already has and may have felt them dispensable (i.e., his ‘fear of doublets’). Second, there are summary statements that are not stories in themselves, and third, there is material that suggest that the Gentile mission (and the issues arriving from it) began during the ministry of Jesus, whereas Luke has held off dealing with it until the book of Acs and has Jesus operate in Galilee and Judea. Fourth, there are also the few sayings which, as noted above, Luke has in fact retained and placed elsewhere. Finally, there are the five verses of the Blind Man of Bethsaida, which is also omitted by Matthew. There are probably a few contributing factors for its omission: it is a partial doublet of the Healing of Blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10.46-52 (Matthew has instead the healing of the Two Blind Men in Matt); it comes at the end of the Bethsaida block, the rest of which Luke is omitting, and Jesus’ healing is only partially effective.

Mark 6.45- 8.26 (Luke’s so-called Great Omission of Markan material which would have fallen between Luke 9.17 and 9.18)
Mark

6.45-52
Walking on Water
Thematic doublet of The Stilling of the Storm (Mark 4.35-41); Jesus shows power over wind and wave; the disciples were afraid but should have had faith in him.
6.53-56
Healings at Gennesaret
Summary
7.1-23
What Defiles A Person
Gentile mission delayed until Acts, ruling on what it is permissible to eat in Acts 10.9-16; 11.4-10
7.24-30
Syrophoenician Woman
Gentile mission delayed until Acts; note in the Lukan version of the Centurion’s Boy in Luke 7.1-10, the Centurion is kept off stage and sends a delegation of Jewish elders in Luke 7.3-5.
7.31-37
The Healings of Many Sick People
Summary
8.1-10
Feeding of the Four Thousand
Doublet of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Mark 6.35-44)
8.11-13
Pharisees Seek A Sign
=Luke 11.29, 12.54-56
8.14-21
Leaven of the Pharisees
=Luke 12.1
8.22-26
Blind Men of Bethsaida
Also omitted by Matthew; doublet of the healing of blind Bartimaeus (Mark 18.35-43), which Luke perhaps preferred because of its congeniality to his theme of healing as a result of faith (“Your faith has saved you” at 18.42, as at 7.50, 17.19).

So we have no strong reason to think Luke’s copy of Mark lacked the Bethsaida section. We have no manuscripts of Mark (or Matthew) that omit the block, Luke does use a few sayings from it, and we can imagine good reasons that Luke may have chosen this block for omission. Also, Luke inserts Bethsaida redactionally into the pericope immediately preceding the omission at Luke 9.10, which shows he may have been aware of the Bethsaida section, though this causes one of the tensions in the text that Goodacre describes in his Fatigue paper. Luke changes the location of the Feeding Miracle to the city of Bethsaida, but then has the disciples asks Jesus to send the crowd away to lodge and get provisions because they are in a deserted place at 9.12.
Bernard: Note: the greek word for "beware" is the same in Gluke & gMatthew ('prosechō') but different in gMark ('blepō'). However, "Luke" in 29:46 replaced 'blepō' by 'prosechō' for the corresponding gMark verse 12:28, meaning "Luke" was not always keeping the exact word she found in gMark.
Also, I surmise 'prosechō' might be an appropriate word for "take heed, beware"
I do no see that this points in any particular direction.
Bernard: So, I am very skeptical about arguments showing "Luke" knew gMatthew, as I am for the arguments of scholars arguing the case "Matthew" knew gLuke.
And I am very skeptical of the Q hypothesis, which needs to hypothesized only if it can be shown that it is implausible that Luke used Matthew (or vice versa) and I do not find that this has been demonstrated in the case of Luke’s Great Omission.

Best,

Ken
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Ken Olson
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Re: Dating the Lord's Prayer

Post by Ken Olson »

Apologies to billd89, we seem to have gone off the topic of the Lord's Prayer. I hope to have more about that soon,

Best,

Ken
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