Explaining the "Great Omission" without "Q"

[theomise]

Question: How is it possible to explain the "Great Omission in Luke" without acknowledging the existence of a hypothetical "Q" document?

[Solo]

Question: How is it possible to explain the "Great Omission in Luke" without acknowledging the existence of a hypothetical "Q" document?

Hi theomise,
I am not aware that Luke's "Great Omission" is supportive of the Q hypothesis, that it can be explained by it. Generally, Luke's dropping the text of Mark btw 6:47-8:27 is being taken to have been caused by a) Luke working with a mangled manuscript of Mark that was missing that section, b) theological objections of Luke to the some of the material in that section which led to an editorial decision to expunge it in toto.

Please, elaborate on the connection to Q. Thanks.

Best,
Jiri

[steve43]

I doubt "b."

Luke likely put anything in that was remote connected with Jesus- that's why it is by far the longest Gospel. And that's why the clearly-Josephus originated story of Jesus in the Temple made it in. Luke shrugged and said "Yeah. Maybe. Well, why not?" and so confounded two thousand years of Christian scholars.

[Bernard Muller]

I have a webpage on Luke's great omission http://historical-jesus.info/appf.html
In it, I established, from many reasons, "a) Luke working with a mangled manuscript of Mark that was missing that section" and AGAINST "b) theological objections of Luke to the some of the material in that section which led to an editorial decision to expunge it in toto".
And yes, if option a) is accepted, that would be a strong argument (among many) for a separate Q document.
If option b) is considered, then a saying appearing amidst the passage corresponding to the great omission in gMatthew (which seems itself to be an elaboration from a Markan saying), appears also in gLuke. Again this saying "... Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees ..." in gLuke is better explained by being drawn from Q than extracted among many pericopes in gMatthew, which would have very little chance for all of them to be rejected for theological reasons (or others).
Also this saying seems out of context in gMatthew, but in gLuke (12:1b) it is right in front of a series of five other (normally considered) Q sayings (12:2-10).
My webpage on Q: http://historical-jesus.info/q.html

Cordially, Bernard

[Solo]

I have a webpage on Luke's great omission http://historical-jesus.info/appf.html
In it, I established, from many reasons, "a) Luke working with a mangled manuscript of Mark that was missing that section" and AGAINST "b) theological objections of Luke to the some of the material in that section which led to an editorial decision to expunge it in toto".
And yes, if option a) is accepted, that would be a strong argument (among many) for a separate Q document.

I do not understand why this would be an argument for Q and not, say, for Luke knowing Matthew.

If option b) is considered, then a saying appearing amidst the passage corresponding to the great omission in gMatthew (which seems itself to be an elaboration from a Markan saying), appears also in gLuke. Again this saying "... Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees ..." in gLuke is better explained by being drawn from Q than extracted among many pericopes in gMatthew, which would have very little chance for all of them to be rejected for theological reasons (or others).
Also this saying seems out of context in gMatthew, but in gLuke (12:1b) it is right in front of a series of five other (normally considered) Q sayings (12:2-10). [/url]

This argument presupposes that a) is also true, and rests on the unproven hypothesis that Luke did not know Matthew. The fact that Luke rearranged Matthean sections, while keeping most Markan sequences, does not argue as much for the existence of Q, as it does for 19th and 20th century academics reading Luke through a particular theological lens that in time morphed into a prescribed exegetical procedure.

Best,
Jiri

[neilgodfrey]

Question: How is it possible to explain the "Great Omission in Luke" without acknowledging the existence of a hypothetical "Q" document?

Matthias Klinghardt in The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion says the section was missing from Marcion's Gospel -- and that canonical Luke was a redaction of Marcion's. (See Marcion And the Synoptic Problem (2)).

I have also read of the possibility that it was omitted because here Mark was sending Jesus to gentile areas while the final redactor of Luke and author of Acts wanted to place all such material in Acts. His progression was from the Temple to Rome, with Jesus confining himself to the Jews and commissioning the disciples to take it further. The sea travel in Mark, if understood to be symbolic of the Mediterranean missions to the gentiles, had to go, too, in preference for Acts.

If the latter, that leaves the clean/unclean controversy (unwashed hands) that one might rationalize by the redactor of Luke/author of Acts transferring thematically to the vision of Peter in Acts that broke down the division between clean and unclean.

[Bernard Muller]

I do not understand why this would be an argument for Q and not, say, for Luke knowing Matthew.

If "Luke" had an incomplete gMark to work on, then if she had gMatthew also, the corresponding missing block in gMatthew would also had to be removed. But gLuke has a saying which appears only in the would-be missing block of gMatthew. So that saying had to come from Q.

This argument presupposes that a) is also true, and rests on the unproven hypothesis that Luke did not know Matthew.

I certainly showed on the posted webpages (more so the one on Q) that "Luke" did not know gMatthew, for many reasons.
http://historical-jesus.info/q.html

Cordially, Bernard

[MrMacSon]

Question: How is it possible to explain the "Great Omission in Luke" without acknowledging the existence of a hypothetical "Q" document?

Matthias Klinghardt in The Marcionite Gospel and the Synoptic Problem: A New Suggestion says the section was missing from Marcion's Gospel -- and that canonical Luke was a redaction of Marcion's. (See Marcion And the Synoptic Problem (2)).

I have also read of the possibility that it was omitted because here Mark was sending Jesus to gentile areas, while the final redactor of Luke and author of Acts wanted to place all such material in Acts.

"all such material" ?? ... about "sending Jesus to gentile areas" ??

His progression was from the Temple to Rome, with Jesus confining himself to the Jews and commissioning the disciples to take it further.

Who's 'progression'? The redactor/s of Luke?

Are you proposing the final redactor/s of Luke were the author/s of Acts?
.

[neilgodfrey]

All such gentile mission material, yes.

Yes

Who's 'progression'? The redactor/s of Luke?

Are you proposing the final redactor/s of Luke were the author/s of Acts?

Yes and Yes. Well, it's not me who's proposing it. I am only repeating some ideas I have read in the literature. But I do find the idea plausible and consistent with the canonical structure of Luke-Acts. I'm open to other explanations.

[neilgodfrey]

I cited what I have read in the literature, but if you want my personal take, here it is:

The redactor of the Marcionite Luke/author of Acts did know Mark, of course, but he chose to follow Marcion's text here and omit the Marcan verses because they potentially lent themselves favourably towards Marcionism, and this redactor was writing to oppose Marcionism.

The scenes omitted (I'm copying from my 2009 post):

• Jesus walking on the sea of Galilee
• Healing many at Gennesarat
• Controversy with Pharisees over eating with unwashed hands
• Exorcising the daughter of the woman from Tyre/Sidon
• Healing (with saliva) the deaf-mute in region of Decapolis
• Feeding the 4000 in the wilderness
• Controversy with Pharisees over a sign and warning of leaven of Pharisees and Herod
• Healing the blind man (after two attempts)

Firstly, Mark had written that the disciples thought they were seeing a spirit when they saw Jesus walking past them on water. If Marcion’s Jesus came down directly from heaven and had more the appearance of a man than the reality, this episode might well have lent itself to supporting a view of Jesus more ethereal than fleshy and boney.

Secondly, the events and miracles of this section are in gentile areas. If Marcion emphasized the foundational role of Paul in establishing the truth that the Jewish disciples of Jesus had failed to grasp, and that Paul’s role was directed among gentiles as a result of Jewish rejection of Christ, then Mark’s themes of Jesus working among both Jews and gentiles had to be revised.

Thirdly, the controversy with the Pharisees over eating with unwashed hands contained a message from Jesus condemning certain Jewish laws. It is not impossible that an anti-Marcionite propagandist would easily be persuaded to omit such an episode for its potential to be manipulated by Marcionites who were “anti-Jewish” to the extent that they regarded all Jewish laws as derived from either humans or the Demiurge.

Fourthly, the two-fold attempt to heal a blind man strikes most readers as having a symbolic relationship with the two-fold blindness of the disciples over the two mass feeding miracles (of 5000 and 4000). Once the second of these miracles was removed, being in a gentile area (see “Secondly” above), the Markan miracle lost its significance and merely made Jesus looked like Superman fast fading in the presence of kryptonite. And no-one wanted to advance Mark’s very human Jesus, one possessed by the spirit and who used spit to heal. There were more “spiritual” ways to counter Marcionism’s view of Jesus.