Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by mlinssen »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 1:08 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 5:19 am The second argument is the harmonizing words added by Luke to the parable of the wineskins. There also, if only also Mark had the same harmonizing words in the epilogue of the parable, then there would be no difficulty in rejecting the Markan priority with the same easiness. Unfortunately so it is not.
Which words did you mean? Ben reconstructed the last verses as uncertain/unattested but not demonstrably absent.
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:10 pm Luke 5.33-39, the controversy over fasting.

33 Οἱ δὲ εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτόν, Οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάννου νηστεύουσιν πυκνὰ καὶ δεήσεις ποιοῦνται, ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ τῶν Φαρισαίων, οἱ δὲ σοὶ ἐσθίουσιν καὶ πίνουσιν. 34 ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, Μὴ δύνασθε τοὺς υἱοὺς τοῦ νυμφῶνος ἐν ᾧ ὁ νυμφίος μετ' αὐτῶν ἐστιν ποιῆσαι νηστεῦσαὶ; [Marcion: μὴ δύνανται νηστεύειν ο υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον μετ᾽ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ὁ νύμφιος.] 35 ἐλεύσονται δὲ ἡμέραι, καὶ ὁταν ἀπαρθῇ ἀπ' αὐτῶν ὁ νυμφίος τότε νηστεύσουσιν ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις. 36 Ἔλεγεν δὲ καὶ παραβολὴν πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὅτι Οὐδεὶς ἐπίβλημα ῥάκους ἀγνάφου ἀπὸ ἱματίου καινοῦ σχίσας ἐπιβάλλει ἐπὶ ἱμάτιον παλαιόν· εἰ δὲ μή γε, καὶ τὸ καινὸν σχίσει καὶ τῷ παλαιῷ οὐ συμφωνήσει τὸ ἐπίβλημα τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦ καινοῦ. 37 καὶ οὐδεὶς βάλλει οἶνον νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς παλαιούς· εἰ δὲ μή γε, ῥήξει ὁ οἶνος ὁ νέος τοὺς ἀσκούς, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκχυθήσεται καὶ οἱ ἀσκοὶ ἀπολοῦνται· 38 ἀλλὰ οἶνον νέον εἰς ἀσκοὺς καινοὺς βλητέον. 39 [καὶ] οὐδεὶς πιὼν παλαιὸν θέλει νέον· λέγει γάρ, Ὁ παλαιὸς χρηστός ἐστιν. 33 They said to him,Why do John’s disciples often fast and pray, likewise also the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?” 34 He said to them,The friends of the bridechamber cannot fast as long as [Marcion: while] the bridegroom is with them, can they?35 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told a parable to them. “No one puts a piece of unshrunk fabric from a new garment on an old garment, or else he will tear the new, and also the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 No one puts new wine into old wine skins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved. 39 No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Ben seriously and completely falsified the reconstruction at this point, as Roth doesn't reconstruct anything. BeDuhn does reconstruct something, so going by his OP he should have presented BeDuhn:

37 “No one pours new wine into old bags; and if one does, then the new wine will burst the bags, and it will be spilled out. 38 But new wine must be poured into fresh bags, and both are preserved.
36 And no one puts an unshrunk patch on an old cloak; but if one does, then both the full fabric tears away and the old (cloak) does not hold together, for a greater tear occurs.”

Roth:

5:36–38 [4.4.6; 6.4.5; 7.4.2; 8.6]—[This parable is attested in multiple sources; however, the precise wording can no longer be reconstructed. It is likely that ὁ οἶνος was discussed before τὸ ἐπίβλημα and the Matthean ἐπίβλημα ῥάκους ἀγνάφου may have been present in Marcion’s text. The attestation of v. 38 is uncertain]

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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Ken Olson »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 8:50 pm Ken, this is another persuasive point:

Mark 2:18:
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And they came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

*Ev 5:33:
And they said to him, "Why the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast steadily and carry out prayers, but yours eat and drink?"

The Klinghardt's comment:
The introduction in Mark creates a mismatch: the Pharisees and John's disciples who came to Jesus address him in the third person about their own fasting practices.

(ibid., p. 561)

It would be very strange, indeed, that someone asks about himself in the third person. It is as if I ask: is Giuseppe right in writing this post?

The Klinghardt's conclusion (same page):
The question in the third person is thus a characteristic of the pre-Markan text in *Ev.

This is not a persuasive point for establishing that there was a pre-Markan source nor for establishing that that source was the Evangelion.

K. is essentially arguing that there is a tension in Mark's text, therefore it comes from an earlier source (which he identifies with the Evangelion) that didn't have this tension. He doesn't point to any textual witnesses to the reading in the Evangelion - he's saying 'if we assume the existence of an earlier proto-gospel, we can then explain the data this way.

He is assuming his hypothesis to be true and then explaining how it would work. I'm not claiming this is a useless exercise, or that his theory is demonstrably wrong, I'm saying it's not a persuasive point in favor of his theory over other theories.

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Ken
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 8:18 pm obviously the verse 38-39 are the quintessence of harmonization:

38 But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved. 39 No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Impossible their presence in Marcion.
You may remember this thread, in which I have shown how many things are attested to Marcion's gospel that one would actually assume with certainty do not appear in it. It may therefore be self-evident to you that verses 38-39 were absent, but not in the slightest to me. I say that very kindly.

According to the attestations, there are things in Marcion's Gospel that make sense against the background of his theology (or what we believe his theology was), such as the beginning with the descent to Capernaum. On the other hand, there are passages that seem completely contrary to his theology, such as the appeal to the Mosaic law and the prophets, the full empowerment of the 12 with the Spirit, etc.

I presume I understand a little bit why Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were written/redacted and with what intention. But Marcion's gospel has the problem that much of its attested content does not agree with what is known about its theology. This is why it makes sense to think of Marcion's gospel as an editing of Luke. Klinghardt knows this and tries to solve this problem in such a way that the text was not written by Marcion, but only used. But then it would be obvious that the text was written by a harmonizer who kept Paul on a short leash and one would wonder why Marcion didn't get that.
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Ken Olson »

Philologus wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 7:02 pm Goodacre is misusing Occam's Razor. That rule of thumb is about reducing the number of assumptions, not the number of entities. Goodacre says Luke copied from Matthew. McGrath says Luke and Matthew both copied from another source. They're both making a single assumption. So Occam's Razor doesn't favor either one of them.
You are claiming that Occam's razor (Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" - Wikipedia) is not about the number of entities?

We are compelled to believe in the existence of Mark, Matthew and Luke because we have manuscripts. Their existence is therefore demonstrable. We do not have manuscripts of Q. The existence of Q is deduced from the shared material in Matthew and Luke that they could not have taken from Mark AND the premise that one of the evangelists could not have taken this material from the other.

This isn't to say that the Q theory is impossible, only that demonstrating its existence requires demonstration of the premise that the shared Matt-Luke material was not the result of one of Matt and Luke using the other. This is why Goodacre claims Farrer deserves first consideration. He is not saying Occam's razor makes Farrer more likely, he's pointing out the logic behind the Q theory requires that the premise that Matthew did not use Luke (or vice versa) first be shown to be probable.
I give Goodacre credit for saying in the video that he tested his own methodology on the Gospel of Mark, by pretending that Mark's gospel was somehow lost and we don't have access to it. In that thought experiment, he reached the conclusion that Mark's gospel never existed! To me, that shows that Goodacre's methodology is not a good one. By his admission, it failed to detect that the overlapping content of Matthew and Luke comes from a 3rd source (or more), which we obviously know to be the case.
You missed Goodacre's point almost entirely by failing to note Goodacre's use of the first person plural (starting at 48:00). You have interpreted what he said as him testing his own particular methodology rather than the methodologies 'we' (NT scholars, and particularly those who reconstruct Q) use. You seem to have taken him to be saying that Goodacre has falsified his on individual methods rather than the methods used by Q reconstructers. That is not at all what he was saying.

You might read Joe Weaks, 'Limited Efficacy in Reconstructing the Gospel Sources for Matthew and Luke' in Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism, edited by R. Person and R. Rezetko (SBL 2016), who shows how different a Mark reconstructed from Matt and Luke would be from the Mark that is found in the manuscripts. The paper is extracted from Weaks dissertation for which Goodacre was an examiner.

Best,

Ken
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Giuseppe »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 1:23 amKlinghardt knows this and tries to solve this problem in such a way that the text was not written by Marcion, but only used.
I can agree with you that the Markan priority appears to be inexpugnable, since Klinghardt insists only on Mark being more artistically complex than *Ev as argument against it. Klinghardt may persuade me that *Ev precedes Mark only when he will publish his next book (hopefully in English) where he will compare between them the different theological agendas of Mark and *Ev. I am sure he will be highly able to show the theological polemic in action.


From what I see until now, *Ev seems to be the work of a gentilizer, just as Mark is. Only, Mark is slightly more judaizing than *Ev.

But frankly, the Lukan priority over Marcion is totally already debunked by Vinzent and Marcion. Even before them, by Couchoud and Alfaric.

I don't understand why RG Price, a proponent like Kunigunde of the absolute Markan priority, recognizes this fact, differently from her.
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Ken Olson »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 8:14 pm
Ken Olson wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 1:33 pmJesus' criticism was directed at John's disciples and then the two canonical evangelists changed it.
obviously in Mark the analogous context of a rivalry with John's disciples is the polemic about the fast. It escapes me how one can harmonize this rivalry with the idea that Mark was not embarrassed at all by Jesus being baptized by John in the incipit.
Are you saying that there is a rivalry with John's disciples in Mark or in an analogous context in another work?
Mark 2.18 RSV: Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”


Now I grant that the word 'people' is interpretive an does not represent a word in the Greek. One could substitute 'they' and take it that it is John's disciples and the Pharisees asking the question. (I personally think the RSV and other translations probably got the sense of what Mark intended). What does this tell s about Jesus' baptism by John?

For that matter, the argument from embarrassment is usually used to support the claim that a particular writer did not create some particular thing himself. The logic is that a writer must have taken over the embarrassing item from a source, as he would not create something that would embarrass himself. How does it help your argument that the Evangelion, which does not have the Baptism, must be earlier than Mark, which does?

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Ken
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Giuseppe »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 4:56 am

Are you saying that there is a rivalry with John's disciples in Mark or in an analogous context in another work?
I am saying that the rivalry with John's disciples in Mark is evident in the following verse:

Mark 2.18 RSV: Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

Ken Olson wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 4:56 am
What does this tells about Jesus' baptism by John?
Once Mark 2:18 is recognized for what it is: evidence of a rivalry between Jesus's disciples and John's disciples, i.e., which is the same, evidence of a rivalry between Jesus and John,

...then how can the same Gospel harmonize a such rivarly with the baptism of Jesus by John ?

My answer is that it can't, since Mark 2:18 is inherited from the Evangelion, where notoriously John the Baptist is a rival of Jesus.


Ken Olson wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 4:56 am
For that matter, the argument from embarrassment is usually used to support the claim that a particular writer did not create some particular thing himself. The logic is that a writer must have taken over the embarrassing item from a source, as he would not create something that would embarrass himself. How does it help your argument that the Evangelion, which does not have the Baptism, must be earlier than Mark, which does?
if Mark 2:18 is a recognition that John is an enemy of Jesus, then how could Jesus be baptized by his enemy John? Hence the embarrassment. My point (and probably the Klinghardt's point in his future book) is that, to paraphrase your same words, "Mark" (author) "would not create something that would embarrass himself", i.e. the baptism of Jesus by John, unless he was obliged to invent it, for polemical reasons (against Marcion). The profit gained by 'Mark', with the introduction of the baptism of Jesus by John, is that now Jesus is definitely a pious Jew, adopted at the baptism by the same god adored by John: the god of the Jews.

The little price that has to be paid, however, is the embarrassment of a Jesus reduced to be baptized by the guy who in the previous tradition (=Evangelion) was the same enemy of Jesus (as Mark 2:18 still proves, pace the Markan revisionism).
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Philologus »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 1:44 am
Philologus wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 7:02 pm Goodacre is misusing Occam's Razor. That rule of thumb is about reducing the number of assumptions, not the number of entities.
You are claiming that Occam's razor (Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" - Wikipedia) is not about the number of entities?
From Wikipedia:
Attributed to William of Ockham, ... , it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words.
[...]
This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires the fewest assumptions...
End Wikipedia excerpt.
I give Goodacre credit for saying in the video that he tested his own methodology on the Gospel of Mark... In that thought experiment, he reached the conclusion that Mark's gospel never existed!
You missed Goodacre's point almost entirely by failing to note Goodacre's use of the first person plural (starting at 48:00). You have interpreted what he said as him testing his own particular methodology rather than the methodologies 'we' (NT scholars, and particularly those who reconstruct Q) use. [...]

You might read Joe Weaks [...] who shows how different a Mark reconstructed from Matt and Luke would be from the Mark that is found in the manuscripts.
That's a fair point, and I don't want to use his words in a way that he didn't intend. But it seems it's not just about our ability to reconstruct it. Goodacre says we would have concluded Mark never existed.

Goodacre says:
"I tried a thought experiment recently in an article that came out early this year. It's called, "A World without Mark", and it tries to imagine what would have happened if Mark hadn't survived. Would we have been clever enough to have worked out that Matthew and Luke were based on Mark? My guess is we wouldn't."
Goodacre, minute 48:20
End Goodacre quote.

Goodacre says he himself tried that thought experiment.
Now I'm sure the reconstructed Q is likely wildly inaccurate and obviously lacking anything that both Matthew and Luke didn't use from it, but that is a different issue from whether Q existed or not.

My point is that if we adopt Goodacre's degree of skepticism, we wouldn't have even guessed Mark existed if we didn't already have it. Goodacre himself seems to say as much.

Regarding the reconstruction of Mark, in the hypothetical scenario where we don't have Mark, there's also the added difficulty that the overlap between Matthew and Luke includes both Mark and the hypothetical Q. So we might have concluded that Mark and Q were the same? But in the real world, we already have Mark, which is how we can see that the overlap is possibly due to quoting shared sources, not each other.
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

It may be helpful to read Goodacre's actual report of his thought experiment. The most recent version I could find is open access here:

https://brill.com/view/journals/bi/31/1 ... 20_006.xml
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Re: Does the lost Gospel Q Exist? | Dr. James McGrath Vs Dr. Mark Goodacre

Post by Irish1975 »

The first irony of appealing to Ockham’s Razor: one tries to justify an epistemological decision as compellingly rational—by dropping the name of a medieval theologian.

The second irony: there is no such thing as Ockham’s Razor. The formulation attributed to Ockham is a misattribution. Some Irishman coined it centuries later, whose version of the principle—entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem—is both canonical and universally rejected in favor of something else.

The third irony: philosophers and scientists eagerly affirm that there is some such rule for preferring economical explanations to extravagant ones—because they think that there ought to be. So they each come up with a definition of it, different from everyone else’s. A rule of “reason” turns out to be as arbitrary as a poem.

The fourth irony: on one end of the spectrum, OR is defined as a redundant, analytic platitude, that no one could reject. Something like, every explanation explains. At the other end, OR explains the non-existence of supernatural beings, or perhaps, the oneness of everything that is, or some other metaphysical ultimate. It proves a grand truth, and therefore no one could accept it.

The fifth irony (special to biblical studies): nothing could be more unbiblical than trying to determine simple, rational, economical causes of a biblical text. Everything in the Bible was written exactly and only because there was no reason to write it. If there were something in heaven and earth or beyond it—other than the sublime insanity of human beings—that could explain the Bible, then we wouldn’t have a Bible.
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