Blood’s signature is apt judging by over two centuries of study on the Synoptic Problem. No resolution yet, even though we now have had the Gospel of Thomas available for almost 70 years. Without it, the early rush for a Proto-Gospel led inevitably to the Two-Document Hypothesis of the priority of Mark and the use of Q. Yet such is the nature of academia that it has unaccountably retained pre-eminence with only sniping from dependence theories that should have been put to rest at the outset.
[To read the book below studied, click here and search for author Herbert Marsh)
http://www.hathitrust.org
Increasingly throughout the 18th Century, an Aramaic original for the gospels was favored, reaching a peak with Eichhorn in 1794. His disciple Herbert Marsh acknowledged in 1801 that that was untenable while touting Eichhorn’s modification that focused on three independent translations into Greek. Dissertation on the Origen and Composition of our Three First Canonical Gospels, Pg. 34n. Beyond this those copyists “added in the margins…their knowledge…as transcribers into the text” (31n) In spite of this correction, however, Marsh still wound up supposing that Matthew (alone) had access to the other two gospels (not just their precursors) while writing (209). He had earlier stated that a common original deserved deference, not that “succeeding evangelists copied from preceding” (32).
Even more alarming for the Proto-Gospel hypothesis, however, is that Eichhorn and Marsh held a minimalist accounting for the Aramaic original (Aleph) that discounted anything that was not found in all three of the Synoptics. This Triple Tradition is by definition found throughout 80% of Mark and nowhere else. Marsh also recognized a document (Beth) that was the Double Tradition we find in Matthew and Luke, which is our standard Q. The Two-Document Hypothesis was thus in effect developed by 1801. But at least Marsh was not flying in the face of the evidence against it we find now in the Gospel of Thomas that has so many sayings that are in Mark and obviously of this Q nature.
Eichhorn remained for some time recognized as the greatest Bible critic of his time (around 1800) in spite of his blunder in first thinking Like Lessing and others that our Synoptics could have been independent translations (at some remove or other) from the Aramaic original. As Marsh noted, Eichhorn should have paid attention to the agreements, not just the agreements, between the Synoptics (230n).
Marsh was an excellent analyst and devised an elaborate nomenclature for the additions (from marginal glosses, etc.) into series of translations and copies off from the original. He could thereby account for verbal agreements among the various gospels—except he gave up on the big ones. He was left assuming Matthew 24 was copied from Mark 13 and also admitting other cases where Matthew used translations already in Mark (166, 216, with very extensive argumentation on pg. 157-160 that the order of copying was only towards Matthew). Where Matthew could not find corresponding passages in Mark, he had recourse to Luke (215-217). It’s almost as if Marsh gave up in the final chapters what he had so elaborately constructed earlier. Consequently, it’s not surprising that the theories of Eichhorn and Marsh faded away in time. In their rigor on differences they led to eventual triumph of the 2DH, and in concession regarding agreements they left the door open for dependency views that are still popular (even though Marsh’s order of Luke-Mark-Matthew is rare today, though I like it).
Marsh went beyond Eichhorn in illustrating his case with hypothetical conflated text XY, XZ, and XYZ as precursors of Matthew, Luke, and Mark respectively. Conceding such a scholarly procedure was unlikely back in the First Century, Marsh proposed instead acknowledging that each gospel was written with two complete texts to consult. Even so, Marsh had proposed so many rescensions that he was rejected even more than Eichhorn also was eventually.
I see the mistake of Eichhorn and Marsh was in not keeping their theories simple by focusing on a minimum of documents. They too quickly assumed that anything not in all three Synoptics must be an addition to the text, thus multiplying sources and amounts of their content. They should have focused on marginal notations to explain close verbal agreements. (Like Lk 3:7-9, 17 = Mt 3:7b-10, 12, easily explained as missing in Mark even if seen, especially if just in the margin.)
Marsh notes that there is less verbal agreement where Matthew deviates from the order found in Mark. He attributes this to the translator having a hard time finding where in Mark was the Greek translation. Yet this same observation could apply if Matthew held more closely to Marcan order wherever it was already translated into Greek, finding a place later for passages he would have to translate.
In spite of Bishop Marsh’s brilliance, or maybe because he is so sure of it, he exposes reasoning flaws. In a chain of argumentation he states as settled by hypothesis that our Greek Matthew is a plain translation of the Hebrew, and that “Luke… written before Mark, and Matthew” (204, 205n).
So the burden is still on me to prove my case. My basic case for verbal exactness is not the original document in common, but that along the way the writers of Luke (about John the Baptist) and Mark 13 inserted their own exact words into the Grundschrift and Matthew picked them up in full. Marsh’s order of Luke-Mark-Matthew facilitates this, but he didn’t need to concede that Matthew had to have seen the preceding two gospels. Any dependency draws the retort, “Why was so much left out?”
And to account for so much confusion in the ordering of Q, by theory now holds that most of this was not originally incorporated chronologically in the text, but as undigested appendices at the end.
Edited to add:
Thus the Grundschrift Hypothesis suicided. Reconstituted in its own terms, can it revive?
Edited to add:
Of course, to say that Eichhorn was the greatest Bible critic of his time was basically to say that he was the first Bible critic. Even I readily admit that standards have improved. I can't believe how much scholarship (10 footnotes per well-written page) goes into today's publications.