https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lisle_LindseyStephenGoranson wrote: ↑Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:47 am I mention without necessarily endorsing the following: if interested in a proposal of a Hebrew biography of Jesus used by Luke (and Luke as prior to Mark and Matthew) see works by Robert L. Lindsay and David Flusser and some of their students; searching “Jerusalem School hypothesis” or “Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research” will lead to bibliography.
Lindsey is the author of A Hebrew Translation of The Gospel of Mark. The book is notable for its solution to the Synoptic Problem. He argues the existence of a Proto-Mark gospel ("Ur Markus"), which was a highly literal translation from an originally Hebrew source into Greek, which he calls the Proto-Narrative. The text of the Gospel of Luke is the most faithful to and best preserves this Proto-Narrative. Especially in the "minor agreements" between Matthew and Luke against Mark, it is evident that Mark deviates paraphrastically from the Proto-Narrative. Mark's paraphrases Graecize the text, including many phrases that are "non-Hebraic", being common in Greek but lacking an idiomatic counterpart in Hebrew. Luke knows this Mark-like Hebraic Proto-Narrative, but does not know the Gospel of Mark as we know it today.[2]
While it is easy to show that Luke knows a Proto-Mark (which happens to be closer to Hebrew) and not Mark, Lindsey speculates further with more surprising conclusions, and argues for Lucan priority. Thus, the first gospel texts are in Hebrew. These were translated into Greek as the Proto-Narrative and the collection of sayings, often called Q. Luke knows PN and Q. Lindsey argues Mark knows both PN and Luke, as well as other New Testament documents, including Acts, James, and Paul's Colossians 1&2, Thessalonians 1&2, and Romans. Then Matthew knows both PN and Mark (but not Luke). Matthew is faithful to both PN and Mark and weaves their texts together, thus often agrees with Luke through PN against Mark.
Despite the surprising claim that Mark depends partially on Luke, Lindsey emphasizes that his solution to the Synoptic Problem agrees substantially with the majority who hypothesize Marcan priority, since this Proto-Narrative is identical with "Ur-Markus", and that all three synoptic gospels - Luke, Mark, and Matthew - depend directly on the Proto-Narrative.
While it's a fun story and certainly complies with most of the theories, "a highly literal translation" will not deviate from the text in any sense - as I have demonstrated with my extremely literal (and fully normalised) translation of Thomas. It becomes less legible, yes. But it preserves the text without any issue. Consider logion 22, Lambdin's and mine:
That is my untouched, literal, fully normalised translation where every Coptic word gets translated into a unique English word, and vice versa - it doesn't get more scientific and abstract than that, completely dictated by rules without allowing for any exception. I could even tweak it a bit, bit is evident how this doesn't interfere with the source text at all.
Now, the bold and italic part, that is where the fun is at!
The Coptic word is ϫⲛⲁϩ, https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C7271
1. (En) forearm, wing
(Fr) avant-bras, aile
(De) Unterarm, Flügel
Bibliography: CD 777a; CED 317; KoptHWb 428; DELC 329a; ChLCS 103a
2. (En) strength, violence
(Fr) force, violence, effort
(De) Stärke, Gewalt, Anstrengung
Bibliography: CD 777a; KoptHWb 428; DELC 329a; ChLCS 103a
Lambdin uses a translation for this noun that comes secondary: force.
I use the primary translation: forearm
That is what changes all of the logion, its interpretation, and its meaning - not the literal way of translating. One could even argue that my literal translation is better, as it uses the primary meaning of that word, whereas Lambdin creates an interpretation by using the secondary meaning, which always is less likely than the primary one
There is a lot more that I could add to the quoted part above, but this is the essence to its main argument.
One other remark on the rest though: Luke and Matthew reaching the absolutely amazing verbatim agreement that they do naturally couldn't possibly be explained by both of them drawing independently from a Hebrew source