The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

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mlinssen
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by mlinssen »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:50 am I also stumbled upon this agreement with Mark.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:35 am It seems to me that Tenorikuma's most important argument is the third argument. He explained that.
But the converse isn’t true: not a single word borrowed from Mark 3 into Luke 11 is missing from Matthew 12. Not one. The odds of that happening are very small.

This claim is not entirely true. As far as I could see, there is at least one word. Mark and Luke agree in the phrase "ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν" (Mark 3:24, Luke 11:17) while Matthew used "καθ' ἑαυτῆς" (Matthew 12:25).
But Mark 3:26, Matthew 12:26 and Luke 11:18 agree in "ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν" and I think it's possible that Luke copied it from Matthew 12:26 and then he preferred it in Luke 11:17 as well.

Mark 3 Matthew 12 Luke 11
24 καὶ ἐὰν βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δύναται σταθῆναι ἡ βασιλεία ἐκείνη·25 καὶ ἐὰν οἰκία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δυνήσεται ἡ οἰκία ἐκείνη σταθῆναι. 25 Πᾶσα βασιλεία μερισθεῖσα καθ' ἑαυτῆς ἐρημοῦται, καὶ πᾶσα πόλις ἢ οἰκία μερισθεῖσα καθ' ἑαυτῆς οὐ σταθήσεται. 17 Πᾶσα βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν διαμερισθεῖσα ἐρημοῦται, καὶ οἶκος ἐπὶ οἶκον πίπτει.
26 καὶ εἰ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἀνέστη ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἐμερίσθη, οὐ δύναται στῆναι ἀλλὰ τέλος ἔχει. 26 καὶ εἰ ὁ Σατανᾶς τὸν Σατανᾶν ἐκβάλλει, ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν ἐμερίσθη·πῶς οὖν σταθήσεται ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ; 18 εἰ δὲ καὶ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν διεμερίσθη, πῶς σταθήσεται ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ;

It all gets slightly more complicated when Mark is a remake of a proto-*Ev of course, as Luke is a remake of *Ev. Then Luke wouldn't follow Mark but he'd just be his own source

Yet Matthew always and always has the better version, the more sophisticated linguistics, the finer details, the real perfection. Which comes as no surprise when he indeed redacted *Ev into Luke, which really doesn't sound as a very difficult solution to the entire SP really
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by gryan »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:50 am
gryan wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:49 am
gryan wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:04 pm I fixated here:

Mark
καὶ ἐὰν βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δύναται σταθῆναι ἡ βασιλεία ἐκείνη·

Luke
Πᾶσα βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν διαμερισθεῖσα ἐρημοῦται,

Matt
Πᾶσα βασιλεία μερισθεῖσα καθ' ἑαυτῆς ἐρημοῦται

Looks to me like Luke read Mark and got creative. Then Matt read Luke and made only slight but painstaking and studious changes to Luke's wording (with awareness of Mark's wording).
In this tiny part of a verse (assuming Mark came first, and there is no Q) Luke is arguably closer to Mark, and Matthew is arguably derivative of Luke.
I also stumbled upon this agreement with Mark.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:35 am It seems to me that Tenorikuma's most important argument is the third argument. He explained that.
But the converse isn’t true: not a single word borrowed from Mark 3 into Luke 11 is missing from Matthew 12. Not one. The odds of that happening are very small.

This claim is not entirely true. As far as I could see, there is at least one word. Mark and Luke agree in the phrase "ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν" (Mark 3:24, Luke 11:17) while Matthew used "καθ' ἑαυτῆς" (Matthew 12:25).
But Mark 3:26, Matthew 12:26 and Luke 11:18 agree in "ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν" and I think it's possible that Luke copied it from Matthew 12:26 and then he preferred it in Luke 11:17 as well.

Mark 3 Matthew 12 Luke 11
24 καὶ ἐὰν βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δύναται σταθῆναι ἡ βασιλεία ἐκείνη·25 καὶ ἐὰν οἰκία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δυνήσεται ἡ οἰκία ἐκείνη σταθῆναι. 25 Πᾶσα βασιλεία μερισθεῖσα καθ' ἑαυτῆς ἐρημοῦται, καὶ πᾶσα πόλις ἢ οἰκία μερισθεῖσα καθ' ἑαυτῆς οὐ σταθήσεται. 17 Πᾶσα βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν διαμερισθεῖσα ἐρημοῦται, καὶ οἶκος ἐπὶ οἶκον πίπτει.
26 καὶ εἰ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἀνέστη ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἐμερίσθη, οὐ δύναται στῆναι ἀλλὰ τέλος ἔχει. 26 καὶ εἰ ὁ Σατανᾶς τὸν Σατανᾶν ἐκβάλλει, ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν ἐμερίσθη·πῶς οὖν σταθήσεται ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ; 18 εἰ δὲ καὶ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐφ' ἑαυτὸν διεμερίσθη, πῶς σταθήσεται ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ;

Interesting and true.

Would it be rare for Luke to get as creative with Mark as my model suggests?

On the other hand, you have observed that Matt is "always changing a few small words here and there". Like changing Mark/Luke's ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν to καθ' ἑαυτῆς? (καθ' ἑαυτῆς appears twice in Matt 12:25 and no place else in the NT).
gryan
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by gryan »

mlinssen wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:21 am
gryan wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:49 am Ken,

In this tiny part of a verse (assuming Mark came first, and there is no Q) Luke is arguably closer to Mark, and Matthew is arguably derivative of Luke.

This tiny example supports my big picture: I think Matthew was written with Mark and Luke as sources, but composed intentionally to try to look more ancient/authoritative than both--more Hebrew, less Gentilizing, less influenced by Paul's gospel. I like the idea that the author of Matthew was composed so as to "keep his sources from agreeing against him" on anything essential (since a house divided against itself on essentials cannot stand).
gryan, that's exactly my findings for the 72 logia in the NT.
I think you'll enjoy the triple agreements in them, just search for

(Mark

and you'll find them all. Perhaps some are only double agreements, but most aren't. 37 of them anyway, the first starts at page 11 and the last one is at page 123

https://www.academia.edu/41668680/The_7 ... al_cousins

They're all written out in full - of course.
Interesting.

That's a lot of material, and after a ten minute skim I'm confused. I would have to give it a lot more time to get into it.

Do you have an opinion about The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis?
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by mlinssen »

gryan wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 10:14 am
Interesting.

That's a lot of material, and after a ten minute skim I'm confused. I would have to give it a lot more time to get into it.

Do you have an opinion about The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis?
Well, ish. My theory is that it was Matthew who redacted *Ev into Luke while writing his own on the side

But in general, after going by all those verses, I learned the following - and that was before I had even heard of Marcion, and this was done at the very start of my Thomasine research and I knew absolutely nothing about anything.
Yet Matthew always has the best version, he perfects what Mark and Luke have. He will change little bits just to make it all really, really good. Yet Luke is bound to Thomas in my cases, most of the times
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by Ken Olson »

gryan wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:49 am
Ken Olson wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:46 pm
gryan wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:04 pm
Ken Olson wrote: Sun Apr 17, 2022 11:52 am
Case 2: The same is not true for Tenorikuma's own theory theory that Matthew conflated Mark and Luke. On that theory, Matthew is not taking over all of Mark's words nor all of Luke's, but he gets very nearly everything they have in common. Unlike the above case, this is very unlikely to happen unintentionally. Matthew must have intended to take over (nearly) every word they have in common as the basis for his own version, which would require him to have closely compared the texts and somehow noted which words were in agreement (by underlining maybe?) and then write his own version to include them. That's not impossible, but it's much more difficult and I don't know of any examples of an ancient author doing it.
I fixated here:

Mark
καὶ ἐὰν βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δύναται σταθῆναι ἡ βασιλεία ἐκείνη·

Luke
Πᾶσα βασιλεία ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν διαμερισθεῖσα ἐρημοῦται,

Matt
Πᾶσα βασιλεία μερισθεῖσα καθ' ἑαυτῆς ἐρημοῦται

Looks to me like Luke read Mark and got creative. Then Matt read Luke and made only slight but painstaking and studious changes to Luke's wording (with awareness of Mark's wording).

I like "Case 2".
gryan,

Do you have a logical argument for why the sequence Mark=>Luke=>Matthew is better than Mark=>Matthew=>Luke, or is your liking Case 2 better an intuitive or perhaps aesthetic judgment?

And how did Matthew manage to keep his sources from agreeing against him (other than with ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν), was this a coincidence or an intentional result of his deliberately taking over the words they had in common?
Ken,

In this tiny part of a verse (assuming Mark came first, and there is no Q) Luke is arguably closer to Mark, and Matthew is arguably derivative of Luke.

This tiny example supports my big picture: I think Matthew was written with Mark and Luke as sources, but composed intentionally to try to look more ancient/authoritative than both--more Hebrew, less Gentilizing, less influenced by Paul's gospel. I like the idea that the author of Matthew was composed so as to "keep his sources from agreeing against him" on anything essential (since a house divided against itself on essentials cannot stand).
gryan,

Matthew is almost always closer to Mark than Luke is the Beelzebul pericope. You look at the one clear case (there are two or more arguable cases) where Luke and Mark agree against Matthew. Then you note that this example supports your big picture, and that you like the idea that Matthew deliberately composed his gospel [in this pericope] to keep his sources from against him.

It looks to me like you are starting with a favored theory (as pretty much everyone does) and then describing how the data fit into your theory. What I was really asking is: can you show that the data favor your theory over others? But your reply raises tow further questions for me:

1) why focus on the one agreement of Mark and Luke against Matthew rather than the many agreements of Mark and Matthew against Luke? What makes it the decisive criterion in favor of your theory over others?

2) You say you like the idea of Matthew composing his gospel so that his sources do not agree against him. But in this case that means closely comparing his two sources and deliberately selecting (very nearly) all their (Mark and Luke's) verbal agreements to include in his version while also omitting many words peculiar to each. Whether you like the idea or not, do you know of any other writers in the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., Greek, Latin, or Semitic speaking) that did this? (I don't).

Best,

Ken
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by gryan »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 6:32 am gryan,

Matthew is almost always closer to Mark than Luke is the Beelzebul pericope. You look at the one clear case (there are two or more arguable cases) where Luke and Mark agree against Matthew. Then you note that this example supports your big picture, and that you like the idea that Matthew deliberately composed his gospel [in this pericope] to keep his sources from against him.

It looks to me like you are starting with a favored theory (as pretty much everyone does) and then describing how the data fit into your theory. What I was really asking is: can you show that the data favor your theory over others? But your reply raises tow further questions for me:

1) why focus on the one agreement of Mark and Luke against Matthew rather than the many agreements of Mark and Matthew against Luke? What makes it the decisive criterion in favor of your theory over others?

2) You say you like the idea of Matthew composing his gospel so that his sources do not agree against him. But in this case that means closely comparing his two sources and deliberately selecting (very nearly) all their (Mark and Luke's) verbal agreements to include in his version while also omitting many words peculiar to each. Whether you like the idea or not, do you know of any other writers in the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., Greek, Latin, or Semitic speaking) that did this? (I don't).
Ken,

I acknowledge the logic behind your two questions. While I ponder this, I have a larger question as concerns this: "do you know of any other writers in the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., Greek, Latin, or Semitic speaking) that did this?"

Is there any other known "synoptic problem" (along with something like John) in the history of literature? I have not heard of any.
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by gryan »

mlinssen wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 10:51 am
gryan wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 10:14 am
Interesting.

That's a lot of material, and after a ten minute skim I'm confused. I would have to give it a lot more time to get into it.

Do you have an opinion about The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis?
Well, ish. My theory is that it was Matthew who redacted *Ev into Luke while writing his own on the side

But in general, after going by all those verses, I learned the following - and that was before I had even heard of Marcion, and this was done at the very start of my Thomasine research and I knew absolutely nothing about anything.
Yet Matthew always has the best version, he perfects what Mark and Luke have. He will change little bits just to make it all really, really good. Yet Luke is bound to Thomas in my cases, most of the times
Got it. But what is "*Ev"?
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by mlinssen »

gryan wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 9:04 am
Got it. But what is "*Ev"?
Marcion's Evangellion - he was the first to use the word
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by Ken Olson »

gryan wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 9:02 am
Ken Olson wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 6:32 am gryan,

Matthew is almost always closer to Mark than Luke is the Beelzebul pericope. You look at the one clear case (there are two or more arguable cases) where Luke and Mark agree against Matthew. Then you note that this example supports your big picture, and that you like the idea that Matthew deliberately composed his gospel [in this pericope] to keep his sources from against him.

It looks to me like you are starting with a favored theory (as pretty much everyone does) and then describing how the data fit into your theory. What I was really asking is: can you show that the data favor your theory over others? But your reply raises tow further questions for me:

1) why focus on the one agreement of Mark and Luke against Matthew rather than the many agreements of Mark and Matthew against Luke? What makes it the decisive criterion in favor of your theory over others?

2) You say you like the idea of Matthew composing his gospel so that his sources do not agree against him. But in this case that means closely comparing his two sources and deliberately selecting (very nearly) all their (Mark and Luke's) verbal agreements to include in his version while also omitting many words peculiar to each. Whether you like the idea or not, do you know of any other writers in the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., Greek, Latin, or Semitic speaking) that did this? (I don't).
Ken,

I acknowledge the logic behind your two questions. While I ponder this, I have a larger question as concerns this: "do you know of any other writers in the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., Greek, Latin, or Semitic speaking) that did this?"

Is there any other known "synoptic problem" (along with something like John) in the history of literature? I have not heard of any.
There are examples from antiquity of three or more works that have a literary relationship with each other. The example most discussed in works on the synoptic problem is Josephus's recounting of the biblical history in the Antiquities. Josephus had the LXX translations of the biblical books of Chronicles and Samuel-Kings, while the Chronicler had previously used Samuel-Kings. There are differences of course, as those works were separated by much more time than three synoptic evangelists were and the Chronicler was using Samuel-Kings in Hebrew, while Josephus is using Greek translations. Tatian's Diatesseron is also much discussed, though there are problems there as well, as the work does not survive in the Greek.

Robert Derrenbacker, Ancient Compositional Practices and the Synoptic Problem (2005) discusses several examples of greco-Roman literature in which three or more works exhibit a literary relationship (ie.e, they shared common sources and/or the later writers used earlier ones directly). There's also the work of James Barker I cited earlier in the thread.

John is a very different case, if he's using the synoptics at all, as I think he is. He is combining material from different sources, but he's not actually following the wording of his sources closely. He has a few verbal agreements with the synoptics, but they are far less frequent and less extensive than the agreements among the synoptics. If John is using the synoptics, he's read them previously and come up with his own version in his head. He's not trying to follow any of them closely, though he has occasional verbal agreements with them.

Best,

Ken
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Re: The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

Post by gryan »

Re: How Luke Was Written

Ken expressed his arguments on History Valley!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SnMK3u_SYk
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