The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

[robert j]

Simon Peter is in Thomas, logion 13 and 114 ...

Quick question.

With your theory of absolute Thomasine priority (admittedly not having read all of your posts or articles) ---

How would you account for the name “Peter” in logia 13 and 114 in GThomas?

If I understand correctly, logia 13 and 114 are not found in the Greek fragments of GThomas, but the English translation of the Coptic that I checked had “petroc” in those two passages.

There are no extant examples of the Greek Peter (Πέτρος) used as a personal name before the Christian-era, with πέτρος previously just a noun for a stone or piece of rock.

Paul’s Cephas (Κηφᾶς) was apparently a Grecized form of the Aramaic/Hebrew kepha/kephas (rock or stone). That was among the rarest as a Semitic personal name of the time, with only one possible extant example pre-dating Paul. From the arid sands of Elephantine Island on the Nile, a papyrus in Aramaic was excavated that was explicitly dated to 416 BCE and documented the sale of a slave. A witness to the sale signed as “qb br kp”, sometimes translated as ‘Aqab son of Kepha’ (A nickname for the father? Jacob son of Rocky?).

I think for the letter Galatians to have two persons with among the very rarest personal names, both of which, as a noun, mean rock or stone, would be highly unlikely. I think it was originally all Cephas in Galatians, as is found in 1 Corinthians, but confused scribes with knowledge of GMark or other NT Gospel stories substituted the name Peter in a spot or two, and then a couple more … leaving us with the very confused and inconsistent mess with the two names as found in extant manuscripts of Galatians. That would leave the sly Paulinist author of GMark to have made a clever word play with Cephas/Peter as he included ‘Jim and John and a guy named Rock’ --- Paul’s 3 Pillars --- in his tale. Well, that’s one theory, but my question for you, again, is ---

With absolute Thomasine priority, how would you account for the previously unknown personal name “Peter” in logia 13 and 114 in GThomas?

[mlinssen]

Simon Peter is in Thomas, logion 13 and 114 ...

Quick question.

With your theory of absolute Thomasine priority (admittedly not having read all of your posts or articles) ---

How would you account for the name “Peter” in logia 13 and 114 in GThomas?

If I understand correctly, logia 13 and 114 are not found in the Greek fragments of GThomas, but the English translation of the Coptic that I checked had “petroc” in those two passages.

There are no extant examples of the Greek Peter (Πέτρος) used as a personal name before the Christian-era, with πέτρος previously just a noun for a stone or piece of rock.

Paul’s Cephas (Κηφᾶς) was apparently a Grecized form of the Aramaic/Hebrew kepha/kephas (rock or stone). That was among the rarest as a Semitic personal name of the time, with only one possible extant example pre-dating Paul. From the arid sands of Elephantine Island on the Nile, a papyrus in Aramaic was excavated that was explicitly dated to 416 BCE and documented the sale of a slave. A witness to the sale signed as “qb br kp”, sometimes translated as ‘Aqab son of Kepha’ (A nickname for the father? Jacob son of Rocky?).

I think for the letter Galatians to have two persons with among the very rarest personal names, both of which, as a noun, mean rock or stone, would be highly unlikely. I think it was originally all Cephas in Galatians, as is found in 1 Corinthians, but confused scribes with knowledge of GMark or other NT Gospel stories substituted the name Peter in a spot or two, and then a couple more … leaving us with the very confused and inconsistent mess with the two names as found in extant manuscripts of Galatians. That would leave the sly Paulinist author of GMark to have made a clever word play with Cephas/Peter as he included ‘Jim and John and a guy named Rock’ --- Paul’s 3 Pillars --- in his tale. Well, that’s one theory, but my question for you, again, is ---

With absolute Thomasine priority, how would you account for the previously unknown personal name “Peter” in logia 13 and 114 in GThomas?

Quickie first: get a decent translation, and only mine qualifies there as it is fully verifiable - that's just proper research, not bragging (or perhaps both, but it's the first that counts)

https://www.academia.edu/42110001/Inter ... tion_v1_9_

1) ⲥⲓⲙⲱⲛ ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ is what it says on both counts, indeed

2) Correct, no Greek for either

3) The name points to logion 9, that of the Sower

ⲁ ⲩ ϩⲉ ⲉϫⲛ ̅ ⲧ ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲁ - did they fall upon The Rock

Singular, stands for Da Rock as we know it: pages 116-118 of the Commentary if you please

https://www.academia.edu/46974146/Compl ... n_content_

Thomas uses the last word ⲱⲛⲉ 6 times, but rock only once. Not only that, but the word is in singular, not plural, 'the rock'. And this is how subtle Thomas goes about, and of course he has his reasons:

Deuteronomy 32:4 The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.

Samuel 22:32 For who is God, besides Yahweh? Who is a rock, besides our God?

Isaiah 44:8 Don't fear, neither be afraid. Haven't I declared it to you long ago, and shown it? You are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is not. I don't know any other Rock."

And so on. There are 117 occurrences in the Tanakh of the word 'rock', 10 of those are 'Rock' but the capital letter there is just an interpretation of course. The Psalms hold the most, with David singing to his beloved and cherished Rock - the only reason that Thomas has the singular here, preceded by the definite article, is to point to the God of Judaism, it is this what he means with that: "some fell to Judaism". And that, according to Thomas, leads nowhere as well, and proof of that is in further development of the failed Action, as it only demonstrates inaction; that which doesn't happen - and in order to rub it all in, there are two inactions in a row.

Enjoy. No idea what Simon stands for, though there is an entry in LSJ for that, never followed up on it

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CE%A3%CE% ... F%89%CE%BD

[gryan]

Re: MacEwen’s Argument as presented by Ken Olson:

1) There is extensive word-for-word agreement between Matthew and Mark.

2) There is extensive word-for-word agreement between Matthew and Luke.

3) There is much less word-for-word agreement between Luke and Mark.

I find that the starting point is only half true. Ben and I had a nice discussion once and we both agreed that it's actually Luke who sometimes just copies Mark word for word. Contrary to first appearances, Matthew does this far less often, always changing a few small words here and there, although the story appears to be the same in translation.

The point is to distinguish between content and word usage. In terms of content, Luke takes much more liberties and differs from Mark more often than Matthew. Then of course he uses other words. But in terms of word usage, Luke copies Mark more thoughtless, while Matthew usually has these little twists. So when Luke fully agrees with Mark on the content, he rarely changes words, mostly just to smooth out the style. Matthew, on the other hand, always has his little changes.

Good to know. I had not noticed that.

If I understand your observation as regards MacEwen’s Argument, it should be edited like this:

1) There is extensive word-for-word agreement in content between Matthew and Mark.

2) There is extensive word-for-word agreement in content between Matthew and Luke.

3) There is much less word-for-word agreement in content between Luke and Mark. (Eg. Gentilizing parables in Luke alone that Matt.--if the last in the history of the tradition--may have chosen not to copy)

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Good to know. I had not noticed that.

If I understand your observation as regards MacEwen’s Argument, it should be edited like this:

1) There is extensive word-for-word agreement in content between Matthew and Mark.

2) There is extensive word-for-word agreement in content between Matthew and Luke.

3) There is much less word-for-word agreement in content between Luke and Mark. (Eg. Gentilizing parables in Luke alone that Matt.--if the last in the history of the tradition--may have chosen not to copy)

btw A good argument in favor of MPH could possibly come from the Beelzebul controversy. Our former colleague Tenorikuma (Paul Davidson) made that case.

Our Ken Olson questioned that but Paul's position may be very reasonable. It was also discussed in relation to the Parable of the Talents/Minas but in this regard Ken's arguments for the Farrer hypothesis seemed more convincing to me (because there is a logical error in Luke's version that suggests Luke's editing of Matthew's parable).

[Ken Olson]

btw A good argument in favor of MPH could possibly come from the Beelzebul controversy. Our former colleague Tenorikuma (Paul Davidson) made that case.

Our Ken Olson questioned that but Paul's position may be very reasonable. It was also discussed in relation to the Parable of the Talents/Minas but in this regard Ken's arguments for the Farrer hypothesis seemed more convincing to me (because there is a logical error in Luke's version that suggests Luke's editing of Matthew's parable).

Kunigunde,

I see you have stated the case for the MPH tentatively ('A good argument in favor of MPH could possibly come'; 'may be very reasonable'), and I agree that it is a possible theory, but I wonder if you could tell me what evidence or what argument you see as favoring the MPH over Farrer in the Beelzebul pericope.

Tenorikuma's basic argument against Farrer (i.e. Luke's use of Matthew) on the page to which you linked is:

Why not the reverse — the position espoused by Goodacre that Luke copied Matthew? That’s certainly possible, but a few points tilt in the favour of Matthew copying Luke (or proto-Luke):

1. Where Luke and Matthew share material, Luke seems to be more primitive. For example, take Luke 11:20 (“by the finger of God”) versus Matt. 12:28 (“by the spirit of God”). It is more likely that “finger” would be changed to “spirit” rather than the opposite.

2. Matthew shows fatigue from copying Luke. Throughout his Gospel, he always uses the phrase “kingdom of Heaven” in place of “kingdom of God” — except in four places where he is copying another text and forgets to make the change. This is one of those places (Matt. 12:28).

3.The lack of exclusive Mark-Luke material would mean that Luke completely ignored Mark for this one passage.

I gave his argument and replied to it here and in follow up posts on the same thread:

viewtopic.php?p=48229#p48229

I would add with regard to Tenorikuma's point 3 that he is the only proponent of Matthean Posteriority I know of who thinks Luke's version of the Beelzebul pericope is Luke's own recasting of Mark's version. The major advocates of MPH (at least Ronald Huggins and Alan Garrow) reject this idea and hold that Luke's version came from a pre-Lukan source that was neither Mark nor Matthew). One of the reasons for this is that, on the theory of Markan Priority accepted on MPH, Farrer, and the 2DH, Luke's gospel appears to be composed in alternating Markan and non-Markan blocks, and the Beelzebul pericope is omitted from the location it would have had in the Markan block where Luke is following Mark and appears in one of Luke's non-Markan blocks. (Disagreement with others who hold the MPH would not necessarily mean Tenorikuma is wrong, but the location remains unexplained on his theory).

But to summarize my position: I do not think any of Tenorikuma's three points could be established, and I don't think he ever successfully answered the question of how, if Matthew wrote third, he managed to conflate Mark and Luke nearly perfectly. That is, there are hardly any Mark-Luke agreements against Matthew and none of much significance (synopses linked below), despite the fact Matthew omits many words of Mark and many words of Luke, but gets nearly every word they have in common. To do this, Matthew must have looked analyzed the texts of Mark and Luke, noted the words they have in common, and made those the basis for his own version. This is a difficult process, and I don't know of any ancient writer who did it. That is one of the major arguments against the Griesbach hypothesis, which supposes that Mark used the same process of intentionally creating his version as the middle term between Matthew and Luke in many pericopes (most of the triple tradition) by taking over nearly all the words they had in common in these pericopes, while simultaneously omitting much of what is peculiar to each.

I linked to this synopsis of the Beelzebul pericope in this thread:

http://www.salomoni.it/davide/theology/ ... story.html

And Ben Smith provided his own:

http://textexcavation.com/synbeezebul.h ... 4-hqwzrFj8

So, to repeat the question, what do you think are the strengths of the MPH in the Beelzebul pericope that would favor it over Farrer?

Best,

Ken

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Kunigunde,

I see you have stated the case for the MPH tentatively ('A good argument in favor of MPH could possibly come'; 'may be very reasonable'), and I agree that it is a possible theory, but I wonder if you could tell me what evidence or what argument you see as favoring the MPH over Farrer in the Beelzebul pericope.

Hi Ken,

I don't have any horses in this race and - like I said - I don't really have a clue.

Tenorikuma's basic argument against Farrer (i.e. Luke's use of Matthew) on the page to which you linked is:

Why not the reverse — the position espoused by Goodacre that Luke copied Matthew? That’s certainly possible, but a few points tilt in the favour of Matthew copying Luke (or proto-Luke):

1. Where Luke and Matthew share material, Luke seems to be more primitive. For example, take Luke 11:20 (“by the finger of God”) versus Matt. 12:28 (“by the spirit of God”). It is more likely that “finger” would be changed to “spirit” rather than the opposite.

2. Matthew shows fatigue from copying Luke. Throughout his Gospel, he always uses the phrase “kingdom of Heaven” in place of “kingdom of God” — except in four places where he is copying another text and forgets to make the change. This is one of those places (Matt. 12:28).

3.The lack of exclusive Mark-Luke material would mean that Luke completely ignored Mark for this one passage.

It seems to me that Tenorikuma's most important argument is the third argument. He explained that.

We should expect Luke’s choice of Markan material to copy to differ somewhat from Matthew’s. Thus, we should expect to find (1) shared Mark-Luke material that Matthew doesn’t have, and (2) shared Mark-Matthew material that Luke doesn’t have. And when we look at Matthew 12, sure enough, there are plenty of words and phrases shared with Mark but not Luke.

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).

Nonetheless, at first glance this "fact" seems to be a strong argument if one had to make a choice between MPH and the Farrar theory (beyond other source theories).

I gave his argument and replied to it here and in follow up posts on the same thread:

viewtopic.php?p=48229#p48229

I would add with regard to Tenorikuma's point 3 that he is the only proponent of Matthean Posteriority I know of who thinks Luke's version of the Beelzebul pericope is Luke's own recasting of Mark's version. The major advocates of MPH (at least Ronald Huggins and Alan Garrow) reject this idea and hold that Luke's version came from a pre-Lukan source that was neither Mark nor Matthew). One of the reasons for this is that, on the theory of Markan Priority accepted on MPH, Farrer, and the 2DH, Luke's gospel appears to be composed in alternating Markan and non-Markan blocks, and the Beelzebul pericope is omitted from the location it would have had in the Markan block where Luke is following Mark and appears in one of Luke's non-Markan blocks. (Disagreement with others who hold the MPH would not necessarily mean Tenorikuma is wrong, but the location remains unexplained on his theory).

But to summarize my position: I do not think any of Tenorikuma's three points could be established, and I don't think he ever successfully answered the question of how, if Matthew wrote third, he managed to conflate Mark and Luke nearly perfectly. That is, there are hardly any Mark-Luke agreements against Matthew and none of much significance (synopses linked below), despite the fact Matthew omits many words of Mark and many words of Luke, but gets nearly every word they have in common. To do this, Matthew must have looked analyzed the texts of Mark and Luke, noted the words they have in common, and made those the basis for his own version. This is a difficult process, and I don't know of any ancient writer who did it. That is one of the major arguments against the Griesbach hypothesis, which supposes that Mark used the same process of intentionally creating his version as the middle term between Matthew and Luke in many pericopes (most of the triple tradition) by taking over nearly all the words they had in common in these pericopes, while simultaneously omitting much of what is peculiar to each.
...
So, to repeat the question, what do you think are the strengths of the MPH in the Beelzebul pericope that would favor it over Farrer?

Of course, you are right that also the other side of the coin needs to be considered.

I am satisfied with the Farrar theory which works well in the few cases that have interested me. I just wanted to point out that there are pericopes in which one can also question this theory.

[mlinssen]

I am satisfied with the Farrar theory which works well in the few cases that have interested me. I just wanted to point out that there are pericopes in which one can also question this theory.

What I miss in all the theories is a proper thesis consisting of a reason for each of the Gospel writers to write his story

Why did Mark write Mark? What were his 3 major goals?
Same for Luke, likewise for Matthew - and let's skip John for now

Were those goals all the same? Hardly the same? What kind of audience were they writing for, what was the state of "Churchianity" at the time of their writing?

No one can allege why a gospel writer would or would not do anything until those points are addressed - formally, in writing, and well motivated. I mean it is blatantly obvious that there's plenty of disagreement, so none of these three could, mutatis mutandis, have the same goals, audience and objectives in mind.
Yeah I know it's all difficult and all, but what really seems to be impossible to me is saying things like "it is unlikely that Luke would do x" a) without giving an explicit reason and b) without first formulating Luke's masterplan - or at the very least one's own vision of that

[Ken Olson]

(Tenorikuma):
3.The lack of exclusive Mark-Luke material would mean that Luke completely ignored Mark for this one passage.[/box]

It seems to me that Tenorikuma's most important argument is the third argument. He explained that.

We should expect Luke’s choice of Markan material to copy to differ somewhat from Matthew’s. Thus, we should expect to find (1) shared Mark-Luke material that Matthew doesn’t have, and (2) shared Mark-Matthew material that Luke doesn’t have. And when we look at Matthew 12, sure enough, there are plenty of words and phrases shared with Mark but not Luke.

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).

Nonetheless, at first glance this "fact" seems to be a strong argument if one had to make a choice between MPH and the Farrar theory (beyond other source theories).

The conventional wisdom is that an ancient author will usually follow one source at a time (i.e., for a particular episode or pericope) and not attempt to closely conflate two or more literary sources. This assumption has been challenged recently by James Barker, who can point to a few cases of close conflation. Mark Goodacre too has recently criticized the assumption that an ancient author could not have had two or more sources in from of him at the same time. However, while such conflation may be possible, it's certainly not required or expected. Tenorikuma thinks it is improbable that Luke would have made (almost) the exact same selections from Mark that Matthew did. But he's missed the point - on the Farrer theory, Luke has omitted the Markan version of the pericope from its location within his Markan blocks and is following only the Matthean version in one of his non-Markan blocks. He isn't selecting only the Markan bits Matthew also used. He's set aside Mark and is following Matthew alone (which has some Markan bits in it).

As an analogy, imagine three students in a class that has been assigned to write a book report, Alice, Barry, and Connie. Alice writes hers first, then Barry gets hold of Alice's paper and rewrites it as his own paper but keeping 50% of Alice's words, then Connie does the same thing with Barry's paper. Connie will have 50% agreement with Barry and 25% agreement with Alice (but usually only where Barry is also an agreement). It's possible that Connie will also have a few agreements with Alice that Barry doesn't have, such as where perhaps Barry has misspelled words and Connie has corrected them, or when she coincidentally changes Barry in a way that agrees with Alice. But in general, Connie will agree with Alice only where Barry also does.

This is actually common ground for the three major Markan priority theories (Farrer, 2H, and MPH as expounded by Garrow and Huggins). For the Beelzebul pericope, Luke has omitted the Markan version in order to follow the version in his non-Markan source (Matthew on Farrer, Q on the 2DG, unspecified pre-Lukan source(s) on the MPH).

Best,

Ken

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

As an analogy, imagine three students in a class that has been assigned to write a book report, Alice, Barry, and Connie. Alice writes hers first, then Barry gets hold of Alice's paper and rewrites it as his own paper but keeping 50% of Alice's words, then Connie does the same thing with Barry's paper. Connie will have 50% agreement with Barry and 25% agreement with Alice (but usually only where Barry is also an agreement). It's possible that Connie will also have a few agreements with Alice that Barry doesn't have, such as where perhaps Barry has misspelled words and Connie has corrected them, or when she coincidentally changes Barry in a way that agrees with Alice. But in general, Connie will agree with Alice only where Barry also does.

I think you're right That seems to be the best explanation of how the texts came about.

[mlinssen]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kl ... ospels.svg

494px-Klinghardt's_Marcion_hypothesis_-_four_canonical_gospels.svg.png (31.62 KiB) Viewed 1363 times

"Conventional wisdom"? Or is just a tad easier to play a game if one sets the rules himself?