The Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis

[Ken Olson]

if the 4-Gospel Book evolved over a period of time (e.g. 150—250 CE), each Gospel being massaged and re-edited in light of the others, then we really shouldn’t expect to be able to order them chronologically.

IF

Is the premise demonstrable?

[Secret Alias]

Irish,

The need to add the dates makes the argument problematic. This is what we know.

1. John is identified as some sort of compiler in Papias.
2. chapter headings in the gospel of John seem to be used by Irenaeus to bolster his argument in Against Heresies 2 that Jesus's ministry did not fit within a year (and so the heresies were wrong about their use of Isaiah 61 to mean 'a year'
3. As such, given the artificiality of the gospel of John being used as a time marker to 'help' Irenaeus ridiculous argument, Irenaeus likely had a hand in developing Papias's claims about John (another John) into someone who could be used to counter the heretic interpretation of Isaiah 61
4. Irenaeus had a hand in developing the canon
5. Luke begins with Jesus citing Isaiah 61
6. Luke's development is tied to another 'expelled' gospel from the canon - the gospel of Marcion
7. the Marcionites were said to be anti-Jewish in some way but also too-Jewish in other ways (when it comes to who or what type of messiah Jesus was)
8. given Clement of Alexandria's unusual citation of Luke's use of Isaiah 61 'I come to announce the favorable year' the Marcionite interest in the 'year of favor' is behind the arguments in Irenaeus Against Heresies book 2
9. in other words, the canon was developed against Marcion
10. if we examine Irenaeus's efforts against the heresies we likely have an idea what the Marcionite gospel said because his 'orthodoxy' was little more than anti-Marcionism.

As such, the fourfold gospel canon was developed already at the time of Irenaeus as an anti-Marcionite collection, John becoming the authority by which Marcion was ultimately refuted (something already suggested by Papias in fragments). Irenaeus just used his own version of John to become the mouthpiece for anti-Marcionite reforms and/or Papias.

[Secret Alias]

Those who succeed in this study of early Christianity ignore the chasm that exists between Marcion and Irenaeus.
They ignore the use of John (as a figure) and his gospel to reshape Christianity before 180 CE.
John is alleged to have collected Mark (which Papias references).
John is alleged to have collected Matthew (which Papias references).
And then he put Matthew first and Mark second (according to Papias in terms of 'order' not date).
Irenaeus turns this around and makes it according to both 'order' AND date).
And then Luke gets added into the mix.
This is most curious because Papias doesn't mention Luke.
We have to ask why does Irenaeus do this.
I think it was to get out of the dualism of 'Matthew or Mark' that existed up until that time.
John 'discovering' Luke helps get rid of this dualism.
Acts helps by distinguishing between Paul and Mark (another of Irenaeus's inventions).
Originally it was Mark or Matthew.
Mark's gospel or the gospel of the twelve.
Mark's letters (if Mark = Paul) vs the oral tradition compiled by Papias (as commentaries on the gospel).
By inventing Paul and his disciple Luke John (Irenaeus) finds a path to ecumenism.

[Irish1975]

if the 4-Gospel Book evolved over a period of time (e.g. 150—250 CE), each Gospel being massaged and re-edited in light of the others, then we really shouldn’t expect to be able to order them chronologically.

IF

Is the premise demonstrable?

Well let me clarify these points and then you can object to them specifically:

1. I posit a published canonical edition circa 160 (Trobisch), most of the heavy lifting being done by “Luke” and his circle. This was the great effort to counter Marcion. (I think most people on this site accept this basic scenario; I can’t recall any serious efforts to refute it.) Vinzent, Klinghardt have called in the great bluff, i.e. no evidence for the canonical Gospels until after Marcion and his Gospel.

2. There are innumerable variations, especially in the texts of the Gospels. In the 4th and 5th centuries, people are still making major emendations of the text, e.g. the endings in Mark or John 8. When I say that the Gospels “evolved,” I mean that they began life in the 2nd century, and minor or major changes (as well as inevitable scribal corruptions) took place in the two centuries (a long time!) before the NT was ever thought of as “canonical” (i.e. mid 4th century).

• There is no reason to presume that the Gospels were “faithfully preserved,” even apart from SA’s arguments from patristic evidence. The older Jewish scriptures were updated countless times before they hardened into something like the Masoretic text. We know this just by looking at the LXX, the DSS, the Pentateuch and the way its many sources were merged from originally separate narratives (Wellhausen, etc.). Jacques Berlinerblau has a fine book (The Secular Bible; I like the first part anyway) that discusses why Jewish scriptures never really had an author, because younger generations were always rewriting and tweaking what they had received. This is such a basic feature of Jewish scripture writing that it makes no sense to presume a different process for the NT.

3. Since the manuscripts we have cannot be proved to be older than 4th century (3rd century in a few cases, maybe), one should assume that what we have is the later evolved form of texts that would have looked quite different in the beginning. See Brent Nongbri, God’s Library. He demonstrates again and again why so much of the 20th century “dating” of manuscripts to the 2nd century by NT textual critics is based on little more than wishful thinking.

[Ken Olson]

Well let me clarify these points and then you can object to them specifically:

1. I posit a published canonical edition circa 160 (Trobisch), most of the heavy lifting being done by “Luke” and his circle. This was the great effort to counter Marcion. (I think most people on this site accept this basic scenario; I can’t recall any serious efforts to refute it.)

It does seem that a good number of people on this site accept Marcion's priority to Luke, though I think some of those would contest Marcion's priority to Mark. I don't recall any serious effort to refute it either. I certainly haven't, because I haven't been able to get hold of Klinghardt's Oldest Gospel or Vinzent's Marcion and the Dating. That said, though, I haven't seen many people make arguments for it either (with the single exception of Luke/Marcion on Capernaum, which predates Klinghardt by a hundred years or so). The usual thing seems to be for people just to state what their position is.

Vinzent, Klinghardt have called in the great bluff, i.e. no evidence for the canonical Gospels until after Marcion and his Gospel.

Maybe. I haven't discounted the possibility that they are making a great bluff. The evidence for the canonical gospels may not be as good as we often suppose, but I suspect the evidence for the Evangelion is much worse.

2. There are innumerable variations, especially in the texts of the Gospels. In the 4th and 5th centuries, people are still making major emendations of the text, e.g. the endings in Mark or John 8. When I say that the Gospels “evolved,” I mean that they began life in the 2nd century, and minor or major changes (as well as inevitable scribal corruptions) took place in the two centuries (a long time!) before the NT was ever thought of as “canonical” (i.e. mid 4th century).

Two observations here:

1) Isn't the text of Marcion far less certain than the canonicals and could have undergone far greater changes for all we know?

2) I've seen Klinghardt quoted as saying: 'The manuscript tradition shows no trace whatsoever of ‘Proto-’ or ‘Deutero-Mark’; its existence was only postulated for lack of a better explanation.' It sounds like he himself requires manuscript attestation for claimed changes in the text. He's not just willing to infer the existence of a bunch of changes that are not attested in the manuscripts on the basis of some changes that are attested in the manuscripts.Of course, I may be wrong about that.

• There is no reason to presume that the Gospels were “faithfully preserved,” even apart from SA’s arguments from patristic evidence. The older Jewish scriptures were updated countless times before they hardened into something like the Masoretic text. We know this just by looking at the LXX, the DSS, the Pentateuch and the way its many sources were merged from originally separate narratives (Wellhausen, etc.). Jacques Berlinerblau has a fine book (The Secular Bible; I like the first part anyway) that discusses why Jewish scriptures never really had an author, because younger generations were always rewriting and tweaking what they had received. This is such a basic feature of Jewish scripture writing that it makes no sense to presume a different process for the NT.

No comment at the moment.

3. Since the manuscripts we have cannot be proved to be older than 4th century (3rd century in a few cases, maybe), one should assume that what we have is the later evolved form of texts that would have looked quite different in the beginning. See Brent Nongbri, God’s Library. He demonstrates again and again why so much of the 20th century “dating” of manuscripts to the 2nd century by NT textual critics is based on little more than wishful thinking.

But you are positing a collection of the canonical gospels circa 160 CE, much earlier than the fourth century. Do you mean that the canonical gospels in something close to their present form (allowing for textual variants, etc.) existed in 160? How can you be confident of that on the basis of fourth century manuscripts? And if you can, why 160? And why the date of the collection rather than dates of individual gospels?

Best,

Ken

PS I realize that Matt Mark Luke and John were not attested as a group to be accepted by the church until Irenaeus. That's pretty well established. i think it's in Erhman's Intro to the NT and it's what I've taught.

PS - I was hoping to get hold of a copy of Klinghardt before responding to give my response more focus, but, unfortunately, that didn't happen.

[MrMacSon]

There's a digit version of Matthean Posteriority by Robert K. MacEwen : Bloomsbury, 2015, available at logos.com for $29 https://www.logos.com/product/150079/ma ... steriority (cf. $US46 for the paperback on Amazon)

[MrMacSon]

MacEwan has proposed [in a video that has recently been posted on a patreon creator's stream] that, iiuc, for Matthean Posteriority, Luke or a version of Luke would essentially have been 'Q' for Matthew ie. it's possible that one could have used a proto-version of the other

(given some of MacEwan's [and Tripp's] points, and other factors, it might be more likely that Matthew would have used proto-Luke)

[mlinssen]

Well let me clarify these points and then you can object to them specifically:

1. I posit a published canonical edition circa 160 (Trobisch), most of the heavy lifting being done by “Luke” and his circle. This was the great effort to counter Marcion. (I think most people on this site accept this basic scenario; I can’t recall any serious efforts to refute it.)

It does seem that a good number of people on this site accept Marcion's priority to Luke, though I think some of those would contest Marcion's priority to Mark. I don't recall any serious effort to refute it either. I certainly haven't, because I haven't been able to get hold of Klinghardt's Oldest Gospel or Vinzent's Marcion and the Dating. That said, though, I haven't seen many people make arguments for it either (with the single exception of Luke/Marcion on Capernaum, which predates Klinghardt by a hundred years or so). The usual thing seems to be for people just to state what their position is.

Vinzent, Klinghardt have called in the great bluff, i.e. no evidence for the canonical Gospels until after Marcion and his Gospel.

Maybe. I haven't discounted the possibility that they are making a great bluff. The evidence for the canonical gospels may not be as good as we often suppose, but I suspect the evidence for the Evangelion is much worse.

2. There are innumerable variations, especially in the texts of the Gospels. In the 4th and 5th centuries, people are still making major emendations of the text, e.g. the endings in Mark or John 8. When I say that the Gospels “evolved,” I mean that they began life in the 2nd century, and minor or major changes (as well as inevitable scribal corruptions) took place in the two centuries (a long time!) before the NT was ever thought of as “canonical” (i.e. mid 4th century).

Two observations here:

1) Isn't the text of Marcion far less certain than the canonicals and could have undergone far greater changes for all we know?

2) I've seen Klinghardt quoted as saying: 'The manuscript tradition shows no trace whatsoever of ‘Proto-’ or ‘Deutero-Mark’; its existence was only postulated for lack of a better explanation.' It sounds like he himself requires manuscript attestation for claimed changes in the text. He's not just willing to infer the existence of a bunch of changes that are not attested in the manuscripts on the basis of some changes that are attested in the manuscripts.Of course, I may be wrong about that.

• There is no reason to presume that the Gospels were “faithfully preserved,” even apart from SA’s arguments from patristic evidence. The older Jewish scriptures were updated countless times before they hardened into something like the Masoretic text. We know this just by looking at the LXX, the DSS, the Pentateuch and the way its many sources were merged from originally separate narratives (Wellhausen, etc.). Jacques Berlinerblau has a fine book (The Secular Bible; I like the first part anyway) that discusses why Jewish scriptures never really had an author, because younger generations were always rewriting and tweaking what they had received. This is such a basic feature of Jewish scripture writing that it makes no sense to presume a different process for the NT.

No comment at the moment.

3. Since the manuscripts we have cannot be proved to be older than 4th century (3rd century in a few cases, maybe), one should assume that what we have is the later evolved form of texts that would have looked quite different in the beginning. See Brent Nongbri, God’s Library. He demonstrates again and again why so much of the 20th century “dating” of manuscripts to the 2nd century by NT textual critics is based on little more than wishful thinking.

But you are positing a collection of the canonical gospels circa 160 CE, much earlier than the fourth century. Do you mean that the canonical gospels in something close to their present form (allowing for textual variants, etc.) existed in 160? How can you be confident of that on the basis of fourth century manuscripts? And if you can, why 160? And why the date of the collection rather than dates of individual gospels?

Best,

Ken

PS I realize that Matt Mark Luke and John were not attested as a group to be accepted by the church until Irenaeus. That's pretty well established. i think it's in Erhman's Intro to the NT and it's what I've taught.

PS - I was hoping to get hold of a copy of Klinghardt before responding to give my response more focus, but, unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Just a quickie: all of the above, yeah.
It's the Irenaeus thing that serves as post quem of 150-ish.
Nongbri rules.
We can't be really sure of anything *Ev, but we can tick off boxes. Yet Marcion splendidly fills the gap between Thomas and the NT: they share content, but absolutely no context whatsoever

With regards to Marcion-Mark: what I found when doing my '72 canonical cousins' was that Mark seemed very reluctant to copy Thomas, whereas Luke had no shame at all and went straight for the verbatim. Mark even paints his context in Thomasine content, he's "rather shy" at first sight.
Look at this secretly growing seed, it is an obvious fusion of 2-3 Thomasine logia, yet I either didn't count it or I only counted it on the basis of Matthew providing the seed and the weeds from Thomas.
Luke-Thomas parallels are undeniable, period: that is verbatim stuff of nightmares really, it is astonishing. Mark-Thomas? There's something nascent there, and it takes him a few chapters to get going only to have a dip at a later point

I dropped all of Mark, eventually, before publishing - it all seemed so redundant but I still have that part. If interested you can have it, and it is Mark-Thomas alone, based on WEB and the usual translations so rather superficial but good enough to get a good idea

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

I have posted a critique of Robert MacEwen's argument from verbatim agreement, focusing on the Crucial Issue of Verbatim Agreement in his response to Mark Goodacre (linked above), but dealing with the data he presented in his book Matthean Posteriority as well:

https://kenolsonsblog.wordpress.com/202 ... t-macewen/

Interesting. I've never dealt with it. Much delight with the blog!

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.

Ben and I found that fascinating.

[mlinssen]

[

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.

Ben and I found that fascinating.

I partially agree with you there, Kunigunde, for the Thomas material shared between Mark and Luke

It is rather black and white, with only 1 or 2 exceptions: either Luke follows Mark to the letter or he ignores him completely (and follows Thomas / *Ev) - those are the two extremes with naturally some grey scale in between, but indeed, as you say, all that Matthew cares about is a solid finished product really, and he will fiddle and tweak and tune either Mark or Luke and pick from either whatever suits him best, and he is not merely frugal but downright anal when it comes to trivial details

And yes, your last paragraph as well - and that also could very well attest to Matthew creating Luke by forging *Ev into the new Christian mould, or simply having Luke copy Mark - and the funny thing is that he just can't resist tweaking Luke even a little bit, while reserving the really great change to mark for himself