Matthean posteriority: Lord of the Sabbath

[gryan]

Re: Matthean posteriority: Lord of the Sabbath

I listened to James Tabor argue persuasively that Matthew depended on Mark's Lord of the Sabbath story, and not vice versa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrzRz-rTcHU

Then I looked at Steve Runge's comparison of the three synptic accounts of The Lord of the Sabbath

https://www.logos.com/grow/hidef-monday ... tatements/

Both scholars seem to presume that Luke was written last, and I found the presumption awkward.

In my opinion Matthew's version seems like an expansion of Luke's edit of Mark.

Luke edited this out and Matt agreed with the decision:

"The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath."

Tabor makes the point that this is too Pauline for the later writers, too much like saying "The law is made for people, not people for the law." i.e. too antinomian.

Matthew lacks something Luke added to Mark:

Luke: added phrase underlined
"His disciples began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands..."

I think Matt edited out Luke's "rub them in their hands" since the work activity of the disciples distracts from Matt's main focus: Jesus is greater than the temple.

Matthew adds something lacking in Mark and Luke:

Matt 12:5-7
Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and yet are innocent? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If only you had known the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.

I doubt that Luke would have edited out Matt's additions, had he known them. They are pretty interesting, and I see no reason Luke would have wanted those removed, since arguably, as for Matt, "for Luke, Jesus becomes more important than the Temple."
https://academic.oup.com/yale-scholarsh ... m=fulltext

[Secret Alias]

FWIW if there is a Hebrew or Aramaic original 'Sabbath' here might mean week. KJV translates σαββάτου in Lk 18:12 as 'week'

[gryan]

Re: "KJV translates σαββάτου in Lk 18:12 as 'week'"

Interesting, but not relevant to this context since the issue is honoring the seventh day.

[Secret Alias]

How so? Given that I mentioned the possibility of a Hebrew or Aramaic original.

[gryan]

In the context of the story as a whole, in all three versions, the issue is violation of a prohibition against working on the sabbath (not on the week).

[Ken Olson]

Re: Matthean posteriority: Lord of the Sabbath
Both scholars seem to presume that Luke was written last, and I found the presumption awkward.

In my opinion Matthew's version seems like an expansion of Luke's edit of Mark.

Luke edited this out and Matt agreed with the decision:

"The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath."

Tabor makes the point that this is too Pauline for the later writers, too much like saying "The law is made for people, not people for the law." i.e. too antinomian.

Matthew lacks something Luke added to Mark:

Luke: added phrase underlined
"His disciples began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands..."

I think Matt edited out Luke's "rub them in their hands" since the work activity of the disciples distracts from Matt's main focus: Jesus is greater than the temple.

Matthew adds something lacking in Mark and Luke:

Matt 12:5-7
Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and yet are innocent? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If only you had known the meaning of ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.

[b]I doubt that Luke would have edited out Matt's additions, had he known them. They are pretty interesting, and I see no reason Luke would have wanted those removed, since arguably, as for Matt, "for Luke, Jesus becomes more important than the Temple."[/b]
https://academic.oup.com/yale-scholarsh ... m=fulltext

gryan,

Your talk of 'editing out' suggests that you be presuppose that whichever evangelist wrote third would have looked at the different versions of each pericope in the gospels of his predecessors and sought to conflate them, and, by default would have kept everything in his two predecessors unless he had specific reasons to omit it. This view is not held by any scholarly proponent of any of the three current major source hypotheses based on Marcan priority (the Two Document, Farrrer, or Matthean Posteriority Hyotheses) that I know of.

At least since the time of B.H. Streeter's The Four Gospels (1924) it has been observed and generally accepted that Luke uses his Markan and non-Markan sources (Q and L on the 2DH, Matthew on Farrer, and undefined sources on MPH) in alternating blocks and not conflating them, i.e., he follows one source or the other for any particular pericope and does not attempt to combine the different versions he knows into one story. This is common ground to the 2DH, Farrer, and, as far as I'm aware the MPH (certainly Garrow, and I think Huggins and MacEwen as well).

On the 2DH Matthew, unlike Luke, is held to have conflated Mark and Q in the so-called Mark-Q overlap passages (i.e., those triple tradition passages where Matthew and Luke have major agreements against Mark). On Farrer, Matthew does not have any known non-Markan source, so isn't conflating sources. On the MPH, Matthew knows a large number of Mark Luke overlaps and combines and chooses to conflate. a few of them (i.e., the passages that are called Mark-Q overlaps on the 2DH), but to follow just Mark in more. The MPH is relatively new and has not yet offered an explanation for why Matthew sometimes conflates Mark and Luke but more often doesn't.

So the gist of it is that on the Farrer theory, Matthew wouldn't have Luke's additional material because he doesn't know it (Luke hasn't been written yet), while Luke doesn't have most of Matthew's additions to Mark in the triple tradition because he is following either Mark or his other source, but not both at the same time (as is also true on the 2DH and MPH).

Best,

Ken

PS Luke

You can find Streeter's Four Gospels online here:

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/book_4go ... eeter.html

and here:

https://archive.org/details/fourgospels ... 1/mode/2up

He discusses the Markan blocks in Chapter 7, p. 167

[gryan]

Re: "the MPH (certainly Garrow, and I think Huggins and MacEwen as well)."

I wasn't trying to be methodologically innovative, so thanks, Ken, for letting me know a little more how the major players in this field operate.

Checking out Garrow's blog for the first time, I stumbled onto this:

"I suggest, by contrast, that Matthew would always have retained editorial freedom and would have tended to work from one text at time, while also drawing in additional valuable information from his supplementary sources."
https://www.alangarrow.com/blog/categor ... -problem/2

I wonder how interpreters in the MPH camp usually do what I was trying to do; that is, interpret Matthew's version of The Lord of the Sabbath in relation to Mark's and Luke's versions.

[Ken Olson]

Re: "the MPH (certainly Garrow, and I think Huggins and MacEwen as well)."

I wasn't trying to be methodologically innovative, so thanks, Ken, for letting me know a little more how the major players in this field operate.

Checking out Garrow's blog for the first time, I stumbled onto this:

"I suggest, by contrast, that Matthew would always have retained editorial freedom and would have tended to work from one text at time, while also drawing in additional valuable information from his supplementary sources."
https://www.alangarrow.com/blog/categor ... -problem/2

I wonder how interpreters in the MPH camp usually do what I was trying to do; that is, interpret Matthew's version of The Lord of the Sabbath in relation to Mark's and Luke's versions.

I believe he thinks Matt conflated Mark and Luke in the so-called Mark-Q overlap passages. But perhaps you should consider how often Garrow thinks Luke conflated Mark with his non-Markan traditions in triple tradition passages.

I am not arguing that your theory that that Matthew is the latest gospel is necessarily wrong. I am arguing that your elimination of the Farrrer theory (that Luke knew Mark and Matthew) is based on a mistaken premise:

I doubt that Luke would have edited out Matt's additions, had he known them. They are pretty interesting, and I see no reason Luke would have wanted those removed, since arguably, as for Matt, "for Luke, Jesus becomes more important than the Temple."

You are presupposing that Luke would have used Matthew's additions to Mark had he known them. But on the 2DH, Farrer, and MPH theories, Luke is following one source at a time and not conflating. When he's following Mark, he's following only Mark (other than the so-called Minor Agreements, of course) and when he's following his non-Markan source (which I take to be Matthew), he's following only that source.

So yes, your theory that Matthew wrote last could be correct, but your reason for eliminating the theory that Luke knew Mark and Matthew will not bear the weight you place on it.

Best,

Ken

[schillingklaus]

These are all hallucinations of naive scholars (Markan Prioritists), while others know that none of the synoptic gospels is anywhere near original but they all redacted prior pre-synoptic gospels.

[gryan]

@schillingklaus

Yes, my argument assumes Markan priority. There must have been earlier written sources that the author of Mark used. I'm interested in the influence of Galatians on Mark. My main project is to interpret canonical Galatians, and that includes attention to literary echoes of Galatians in later canonical writings such as Mark, Hebrews, and James.

In Galatians 4, it is written:
"8Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain."

Mark seems to evince a Pauline attitude of disdain for "observing special days and months and seasons and years" when this saying is attributed to Jesus (a saying which is absent in Luke and Matt):

"The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath."

Since Mark is closer to Paul's disdain for such ritual observance, I take this as evidence of Markan priority (this is the main point made by James Tabor in the YouTube clip cited in the original post).

I think all the four Gospel writers knew Paul's letter to the Galatians, and I think they were interacting with it. I think the absence of the "Sabbath made for people" saying is evidence of downplaying Paul's opposition to adopting Jewish ritual observances.

My growing preference for the Matthean posteriority hypothesis (MPH) also has to do with echos of Galatians, but the specifics of such echoes are beyond the scope of this thread which is focused on The Lord of the Sabbath story.

As for the notion of "hallucinations of naive scholars" who don't understand that "none of the synoptic gospels is anywhere near original but they all redacted prior pre-synoptic gospels."

I'll ponder that.