Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

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gryan
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Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by gryan »

Note: I'm using the NET because it is the best English translation for comparing synoptic parallels:
When the Greek is identical, the English is identical. "The whole process took about a year of full time work for two editors." They explain how they did it here, under the subheading, "Synoptic Parallels":
https://netbible.com/2019/07/01/innovat ... testament/

The Call of Levi, son of Alphaeus
Mark 2:14-17 (NET)
As he went along, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth.
“Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him.

As Jesus was having a meal in [Levi’s] home, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

When the experts in the law and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

When Jesus heard this he said to them,
“Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The call of Levi, paternity erased
Luke 5:27-32 (NET)
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth.
“Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him, leaving everything behind.

Then Levi gave a great banquet in his house for Jesus, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others (ἄλλων) sitting at the table with them.

But the Pharisees and their experts in the law complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answered them,
“Those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The Call of Matthew, Mercy, not Sacrifice
Matt 9:9 (NET)
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth.
“Follow me,” he said to him. And he got up and followed him.

As Jesus was having a meal in [Matthew’s] house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Jesus and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

When Jesus heard this he said,
“Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do.
Go and learn what this saying means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’
For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

-----------

Matthean posteriority

In Mark, what is the relationship between "Levi son of Alphaeus" and "James son of Alphaeus"? This is unexplained and confusing.

It looks to me like Luke is closer to Mark, since "Levi son of Alphaeus" is still called "Levi", although the confusing reference to "son of Alphaeus" gets erased.

Matt knew Mark (I wonder if he had Mark memorized): Instead of Luke's "tax collectors and others", Matt copies Mark's "tax collectors and sinners".

Matt expands the "moral of the story" with a quotation from Hosea 6:6,
"I want mercy and not sacrifice."

Matt agrees with Luke in erasing paternity -- "son of Alphaeus" -- from Mark's narrative; however, he makes an editorial change which, IMHO, moves his story a step farther away from Mark's: Levi becomes Matthew!
Last edited by gryan on Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:06 am, edited 5 times in total.
schillingklaus
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by schillingklaus »

Markan Prioritism is the one major way to failure, and all mainline scholars are incorrigeably bound thither.

Of course Mk and Mt both happened to copy a common source, as denied by right-wing apologists like Ehrman.
gryan
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by gryan »

schillingklaus wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:36 am Markan Prioritism is the one major way to failure, and all mainline scholars are incorrigeably bound thither.

Of course Mk and Mt both happened to copy a common source, as denied by right-wing apologists like Ehrman.
@schillingklaus

Why do you care about this? I'm not familiar with your school of thought. Could you expand the context of your repeated rant against Markan Prioitism to help me understand where you are coming from?
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Sinouhe
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by Sinouhe »

schillingklaus wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:36 am Markan Prioritism is the one major way to failure, and all mainline scholars are incorrigeably bound thither.

Of course Mk and Mt both happened to copy a common source, as denied by right-wing apologists like Ehrman.
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

gryan wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:23 am @schillingklaus

Why do you care about this? I'm not familiar with your school of thought. Could you expand the context of your repeated rant against Markan Prioitism to help me understand where you are coming from?
14 years ago
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schillingklaus
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by schillingklaus »

Markan Prioritists only give idiotic ad-hoc explanations for the differences and similarities between the various mass feeding accounts of the synoptics. Lost sources give straightforward explanations. But mainline scholars fail to understand this.
gryan
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by gryan »

schillingklaus wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:40 pm Markan Prioritists only give idiotic ad-hoc explanations for the differences and similarities between the various mass feeding accounts of the synoptics. Lost sources give straightforward explanations. But mainline scholars fail to understand this.
Yes, there is a straightforward account to be found in GMatt: It is straightforward inasmuchas the call of "Matthew" named simply, corresponds to the "Matthew" named simply as one of the 12. No need to wonder who is who!

GLuke is straightforward too, but in a different way: In the narrative world of Luke, the call story of "Levi", named simply, corresponds to none of the 12 in any way.

GMk is the version that raises the difficult question of paternatiy: How is the call story of "Levi son of Alphaeus" related to the "James son of Alphaeus" named among the 12?

When the stories of Mk, Lk, and Matt are harmonized, the results are the official two stories of the two main churches summarized nicely in Wikipedia:

"Usually, in the Western Catholic tradition, there are believed to be two men named Alphaeus. One of them was the father of the apostle James and the other the father of Matthew (Levi).[8] Though both Matthew and James are described as being the "son of Alphaeus," there is no Biblical account of the two being called brothers, even in the same context where John and James or Peter and Andrew are described as being brothers. Despite this, Eastern Church tradition typically states that Matthew and James were brothers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphaeus

But there is a textual variant of GMark that tells a different story. If this textual variant is accepted, GMark tells a story which is 100% straightforward, paternity included: In this variant, the call story of "James son of Alphaeus" (instead of "Levi son of Alphaeus") corresponds unambiguously with the "James son of Alphaeus" named among the 12. Blogger, Brent Nongbri, observes that "According to the 28th edition of Nestle-Aland, the support for the reading Ιακαβον instead of Λευι (or Λευιν or Λευειν) is as follows: D Θ ƒ13 565 it. Not overwhelming by any means, but interesting." In this fascinating blogpost, Nongbri unpacks the textual problem as it shows up in the writings of Origin of Alexadria:
https://brentnongbri.com/2018/05/21/mat ... and-james/
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by neilgodfrey »

Matthew as posterior does sound like the most plausible option.

Mark's treatment of names could be seen as chaotic and subversive to one as orthodox and law-loving and authority-of-the-church-loving as "Matthew".

If we read Mark's reference in the context of his word-play with other names (personal and topographical) then we might well think that our author is in some way playing with his readers: Levi is the name of the tribe that was called aside to "join" Israel to God. But here the Levi is "joining" Israel to the Romans, not by collecting the tithes as had been ordained but by collecting taxes for the Romans. Furthermore, this Levi has a father with a Greek name, Alphaeus. If we think of Mark writing some time after the first Jewish war, we might suspect he is looking back on the time when many leading Judeans were immersed in Hellenistic-Roman loyalties, and when these "pagan-oriented" Judeans were hated by other (zealot) Jews.

According to Swaim in the IDB Alphaeus was the Greek counterpart of the Hebrew Chalphi meaning a substitute for one lost. Again, I am surmising all of this from the point of view that Mark loves to play with puns with his various names. But such a meaning could be significant in somehow explaining what was going on when Mark dropped in another son of Alphaeus in the list of Twelve.

But Matthew was surely writing in a different time for a different kind of audience. He removed all the troublesome quasi-political associations found in Mark's text and changed Levi to a good old unambiguous Matthew, God's gift, also rightly one of the Twelve. No substitutes for anyone lost anymore.
rgprice
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by rgprice »

It makes the most sense to me that "Levi" in Mark was originally James. Why would Mark write a calling of Levi son of Alphaeus, and then never mention Levi again, and also not explain that Levi is Matthew? Makes no sense. Clearly the calling of Levi son of Alphaeus was originally the calling of James son of Alphaeus. This may actually make the most sense and would explain the surname in order to distinguish between him and the other James.

I think there is much complication because Mark as we have it was edited in the presence of Luke or perhaps even in the presence of the entire NT collection.

While I used to view Mark 1-16:8 as a pure unity I now think there are a few layers. I think the only versions of Mark that orthodox apologists knew came from the NT collection, which was created around the middle of the 2nd century. In that collection all of the works were edited together with various harmonizations.

For example, I think Mark 1:12-14 contain editorial revisions. I don't think original Mark mentioned the temptation by Satan or the arrest of John the Baptist. So I think all ok this makes trying to precisely understand the relationships between the Synoptics very difficult -- hence the rise of Q theory.
gryan
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Re: Matthean posteriority: Mark's "Levi son of Alphaeus"

Post by gryan »

rgprice wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 3:52 am It makes the most sense to me that "Levi" in Mark was originally James. Why would Mark write a calling of Levi son of Alphaeus, and then never mention Levi again, and also not explain that Levi is Matthew? Makes no sense. Clearly the calling of Levi son of Alphaeus was originally the calling of James son of Alphaeus. This may actually make the most sense and would explain the surname in order to distinguish between him and the other James.

I think there is much complication because Mark as we have it was edited in the presence of Luke or perhaps even in the presence of the entire NT collection.
Yes, I'm picturing (hypothesizing) Mk's "James son of Alphaeus" call story ("a living tradition" rather than a scribal error) vs. Matt's "Matthew" call story at odds during the canon formation process. The stories are irreconcilable. What to do?

Matt was written last, and was most authoritative at that particular time and place, so Matt's "Matthew" call story was kept.

As for Mk (and maybe Lk): The name "Levi" may have been chosen for symbolic reasons to fill the gap when "James" was edited out of their call story. The result: "Levi" named simply in Lk and the awkward "Levi son of Alphaeus" in Mk. As for how to interpret Matt's "Matthew" call story in the canon: The now familiar, "Matthew" aka "Levi".

Why? I think Mk's (and maybe Lk's) call story of "James" was perceived as glorifying James son of Alphaeus-- a "great" supporter of Paul's style of Gentile mission (as seen in Gal 2 and Acts 15, not to be confused with James the Lord's brother also known as James the less). I think Matt had trouble with that.
Last edited by gryan on Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:24 am, edited 3 times in total.
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