Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

In "Rethinking the Synoptic Problem", Grant Osborne affirms Markan Priority based on a range of factors -- but essentially, his verdict is determined on the balance of probabilities reflected in the collective strength of many small arguments favoring Markan Priority.

That's all well and good.

However, one of these arguments (p95), I'll quote... (author initially referring to Mark)

The same thing happens after the feeding of the four thousand, when Jesus, exasperated by their failure to understand, blasts them with his diatribe and concludes, "Do you still not understand?" (8:21) In the parallel passage, Matthew concludes with, "Then they understood" (16:12). Again, which direction more likely explains the change? Did Mark take Matthew's positive presentation of how the presence of Jesus made the difference in their failure and turn it into a diatribe against the disciples? Or did Matthew smooth out Mark's more negative theological presentation?

I believe this is the same kind of non-argument Farmer castigates when he rails against Mark's supposedly inferior Greek being used as evidence of his primitivity. As Farmer points out in that instance, any author's good or bad Greek is evidence only of their literary skills, not their chronological sequencing. He may make a similar argument in terms of theology as well (I can't recall off the top of my head).

Whether Farmer pointed this out or not, it's a fallacy. It simply doesn't make more sense to view Matthew as smoothing out Mark's theology, than Mark doing the reverse. Mark's theology has to be explained regardless of his position in the gospel chronology. If Mark is the first gospel, then you have to assume he wrote what he intended to write, and he portrayed the disciples the way he intended to portray them. If he's writing second and using Matthew as a source, and his theology is the same, why wouldn't he modify Matthew to suit that theology, and describe the disciples in the exact same manner? Unless of course, you can justify via some other means that the disciples being dullards is closer to the original tradition.

One thing I don't like about Farmer's approach (if this is actually Farmer's approach) is this reductive categorization of possible arguments or indications as 'fallacy' or 'non-fallacy.' It seems a bit self-serving, because one has to go over a lot of indicia and rule them all out as 'fallacy' before Farmer's own favored hypothesis can get off the ground. While skepticism in general is a good thing, this kind of "motivated skepticism" is always a danger as well.

This analysis also is incomplete in the respect that it looks at Mark's redactional purposes but not at Matthew's. Of course, that's surmountable; one could go on to attribute things about Matthew's motives for writing just so (pointing out the disciples' understanding explicitly). The critic may balk at the coincidence that Matthew makes a muted statement at exactly the point that Mark wishes to take that up and transform it into one of his major narrative themes, but I suppose that the Griesbachian can overcome this as well somehow. The bottom line is that it's always possible to imagine motives for anything.

What seems to be significant, in a 'soft' subject like this, is which just-so story about imputed motives appears more credible. Of course, people are inducted into the subject in different ways, with different aims and purposes, and different preferences, so that question may get different answers from different people.

Unfortunately, the subject of determining the direction of dependence, considered in the general case, is rather underdeveloped theoretically. Shouldn't that be the focus, then, if someone is interested in better-founded reasoning, rather than merely trying to undermine a particular conclusion (one that a considerable majority studying the subject in detail consider probable from their own subjective critical judgment, making further progress on subjective grounds a bit dicy)? It'd certainly be more productive.

I'd be keenly interested to hear about any innovations of method that anyone (Farmer or otherwise) has for determining direction of dependence.

1. Please cite these books or articles (or whatever) - by Osborne and Farmer - in full.

2. There are a number of permutations around Mark & Matthew beyond 'priority' or 'primacy' -

• a/ each gospel may have been written concurrently
  
  • ..i. in different communities
    
    .ii. in the same community (eg. in different groups in the same community)
    
    iii. in different scriptoria (in the same area or region or in different areas or regions)

• b/ they may have been redacted at some point (at the same time; at different times; in the same area or in different areas; etc .... )
  
  c/ a combination of these things
  
  d/ +/- other permutations

gmx wrote:I believe this is the same kind of non-argument Farmer castigates when he rails against Mark's supposedly inferior Greek being used as evidence of his primitivity. As Farmer points out in that instance, any author's good or bad Greek is evidence only of their literary skills, not their chronological sequencing. He may make a similar argument in terms of theology as well (I can't recall off the top of my head).

I think the main argument in this regard is that Mark tries to use a deliberate style and basically imitates the writing style of the LXX. If I remember correctly, gMark was the only gospel that uses nearly exclusively words that are also used in the LXX, with a few exceptions. A similar explanation is fielded for the extensive use of "καὶ".

It would be nice to compare Farmer's arguments with those David Trobisch or Matthias Klinghardt use for their "gMarcion first" theses, as these have to surmount very similar issues.

gmx wrote:
I believe this is the same kind of non-argument Farmer castigates when he rails against Mark's supposedly inferior Greek being used as evidence of his primitivity. As Farmer points out in that instance, any author's good or bad Greek is evidence only of their literary skills, not their chronological sequencing. He may make a similar argument in terms of theology as well (I can't recall off the top of my head).

And this is my difficulty with accept THIS Mark as the earliest gospel. Even if you don't accept the Jewish argument that Hebrew was the language of the angels, or that it had any influence on anyone outside of Jewish circles AND Christianity is something other than 'Jewish' - how could anyone accept the barbarous Greek of the Gospel of Mark as divine, the word of God, the holy Spirit etc. ?

In this way most atheists are bad judges in this regard because they are too willing to accept the stupidity of early Christians. 'They were dumb,' the argument essentially goes, 'so dumb people believe dumb things.'

But how did Clement of Alexandria accept this gospel or any gospel as holy writ. Then at once Secret Mark makes perfect sense. But in the end there has to be a gospel behind Mark. It's too shitty to be holy writ and Clement of Alexandria was a very sophisticated man and there were others before him. What about Ammonius Sacca (assuming he isn't Clement just freed of a false nom de plume). How could Ammonius Sacca venerate a piece of shit text like the Gospel of Mark?

As if God could only speak Greek at the level of a Roman slave.

consider if the synoptic gospels are post-Marcion constructs ...