The Synoptic Problem and Dating the Gospels

4:18 PM

@BruceAlderman This passage and ones like it where Matthew (in particular) corrects Mark's text go a long way to establishing that Matthew used Mark as a source and not the other way around.

@BruceAlderman But this theory is new to me. I'll have to look at places where Mark and Luke share material, but my feeling was that Luke also corrects Mark. It seems he is more likely to drop a troublesome phrase than to "fix" it as Matthew tends to.

Bruce Alderman

6:05 PM

@JonEricson I guess it depends on what counts as "troublesome". For example, "When you see the abomination of desolation" in Mark 13:14 || Matt 24:15 becomes "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near" in Luke 21:20.

Is that a troublesome passage, or is Luke just paraphrasing for a mostly gentile audience?

Some commentators have noted that Daniel's original prophecy spoke of replacing Temple sacrifices with pagan idolatry.

The Maccabees believed this was a reference to the idol of Zeus placed on the alter by the Seleucid king of their day.

And it's been suggested that Jesus was referring, in this section of his discourse, to the temple of Jupiter that the Romans would build on the site the temple in the 130s.

If that's the case, the gospel writers misunderstood by interpreting the whole discourse as referring to the destruction of the temple in 70.

Or Luke understood that the phrasing was troublesome for this interpretation, and brought it more into line with actual events.

But that's all highly speculative.

Jon Ericson

6:26 PM

@BruceAlderman This passage supports the idea that Matthew and Luke copied Mark separately, by the way.

Though it doesn't itself require Mark to be first.

Bruce Alderman

6:56 PM

I'm not sure I follow. If both Luke and Matthew copied from Mark, doesn't that require that Mark was available to be copied, and therefore, first?

Jon Ericson

7:30 PM

@BruceAlderman Sorry. My last comment ought to have been a parenthetical. (I'm a bit distracted today.)

Passages Mark 2:26 indicate to me that Matthew copied Mark. I'm on board with the Q theory too.

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Taking a step back, I wonder if the best approach for this chat would be to figure out a set of questions to ask on the main site that will flesh out the various theories. I'd like to have a permanent artifact and I'm not sure chat is the best medium.

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson That might be a good idea. One of the reasons I wanted to start the chat room, though, was to figure out what questions to ask.

For example, @FrankLuke has said in comments on Did Luke use Josephus as a source? that he believes Matthew was the first gospel written. I'm not sure how to ask for more information. Does he hold some form of the Griesbach hypothesis, or something else?

Jon Ericson

@BruceAlderman Good point. Maybe we could ask a set of questions to explore which texts use other texts. So we could ask about the relationship between Mark an Matthew to explore that set of theories.

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson I agree Mark 2:26 and its parallels in Matthew and Luke seem to indicate that Mark was written first.

@JonEricson That sounds like a good approach.

One interesting test case would be Jesus' baptism. All four gospels have their own unique material in that scene.

Another good test case would be the empty tomb, since each gospel again includes its own unique material.

Jesus' temptation in the wilderness might be interesting, since Matthew and Luke have considerable agreement over and against Mark.

Jon Ericson

7:49 PM

I asked a (somewhat less pointed) question about the empty tomb. I wonder if it would be better to re-purpose it (since it's gotten no answers) to be about the relationship between the texts?

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson I've looked at that question, but have not found a satisfactory way to answer it as it is written.

Jon Ericson

@BruceAlderman Yes. That, I believe, is the only extended narrative in Q.

@BruceAlderman I probably need to re-write it since I think harmonizing these accounts is a bad idea. (See my C.SE blog entry in a few weeks. ;-)

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson I'm looking forward to it!

@JonEricson Personally, I'm skeptical about Q. I've gone back and forth over the years, but right now I think the Farrer hypothesis explains everything just as well as Q, but without the middleman.

Jon Ericson

@BruceAlderman Interesting. I think the problem I have with that theory is the lack of evidence that Luke ever used Matthew's version of the Markian material.

Why should he always pick Mark and not Matthew?

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson What about the passage we just discussed? The temptation in the wilderness?

Jon Ericson

8:01 PM

@BruceAlderman Mark's version is really terse.

I think they are separate traditions whether they circulated as Q or whether Matthew introduced it.

Or maybe the temptation was yet another source. Luke indicates he had many sources. (But that's a hypothetical source in addition to Q, which might be a bit much. ;-)

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson It's hard to say. I'll have to do some research to find some more examples. But if there weren't significant places where Luke and Matthew have word-for-word agreement that's not shared by Mark, there wouldn't have been a Q hypothesis in the first place.

Jon Ericson

Does Luke pick up John the Baptist's physical description? That's something Mark and Matthew agree upon, but I think Luke does not include. He might have avoided it because his audience might not have understood John as a prophet or been disgusted or something.

@BruceAlderman I just read the Wikipedia article. This is fascinating stuff. I'll have to look into it some more. (And drag out the "reconstruction of Q" I attempted a few years ago. ;-)

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson A good resource for the Farrer hypothesis is Mark Goodacre's New Testament Gateway. Goodacre is one of the leading proponents of this hypothesis today.

Jon Ericson

8:18 PM

@BruceAlderman Thanks for the pointer. (Who knows, I might change my mind on this. ;-)

Bruce Alderman

@JonEricson Actually, it was a reconstruction of Q that tipped the balance for me. For a sayings document, it seems to have a lot of narrative material at the beginning (John the Baptist, temptation in the wilderness) but nothing around the crucifixion. That just doesn't seem probable for an early Christian document.

@JonEricson And I'm likely to change my mind back to supporting Q sometime. If Luke knew Matthew, why would he not have included anything of Matthew's birth stories? Especially the wise men, which would go along with Luke's emphasis on spreading Christianity to non-Jews.

One of the reasons I find the synoptic problem so fascinating is that there is not a simple, obvious answer.

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I'd still like to be able to ask a question about Matthean priority, but don't know what texts that theory's proponents believe to support it.

Jon Ericson

@BruceAlderman Maybe ask that as a general, open-ended question. I'd like to know the answers too.

Bruce Alderman

8:44 PM

@JonEricson I think I'll ask two questions today, one on Matthean priority and one on Markan priority.

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Q: What are the arguments in favor of Matthean Priority?

The synoptic problem refers to scholars' attempts to understand the relationship among the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (known as the synoptic gospels because they have so much material in common). Two solutions to this problem—the ancient Augustinian hypothesis and the more modern G...

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Q: What are the arguments in favor of Markan priority?

The synoptic problem refers to scholars' attempts to understand the relationship among the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (known as the synoptic gospels because they have so much material in common). Two solutions to this problem—the Q or two-source hypothesis and the Farrer hypothesis...

mark synoptic-problem

Bruce Alderman

9:07 PM

So above I suggested some test cases to ask questions about. On further reflection I don't think that would be useful. A proponent of Markan priority, for example, would say Matthew and Luke expanded on Mark in the temptation in the wilderness story. A proponent of Matthean priority might say Mark summarized.

Also, from one point of view this might be an important passage, but from another point of view it might be considered irrelevant.

Jon Ericson

@BruceAlderman Good idea.

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The Synoptic Problem and Dating the G…