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A Paradigm Perplex: Luke, Matthew and Mark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

F. Gerald Downing
F. Gerald Downing
Affiliation:
(15 Lowick Avenue, Bolton, BL3 2DS, England)
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Extract

In their recent survey of the synoptic problem E. P. Sanders and M. Davies argue that a complicated solution must be held to be the most likely, and conclude,

Mark probably did sometimes conflate material which came separately to Matthew and Luke (so the Griesbach hypothesis), and Matthew probably did conflate material which came separately to Mark and Luke (the twosource hypothesis). Thus we think that Luke knew Matthew (so Goulder, the Griesbachians and others) and that both Luke and Matthew were the original authors of some of their sayings material (so especially Goulder). Following Boismard, we think it likely that one or more of the gospels existed in more than one edition, and that the gospels as we have them may have been dependent on more than one proto- or intermediate gospel.

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 1992 , pp. 15 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Sanders, E. P. and Davies, M., Studying the Synoptic Gospels (London and Philadelphia: SCM and TPI, 1989) 113.Google Scholar

2 Goulder, M. D., Luke – A New Paradigm (Sheffield: SAP, 1989) 5.Google Scholar

3 Boismard, M.-É., Commentaire, in Benoit, P. and Boismard, M.-É., Synopse des quatre évangiles 2 (Paris: Cerf, 1972)Google Scholar; Farmer, W. R., The Synoptic Problem (New York and London: Macmillan, 1964)Google Scholar; Schramm, T., Der Markus-Stoff bei Lukas (Cambridge: CUP, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. None of these essays consider ancient compositional techniques in detail.

4 For this and the next three paragraphs see the much fuller discussion in Downing, F. G., ‘Compositional Conventions and the Synoptic Problem’, JBL 107.1 (1988) 69–85.Google Scholar

5 See Downing, F. G., ‘Redaction Criticism: Josephus' Antiquities and the Synoptic Gospels’ 1–2, JSNT 8 (1980) 46–65 and 9 (1980) 29–48Google Scholar; for Plutarch, again Downing, ‘Compositional Conventions’; and for Tatian, Appended Note, below.

6 E.g., Luce, T. J., Livy (Princeton, NJ: PUP, 1977) 140–3Google Scholar, and other references in Downing, ‘Compositional Conventions’.

7 Goulder, , Luke, 367–406Google Scholar; Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 2.37.

8 E.g., Russell, D. S., ‘Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus’, JRS 53 (1963) 22Google Scholar, and other references in Downing, ‘Compositional Conventions’, 72–3.

9 E.g., Pelletier, A., Flavius Josèphe, Adapteur de la Lettre d'Aristée (Paris: Klinksieck, 1962).Google Scholar

10 Goulder, , Luke, ch. 8, 719–99Google Scholar; Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 2.40–1.

11 Roberts, C. H., ‘Books in the Graeco-Roman World and in the New Testament’, Cambridge History of the Bible 1 (ed. Ackroyd, P. R., Evans, C. F.; Cambridge: CUP, 1970) 53–6.Google Scholar

12 Turner, E. G., Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971) 6–9Google Scholar; Tather less detail in Greenlee, J. H., Scribes, Scrolls and Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985) 1–20Google Scholar; other references, Downing, ‘Compositional Conventions’, 70–3.

13 Turner, ‘Greek Manuscripts’, 7, ‘not easy to visualize satisfactory copying from an open scroll placed on the ground beside the writer’.

14 On Farmer, see again Downing, ‘Redaction’ 2 and ‘Compositional Conventions’.

15 Turner, E. G., Greek Papyri (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Turner, , Greek Manuscripts, 108.Google Scholar

17 Turner, , Greek Manuscripts, 8.Google Scholar

18 Turner, , Greek Manuscripts, 19.Google Scholar

19 E.g., Pelling, C. R. B., ‘Plutarch's Method of Work’, JHS 99 (1979) 92–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Downing, ‘Compositional Conventions’, 72–4.

20 Theon Progymnasmata 3.12 (Walz 175 1–10).

21 Downing, ‘Compositional Conventions’, 71–4, and references.

22 Luce, Livy, xix; Hornblower, J., Hieronymus of Cardia (London: OUP, 1981) 3, 21.Google Scholar

23 Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 1–2; ‘Compositional Conventions’, 81.

24 Tacitus Annals 13.20, ‘where the authorities are unanimous, I shall follow them’.

25 Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 26.3, 27.1, 28.1, 67.1, presupposing wide awareness of discrepancies between the gospels. Luke's contemporary, Josephus, clearly prefers thematic order above his sources' indications of chronology (Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 1–2).

26 Alexander, L., ‘Luke's Preface in the Context of Greek Preface Writing’, NovT 28 (1986) 48–74Google Scholar; Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 2.30–1.

27 See n. 25, above.

28 Luke 7.27, 20.28, 42–3 (quotations); 5.23–4 and 9.23c–24 are otherwise the longest.

29 E.g., Matt 3.11b–12, Luke 3.17; Matt 3.7b–10, Luke 3.7b–9.

30 Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 1.62–4; ‘Compositional Conventions’, 79.

31 Downing, ‘Redaction Criticism’, 1.62–4; ‘Compositional Conventions’, 76.

32 Goulder, , Luke, 347.Google Scholar

33 See Downing, F. G., ‘Towards the Re-habilitation of “Q”’, NTS 11 (1965) 169–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and further in ‘Compositional Conventions’, 82–5. Goulder resists my conclusions here (Luke, 502–16), insisting that the sequences Matt 12.29, 31a and Mark 3.27–8 which I judged ‘largely the same’ and ‘fairly close’ but that his Luke must, surprisingly, be taken to have omitted were ‘not identical’. The similarities between them are so striking that the lack of total identity (which I never claimed) is hardly relevant. (Goulder himself finds much lesser similarities highly significant elsewhere.)

34 For Goulder's Luke's knowledge of Matthew, Luke, 371, 400, 409, 529, 539, 542, 566; relies on memory for open scroll, 276, 282, 291, 428, 512, 622; yet checks to and fro, 428 again, 433, chs. 6 and 12, passim.

35 Goulder, , Luke, 464–76Google Scholar. The only ‘Matthaean’ phrase his Luke repeats in chap. 10 from chap. 9 is ‘no pack’, μή πήραν, 9.3 and 10.4; perhaps one should add the almost identical phrases είς ήν (δ΄) ἂν, 9.4 and 10.5.

36 For Tatian see Hogg, H. W., ‘The Diatessaron of Tatian’, ANC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1897)Google Scholar; Harris, J. R., The Diatessaron of Tatian (London: CUP, 1890)Google Scholar; Longstaff, T. W. R., Evidence of Conflation in Mark (Missoula: Scholars, 1977)Google Scholar; Kraeling, C. H., A Greek Fragment of Tatian's Diatessaron (London: Christophers, 1935)Google Scholar; Tuckett, C. M., The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (Cambridge: CUP, 1983) 41–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar