Restudying the Synoptic problem" of the Gospels and questions of priority/harmony

I think the "problem" is desperately over-hyped. Whether that's the blindness of unbelief, the lack of critical ability, the desire to make a splash, the need to publish something in order to get tenure, being hoodwinked by academic orthodoxy, or some other reason or combination of reasons I'll leave to the psychiatrists.

Assume that the events actually happened, and a large part of the "source" problem dries up. The common source is the facts. And people always retell facts a little differently, not only from one another, but also from themselves at different stages. People often point to Luke's prologue as though it affirmed a dependence on other sources; but I have yet to see it demonstrated rather than assumed that Luke saying that many others had written means that he had read them and used them.

Don't assume that explanations of difficulties must involve special pleading or be implausible, and the remaining difficulties can be resolved.

Gain some acquaintance with the practicalities of life and with the functioning of literature, and even some very thorny problems suddenly don't seem so difficult. I remember one person who doubted that the explanation for Matthew's sermon on the mount and Luke's sermon on the plain being similar and dissimilar was that they were two different sermons; and yet if you don't have a manuscript and haven't memorized an outline, can you even make a sermon come out the same way twice if you try? And has there been an itinerant preacher in history who hasn't repeated himself?

I think the best all-in-one source on the Gospels is still Alfred Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah; it is massive, but much more helpful, skillful, and learned than, for instance, E.P. Sanders. It's available online: Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

 

I oft times reflect on how much of "scholarship" is based on some conjecture that everyone accepts within a certain community and, because it has the title of scholarship, has a certain dignity that would never be respected in another arena. Have you ever stopped to think about how little there is in the writings to come up with the crazy theories that scholars come up with. The entire New Testament isn't even the length of an average size novel but all sorts of textual theories are concocted as if the breadth of the corpus is sufficient to establish large patterns. As just one example, we act as if it's a complete mystery who wrote Hebrews where the early Church was convinced it was Paul. What did they know? They didn't have the scholarship we possess to notice that this "pretender" was writing in a completely unknown manner.

Look, I'm not unstudied in this stuff. It's because I have that I'm unimpressed with what some people build their entire professional careers upon. I need to find the exact details but I was listening to a presentation in which a case arose at the turn of the 20th century where an "expert" witness was brought in for some sort of legal dispute. He was a critical scholar who was a recognized expert within the arena of textual criticism. He evaluated a document to "prove" for his client an entire backstory about a document applying the same criteria he used to conjecture about Books of the Bible. The result? His testimony was essentially treated with scorn by the court as completely worthless. Many experts in literature have long opined that the normal rules do not apply in the arena of Biblical study. You can see I have little respect for those who make their living coming up with what we would consider "fish tales" if you weren't granted a PhD for it.

Anyhow, it's no mystery to me why Mark, Matthew, and Luke are alike and I really don't think who wrote first had much of an impact on the writing of the Scriptures. Just think about the last election cycle and all the stump speeches. While I don't want to drag Christ into the same boat as politicians the analogy is somewhat apt to give a point of reference. You don't even have to think terribly hard to determine why you would expect a community of Christians to remember certain phrases from sermons and teaching that they heard repeated over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Keep your Markan priority for those of you convinced of it. Makes for scholarly repute. I'll seek my professional repute in something not based on pure conjecture that treats the ancient Church like a bunch of idiots just because they didn't know how to use a Word Processor.

Rant off.

 

I enjoyed the rant, Rich - but if you include Origen as "early Church" it is not the case that they were all convinced Paul was the author of Hebrews.

 

Nice rant, Rich.

I’ve used a similar approach sometimes with those who come up with strained explanations for Genesis. In answer to the so-called problems with text being draw from different sources and pieced together, I suggest they sit with some Bedouin sheep headers in a Middle Eastern desert, under stars around a fire, and listen to their storytelling technique.

The structure of Genesis would make sense to anyone with an ear for narrative. (Of course, you’d have to learn Arabic to get the comparison).

But that’s the problem. So many critics have hidden from life and thrown their senses out the window.

 

John Wenham (1913-1996), Anglican, wrote (1992) on the subject, defending Matthean priority.

Amazon.com: Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (9780830817603): John Wenham: Books

 

Origen (as quoted by Eusibius):

What Origen is disputing is not Pauline authorship but that someone might have taken "short notes" of what the Apostle taught and wrote it out in their own style. As you're most likely aware, the earliest collections of Pauline epistles include Hebrews.

I might add that if I selected only 14 writings to textual critics, I'm certain that I could find critics who would claim I did not write one of them as my style widely varies depending upon audience. If, for whatever reason, those writings of mine had been widely used by many who knew I had written them and told their children I had written them then I believe their testimony ought to hold greater weight than textual analysis based on a limited collection of everything I might have written in my life.

R.C. Sproul tells a story of why he rejects this kind of textual criticism. He was learning the Dutch language and created index cards for new Dutch words as he labored through a text while at the Free University of Amsterdam. After he completed one theologian's work, he began reading another work by the same author. He added about 2000 cards for words that he had not encountered in the prior work.

I'm not disputing the value of textual analysis altogether but the sample size is incredibly small in order to determine the kind of precision that some people insist upon. I will go with the testimony of the early Church on authorship as I don't believe the analysis has a credible precision with which to overrule their testimony.

 

He's not willing to argue against Pauline authorship; he's also not willing to affirm it. That the theology is Pauline is one thing; that Paul wrote or dictated it, another. (Just as it is one thing to say that Mark had Peter's testimony as a basis for his gospel, and another that Peter wrote it.) As a testimony to Origen's view, or even to the view that had been handed down to him, it's hardly a forceful affirmation of Pauline authorship.

 

It depends upon what you mean by authorship. Many attribute not only the writing but the thoughts and teachings to Apollos or to some completely unknown party. As Origen defines authorship in this case, he's granting Paul authorship. The same argument, by the way, is made that Peter could not have written one of his Epistles as the Greek is too advanced. Conservative scholars argue that he may have had someone putting his thoughts into better Greek for him if they grant the validity of the argument about the style. The point is that we receive the Epistle as belonging to inspiration of Peter and not to another person whether someone else may have penned it.

 

I don't see that Origen defines authorship in this excerpt. He says that the style lacks Paul's typical rudeness; that the thoughts are not inferior; and therefore he judges the most plausible speculation not that someone helped Paul with the language (as people suggest of Silvanus or Mark in the case of Peter), but that someone remembered Paul's teaching. That sounds a lot more like formative influence than it does like authorship. I have written things under the recollection of Turretin, Luther, et al; if I do so well, the thoughts are theirs - yet I am still the author. I think Calvin's view is consistent with this understanding of Origen, though Calvin is obviously rather bolder than Origen:

 

Since we're dealing with the early Church, I'll stick with Origen and end here as I have to run.

My point is that Origen clearly affirms that the teachings are Paul's. Again, the issue of inspiration is key here. Origen attributes the teachings and thoughts to Paul. Now, you may argue from Origen that this is "formative influence" but then the question is: Who is inspired? Who was moved by the Holy Spirit in giving us Hebrews? Others claim in denying Pauline authorship that someone else must have been inspired. Origen is arguing for two writers in his notes: Paul is the teacher, someone else is purported to be the person who has written it down. The former is the one with Apostolic authority and the one who taught under divine inspiration.

 

I understand that this is your view, Rich. But what I don't see is a claim from Origen that it is Paul's inspiration that makes Hebrews inspired. I think I see why you read it that way; but I think that reading depends on a presupposition brought to the text of Origen, rather than one derived from Origen himself. That doesn't make it wrong; it just means that one part of the argument is still undocumented.

 

Sounds pretty much like "modern" people to me.

 

Steve, if your post was directed at me, I don't think it's quite a fair assessment of my remarks. Perhaps there are two points I should clarify. One is that I was focusing on the synoptic "problem." This is not solely a matter of relationships between them; it is often also presented as a matter of discrepancies. But while there may be a "question," for those who believe in the inspiration of Scripture there is no "problem."
Second, my claim was that accepting the facts as stated dries up "a large part" of the source issue. Points of narrative art are not addressed by that, but points of narrative art are not so enormous as to make the question of common events and discourses minuscule in comparison. Questions about who wrote first will still have an historical interest (though I have yet to see any information that the relative dating of Matthew, Mark, and Luke would make a plugged ha'p'orth of difference to interpretation), but if you assume that things happened as described that does provide a common source for a great part of the material; and it eliminates certain issues, like the attempt to make John's temple cleansing the same as that of the synoptic writers.