WM 277: Did Christ eat the Passover? What day did Christ die? Harmonizing the Synoptics and John

 

JTR

Book Review Posted: The Synoptic Problem: Four Views

I have posted my book review of Stanley E. Porter and Bryan R. Dyer, The Synoptic Problem: Four Views (Baker Academic, 2016) which appears in Midwestern Journal of Theology, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2020): 172-175 to academia.edu. Read the pdf here.

I have also posted a video version to the WM youtube.com channel. See above.

An audio only version is also posted to sermonaudio.com:

JTR

Hilarion Alfeyev on Q: It simply never existed

I returned this week to my reading of Hilarion Alfeyev’s Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching (SVS Press, 2018) and was struck by his evaluation of the so-called Q hypothesis:

“What happened to Q? Why did it disappear?”…. We must answer directly: nothing happened to it; it has not disappeared—it simply never existed. There never was a “discovery” of Q. There have only been more or less clumsy attempts to invent it on the basis of the fragments remaining after the deconstruction of the Gospel text. It is plausible that the evangelists used some sources; it cannot be excluded that the collections of the sayings of Jesus existed not only in an oral, but also in written tradition; but in the form in which the Q source has been “reconstructed,” “discovered,” and “excavated” throughout the twentieth century, it is a typical scholarly myth raised to the status of dogma (80-81).

He later adds:

The pressing task of contemporary biblical studies is to be librerated from these types of myths and dogmas (81).

Such skepticism of “the assured results of modern scholarship” should not perhaps come as a surprise from one who comes from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, as does Alfeyev, given that the Enlightenment did not affect the East to the degree it did the West. Oddly enough, many evangelicals happily embrace modern Gospel source criticism, with its theories for resolving the Synoptic Problem, Markan Priority, and Q, without seeming to recognize the inherent dangers to the integrity and authority of the Gospels or drawing the clear minded conclusions taken by Alfeyev.

JTR

WM 133: Eta Linnemann's Rejection of the Historical Critical Method

Image: Eta Linnemann (1926-2009)

I have posted WM 133: Eta Linnemann's Rejection of the Historical-Critical Method. Listen here.

In this episode I want to call attention to the life and thought of a German scholar named Eta Linnnemann (1926-2009), a German scholar who studied with Bultmann, gained a prestigious academic post, but who then rejected the method in which she had been trained, as she embraced evangelical faith.

Linnemann’s experience was called to mind when someone posted a comment to a 2012 blog post I wrote on Linnemann.

The commenter asked:

Could you please recommend me some other writers like Eta?

To which I responded with the following suggestions (edited):

EF Hills, Believing Bible Study (1967)

Gerhard Maier, The End of the Historical Critical Method (1974, 1977)

David Steinmetz, "The Superiority of Pre-critical exegesis" (Theology Today article, 1980)

Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (2018)

Robert W. Yarbrough, Clash of Visions: Populism and Elitism in NT Theology (2019)

One key to recovery of the confessional text among otherwise conservative evangelical and Reformed brethren must be questioning the influence and direction of Enlightenment influenced modern historical-critical method, including in the area of text criticism.

So, let me review my 2012 blog post on Linnemann.

Linnemann devoted the last years of her scholarly work to challenging modern historical-critical approaches to the Synoptic Problem, which, using Source Criticism, posited Markan Priority, Q, and various theories about the literary dependence of the Gospels, that ultimately served to undermine their historicity, reliability, and authority. Her key work in this area was Is There a Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels (Baker Books, 1993). The closing epilogue to Is There a Synoptic Problem? Is worth hearing (pp. 209-210).

I do not know Linnemann’s views on text criticism, but one wonders what conclusions she might have reached had she turned her attention to this.

JTR

WM 129: The Synoptic Problem and Text Criticism

I have just posted WM 129: The Synoptic Problem and Text Criticism. Listen here.

In this episode I do two things:

First, I share a draft of a recent book review I completed on the Synoptic Problem.

Second, I reflect on a recent blog post that raised questions about the Synoptic Problem and Text Criticism.

Part One: Book Review:

Stanley E. Porter and Bryan R. Dyer, Eds., The Synoptic Problem: Four Views (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2016): 194 pp.

Part Two: Blog post:

In a blog post titled “Markan Priority, Messianic Secret, and the Textus Receptus” from May 9, 2019 on the Evangelical Text Criticism blog, Peter Gurry noted an article from David Parker in an anthology titled The Future of NT Textual Scholarship (Mohr Siebeck, 2019), sadly priced at over $150!

Parker apparently writes about how the rejection of the TR was connected to the overall objectives inherent in the application of modern historical-critical method to the TR. Here is the brief quote from Parker’s article:

The result [of using 4th/5th c. manuscripts for critical editions] represented a huge change from the Textus Receptus. Gone were the Johannine Comma, the Pericope Adulterae, the Longer Ending of Mark. Gone too were so many harmonisations and alterations in the text of Mark that the new editions produced what by comparison with the Textus Receptus was a new version of the Gospel. A new approach to the Synoptic Problem and the influential theory of the Messianic Secret were just two developments that would never have been possible using the Textus Receptus.

So, the rejection of the TR leads to the Synoptic Problem and the Messianic Secret? Parker (and perhaps Gurry too, though more cautious) see this as a great advance. But is it? What has this meant for the authority of the Bible?

Could it be that the first step to reclaiming Biblical authority is reclaiming an authoritative text?

JTR

Darwinian-based objections to Markan Posteriority

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) not only influenced re-calibration of the interpretation of the historicity of Genesis, but it had wider influence in other areas of Biblical interpretation as well, such as source criticism and the so-called Synoptic Problem.

In his “response” article in The Synoptic Gospel: Four Views (see this previous post), Two-Gospel Hypothesis advocate David Barrett Peabody addresses the “problem of omissions” objection against Markan Posteriority. This objection—lodged by those who hold to Markan Priority—suggests that Mark could not have been written after Matthew and Luke, because, if this were the case, it would not have omitted so much of their material. Mark, the shortest Gospel, must have been earliest and expanded upon by Matthew and Luke. So goes the theory of Markan Priority.

Among Peabody’s responses to this objection, he calls attention to the possible influence of Darwinian ideology on the assumption of Markan Priority:

The “problem of omissions” may have been raised by those who presuppose that the Gospel tradition always grew by incremental gain (perhaps under the influence of Darwin’s theory of evolution, once it appeared), and placing Mark’s Gospel third in the order of composition of the Synoptic Gospels clearly does not conform with Darwin’s theory, which never should have been applied in the field of literary criticism in any case (149).

JTR

The Synoptic Problem, Markan Priority, and the Ending of Mark

I’m in the midst of reading Stanley E. Porter and Bryan R. Dyer, eds. The Synoptic Problem: Four Views (Baker Academic, 2016).

I just finished this am Mark Goodacre’s chapter on the “Farrer Hypothesis” (aka “The Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre hypothesis”). This view makes its effort to solve the so-called Synoptic Problem by arguing Mark was written first, then Matthew drew on Mark, and Luke drew on both Mark and Matthew. The “triple tradition” is due to Matthew and Luke’s dependence on Mark, and the “double tradition” is due to Luke’s dependence on Matthew. Thus, it dispenses with any necessity for Q.

I do like Goodacre’s challenging the modern consensus on Q, particularly this statement: "In the face of this kind of confidence, it is always useful to remind ourselves that there is no ancient, external evidence of any kind for Q’s existence. There are no textual witnesses, no fragments, no patristic citations—nothing. It is purely a scholarly construct, a hypothetical text"(59).

I am less enamored with his insistence on Markan priority.

It is interesting also to note how Goodacre assumes that Mark originally ended at 16:8 and thus did not have any resurrection appearance narratives. He assumes this without argumentation to this end or supporting footnotes. Thus, he can speculate that Matthew and Luke added their resurrection appearance narratives to the ending of Mark (as well as their birth narratives to the beginning) to expand Mark.

So, Goodacre writes: "Similarly, neither Matthew nor Luke stops where Mark stops, instead going on with resurrection appearance and Jesus’s commissioning of the disciples (Matt. 28:9-20; Luke 24:9-53)" (53).

Later he can mention the possibility that Matthew and Luke independently structured their Gospels “by adding a prologue dealing with Jesus’ birth and an epilogue dealing with his resurrection” (54), though he concludes that the evidence for Luke’s “familiarity” with Matthew is strong, concluding that “the evangelists share the same basic approach to Mark’s Gospel, adding a prologue about Jesus’s birth” and “an epilogue about his resurrection” (58).

His comments got me thinking again about how the rise of source criticism and Markan priority in the nineteenth century undoubtedly contributed to the devaluation and rejection of the traditional ending of Mark. The reigning theory held that Mark was the earliest Gospel and that it was used as a source for Matthew and Luke, which expanded and added to it. The hypothetical Q document suggested the possibility of a “sayings source” that focused on the teaching of the Jesus rather than his death, burial, and resurrection. Goodacre’s suggestion that Matthew and Luke used Mark and added a prologue (the birth narrative) and an epilogue (resurrection appearances) to it follows this line of thinking.

The problem, however, is that this view suggests early Christians would have thought it fitting to have a Gospel that did not included resurrection appearances. Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul’s rehearsal of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 all contradict this notion. The reasoning is circular. First, assume Mark was written first. Second, assume Mark originally ended at 16:8. Third, assume Matthew and Luke augmented Mark by adding their resurrection appearance narratives. But what if Mark 16:9-20 is original? 

JTR

Comparison Facts on the Synoptic Gospels

I’ve been reading Stanley E. Porter and Bryan R. Dyer, eds., The Synoptic Gospels: Four Views (Baker Academic, 2016). The four views and their proponents in this book: Two Source Theory (Craig A Evans); Farrer Hypothesis (Mark Goodacre); Two Gospel Hypothesis (David Barrett Peabody); Orality and Memory Hypothesis (Rainer Reisner). I’ll hopefully write a fuller review when I finish.

I am less inclined to see any direct literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels (independent development view).

Here, however, are some Synoptic Gospel comparison facts from the introductory chapter by the editors (from pp. 6-8):

90 percent of Mark is shared with either Matthew or Luke or both.

Nearly all of that 90 percent of Mark is found in Matthew.

About 50 percent of Mark is found in Luke.

Of c. 665 verses found in Mark, 600 appear in some form in Matthew or Luke.

Matthew and Luke share 230 verses not in Mark.

Mark can be divided into 88 pericopes. Of those, only 5 do not appear in either Matthew or Luke.

As for that final point, on there being only five pericopes, in Craig A. Evans' chapter in this work, he lists eleven distinct passages in Mark (p. 35). Here is my summary of those:

Introduction: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”	Mark 1:1
Jesus saying: “the sabbath was not made for man, but man for the sabbath”	Mark 2:27
Jesus accused of being “beside himself”	Mark 3:20-21
Parable of the secretly growing seed	Mark 4:26-29
Jesus’ disciples accused of eating with “unwashen” hands	Mark 7:2-4
Jesus heals a deaf and dumb man	Mark 7:32-37
Jesus heals a blind man at Bethsaida	Mark 8:22-26
Jesus’ saying, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting”	Mark 9:29
Jesus’ saying on being “salted with fire”	Mark 9:48-49
Jesus’ call to watch	Mark 13:33-37
The naked young man flees at Jesus’ arrest	Mark 14:51-52

JTR

Word Magazine # 68: Levi son of Alpheus and the Synoptic Gospels

Image: Closeup of tax collector, Roman mausoleum relief, c. second century A.D.

I recorded WM # 68 Levi son of Alpheus and the Synoptic Gospels today and posted it to sermonaudio.com. Here are my notes: 

One of the interesting distinctions in the so-called Synoptic Gospels is the name difference in the call to discipleship of Matthew/Levi (bold added):

Matthew 9:9	Mark 2:14	Luke 5:27
And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.	And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.	And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me.

Tradition assumes that all three of these passages refer to the same individual who is variously identified as Matthew (Matt 9:9), Levi the son of Alpheus (Mark 2:14), and Levi (Luke 5:27).

Recently, a student in class asked, about Levi’s identification as the son of Alpheus uniquely made in Mark 2:14 and what connection, if any, this might have with the disciple identified in Mark 3:18 as James the son of Alpheus. Indeed, this disciple appears in all four canonical lists (bold added):

Matthew 10:2-4	Mark 3:14-19	Luke 6:13-16	Acts 1:13
2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; 3 Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.	14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: 16 And Simon he surnamed Peter; 17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: 18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 19 And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him: and they went into an house.	13 And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; 14 Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, 15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, 16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.	13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.

If we assume that Matthew=Levi (the son of Alpheus), what is the relationship, if any, between Matthew/Levi and the disciple, James the son of Alpheus? The name Alpheus does not appear in the OT and the name appears but five times in the NT (all listed above) with no other information given.

One possibility is that Matthew/Levi and James the son of Alpheus are brothers, both the sons of the same man named Alpheus.

The other possibility is that they are not brothers, but the sons of two different men who had the same name Alpheus.

Given what I perceive to be a lack of tradition linking the two as brothers (as with Peter and Andrew, or James and John, the sons of Zebedee), the latter appears more likely. It remains an interesting distinction that Mark 2:14 uniquely identifies Levi as the son of Alpheus.

Two more notes:

First, on text criticism: There is a minor textual variation noted in the apparatus of the NA 28 at Mark 2:14. A handful of mss. read James (Iakobon) rather than Levi. These include D, Theta, family 13, 565, and the Old Latin in an apparent effort to harmonize the verse with Mark 3:18 and identify the tax collector as James the son of Alpheus.

Note also that for the texts that read Levi there is a variation in the spelling, either with the uninflected nominative form Levi (as in the original hand of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, K, etc.) or an accusative form, with a final nu, Levin (as in p88, second corrector of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, etc.).

NA28: Levin

Hodges/Farstad: Levin

Robinson/Pierpont: Levi

Pickering (fam 35): Levin

TR (Scrivener/TBS): Levin

Second, on the so-called Synoptic Problem. If one assumes a literary relationship between Matthew, Mark, Luke, how does one explain the variations in the three readings here? Does the difference argue for independent composition?

JTR

Notes on Augustine's "Harmony of the Gospels": Part 1: Authority and Order

Image:  From Boticelli's "Saint Augustine in His Study" (1480)

Note:  I’m reading through Augustine’s Harmony of the Gospels and trying to get a better grip on the pre-critical understanding of the Gospels and their literary and theological relationship. Here are some notes:

Book One (chapters i-iii):

Augustine  begins by discussing the authority of the four canonical Gospels noting, “In the entire number of those divine records which are contained in the sacred writings, the gospel deservedly stands pre-eminent.”  He notes that the apostles were the first preachers of the gospel and that two of them—Matthew and John—“gave to the world, in their respective books, a written account of all those matters which it seemed needful to commit to writing concerning Him.”  The inclusion of the Gospels of Mark and Luke show, however, that one need not have been a disciple of Jesus while he was here on earth to write a Gospel.  Nonetheless, others who tried to do the same “failed to commend themselves in their own times as men of character which would induce the Church to yield them its confidence, and to admit their compositions to the canonical authority on the Holy Books.”

He notes that the number of the Gospels “has been fixed as four” perhaps due to the four “divisions” [directions] of the world to which the Christian movement has extended.  He argues for the chronological order, following the canonical order:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Matthew and John are rightly in first last place.  Thus, the interior Evangelists Mark and Luke who had not been apostles “were supported on either side by the same, like sons who were to be embraced, and who in this way were set in the midst between these twain.”

Augustine suggests (following Papias?) that Matthew wrote originally in Hebrew and that the others wrote in Greek.  Matthew construct the record of the Incarnation “according to the royal lineage.”  “Mark follows him closely, and looks like his attendant and epitomizer.”  Mark's narrative is “in words almost numerically and identically the same as those used by Matthew.”

Luke, on the other hand, “appears to have occupied himself rather with the priestly lineage and character of the Lord.”  This explains the divergence in their genealogies, as Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage through King Solomon, while Luke through David’s son Nathan, who was not a king.

Thus, the synoptic Gospels harmoniously present Christ “both as King and as Priest.”

While Matthew had Mark, Luke “had no one connected with him to act as his summarist.”  Augustine explains that as it is right for kings to have attendants, so it is right for Matthew which shows forth Jesus as King to have an attendant in Mark.

JTR 

Did the transfiguration take place about eight days after Jesus’ passion teaching (so Luke 9:28) or six days after (so Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2)?

Note:  When preparing to preach last Sunday on Luke’s account of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), I ran across an apparent discrepancy among the Gospel accounts.

Here are the three Synoptic Gospel passages:

Matthew 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

Mark 9:2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.

Luke 9:28 And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.

The issue:  Did the transfiguration take place about eight days after Jesus’ passion teaching (so Luke 9:28) or six days after (so Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2)?  Is this an insoluble contradiction among the Synoptics?

Responses:  It seems there are at least two solutions to this apparent contradiction:

First, the perceived problem might be resolved by pointing out that Luke uses less specific language than Matthew and Mark.  While Matthew and Mark agree verbatim, precisely saying that the transfiguration took place “after six days” (meth hemeras hex), Luke’s description is less specific.  According to Luke, Jesus was transfigured “about an eight days after these saying.”  He makes use of the qualifying adverb “about” (Greek hosei, which might be rendered as “approximately”).  If one assumes the traditional views on authorship, then he understands Matthew to have been written by an apostle who was an eyewitness.  Mark, though not an apostle, is affirmed to have been the interpreter of Peter, an apostle and eyewitness (cf. 1 Peter 5:13).  Luke, however, was an apostolic associate of Paul and not an eyewitness (cf. Luke 1:1-4).  It might make sense, then, for his description of the time sequence to be more general.

Second, the perceived problem might be resolved by considering that Luke uses an alternative manner of describing the time sequence.  If Luke counted the day of Jesus’ passion teaching and the day of the transfiguration plus an intervening six days (as noted by Matthew and Mark), then the total is eight days and the perceived contradiction is resolved.  This is the resolution of various Reformed commentators:

John Calvin in his Harmony of the Evangelists (1555) notes on Luke 9:28:

The difference as to time ought not to give us uneasiness.  Matthew and Mark reckon six entire days, which had elapsed between the events.  Luke says it happened about EIGHT days afterwards, including both the day on which Christ spoke these words, and the day on which he was transfigured.  We see that, under a diversity of expression, there is a perfect agreement as to the meaning.

Norval Geldenhuys in his commentary on The Gospel of Luke (1951), likewise, concludes:

Luke says about eight days, probably taking into account the day when Jesus uttered the words of verses 23-7 as well as the day on which the transfiguration took place, so that there is no conflict between his dating and that of Matthew and Mark (p. 282, n. 1).

Conclusion:  It is possible to harmonize Luke 9:28 with its Synoptic parallels.  We must remember that those early Christians who accepted these Gospels as authoritative and collected them into the fourfold Gospel collection would have known of such a discrepancy, and yet they did not see this as offering an insuperable contradiction.

 

Comparison of these passages also lends support to the notion that the Synoptic Gospels (here, Luke, in particular) developed independently (for Luke, without literary dependence on Matthew or Mark).  If Luke had had either of these Gospels before him, why would he not have simply followed their wording and say that the transfiguration took place six days after the passion teaching.

JTR

Markan Priority, The Modern Critical Text, and Evolution

Here’s one more follow up from David Black’s Why Four Gospels? (Energion, 2001, 2010):

In reflecting on how the theory of Markan priority managed to overturn the pre-critical view of Matthean priority and how it has tenatiously held sway in the scholarly community since the 1800s, Black observes:

The stubborn adherence to Markan priority in the face of all its weaknesses compels one to conclude that it has been regarded almost unconsciously as a dogma of scholarship over against the claims of the church to control the dogmatic interpretation of the Scriptures, for the critics seek always to offer an alternative explanation to that of church tradition and belief (pp. 42-43).

With this quote also comes an intriguing footnote which references W. R. Farmer’s The Synoptic Problem (1964).  Black recalls Farmer’s suggestion that the nineteenth century theory of Markan priority was accompanied and influenced by the rise of evolutionary thought (p. 43, note 25):

He notes that defenders of Markan priority were influenced by theological positions and “that ‘extra-scientific’ or ‘non-scientific’ factors exercised a deep influence in the development of a fundamentally misleading and false consensus” (190).  While rejecting a conscious connection between Markan priority and evolutionary social theory, he nevertheless concludes “that the Marcan hypothesis exhibited features which commended itself to men who were disposed to place their trust in the capacity of science to foster the development of human progress” (179).

Indeed, the theory of Markan priority is based on the assumption that the shortest Gospel (Mark) would be the most primitive and that Matthew and Luke would have expanded and added to their Markan source as the Gospel tradition evolved.  It also operates on the assumption that modern "scientific" methodology would allow researchers to uncover the origins of the Synoptic tradition and their primitive sources (Mark and Q). 

A similar suggestion might be made regarding the overthrow of the traditional original language text of Scripture in the nineteenth century in favor of the modern critical text.  It was based on the similar assumption that the lectio brevior (“shorter reading”) is the more primitive (original) and that the ecclesiastical text evolved through harmonization and expansion.  Scholars, then, using "scientific" methodology may recover the original text.  Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859, Holzmann’s Die synoptischen Evangelien in 1863, and Wescott and Hort’s The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881.  Can it be that we are still dealing with the lingering influence of nineteenth century evolutionary thought in textual and Gospel studies?

JTR