A Paradigm Perplex: Luke, Matthew and Mark

Abstract

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.

The Synoptic Problem: Where to from here?

“…The works of Downing, Derrenbacker, Neville, Mattila, MacEwen and Kirk have all examined the major hypotheses from this perspective. 31 Derrenbacker's work has highlighted that either/or distinctions between literary and oral paradigms do not correlate with compositional practices in antiquity. This underscores Mattila's call to put the evangelists' work into a credible context, even if it pushes source critics into more complex compositional models than they might prefer.…”

The Roll, the Codex, the Wax Tablet and the Synoptic Problem

“…exact location) is a level that has seldom obtained within the world’s print cultures, and is probably not one that Goulder implied. In spite of allowing for a more practical understanding of what ‘rolling up’ a roll means, Downing ridicules Goulder’s suggestion that Luke could pick up a roll from the floor and find the place where he left off as ‘apparently so simple an action’ (1992: 20). When understood according to what ‘rolling up a roll’ really means, however, it is a very simple action, as simple as opening a codex to a bookmarked page.…”

“…When understood according to what ‘rolling up a roll’ really means, however, it is a very simple action, as simple as opening a codex to a bookmarked page. 6 The suggestion that Luke alternates between Mark and Matthew hardly represents a case of ‘los[ing] all touch with first-century reality’, as Downing claims (1992: 20), and Luke really had no need to mark his place other than by simply rolling the spindles together. And things would become all the easier for Luke if we allow him as much table space as Juvenal assumes his readers to have.…”

“…F. Gerald Downing has led this line of critique in a number of writings, taking issue with the specifics of Michael Goulder’s scenario, but also, where possible, widening his criticism to indict the FH itself. His principal complaint has been that Goulder constructs a Luke characterized by ‘extraordinary behaviour’, and who works with his sources in a way completely out of place in the first century ce : ‘Goulder’s Luke, who refuses every simple and conventional way to re-write his Matthew and Mark to suit his given purposes, is totally foreign to the first century, and no ingenious mind-reading by Dr Goulder is adequate to explain it’ (Downing 1992: 35). Downing thus has two separate complaints: Goulder’s Luke pursues a mechanically difficult task, and his compositional practices are atypical for his period.…”

“…(These complaints are interrelated: a task may be presumed atypical because it is difficult.) Downing has been joined in this line of critique by Robert Derrenbacker, who has tested and improved Downing’s arguments, and who has added force to some of their finer points (Downing 1964, 1980, 1988, 1992; Derrenbacker 2005; see Tuckett 1996: 32-33).…”