Gospel priority

[RandyHelzerman]

I'm not sure if that would strictly qualify as Fatigue,

Prompted by this, I wrote a letter to Mark Goodacre, and asked him whether he considered fatigue to be an objective property of two parallel texts.

cf. with the example he uses to explain fatigue: continuity errors in movies. E.g. a prop which moves around incongruously during a conversation, things like that.

Personally, I never notice these things, but if somebody points them out to me, they are usually very glaring, and if you got 10 people to look at it, probably all 10 would agree there was an error in editing.

I asked him if fatigue was objective in that sense. He wrote back saying there has to be some subjective aspect to it, because there are scholars who disagree with him He also mentioned an upcoming book exploring fatigue featuring a dialog between fatigue believers and fatigue deniers. Which no doubt will be pretty cool..

I suppose the salient difference between movie continuity errors, and fatigue in parallel texts, is that there is only *one* movie--you aren't comparing various drafts of the movie, and trying to determine which one came first.

That would be one place where the subjectivity could come in. If you have 100 good reasons to prefer a different ordering, a single instance of fatigue might not--nor should it--convince you.

[Ken Olson]

I'm not sure if that would strictly qualify as Fatigue,

Personally, I never notice these things, but if somebody points them out to me, they are usually very glaring, and if you got 10 people to look at it, probably all 10 would agree there was an error in editing.

Yes, the first difficulty is establishing that there is an error. For people who accept the inerrancy of scripture, that's a non-starter, and even for those who accept the possibility of error in scripture in theory, getting them to accept a particular error can be difficult.

There's a second difficulty which arises when you've identified a continuity error which is in one in one text but not in another, parallel text. What does this indicate?

People who agree with Goodacre's conclusions think it shows that the text with the continuity error is later than the text without it and due to the author introducing changes and then lapsing back into following his source (hence 'fatigue'), but it is also possible to argue that the text without the continuity error was later. The author saw the error in his source and corrected it. (Parenthetically, I don't know of anyone who argues that consistently - they argue that only when their source theory runs into trouble).

I asked him if fatigue was objective in that sense. He wrote back saying there has to be some subjective aspect to it, because there are scholars who disagree with him

That sounds like Mark Goodacre

I've had a few discussions with him about the rules of the argument from fatigue. He doesn't actually give formal rules for the argument from fatigue, he gives examples from which the reader is supposed to extrapolate the principles of fatigue.

At one time, I told him he should formalize the rules to avoid confusion. Now I understand why he didn't. It's related to something David Parker said in response to Bart Ehrman's criticism of his book on textual criticism at an SBL session. Ehrman had said that the book doesn't tell beginning students what they need to know. Parker never presents the canons of textual criticism in the book. Parker replied that that was deliberate because if you hand someone rules, they're going to begin by trying to apply the rules instead of thinking about the text.

This agrees with my experience in teaching the criteria of historicity in Historical Jesus studies. Once you give students (or scholars, for that matter) criteria for proving something should or should not be accepted as historical, they will attempt to fit their existing beliefs under the criteria.

I am very dubious that the so-called criteria of historicity actually work. I don't have a problem with using them as a checklist of things one should consider when making judgments about historicity, but they don't work as a litmus test to prove or disprove historicity.

The reason I said I wasn't sure if the case of Capernaum was strictly a case of fatigue is that it involves two (or three) pericopes rather than one. But now that I think about it, Goodacre's example of the Parable of the Sower and the Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower also involves two pericopes.

He also mentioned an upcoming book exploring fatigue featuring a dialog between fatigue believers and fatigue deniers. Which no doubt will be pretty cool..

I certainly hope it will be. Olegs Andrejevs and I are the editors. We have contributors lined up from the three major Markan Priority theories (and Olegs is 2DH and I'm Farrer). Several of the submissions will deal with adjacent literature rather than the synoptic problem per se. I don't have the finished articles yet, but I'm not sure we have any fatigue deniers, that is, people who just say that editorial fatigue is not a real phenomenon and does not happen.

I suppose the salient difference between movie continuity errors, and fatigue in parallel texts, is that there is only *one* movie--you aren't comparing various drafts of the movie, and trying to determine which one came first.

Yes, fatigue is a specific kind of continuity error that exists in one work but not in another.

Best,

Ken

[RandyHelzerman]

That sounds like Mark Goodacre

LMAO!!!! Never met him in person, but he sure comes across as a very convivial conversational partner, and I aspire to follow his example of presenting a very charitable argument for his opponents position (which is frequently better put than the opponent's!) before he presents his own.

if you hand someone rules, they're going to begin by trying to apply the rules instead of thinking about the text.

Hmmm... great point. It's very reductive, and, lets face it, we'd be hard pressed to present a list of rules for recognizing almost anything, even the most pedestrian things (What is a chair? is a tree stump a chair? Is a boulder?)

they will try to take their beliefs and try to fit them under the criteria.

I aspire to be better at that too

I certainly hope it will be.

ZONK!!! What's the analogous word for "mansplaining" here? Booksplaining??

Keep us posted man, maybe if I'm good Santa can bring me it for Christmas.

[spin]

I favor the Farrer theory, that Luke used Matthew (as Farrer, Goulder, and Goodacre).

Given that the Farrer theory proposes the Lucan writers had a copy of Mt, Ken, why would they have used Mk at all, when Mt had double the content and in better Greek?

Would you propose something like, "well, first they only had Mk and worked on it, then a copy of Mt came along, so they pilfered from it"? I find that implausible, given the conflicts between Mt and Lk which I believe are simpler to understand if the two schools had similar sources, ie the Two Sources plus what they uniquely bring to them.

[Sinouhe]

I favor the Farrer theory, that Luke used Matthew (as Farrer, Goulder, and Goodacre).

Given that the Farrer theory proposes the Lucan writers had a copy of Mt, Ken, why would they have used Mk at all, when Mt had double the content and in better Greek?

Would you propose something like, "well, first they only had Mk and worked on it, then a copy of Mt came along, so they pilfered from it"? I find that implausible, given the conflicts between Mt and Lk which I believe are simpler to understand if the two schools had similar sources, ie the Two Sources plus what they uniquely bring to them.

Mark was the blueprint.

[Ken Olson]

Given that the Farrer theory proposes the Lucan writers had a copy of Mt, Ken, why would they have used Mk at all, when Mt had double the content and in better Greek?

Would you propose something like, "well, first they only had Mk and worked on it, then a copy of Mt came along, so they pilfered from it"? I find that implausible, given the conflicts between Mt and Lk which I believe are simpler to understand if the two schools had similar sources, ie the Two Sources plus what they uniquely bring to them.

No, that’s not quite what I would propose, but it’s sort of close to it. I think Mark was the Gospel with which Luke was familiar and the one used in Luke’s church. When he became aware of Matthew, he saw how Matthew had rewritten and expanded Mark. He also probably foresaw that Matthew might well replace Mark as the Gospel used by the church. There were things he liked about Matthew, but also things to which he objected, and he thought he could do a better job of rewriting and expanding Mark than Matthew did.

Luke decided to keep most of the content of Mark and keep it in largely in the Markan order. B.H. Streeter, The Four Gospels (1924) notes that Marcan and non-Marcan material alternates in great blocks (p. 167). He identifies the Marcan blocks are 3.41-6.19, 8.4-9.50, 18.15-43, and 19.28-22.13. After 22.13, Streeter thought Luke followed both Mark and another source. I think it more likely Mark was his only written source, by which I mean written source he had in front of him and used at length (there are a few touches form Matthew).

Luke’s Markan blocks provide the framework within which Matthean material is included. Luke famously, or notoriously, seems to agree with Matthew only after Mark begins in 1.1 and before Mark ends in 16.8. Even within that space, he does not keep Matthew’s larger structures (no Five Discourses). This is probably for two reasons. First, Mark is the original gospel (for Luke), and Matthew is a Johnny come lately, so (1) Luke follows the Markan order in general, and it would be difficult to follow both where Matthew changes Mark’s order in the first half of his gospel and (2) while Luke sees some value in some of Matthew’s material, he has no desire to actually promote Matthew and chops him into little pieces.

In the Infancy and Post-Resurrection material, it appears that Luke is effectively getting to the same place as Matthew, but by deliberately different means:

An angel announces the birth to a parent, but the parent differs (Joseph vs Mary)
Visitors at the Nativity - Magi from the East or simple local shepherds
Born in Bethlehem, but grew up in Nazareth, but for different reasons
Davidic lineage, but traced from different sons of David

‘You shall call his name Jesus’ (Matt 1.21, Luke 1.31) is the longest verbatim agreement between the two in the infancy narrative.

I’m going to skip Luke’s treatment of John the Baptist (and his inclusion in the Infancy Narrative) which I’ve discussed elsewhere on this forum)

In the Resurrection narrative, Luke appears again to be getting the same general result as Matthew, but by distinct means.

Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem (Luke) instead of Galilee (Matt); in Matthew’s final sentences Jesus initiate a mission to the Gentiles (Matt 28.19-20) from a mountain in Galilee. Luke writes and entire book about the mission to the Gentiles. The narrative of Luke’s gospel begins (with Zechariah) and ends in the temple. Acts begins in the temple and ends in Rome.

Best,

Ken

PS I owe some of these ideas, and a sharpening of my own ideas, to a recent online conversation with Jeff Cate.

[Giuseppe]

cf. with the example he uses to explain fatigue: continuity errors in movies. E.g. a prop which moves around incongruously during a conversation, things like that.

surely a good example in such sense, of a continuity error as in the movies, is the omission by Matthew of the miracle of the healing of the widow's son in Nain, which leaves John the Baptist without a valid reason to be immediately "scandalized" at the Jesus's news.

Whereas in *Ev 7:17-18 there is perfect continuity between the cause (a resurrection in Nain) and the effect (the scandal by John the Baptist). Note that in the Fourth Gospel the pharisees were scandalized at the news about the resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus (not about news of generic miracles).