davidmartin wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 12:37 am
Ken Olson wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2024 4:52 pm
Have you read Mark Goodacre's 'Fatigue in the Synoptics" or his introductory book: The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze, which has a section on the argument from fatigue? It doesn't sound like you have grasped the argument or why it would be convincing to anyone. You're just saying that there are other possibilities. If you had to state the argument that you are dismissing as not convincing, how would you do it?
Ken,
I can see why fatigue is convincing as a basis for determining precedence for sure. and I'm not commenting on Goodacre's overall theory here only the one example of the seed, I should have been clearer.
The observation he made is very interesting, I'm just not convinced one couldn't make it work the other way as well and if that could be done for the seed, why not the others. No I haven't read his book but it would be nice if someone were to take all Goodacres examples and see what it would look like reversed
so it's not that Goodacre isn't convincing, it's that to be convincing it needs stress testing to see how it handles the other direction that would be really interesting
Here's what you wrote earlier:
reference to Thomas better explains it where it doesn't say why the seed won't grow in the rocks so Luke and Mark want to add something
Luke see's in Thomas they don't 'take root' so he has roots in mind for his explanation of having 'no root' though he adds the reason of moisture
Mark adds they had 'no root' which could have come from Luke's explanation and maybe then he adds a bunch of other stuff about the sun
so whichever theory you prefer its easy to come up with statements like the quoted one. not convincing.
The phenomenon Goodacre is trying to explain is why in Luke 8.11-15, The Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower, Luke offers an interpretation of why ''[these] have no root' in agreement with Mark 4.11 '[they] have no root' with regard to the seeds that fell on the rock/rocky ground, when Luke did not have 'no root' in the earlier parable which he is interpreting, but Mark did. On Goodacre's theory of fatigue of which this is one of many examples, this is because Luke is using Mark as a source. He made a change earlier in the source (in the Parable) which he has failed to sustain and lapsed back into copying what Mark has (in the Interpretation of the Parable). Luke's Interpretation of the Parable assumes a Parable that has what Mark's text has, rather than what his own text has.
Your alternative explanation goes something like this:
1) Thomas's version of the Parable is original
2) Luke used Thomas's version of the Parable and made changes, including changing the the seed that fell on the rock not taking root to the seed that fell on the rock withering from lack of moisture.
3) Luke writes an interpretation of the parable, but forgets that he wrote that the seed that fell on the rock and in his interpretation says that it failed because it had no root. Lue has in effect, become fatigued and lapsed back into following what Thomas had said.
4) Mark knows Luke's version (we need this theory to explain the verbatim and sequential agreements in the Greek), sees the problem in the mismatch between Luke's parable and interpretation, and fixes it by changing 'withered from lack of moisture' to 'it had no root' in his own version of the Parable, so that the Parable and Interpretation would agree in his own version.
Is this impossible? No. Is this explanation equally as good as the one Goodacre proposes? I don't think so. (For one thing, Goodacre has examples of the phenomenon of Luke becoming fatigued with Mark where Thomas is not present). Does it offer a better explanation, as you claim? Only if you have first accepted Luke's use of Thomas as your source theory (which I reject), so any explanation that favors your source theory is better than one that does not. (This is a common failing).
It seems to me that you often reply to posts by suggesting an alternative is possible (alternatives are always possible) and suggest that your particular alternative is better. But it is not clear in this case (and I think not in other cases either) on what logical basis your proposed alternative is better. I have seen a good many critiques of Goodacre's argument from fatigue. Almost all of them (I can't at the moment think of any exceptions) allow that the argument from fatigue does indeed work in some cases, but not in particular cases where it conflicts with the author's favored source theory. (Parenthetically, some critiques offer counterexamples based on what they call fatigue, but which do not follow the same principles Goodacre does when he uses the term).
Thomas Logion 9: Jesus said,
Look, the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered (them). 2Some fell on the road,
and the birds came and gathered them. 3 0thers fell on rock, and they didn't take root in the soil and
didn't produce heads of grain. 4Others fell on thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate
them. 5 And others fell on good soil, and it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and
one hundred twenty per measure.
Best,
Ken
P.S. Olegs Andrejevs and I are editing a volume of articles on the phenomenon of fatigue in the gospels and adjacent literature with contributors from the three major Markan priority hypotheses (2DH, Farrer, and Matthean Posteriority). The contributors have sent a a general description of what they intend to write about, but we haven't asked for formal abstracts/proposals yet, let alone seen the articles, so publication is still a good ways off.