Basically, Tenorikuma responds to Mark Goodacre's case that Luke copied from Matthew in this pericope and winds up arguing for something close to the opposite, namely that Matthew copied from proto-Luke. His beautiful diagram is well worth linking to from here (but note that the references to Luke 9 are typos for Luke 19).
I have found that many arguments for priority or posteriority are reversible, but that the argument from editorial fatigue as presented by Mark Goodacre is, done correctly, less reversible than most. It seems that Tenorikuma agrees on the merits of editorial fatigue for such determinations, and it is mainly on that basis that he attempts to reverse Goodacre's conclusions. Other, more eclectic arguments sometimes come into play, as well.
Let me start by presenting the Matthean parable of the talents alongside the Lucan parable of the pounds (minas) for comparison and contrast:
Matthew 25.14-30 | Luke 19.11-27 |
- | 11 While they were listening to these things, Jesus went on to tell a parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. |
14 "For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. | 12 So He said, "A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return. 13 And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas and said to them, 'Do business with this until I come back.' |
- | 14 But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, 'We do not want this man to reign over us.' |
16 Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. 17 In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. 18 But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. | - |
19 Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. | 15 When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom he had given the money, be called to him so that he might know what business they had done. |
20 The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, 'Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.' | 16 The first appeared, saying, 'Master, your mina has made ten minas more.' |
21 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' | 17 And he said to him, 'Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.' |
22 Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, 'Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.' | 18 The second came, saying, 'Your mina, master, has made five minas.' |
23 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.' | 19 And he said to him also, 'And you are to be over five cities.' |
24 And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. 25 And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.' | 20 Another [or: the other] came, saying, 'Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.' |
26 But his master answered and said to him, 'You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. | 22 He said to him, 'By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? |
27 Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. | 23 Then why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?' |
28 Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents. | 24 Then he said to the bystanders, 'Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.' |
- | 25 And they said to him, 'Master, he has ten minas already.' |
29 For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. | 26 I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. |
30 Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'" | 27 But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." |
So which came first? Let us bring in the arguments.
Does the Lucan version of the parable show editorial fatigue?
Goodacre had argued as follows for Matthean priority and Lucan posteriority in this pericope:
The Lucan version begins with ten servants and all receive one pound. When the nobleman returns, he summons the servants and we hear about 'the first' (19.16), 'the second' (19.18) and amazingly, 'the other', ὁ ἕτερος (19.20). It turns out, then, that Luke has three servants in mind, like Matthew, and not ten after all.
Further, in Luke's parable, the first two servants receive 'cities' as their reward (19.17, 19), the first ten and the second five, whereas in Matthew they are 'put in charge of much' (25.21, 23). It is striking then that Luke seems to share Matthew's story-line towards the end of the parable:
- Matt 25.28: 'So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.'
Luke 19.24: 'Take the pound from him and give it to him who has the ten pounds.'
Luke's version of the Parable, then, does not hold together well and there is a straightforward explanation to hand: Luke has attempted to reframe the parable that he found in Matthew but his ambition, on this occasion, exceeds his capability. Editorial fatigue soon drags the plot of the parable back to Matthew, with its three coherent servants, the first earning his five coherent talents.
Tenorikuma summarizes the two arguments involved as follows:
- Luke’s parable started out with ten slaves but ended with three, like Matthew’s has.
- Giving the third slave’s money to the first slave seems like a trifle when the first is already being rewarded with ten cities.
My agreement or disagreement with him on this depends in great deal on the manuscript evidence. As he points out, some manuscripts have "another" (ἕτερος) while others have "the other" (ὁ ἕτερος). LaParola cites the evidence as follows:
omit] A W Ψ 0182 f1 33 Byz ς NR ND Riv Dio TILC NM
On the one hand, there are quite a few witnesses which omit the article. On the other, those which include it comprise a pretty powerful cadre: Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Bezae, Regius, and Coridethianus, with some important minuscules as escorts. Most modern critical texts seem to accept the article (which is probably why Goodacre included it in his argument without even referring to the manuscript testimony). If the article was present in the Lucan form of the parable that we are evaluating, then I would have to agree with Goodacre here: to mention one servant, a second servant, and then "the other" implies that the writer had only three servants in mind, despite having introduced ten, and having only three in mind would definitely look like a dependence on the Matthean version (or on any version with only three servants). To mention one servant, a second servant, and then "another", however, is a different story. The introduction of ten servants might seem unnecessary and superfluous, but it is no longer a matter of editorial fatigue; and, as Tenorikuma rightly points out, the presence of 7 additional servants on top of the 3 described in detail would explain the bystanders of verse 24.
Tenorikuma responds to Goodacre's second argument as follows:
Unfortunately, I do not really agree that Matthew shares the same problem as Luke here. Adding one talent to ten talents is a pretty decent upgrade (I for one would welcome a 10% return on or addition to my monetary worth, especially given that even one talent is a lot of money, whereas adding a pound/mina to my 10 cities is truly nothing). As for the intangible rewards in Matthew, being put in charge of many things is hardly the same thing as increasing one's personal wealth, and "entering into the joy of the master" may mean no more than we already knew, to wit, that this servant is on his master's good side. The incorporation of the lesson of Mark 4.25 ("for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him") into the parable may itself be a sign of editing (more on this later); but, even if so, it is not the same thing as pointing out the disparity between the third servant's ten cities and his extra mina in the Lucan account, a dissonance which is at the very least considerably muted in Matthew. Furthermore, even if Matthew did share this problem with Luke, it would not excuse Luke, who may still be incidentally tipping his hand that he is following a source here; it would just mean that the source is less likely to be Matthew.
So the first example of Lucan fatigue depends on a single article which is present in some manuscripts but absent from others; I personally think the article is probably more original than its lack (the combination of Vaticanus + Bezae impresses me quite a bit), but I admit there is no smoking gun here; nevertheless, the rest of this post will treat the article as original, with the proviso that, wherever an argument depends on this particular example of fatigue, there may be extenuating circumstances. The second example probably also shows something along the lines of fatigue going on with Luke, but it is not quite as clear as the first example would be if we could be certain of the correct text.
Tenorikuma also, however, points to verse 25 in Luke: "And they said to him, 'Master, he has ten minas already.'" This verse actually interrupts the nobleman's speech, which continues, unmarked, in verses 26-27: "I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." Had the parable ended at verse 26, we might have supposed that Jesus himself was summarizing things with the parallel to Mark 4.25; but this idea does not work because of verse 27, which is obviously the nobleman commanding his minions to slay his enemies. Verse 25, then, looks like an awkward insertion into the parable; indeed, some manuscripts do omit this verse:
Tenorikuma also identifies a pair of verses in Luke which seem to go together and do not really fit the landscape of the rest of the parable very well:
‘However, these enemies of mine who did not want me to rule over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me!’ (v. 27)
To these two complete verses I would add the introduction to the parable proper: "A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return." I would also add one brief line, "after receiving the kingdom," in verse 15. All of these notices are alluding to the story of Archelaus (as described by Josephus in Wars 2.1-6 and Antiquities 17.9-11), as Tenorikuma points out:
However, he thinks that "a later editor decided to enhance the parallels between Jesus and Archelaus by adding verses 14 and 27 to the story (based on details he may have learned from Josephus), which survive in canonical Luke." I am not so sure. Luke-Acts elsewhere shows a great interest in Judean history, especially in topics that overlap Josephus' works; also, since the introductory line of the parable cannot be cleanly removed like the whole verses 14 and 27 or even the little phrase in verse 15 can, the parable must have been reworked so as to incorporate these elements; this is more than just a handful of marginal notes inserted into the main text (that is, this seems redactional, not scribal). So, while I agree that the original form of the parable probably lacked these elements alluding to Archelaus (and it is true that they are not attested for the Marcionite gospel, though that is not as strong as saying that they are attested as absent from it), I also suspect that its current Lucan form probably owes its existence to the same editor or editors who like to talk about Quirinius and Philip the Tetrarch and Theudas and the Egyptian and other figures from Judean history. Regardless, though, these allusions to Archelaus are another indication that the canonical Lucan parable is a reworking of some earlier form of the parable, whether that form is what we find in Matthew or not... which brings us to the next question.
Does the Matthean version of the parable show editorial fatigue?
Tenorikuma points out that, whereas in Matthew 25.27 the master is addressing the worthless slave ("then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest"), in the very next verse he is, without marker, speaking to anonymous, unintroduced individuals about that same slave ("therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents"). It is not entirely clear to whom the master is speaking at this point. Recall that the Lucan parallel specified that the nobleman was talking to bystanders, and that the bystanders may well have been the slaves not yet interrogated. So the Matthean version seems to be missing a marker of some kind here.
He also gives four arguments for Matthean fatigue or incoherence that he apparently derives from Brian Schultz in "Jesus as Archelaus in the Parable of the Pounds (Lk. 19:11-27)", Novum Testamentum 49/2 (2007):
- In Luke, the slaves are commanded to “do business” by their master. The slaves in Matthew are given no such command. What, then, is the third slave in Matthew guilty of? Only in the Lucan parable has he acted contrary to orders.
- In Luke, the sums involved are fairly small. One mina in the first century was worth 100 denarii, or about three months’ wages. Luke’s nobleman is justified in saying “you have been trustworthy in the smallest of things”. In Matthew, enormous sums are involved. One talent is 6,000 denarii, or roughly twenty years of wages. It makes little sense for Matthew’s master to say, “you have been trustworthy in a few things”. (Could this be an instance of editorial fatigue from copying Luke?)
- In Luke, the servant who earned the highest returns gets the third servant’s mina. In Matthew’s version, the first two servants showed the same ability, earning 100% on their investments. It’s not clear why the first one deserves the extra talent.
- As already mentioned, the text is ambiguous in Matt. 25.28 as to whom the master is addressing. (Another example of fatigue?)
This same consideration also potentially impacts the third issue, since the master evidently already knows that the first slave has more ability than the second; hence the different investment in each to begin with. However, I agree that it is a bit odd that, if the different abilities of the first two slaves are what is at issue, both slaves should earn the same percentage back: 100%. Why did the equivalent earnings rate not inform the master's decision at the end of the parable? For that matter, from a literary point of view, why are two very different hints as to the abilities of the first two servants included in the first place? No point is made of the difference. What is it doing there?
I do not think the second issue is really an issue. Had Matthew carried over the Lucan wording, "trustworthy in the smallest of things," we might have a problem; but he did not. He wrote instead, "trustworthy in a few things," a phrase which seems acceptable to me to describe either five talents earning five more talents or two talents earning two more talents. The "few things" may even simply relate to the implied kinds of business a slave might have to engage in in order to turn such a profit.
I have already agreed that the fourth issue is something to consider.
Do both the Matthean and the Lucan versions of the parable show editorial fatigue?
It is time to sum up the arguments from fatigue so far:
1. It is not clear whom the master is addressing in Matthew 25.28 (and 25.30, for that matter): "Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents." This command to anonymous, unintroduced extras follows unmarked on a statement directly to the slave himself in verse 27.
2. In Matthew 25.20-23, the first two servants show the same ability, earning 100% on their respective investments, despite the implication in 25.15 that their abilities actually differ. It is not entirely clear, therefore, why the first one deserves the extra talent in verse 28.
Luke
1. Luke 19.13 starts out with ten slaves but ends up with three, the third of whom is referred to as "the other one" in verse 20, indicating that Luke has been thinking of three slaves after all.
2. Luke 19.24 is anticlimactic in giving the third slave’s mina to the first slave, which seems like a trifle when the first is already being rewarded with ten cities.
3. Luke 19.25, the protest that the first slave already has 10 minas, is not present in some manuscripts, and definitely interrupts the nobleman's speech in an awkward way.
4. Luke 19.14, 27 and parts of verses 12 and 15 seem to be of a piece, alluding to the story of Archelaus, and feel like an extra layer of complication that may not derive from the original form of the parable. These verses are also not attested as either present or absent in the Marcionite version.
I think that, when it comes to the Lucan version, the Archelaus allusions can be ruled out as part of the original parable on thematic grounds and the protest in verse 25 can be ruled out on textual grounds, supported by the observation that it intrudes into the nobleman's speech. (And I think the latter is probably true even if it turned out that some manuscripts omitted the verse precisely because of the interruption or in order to harmonize the flow with Matthew 25.28, where no such protest intrudes. I suspect that the original version of the parable lacked the protest.) The final verse of the parable, which is also the final allusion to Archelaus, actually reserves the harsh punishment that Matthew's version doles out to the lazy slave for those citizens who did not want this nobleman to rule over them. Tenorikuma suggests that the Marcionite version lacked both of these elements (the Archelaus allusions and verse 25), and he may well be correct.
This leaves the two other issues in Luke. I think that the original version of the parable had 3 slaves, not 10, and that in adding the extras yet describing only the original 3 Luke managed to give himself away by referring to the third as "the other one". Finally, I suspect that the original version did not create an anomaly by offering a servant now in charge of cities a single mina simply because of the principle espoused by Mark 4.25.
As for Matthew, I think that the original parable either lacked the command to give the third slave's talent to the first slave entirely, on the advice of something like Mark 4.25, or at the very least did not interrupt a speech to the third slave himself with it. I also suspect that the original parable did not both distinguish between the first two slaves' financial acumen and then simultaneously show them to be equal.
It is interesting that both Matthew and Luke fall into a momentary incoherence once at the same point of the narrative: the giving of the third servant's hidden money to the first servant. It is also interesting that this momentary incoherence is a result of integrating the principle of Mark 4.25 into the parable. I conclude that the original parable probably lacked this connection to Mark 4.25.
But, if neither Matthew nor Luke represents the original version in these particulars, then there must be another version, perhaps lost to us, from which both the Matthean and the Lucan versions drew (whether independently or with either Matthew or Luke also knowing the other).
Is there another version of the parable?
We do know of another version of this parable. Eusebius writes in Theophany 4.22:
It is unfortunate that we have only this thumbnail sketch of the parable as found in some gospel thought to have been written in (and presumably translated from) Hebraic letters. But one may be surprised at how much of what it contained (or did not contain) may be surmised by comparison with the Matthean and Lucan parables.
I would like first to explore, however, two possible connections to gospel passages besides the parable of the talents or the pounds. Eusebius himself softly proposes a link between the slave who receives the harsh punishment in Matthew 25.30 and the slave who appears a few verses before our parable, in Matthew 24.45-51:
46 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
47 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
48 But if that evil slave says in his heart, 'My master is not coming for a long time,'
49 and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards;
50 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know,
51 and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
This passage finds a parallel in Luke 12.42-48:
43 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
44 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
45 But if that slave says in his heart, 'My master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk;
46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
47 And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,
48 but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more."
This slave who has eaten and drunk with the drunkards, Eusebius suggests, is perhaps the one who is actually going to be punished in Matthew 25.30, at the end of our parable. Whether it is likely or not that Matthew would deliberately refer all the way back to this passage in chapter 24 at the end of his otherwise seemingly self-contained parable in chapter 25, it is certainly interesting that in both cases we find a slave left to his own devices while his master is away and then consigned to a place where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (the Matthean wording) when the master returns. The only difference is that the slave with the talent has merely hidden that talent, whereas this slave is actually beating his fellow men and living a life of dissolution. One wonders what the connection between this miniature parable and the parable of the talents a few verses later in Matthew might be. We will return to this issue.
The other gospel passage that may be connected somehow is the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15.11-32. Petri Luomanen writes on pages 128-129 of Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels:
I reproduce lines 30-41 of papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840, recto, here for the sake of completeness:
While the expression "harlots and flutegirls" may be an ancient cliché, easily applied to both cases (and notice the addition of αἱ ὕες, "the swine," to οἱ κύνες, "the dogs," in the Old Greek of 1 Kings / 3 Kingdoms 22.38, in a context involving αἱ πόρναι, "the harlots," bathing), the association of this phrase with the comparatively rare term ἀσώτως yields a possible connection between the unruly servant of this Hebraic gospel and the prodigal son of Luke 15.11-32. We will return to this issue, as well.
Back to the Hebraic version of the parable itself. It is not immediately clear which servant receives which outcome in the way that Eusebius presents them. Here are the two lists in the order Eusebius presents them:
- The servant eating up the belongings of his master with harlots and flute-girls, living unsafely.
- The servant multiplying his talent by the work of trade.
- The servant hiding the talent.
- One is accepted.
- Another is only blamed.
- The other is shut up in prison.
But are the other two servants aligned chiastically or randomly with their outcomes? If randomly, then the one who hides the talent is blamed, and the one who multiplies the talent is accepted. This is how Klijn reads matters, and it certainly resonates with anyone who has read the canonical versions of the parable. If chiastically, then the one who hides the talent is accepted, and the one who multiplies it is blamed. This seems implausible at first, but it actually has merit. Petri Luomanen writes on pages 130-131:
If we take this suggestion, then one of the points of the Hebraic version of the parable (that business is wrongheaded) runs counter to an assumption of the canonical versions of the parable (that business is both allowed and expected). This negative attitude toward business finds a friend in Thomas 64: "Businessmen and merchants will not enter the places of My Father." ETA:
Zechariah 14.21: 21 Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to Yahweh of hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them. And there will no longer be a Canaanite [כְנַעֲנִי, RSV trader, Vulgate mercator] in the house of Yahweh of hosts in that day.
Hosea 12.7: 7 A merchant [כְּנַעַן], in whose hands are false balances, He loves to oppress.
Job 41.6: “Will the traders bargain over him? Will they divide him among the Canaanites [כְּֽנַעֲנִים, NAS merchants, RSV traders, Vulgate negotiatores]?”
Proverbs 31.24: 24 She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies belts to the Canaanite [כְּנַעֲנִי, NAS tradesmen, RSV merchant].
Does the Hebraic version of the parable help to explain anything?
Petri Luomanen argues that the Hebraic gospel postdates the synoptic tradition on pages 131-132 of Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels; altogether, he gives four reasons for thinking so. However, I think that three of the arguments fall flat and a fourth hangs tenuously upon a lot of complicated factors. I may address his arguments openly in another post sometime [ETA: I have now done so], but here, for now, let us run with the idea that the version of our parable that Eusebius claims to have found in his Hebraic gospel may, all else being equal, either predate or postdate the synoptic tradition (or even run contemporaneously with it).
Recall that I suggested above that the original parable behind both canonical versions probably showed the following characteristics:
- There are only 3 slaves, not 10.
- No slave is given another slave's money on the principle of Mark 4.25, and no protest that the first slave already has money interrupts anything.
- No Archelaus material is probably present.
I tentatively suggest that the version of the parable found in the Hebraic gospel represents the form of the parable that lies behind both the Matthean and the Lucan versions. Whether it is the very first version of the parable is beyond our knowing, but it looks like it could easily lead to what we find in the canonical gospels. In the next post I will summarize what I hope is a plausible process by which these various versions may have come into being.
Ben.