Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

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Charles Wilson
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Charles Wilson »

rgp --

Please do not see this as Deep Criticism of you position. Same for Ben. You have set up the examples beautifully. Therein lies the problem.
rgprice wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:07 pm We have verses of Mark: (a, b, c, d, e, f, g)
The question becomes, upon examination of this Passive Voice observation, "Where did Mark get these verses?" Not that it necessarily came directly from his thoughts but, "If Q then why not Mark as well?" Perhaps Mark obtained his Story from the same Sources as Matthew and Luke which would make this "Expanded Q" unnecessary.
Someone reads Mark and produces the following sayings to augment the dialog of Mark: (a', b', c', d', e')
This is perhaps true but also, in light of a "Q", demands an Analysis of "Why was Mark found wanting, given the extra material that has been produced?" Note that this is not a Psychological Demand to get into some Ancient's head. See just below.
Now, you are claiming that there is a difference between (a, b, c, d, e, f, g) + (a', b', c', d', e') and (a, a', b, b', c, c', d, d', e, e', f, g).
I'm saying there is no difference. Those two are the same thing.
Manifestly they are NOT the same thing:

Mark 4: 38 - 40 (RSV):

[38] But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?"
[39] And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
[40] He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?"

Compare with:

Matthew 8: 24 - 26 (RSV):

[24] And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.
[25] And they went and woke him, saying, "Save, Lord; we are perishing."
[26] And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

If this exhibits "a" in Mark, it is a real stretch to say that Matthew's is "a' ", despite the paraphrasing. Matthew is HIDING MEANING. Matthew could have quoted Mark completely given the paraphrasing that he does in verse 26. He did not do so. Why not? Beyond that, what of Mark? Why would Mark have to be corrected for a purely Literary Story, if that is what it is? Why were Matthew and Luke obligated? "What was Mark paraphrasing"?
You keep talking about how Luke or Matthew must know Mark. Of course. Mark exists in the longer version. If Mark is the set of (a-g) then that set exists in (a, a', b, b', c, c', d, d', e, e', f, g). Everything is there that is needed to derive both Matthew and Luke.
That is what we don't know (Ignoring the hubbub over the ending of Mark). We don't know that Mark existed in a longer version. UNLESS:
All of Mark exists and all of Q exists together in a single document.
That Document, (which would also probably have to include the Book of John...) would then not be Mark. Or Proto-Mark. Or Ur-Mark. Or Mark + Q. Or Q.

From the fact that the "Jesus Stories" were written from "Source Stories", it does not follow that the "Source Stories" were about "Jesus".
And I'm saying that that proposition ISN'T "Q theory". That proposition is "Matthew and Luke copied from a longer Gospel", whatever you want to call that.
Agreed, except for the part where you might call it a Gospel. I prefer to call it a "Document brought to Rome after the Fall of Jerusalem".
You're basically saying that if you take a new Gospel derived from Mark and separate the new material from the old, then you arrive at a potential Q source. I'm saying you don't. A new Gospel derived from Mark is still a new Gospel, whether you break the material up into two parts or not.
Agreed. Here is where you get back on track. Matthew's is a different Gospel from Mark. Matthew hides things. Luke is a different Gospel from Matthew. Luke knows things - "Anna the Prophetess" in Luke 2 appears to be a Cipher for Queen Salome, for example. Luke knows but also hides.

"...and what about John?"

If Mark was simply "OK" there would be no need for a Matthew or a Luke or most certainly a John. Since there were reasons for the other Gospels, there could possibly be reasons for "Q". Let's, however, be honest: Mark may have chosen his material from an extended Q. Q may have come after Mark. Q as a Subset of material from only Matthew and Luke seems entirely too restrictive.

CW
Bernard Muller
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to rgprice,
The Occam's Razor is not a law. In order for anything to work, some complexity is required: try to invoke the Occam's Razor and remove parts from your car engine; see what happens.
I am not sure your solution is simpler: someone would have combined gMark and other sayings/narratives in a single document. And then "Luke" & "Matthew", because they "copied" the same sayings/narratives among these other sayings (not in gMark) would essentially create Q without knowing it. But why would "Luke" get sayings which are displeasing and not pick up sayings which are pleasing?
And how do you explain gLuke has NOT some eight consecutive pericopes, except one (the leaven of the Pharisees also paralled in gMark & gMatthew), but gMark (6:47-8:27a) & gMatthew (14:24-16:13a) have them. "Matthew" had to get them from gMark. So why not "Luke" also using gMark (but without the "missing block" http://historical-jesus.info/appf.html)?

For your theory, you need someone to combine gMark and other sayings not in gMark, some of them becoming Q later. So we still have gMark & Q just like what I have.
Luke contains agreements with with Mark against Matthew
I am curious: what are they?
Even so, "Luke" had to know about gMark only. "Matthew" would have departed from gMark. No need for "Luke" to know about gMatthew.

Do you have smoking guns for your theory, or are you justifying it by long argumentations?

Cordially, Bernard
rgprice
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by rgprice »

One last stab at this.

The diagram that BM drew with the dotted line is more accurately represented as the following:

Image

There is no such thing as a dotted line. A dotted line is meaningless. If Q is derived from Mark, then that's that. So, what BM is proposing is what I've shown above.

And I'm saying that the diagram above simplifies to the one below:

Image

There is absolutely no perceptible difference between the two. It would be impossible to distinguish between these two scenarios. And if you are talking about two things in which there is no detectable difference, then you adopt the most parsimonious representation. In order to argue for A you have to put forward a case in which it would be possible to tell the difference between A and B.

Using diagram A. in order to make it look more like Q theory is misleading, because what is really being discussed is diagram B. Just as in math, you always simplify your equation before proceeding. You don't put forward a mathematical proof with an overly complex equation and try to baffle people with confusion because you have 20 variables in your equation that can be simplified down to 4 variables. If your equation can be simplified down to 4 then that's your starting point for your proof, not the unsimplified 20.

What Wellhausen was effectively proposing was diagram B. Which is why Wellhausen's proposal was rejected by Q theorists.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

rgprice wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:07 pmYou're basically saying that if you take a new Gospel derived from Mark and separate the new material from the old, then you arrive at a potential Q source. I'm saying you don't.
I am saying that my hypothetical proposal requires there to be two separate documents, not just one. There could be any number of reasons for this, but the reason I will choose for the sake of argument is one that most scholars would agree with: Q and Mark contradict each other. I hold, for instance, that Mark 6.8 and Q 9.3/10.4 never stood in the same document. Therefore, Mark and Q have to be separate texts; they cannot be a combined Mark + Q text. This rules out one of your diagrams but not the other.
Last edited by Ben C. Smith on Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Jax
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Jax »

Aren't we making assumptions here that Luke and Matthew were composed in one sitting just as we have them now?

A more reasonable approach IMO is that both Luke and Matthew were added to over time, borrowing from each other in the rewrites.

Here is what I propose. First there was a Gospel gA, we will call it ur-gLuke. Then it becomes gA+ and we will call that gMark. gMark is further added to and becomes ur-gMatthew. The original writer of gA complains that gMark (gA+) and ur-gMatthew are Judaized versions of his original Gospel.

Later, someone responding to another Gospel, gJohn for instance, takes gMark (gA+) which is mostly ur-Luke and a part of what became gMatthew, and writes another Gospel we will call gLuke. gLuke also uses parts of ur-gMatthew.

ur-gMatthew gets an update using parts of gLuke and becomes the Gospel according to Matthew (gMatthew) that we know today.

Finally, gLuke gets a birth narrative like gMatthew and becomes the gLuke that we now know.

So.....

1: ur-Luke (gA or gMarcion)

2: gMark (gA+)

3: ur-gMatthew

4: gLuke

5: gMatthew

6: gLuke with a birth narrative

Just a rough draft but you get the picture. No Q needed
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Jax wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:19 am Aren't we making assumptions here that Luke and Matthew were composed in one sitting just as we have them now?
In my case, for the purposes of this thread, yes, but only for the sake of argument. It is not a position I defend, especially in the case of Luke.
rgprice
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by rgprice »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:24 am
rgprice wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:07 pmYou're basically saying that if you take a new Gospel derived from Mark and separate the new material from the old, then you arrive at a potential Q source. I'm saying you don't.
I am saying that my hypothetical proposal requires there to be two separate documents, not just one. There could be any number of reasons for this, but the reason I will choose for the sake of argument is one that most scholars would agree with: Q and Mark contradict each other. I hold, for instance, that Mark 6.8 and Q 9.3 never stood in the same document. Therefore, Mark and Q have to be separate texts; they cannot be a combined Mark + Q text. This rules out one of your diagrams but not the other.
But this is not true. Mark and Q do stand in the same document together: Matthew and Luke and for that matter, it seems Marcion as well. You're trying to say two contradictory things and have it both ways.

On the one hand you propose that Q is derived from Mark. If that's your proposal then you have to have some reason for such a proposition. But you then say that Q is so different from Mark that Q and Mark don't go together. If Q and Mark don't go together then why do you think Q is derived from Mark?

And obviously Q and Mark can go together, because they are together in Matthew and Luke.

Gospel A:
1 Billy took his dog on a walk.
2 The dog liked to go on walks.
3 The dog saw a mailman.
4 Billy's dog broke loose and bit the mailman.
5 The mailman hit the dog.
6 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.

Dialog B:
o1 Be a good boy.
o2 Come back here and be good.
o3 I'm really sorry. I'll make sure this never happens again.

New story A:
1 There was a boy named Billy.
2 Billy liked dogs ever since he was born.
3 Billy's parents got him a dog.
4 Billy took his dog on a walk.
5 Billy wasn't always good at controlling his dog.
6 The dog liked to go on walks.
7 The dog saw a mailman.
8 Billy said, "Be a good boy."
9 Billy's dog broke loose from Billy.
10 Billy chased his dog.
11 Billy shouted, "Come back here and be good!"
13 Billy's dog bit the mailman.
14 The mailman hit the dog.
15 "I'm really sorry. I'll make sure this never happens again."
16 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.

New story B:
1 Billy was a boy who liked dogs ever since he was born.
2 Billy got a dog one day.
3 The dog liked to go on walks.
4 The dog saw a mailman.
5 "Be a good boy," Billy said.
6 Billy's dog broke loose and bit the mailman.
7 "Come back here and be good," said Billy.
8 The mailman hit the dog.
9 Billy told the mailman he was really sorry.
10 "I'll make sure this never happens again," he said.
11 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.
12 Billy took his dog to training and was finally able to control him.

You are trying to make a case that it is reasonable to propose that after reading Gospel A, someone wrote Dialog B. And based on New Story A and New Story B, there is a meaningful distinction between saying that NS-A and NS-B were produced from G-A and a separate document D-B, and that they couldn't have worked from the following instead:

Gospel A+B:
1 Billy took is dog on a walk.
2 The dog liked to go on walks.
3 The dog saw a mailman.
o1 Be a good boy.
4 Billy's dog broke loose and bit the mailman.
o2 Come back here and be good.
5 The mailman hit the dog.
o3 I'm really sorry. I'll make sure this never happens again.
6 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.

And I'm saying that there is no difference between working from G-A and D-B or working from Gospel A+B. They are exactly the same thing. All of the exact same information is contained in the two scenarios. There is no way to conclude that one scenario was used over the other. It is equally plausible that the new stories were produced from documents G-A and D-B or document G-A+B. There is no meaningful distinction between the two.

Thus, by associative property, claiming that D-B is not a "new Gospel" is false. Clearly G-A+B is a new longer Gospel. Isolating D-B by itself to claim that it's not part of a longer Gospel is fallacious.

D-B can only truly be a "separate document" if D-B is not derived from G-A. If D-B is derived from G-A, then it is, by definition, G-A+B.

If D-B doesn't fit with G-A, then D-B is not derived from G-A. D-B is either derived from G-A and part of the new Gospel G-A+B, or it is not derived from G-A and is its own separate document D-B. There is no basis for claiming that D-B is derived from G-A and is also separate.
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Jax
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Jax »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:33 am
Jax wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:19 am Aren't we making assumptions here that Luke and Matthew were composed in one sitting just as we have them now?
In my case, for the purposes of this thread, yes, but only for the sake of argument. It is not a position I defend, especially in the case of Luke.
Yeah, didn't think so about you. Luke I have no problem being written in stages, makes sense that it was, Matthew on the other hand is a little trickier.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

rgprice wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:14 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:24 am
rgprice wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:07 pmYou're basically saying that if you take a new Gospel derived from Mark and separate the new material from the old, then you arrive at a potential Q source. I'm saying you don't.
I am saying that my hypothetical proposal requires there to be two separate documents, not just one. There could be any number of reasons for this, but the reason I will choose for the sake of argument is one that most scholars would agree with: Q and Mark contradict each other. I hold, for instance, that Mark 6.8 and Q 9.3 never stood in the same document. Therefore, Mark and Q have to be separate texts; they cannot be a combined Mark + Q text. This rules out one of your diagrams but not the other.
But this is not true. Mark and Q do stand in the same document together....
Of course they do in a general sense: parts of Mark and (at least) part of Q stand together both in Matthew and Luke. Absolutely true. But it feels like you did not understand my point about Mark 6.8 and Luke/Q 9.3 (IQP 10.4):

Mark: staff, yes; sandals, yes.
Matthew: staff, no; sandals, no.
Luke: staff, no; sandals, no.
Q (IQP): staff, no; sandals, no.

None of these texts has Jesus both allowing and forbidding a staff. They all choose either yes or no.

What my proposal states is that Matthew and Luke are independent of each other; therefore, they got the staff and sandals being prohibited from a separate source, not from each other. That source cannot be Mark, because Mark allows both staff and sandals.

Now, please do not go into how foolish I may be for thinking this. I do not care about that; it is just an example (albeit one, in this case, which persuades a lot of scholars). What I am saying is that such a proposal keeps Mark and Q separate on the grounds of specific contradictions like this. Your response to me was that Matthew and Luke each combine Mark and Q, and that completely misses the point of the specific contradictions which they do not combine; they choose one or the other.

So, if I think that Q postdates Mark and derived some of its sayings from Mark, and if I further think that Q has to be separate from Mark because Q 9.3 (IQP 10.4) directly contradicts Mark 6.8-9, then one of your two diagrams describes my proposal accurately while the other does not. They do not amount or reduce down to the same diagram, because combining Mark with this particular piece of Q creates a contradiction which does not stand even in Luke and Matthew, and I do not think it stood in Q, either.
And obviously Q and Mark can go together, because they are together in Matthew and Luke.
For so many different items, that is true. But it is not true of some of the details.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Demonstrating Q (Quelle) was a document and "Luke" did not know gMatthew.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

rgprice wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 7:14 amGospel A:
1 Billy took his dog on a walk.
2 The dog liked to go on walks.
3 The dog saw a mailman.
4 Billy's dog broke loose and bit the mailman.
5 The mailman hit the dog.
6 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.

Dialog B:
o1 Be a good boy.
o2 Come back here and be good.
o3 I'm really sorry. I'll make sure this never happens again.

New story A:
1 There was a boy named Billy.
2 Billy liked dogs ever since he was born.
3 Billy's parents got him a dog.
4 Billy took his dog on a walk.
5 Billy wasn't always good at controlling his dog.
6 The dog liked to go on walks.
7 The dog saw a mailman.
8 Billy said, "Be a good boy."
9 Billy's dog broke loose from Billy.
10 Billy chased his dog.
11 Billy shouted, "Come back here and be good!"
13 Billy's dog bit the mailman.
14 The mailman hit the dog.
15 "I'm really sorry. I'll make sure this never happens again."
16 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.

New story B:
1 Billy was a boy who liked dogs ever since he was born.
2 Billy got a dog one day.
3 The dog liked to go on walks.
4 The dog saw a mailman.
5 "Be a good boy," Billy said.
6 Billy's dog broke loose and bit the mailman.
7 "Come back here and be good," said Billy.
8 The mailman hit the dog.
9 Billy told the mailman he was really sorry.
10 "I'll make sure this never happens again," he said.
11 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.
12 Billy took his dog to training and was finally able to control him.

You are trying to make a case that it is reasonable to propose that after reading Gospel A, someone wrote Dialog B. And based on New Story A and New Story B, there is a meaningful distinction between saying that NS-A and NS-B were produced from G-A and a separate document D-B, and that they couldn't have worked from the following instead:

Gospel A+B:
1 Billy took is dog on a walk.
2 The dog liked to go on walks.
3 The dog saw a mailman.
o1 Be a good boy.
4 Billy's dog broke loose and bit the mailman.
o2 Come back here and be good.
5 The mailman hit the dog.
o3 I'm really sorry. I'll make sure this never happens again.
6 Billy got in trouble for not controlling his dog.

And I'm saying that there is no difference between working from G-A and D-B or working from Gospel A+B. They are exactly the same thing. All of the exact same information is contained in the two scenarios. There is no way to conclude that one scenario was used over the other. It is equally plausible that the new stories were produced from documents G-A and D-B or document G-A+B. There is no meaningful distinction between the two.

Thus, by associative property, claiming that D-B is not a "new Gospel" is false. Clearly G-A+B is a new longer Gospel. Isolating D-B by itself to claim that it's not part of a longer Gospel is fallacious.

D-B can only truly be a "separate document" if D-B is not derived from G-A. If D-B is derived from G-A, then it is, by definition, G-A+B.

If D-B doesn't fit with G-A, then D-B is not derived from G-A. D-B is either derived from G-A and part of the new Gospel G-A+B, or it is not derived from G-A and is its own separate document D-B. There is no basis for claiming that D-B is derived from G-A and is also separate.
I have read this over several times now, and it bears so little resemblance to my hypothetical proposal that I am not sure where to begin.

Listen, I will let you have the final word on this. My original point was very much focused on what qualifies in scholarship at large as a Q hypothesis, and I absolutely stand by my position that Wellhausen's hypothesis is indeed a Q hypothesis, and that, if someone were to revive his hypothesis in the same way that a few modern scholars have revived Farrer's, Wellhausen's would still be recognized as a Q hypothesis; I am not even sure why this position of mine should be controversial, but apparently it is for you.

I know you are writing a book about Christian origins, and have been trying to make sure you do not write something about Q which knowledgeable people immediately recognize as a sign of confusion. That is my sole concern here. Cheers.
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