A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Bernard Muller
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ken Olson, Ben Smith, Peter Kirby and all:

Block
Saying
Matthew
Luke
Other Parallels
ADisciple and master.10.24-256.40
B1Fear not.10.26-3112.2-7Mark 4.22 = Luke 8.17
B2Before my father.10.32-3312.8-9Matthew 16.27 = Mark 8.38 = Luke 9.26
C1No peace on earth.10.3412.50
C2The divided family.10.35-3612.51-52Mark 13.12 = Luke 21.16
D1Loving family more.10.3714.26
D2Following after me.10.3814.27Matthew 16.24 = Mark 8.34 = Luke 9.23
EFinding and losing.10.3917.33Matthew 16.25 = Mark 8.35 = Luke 9.24

From my perspective, all the consecutive sayings in gMatthew are either of the form Mk-->Q-->gLuke & gMatthew (mkQ)
or Q-->gLuke & gMatthew (Q), except the last one, which is tripartite.

Some observations:
A: Q.
B1: mkQ because it combines 2 sayings, one from gMark, the other from Q (about housetops & sparrows)
B2: Q.
C1: Q. 12.50 12.51
C2: mkQ because of Mark 13.12. 12.51-52
D1: Q.
D2: possibly mkQ because of Mark 8:24. If not, Q.
E: Tripartite

So, according to my perspective, "Matthew" copied the Q source document consecutive sayings and added up E.
"Luke" either relocated the sayings (A and the pairs) but for the sayings in the pairs, kept the order he/she found in the Q source document.

Cordially, Bernard
Last edited by Bernard Muller on Sat Apr 17, 2021 4:37 pm, edited 4 times in total.
hakeem
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by hakeem »

There was no "Apostolikon" at all by Marcion--none whatsoever.

The very writings called "Against Marcion" in 5 books attributed to Tertullian do not claim anywhere that Marcion wrote an "Apostolikon".
See "Against Marcion"
http://www.tertullian.org/articles/evan ... 0index.htm

The contemporary of Marcion, Justin Martyr, also did not claim that Marcion wrote an Apostolikon.

In addition, Justin mentioned Gospels called "Memoirs of the Apostles" and there is no mention at all of an apostle named Luke.

Origen in "Against Celsus" claimed it was the followers of Marcion, those of Valentinus and of Lucian who altered the Gospel.

Against Celsus 2.
Now I know of no others who have altered the Gospel, save the followers of Marcion, and those of Valentinus, and, I think, also those of Lucian.

Based on Origen, changes in the Gospel appears to have been done by multiple sects after their leaders [not just Marcion] were already dead.
Bernard Muller
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by Bernard Muller »

to hakeem,
Your last post has nothing to do with this thread.

Cordially, Bernard
hakeem
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by hakeem »

To Bernard Muller

My post is a response to rgprice in this very thread.
rgprice wrote:....Then Luke came along, he had probably read Matthew and got the idea of a counter Gospel from him, and he also wanted to make an anti-Marcionite work, comprised of both a counter Gospel and a counter to Marcion's Apostolikon, i.e. Acts....

There was no "Apostolikon" at all by Marcion--none whatsoever.

The very writings called "Against Marcion" in 5 books attributed to Tertullian do not claim anywhere that Marcion wrote an "Apostolikon".
See "Against Marcion"
http://www.tertullian.org/articles/evan ... 0index.htm

The contemporary of Marcion, Justin Martyr, also did not claim that Marcion wrote an Apostolikon.

In addition, Justin mentioned Gospels called "Memoirs of the Apostles" and there is no mention at all of an apostle named Luke.

Origen in "Against Celsus" claimed it was the followers of Marcion, those of Valentinus and of Lucian who altered the Gospel.

Against Celsus 2.
Now I know of no others who have altered the Gospel, save the followers of Marcion, and those of Valentinus, and, I think, also those of Lucian.

Based on Origen, changes in the Gospel appears to have been done by multiple sects after their leaders [not just Marcion] were already dead.
rgprice
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by rgprice »

Ken Olson wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 11:22 am
rgprice wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:17 am @Ken
Again, can you demonstrate that canonical Luke harmonized proto-Luke with Matthew in particular cases? Or distinguish between the contents of Proto-Luke and Canonical Luke?
Yes, but I'm not going to go into extensive detail here.
But you could if you wanted to?
Yeah, it's in the book I'm working on, with plenty of detail.
So we have Mark, which has a a baptism scene, then Marcion's gospel, which is dependent on Mark and omitted it, and a hypothetical proto-Luke which restored the baptism? How do you know Marcion's gospel didn't omit the baptism and other early material from Luke, if it omitted the baptism and temptation from Mark?
Its possible that the sequence is Mark > proto-Luke > Marcion instead of Mark > Marcion > proto-Luke. If the scenario is Mark > proto-Luke then Marcion, Matthew and Luke are all derived from proto-Luke, with Marcion removing some material from proto-Luke. But there are reasons to think that proto-Luke was built on top of Marcion.
What does "anti-Marcionite in nature" mean? Doesn't Mark already have stuff that's anti-Marcionite in nature, like Jesus' mother and brothers and sisters? It does not seem that any material not congenial to Marcion would have to be explained as a reaction against Marcion on your assumptions.

And can you demonstrate that Matthew made his whole birth story on the basis of the genealogy from proto-Luke (is that the same genealogy as in canonical Luke?), because I'm really curious about that.
Matthew is far more overtly anti-Marcionite than Mark. Mark isn't actually anti-Marcionite at all, it just has a few elements that don't fit Marcionism, but they aren't developed in an anti-Marcionite way. The birth narrative of Matthew is overtly anti-Marcionite. In addition, Matthew constantly emphasizes how Jesus fulfilled prophecy, in contradiction to Marcion's claim that the Jewish scriptures had no knowledge of Jesus.
I like the Luke using Matthew part. It sounds like you may consider Luke 4.16-31, 4:38, and 5:5-11 to be your strongest cases. Why don't you start with demonstrating those?
I do in the book.
Are there no contradictions within Marcion's gospel? Tertullian seemed to think the Evangelion contradicted Marcion's theology, but maybe you're talking about internal tensions within the document. Are there none within the Evangelion?
Evangelion contains things that may contradict Marcion's theology, but it doesn't contain internal contradictions as far as I have seen. When I say contradiction I mean like Luke 1-2 are all about how great Mary is, then Luke 3-23 never mentions her, only one time talking about how Jesus rejected his mother. Its clear that Luke 1-2 is not written by the same person who wrote 3-23, and that whoever wrote Luke 1-2 didn't put much effort into modifying Luke 3-23. My theory is that this was the case because the person who wrote Like 1-2 & 24 was focused on Acts of the Apostles, and didn't have much time to put into his Gospel, so he just added bookends to it and did a minor gloss of the rest. I also think there was a time factor involved, with Luke being written pretty quickly shortly after Marcion's Gospel was popularized.
Do you want to pick three of these things and show how it demonstrates Marcion must be earlier than canonical Luke? Or maybe just start with one.
I would but, right now I'm focusing on my book and kind of want and keep some of those details for that. Plus I'm still in the process of refining the case. But anyway, I think you get the idea.

My main point is, this problem doesn't have to be solved in a single step, and there is growing support for the case that Luke was produced in 2 or 3 stages. Those multiple stages explain why it is that sometimes it appear that Luke is more primitive than Matthew and vice versa. It's because that literally is the case.
Charles Wilson
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by Charles Wilson »

Emphasis added below:
rgprice wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:17 am Matthew makes use of proto-Luke and Mark. So proto-Luke is almost the same as Marcion's Gospel, with some additional material to what we call Luke 3 & 4. The additional material was anti-Marcionite in nature, hence the genealogy, etc. Matthew saw this and thought it a good idea to make a full fledged counter to Marcion's Gospel taking ideas from proto-Luke and harmonizing them with Mark. Matthew made his whole own birth story derived from the genealogy in proto-Luke.
rgprice wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:47 pm Matthew is far more overtly anti-Marcionite than Mark. Mark isn't actually anti-Marcionite at all, it just has a few elements that don't fit Marcionism, but they aren't developed in an anti-Marcionite way. The birth narrative of Matthew is overtly anti-Marcionite.
rgp --

I've traced the Matthean Genealogy to a report in Josephus:

Josephus, Antiquities..., 14, 1, 3:

"But there was a certain friend of Hyrcanus, an Idumean, called Antipater, who was very rich, and in his nature an active and a seditious man; who was at enmity with Aristobulus, and had differences with him on account of his good-will to Hyrcanus. It is true that Nicolatls of Damascus says, that Antipater was of the stock of the principal Jews who came out of Babylon into Judea; but that assertion of his was to gratify Herod, who was his son, and who, by certain revolutions of fortune, came afterward to be king of the Jews, whose history we shall give you in its proper place hereafter..."

The Captivity Section is found in Matthew 1: 11 - 12:

[11] and Josi'ah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
[12] And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoni'ah was the father of She-al'ti-el, and She-al'ti-el the father of Zerub'babel,

If this is Anti-Marcionite, the reasoning is based on one of the 40 copies of Josephus, signed and circulated by Titus. [Edit Note: Possibly also, again, back to Nicholas of Damascus] That is, it is not "merely" made from whole cloth. Nicholas provided the Basic Material for Matthew and Matthew ran with it.

Does this fit in with what you see?

Best to you,

CW
Last edited by Charles Wilson on Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Charles Wilson
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by Charles Wilson »

For a beautiful Explanation of the Lukan Genealogy, see:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5042&p=110922&hilit ... gy#p110922

The best I've found...

CW
rgprice
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by rgprice »

@Charles Wilson

Certainly possible, and could account for some of the alterations he made to the original genealogy. It was anti-Marcionite simply to present Jesus as having been born of a woman, thereby making him a part of the creation. It's possible that interpreting the original genealogy through Josephus contributed to some of the unique aspects of Matthew's genealogy. One can certainly argue for other possible influences from Josephus in Matthew's birth narrative as well.
Charles Wilson
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by Charles Wilson »

rgprice wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:47 pm My main point is, this problem doesn't have to be solved in a single step, and there is growing support for the case that Luke was produced in 2 or 3 stages. Those multiple stages explain why it is that sometimes it appear that Luke is more primitive than Matthew and vice versa. It's because that literally is the case.
[Edit Add:]
rgprice wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:55 am Matthew copied from Luke and then Luke copied from Matthew. This happened because there was a proto-Luke consisting of Luke 3-23 & 1/2. Matthew derived his Gospel from that proto-Luke. Then Luke came along, took proto-Luke as his base, but read Matthew, derived his birth story from Matthew's and then made minor revisions across Luke 3-23 to harmonize it with Matthew.
Thank you for your reply, rgp.

We tend to think that people in olden days could just walk into a Barnabbas and Noblus Book Store down the street and weigh the options as to whether they would buy Matthew in its original Jewish Form or Proto-Luke. Maybe Matthew needed to be translated first. Maybe Proto-Luke was too fractured, like some second rate Vonnegut knock-off. Maybe Marcion was sold only in the back of the store and only when no one else was looking. 8-)

You bring up some good points if what you see is true. Does it make sense that a reader - perhaps an Official, Oh Theophilus - would be living in Spain when these books were first written? "OH!...I've heard of this new religion and if you find any good books on the subject, I want you to load 'em on the back end of a horse and get 'em to me as fast as possible...I'll write you back with an authoritative critique as soon as I can!"

Ummm...No.

It makes sense, for example, that there was exactly one Book of Mark at some point since EVERY Copy we have has the Curious Ending at 16: 8. If there was a Cross-Pollination going both ways between Matthew and Luke, would it make sense that both books were held in close proximity to each other? Or at worst, the Source(s) was held in a place in common for both Schools that were authoring this New Religion?

(That's why this Thread is important!)

Thanx,

CW
rgprice
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Re: A peculiar (and mathematical) argument for Lucan priority and Matthean posteriority.

Post by rgprice »

Just to throw out one more example. Luke 11:29-32 was not present in Marcion. This section, about the "sign of Jonah", looks very much like something that had to have been copied by Luke from Matthew. The whole thing is almost identical between the two in ways that its extremely difficult to imagine would have happened by two people independently working from sources. The 2DH ends up mostly relying on a claim that this is a Mark-Q overlap, therefore explaining that the section existed in Q almost identical to how it exists in Luke and Matthew, and Mark had derived his content from Q but made alternations to it.

However, all of this is much more simply explained by the scenario that Mark 8:12-9:1 was originally developed by Mark. Marcion's Gospel is derived from Mark and mostly follows it in this section. Proto-Luke was the same as Marcion's Gospel here. Matthew, working from proto-Luke, added the part about Jonah. Luke harmonized proto-Luke with Matthew, adding the part about Jonah to his Gospel as well.

When Matthew worked from proto-Luke, he did stuff like collect up the teachings that went into the Sermon on the Mount. Thus, Matthew's Sermon on the Mount is a more developed version of the Sermon on the Plain, with the various teachings found in proto-Luke collected together. In this content, Luke is more primitive and Matthew more developed. Thus, Luke has priority in regard to those passages. In the passage about Jonah, however, Matthew has priority over Luke.

What amazes me is that the whole case for Q is about trying to resolve the observation of "alternating priority", where sometimes it appears that Luke copied from Matthew and sometimes that Matthew copied from Luke. That's what so many scholars see. But instead of simply accepting that that is exactly what happened, they embrace "Q", with some proposal about how both works were independently created in in a single step from mutual sources.

The easy explanation is that its exactly what it looks like. B copied from A, then A was harmonized with B creating A'.
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