Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:36 am
Incorrect, and I do not see how you are even arriving at such an illogical conclusion. The question of whether Mark and Q are independent of each other does not change whether Matthew and Luke combined the two independently. Those are logically separate issues.
It absolutely does. If Mark and Q are entirely independent, then the sayings of Q were written with no preconceptions about the Markan narrative. They weren't designed to fit into Mark in any way.
Matthew and Luke both contain many sayings that are integrated with the Gospel of Mark is very similar ways, even when they are repositioned in some cases. If Mark and Q are totally independent, then that means that Matthew and Luke would have to have taken a list of sayings and decided on almost identical ways to merge those sayings into the narrative of Mark all on their own, over and over again. And that, primarily is exactly what the 2DH proposes.
If Q is derived from Mark, however, then the situation is totally different. First of all, there is no need to propose that Q is even a sayings document. At that point Q can just as easily be a Gospel. But lets suppose that its a sayings document. If someone read Mark, then sat down and started making up sayings as they went along in Mark, then they would have built those sayings with Mark in mind in a way that was designed to fit into the Markan narrative. At that point, the sayings would have been like puzzle pieces designed to be fit into a specific place. So two people fitting the puzzle pieces into place would be expected to get similar results. If I hand two people the same jigsaw puzzle I expect that they will both end up with the same picture.
But if I hand two people matching boxes of 1,000 random Legos with no instructions, I don't expect they will both build the same thing with them.
For example, if I were to just randomly amass popular quotes from different sources and I came up with a collection of 100 quotes. And I handed you and someone else a copy of Harry Potter and I tasked you and someone else with incorporating those random sayings into Harry Potter, the result with be very different than if I read Harry Potter and as I went along I made by own sayings that expanded upon the existing dialog Harry Potter. If I did that, and then I handed you and someone those sayings, I'd expect that you would both end up with much more similar results.
And thirdly, if I handed you and someone else my own expansion of Harry Potter, where I re-wrote it and made it longer with more dialog and I told you two to produce your own versions using my longer version as your starting point, then of course you should end up with lots of minor agreements against the original Harry Potter. But at that point, YOU weren't the one "integrating" the new dialog. I was the one who did that. Agreement between you and your counterpart was due to the fact that you were both copying from a single common source. There was no independent integration to begin with.
From :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis
"Therefore, the minor agreements, if taken seriously, force a choice between accepting pure Markan priority on one hand or the existence of Q on the other hand, but not both simultaneously as the 2SH requires."
This forced choice only needs to occur if one assumes the independence of Mark from Q, so obviously this is implicit in the hypothesis. If Q is derived from Mark then the minor agreements are easily explained, as they exist within Q itself, which is already integrated with Mark.
That was Wellhausen's view. He argued that
Q knew Mark. Not many have taken up his idea. But Wellhausen is one of the hallmark names in the history of the Two-Source Theory.
Right, a position that has been rejected by Q theorists, because it essentially invalidates the entire theory. I'm not sure this supports your case. This notes that Wellhausen cast doubt on assumptions of Q, and was then rejected. The existing assumption clearly was that Q was independent of Mark, which Wellhausen challenged. His position was rejected, meaning that the majority of Q theorists reject the idea that Q is dependent on Mark.
And again, if Q is dependent on Mark, then "Q" is just another Gospel. At that point there is no different between saying "Q theory" and "Matthew and Luke both copied from a lost Gospel." But Q theory is not taken to mean talking about a simple lost Gospel, its about a separate sayings source that was independent from Mark. If its not independent from Mark it has no real meaning.
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-source_hypothesis
"While
the standard two-source theory holds Mark and Q to be independent, some argue that
Q was also a source for Mark. This is sometimes called the Modified two-document hypothesis (although that term was also used in older literature to refer to the Four-document hypothesis)"
Even here, Mark is derived from Q, not the other way around. This is used for the appeals to Mark-Q overlaps. But clearly, nothing is said about Q being derived from Mark. Such proposals end up really having nothing do to with Q, and are thus rejected by Q theorists.