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Re[2]: Q and Papias
>On Thu, 27 Oct 1994, Larry Swain wrote:
>> That depends on whether you see the birth narrative as "tacked on" or as
>> a piece of the whole cloth of the gospel. I don't think we can seperate
>> out the birth story as some sort of detachable prologue, and say that
>> the "main" gospel to start with shared Markan material.
>What is to prevent us assuming precisely that as a hypothesis? When I
>first began textual study I was struck with two strange things--how the
>main body of text in Matthew and Luke is essentially Markan, and how
>greatly the chief portions not shared with Mark differ from one
>another--i.e. the birth stories and the resurrection stories. It is
>difficult, in fact, not to think of Mark as the text proper, to which
>Matthew and Luke have each added prologue and epilogue (as well as much
>variation within the core text, which indicates an additional source or
>sources). This is, of course, an
>oversimplification, but even the mythic nature of the birth stories would
>seem to argue for a period of elaboration later than that of Mark.
>David
Another alternative is that Mark is a synthesist, a summarizer of gospel
material. That seems a much more reasonable approach to me.
Mike Thompson