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Re: Healing a Leper (Mt8:1-4 = Mk1:40-45 = Lk5:12-16)
> > I beg to differ with your last comment. The standard answer under the
> > two-source hypothesis is that both Matthew and Luke make an effort to
> > make Jesus appear more divine, and to have more characters recognize him
> > as such, than in Mark. Those N.T. Intro textbooks that take the
> > 2-source hyp. seriously usually have numerous examples of this
> > phenomenon, e.g. the disciples' cry during the Stilling of the Storm,
> > and the words of the Syrophoenician/Canaanite woman. I don't mean to
> > start an argument here; I merely wish to point out that this example is
> > not "very difficult" and that it is well documented by those who
> > practise the two-source hypothesis.
>
> Having looked at the use of KURIE to refer to Jesus in Marcan parallels, I
> can say that the only time Luke actually inserts KURIE into a line of
> dialog present in Mark is Lk5:12=Mk1:40, where Matthew makes the same
> insertion (8:2). Also, both Luke and Matthew modify RABBOUNI to KURIE in
> Mt20:33=Mk10:51=Lk18:41. The only other occurences of KURIE in Lucan
> parallels to Mark is Lk22:33 where Peter says something different and 22:49
> where Luke adds an entirely new line of dialog. Somewhat more difficult to
> evaluate is Luke's use of KURIE in 5:8, the Stilling of the Storm, for this
> passage seems to be completely rewritten rather than redacted.
[stuff omitted]
I wonder if we're talking past each other here. I wasn't talking about
the usage of KURIE and related terms. I was talking about the picture
that Luke and Matthew paint of Jesus. Both of them make Jesus appear
less "earthy" than Mark does, according to the 2 source hypothesis.
Both of them make people around Jesus, especially the disciples, more
"reverent." For specifics about Luke, see pp. 90-96 of Cadbury's _The
Style and Literary Method of Luke_. There are a lot of data there. (Is
it pretentious these days to use the plural verb with "data"? I don't
want to be pretentious. It's bad enough just to be a
curmudgeon-in-training. Maybe I should pretend that it's a Greek noun,
and use a singular verb for this neuter plural!)
> > Standard answer under the 2 source hyp: Matthew and Luke tend to avoid
> > Mark's parataxis.
>
> Maybe I misunderstand the term, but doesn't the word KAI in Mark mean that
> there is no parataxis here?
No, I used the wrong word. What I meant is, both Matthew and Luke alter
Mark's inelegant connecting of clauses via KAI, using more
subordination. Again, the intro textsbooks have examples, or look at
Cadbury pp. 143-147.
> > > >> 6. Using EUQEWS instead of EUQUS.
> >
> > Anyone seeing how often Mark uses EUQUS in the first chapter and a half
> > gets sick of that word very quickly. Under the 2 source hyp., it really
> > is a very insignificant coincidence to see Matthew and Luke
> > independently stumble across the same alternative.
>
> I get sick of it too ;-) but I think a little more research into to Matthew's
> and Luke's redactorial tendencies should be in order.
About this word in particular, you mean? Look at Schenk's statistics,
from _Die Sprache des Matthaeus_ p. 269 on adverbial EUQUS: Matthew has
5 instances, Mark had 42, Luke has 1 (+ 1 in Acts), John 3, nowhere else
in NT, 4-6 times in LXX, 60 times in Epictetus. If we think that Mark
was written first, we don't need any more evidence than those numbers, I
think. If someone wanted to outline all the different ways that Matthew
and Luke deal with that word, great. Sounds like a doctoral
dissertation. But considering Schenk's stats for EUQEWS (Matt 13, Mark
0, Luke 6, Acts 9, John 3, other NT 4, LXX 15 incl. 7 in 2 Macc), this
doesn't struke me as much of a coincidence. Under these circumstances,
I'd be surprised if Matthew and Luke DIDN'T stumble across the same
solution sometimes.
> > If the whole of the gospel materials were like that, I'd have doubts
> > about the 2 source hypothesis. But you won't find many texts like this
> > one.
>
> Yes, I think that is the issue. I think the 2 source hypothesis must rely
> on coincidence to explain the minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against
> Mark. Coincidence is not necessarily a poor explanation and can even be
> statistically verified. I only know that most people's (including my own)
> statistical intuition is usually wrong.
Fine, as long as it's part of that new statistics that I've heard about
that doesn't suppose 'randomness' as its baseline. (Don't ask me for
more details; I don't have them.) A lot of the statistical stuff that's
been done on the Bible has used a model that is faulty because texts are
not random. The human mind is still better than any machine at
detecting subtle patterns. But I agree that intuition about statistics
is very often quite wildly off the mark.
> Thanks for the pointer to the database. The 2-source hypothesis does
> explain a lot, but it cannot be strictly two-sourced because Luke's copy of
> Mark seems to be defective (missing Mk6:45-8:26, I think). If this is so,
> is it possible that other changes in Luke's Mark might account for the
> minor agreements with Matthew? Also, scribal harmonization or even
> corruption of Mark are possible explanations.
According to the 2 S H, it's not necessary that Luke's copy of Mark was
defective. He had a lot of stuff to add (Q and L material), some of
which was much more important to his program than most of that 6:45-8:26
material. I am at first quite surprised that he left out the
Syrophoenecian Woman; unlike the rest, that pericope would on the
surface appear to have coincided nicely with his interest in women. He
could have relocated it to a more convenient place. On the other hand,
he does deal with that same theme in his exegesis of Isaiah 61 in
chapter 4, so perhaps it was redundant. In addition, the woman is quite
"forward," which could have presented a problem for Luke (in which
context see Mary Rose D'Angelo's 1990 JBL article [pp. 441-461] showing
that Luke's treatment of women's roles is ambiguous).
> Stephen Carlson
Sterling Bjorndahl
--
Sterling G. Bjorndahl, bjorndahl@Augustana.AB.CA
Augustana University College, Camrose, Alberta, Canada (403) 679-1516
When dealing with computers, a little paranoia is usually appropriate.
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