Picking up this discussion now nearly two years later …
Here is ** you do not have permission to see this link ** to a fascinating, if a bit dry, debate between Mark Goodacre and Rob MacEwen on Matthean Posteriority. I must admit that going into this debate Goodacre had utterly convinced me that Luke had access to Matthew, and the Q hypothesis was unnecessary. Well… MacEwen also feels Q is unnecessary, but reverses the relationship between Luke and Matthew. I am a bit stunned to find that MacEwan was winning me over in the debate.
But I digress. MacEwen at 29:33 of that video discusses the evidence that Ignatius knew Luke. Goodacre, who had been persuaded by Steve Mason’s argument that Luke knew Josephus, concedes at 40:40 that it was very frustrating for him to “find out that Luke was known by Ignatius.”
The passages in question are as follows:
Compare Ignatius’ Letter to Smyrnaeans 3:2: “For myself, I am convinced and believe that even after the resurrection he was in the flesh. Indeed, when he came to Peter and his friends, he said to them, ‘Take hold of me, touch me and see that I am not a bodiless ghost.’ And they at once touched him and were convinced, clutching his body and his very breath. For this reason they despised death itself, and proved its victors. Moreover, after the resurrection he ate and drank with them as a real human being, although in spirit he was united with the Father.”
With Luke 24:39: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
Compare also Ignatius’ Letter to Magnesians 5.1: “Yes, everything is coming to and end, and we stand before this choice — death or life — and everyone, will go ‘to his own place.’ Once might say similarly, there are two coinages, one God’s, the other the world’s. Each bears its own stamp — unbelievers that of this world; believers, who are spurred by love, the stamp of God the Father through Jesus Christ. And if we do not willingly die in union with his Passion, we do not have his life in us.”
With Acts 1:24-25: “Then they prayed, ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.'”
Is this surefire proof positive that Ignatius had access to Luke? Not necessarily, but at a minimum he had access to two separate sources that Luke drew upon. However, when you combine Ignatius with the other evidence, it just seems less and less likely that Luke had access to Josephus.
I don’t mean to be dense, but assuming that Ignatius did have Luke-Acts, how does that say anything concerning the likelihood that Luke knew Josephus?
Is the idea that the timeline gets uncomfortably short; Josephus has to publish, then Luke composes his works which get distributed, and then Ignatius has time to read them and incorporate references to them into his own works?
Thanks vergari, very interesting. There’s so much crap on YouTube but there is good stuff too.
One pedantic reminder. When discussing the existence of “Q” the argument is whether or not “Q” existed as a separate document. The material obviously exists. Even it becomes unnecessary to hypothesize the existence of a separate document you’re still left with the question of provenance. And even if the “Q’ hypothesis is unnecessary it doesn’t entirely remove the possibility that the material did exist as a separate document, even if only known by a single evangelist.
What seems more logical than that someone would collect recognized sayings of Jesus? Are we to suppose that Mt or Luke composed these sayings? But how more likely is it that they went around and collected these sayings late in the First century?
Something to consider. If Mark had been completely lost, just how obvious would it be that either Mt or Luke was relying on another gospel rather than simply copying one from the other?
“Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.”
Matthew 24:24-28 “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. So if anyone tells you, There he is, out in the wilderness, do not go out or, Here he is, in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.”
Luke 17:34-37 “I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left. Where, Lord? they asked. He replied, Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather”
In Matthew the vultures are the false messiahs and false prophets that gather round to claim what they are not responsible for. In Luke bizarrely the place Jesus will take the elect is where the vultures will gather.
Matthew is using the phrase in a way which makes sense because he is the original author. Luke uses it in a way that makes no sense because he’s moving around another author’s material.
Yes, Porphyry.
But it’s not simply the temporal distance between Josephus and Ignatius. If Luke-Acts is using Josephus, then it’s a fairly new work for Ignatius — a work first published when he’s well into adulthood.
And yet the “we” passages place Luke into that narrative. That’s obviously not possible if Luke-Acts had only recently been published from Ignatius’ perspective. He would have viewed these works as lacking apostolic credentials.
Stephen, where I’m at right now — and I definitely will change my opinion over time — is that some of material identified as “Q” material did come from earlier documents — not a single document — which includes traditional sayings of Jesus.
It does make a lot of sense that Luke had access to documents which included these saying (“ Many have undertaken to draw up an account . . .”). It also makes sense that these sayings were somehow associated with Matthew, based on patristic sources. Is it possible that Luke composed his gospel based on Mark and these earlier source documents, and then only later did the Matthean community write its own Greek gospel to reclaim the Matthean sayings? I certainly can’t prove that. But it’s a hypothesis with some explanatory power.
“One reason I’m hesitant to completely relinquish “Q” or some “Q-like” source is that I am coming to the view that the gospels are literary creations relying primarily on literary sources rather than primarily on oral sources.”
Stephen, what’s preventing you from accepting that the author of Matthew had a copy of Matthew and the author of Luke had Mark and Matthew?
Stephen, if the Gospels came from literary sources, where did they get the names of all the characters and the towns and villages?
Well the majority of the NT writers are either diaspora Jews or gentiles. I suppose they got their geographic info during whatever education they had or perhaps they actually visited, like Paul.
I did say primarily literary not exclusively. I’m not denying there was an oral component. It was an oral culture after all. What I’m questioning is the idea that Mark went around collecting oral tales himself and first wrote them down. Matthew and Luke’s sources seem to have been primarily literary. Why would Mark be different? Plus, I think Mark is composing episodes based on his own theological views. Doubtless it was not a seamless process.
Stephen, what’s preventing you from accepting that the author of Matthew had a copy of Matthew and the author of Luke had Mark and Matthew?
Literary sources would indeed include knowledge of the other gospels. Luke says as much. I’m just questioning the assumption that all Mark’s sources were oral.
“Well the majority of the NT writers are either diaspora Jews or gentiles. I suppose they got their geographic info during whatever education they had or perhaps they actually visited, like Paul.
“I did say primarily literary not exclusively. I’m not denying there was an oral component. It was an oral culture after all. What I’m questioning is the idea that Mark went around collecting oral tales himself and first wrote them down. Matthew and Luke’s sources seem to have been primarily literary. Why would Mark be different? Plus, I think Mark is composing episodes based on his own theological views. Doubtless it was not a seamless process.”
Stephen, I’m sorry, but I find this extraordinarily far fetched, and really in violation of any number of principles applicable to the discipline of history.
Let’s say you’re a gentile or diaspora Jew living in Asia Minor or on the Italian peninsula . . . and you want to compose a fictional tale about a couple historical characters you know very little about, centered in a part of the world you know almost nothing about. And you want to do this, not based on historical reports, but on literary (ie, fictional) sources.
How do you get basic details about the people and the places? How do you give your characters names? How do you construct geography? How do you learn the names of the villages and towns, and details about those places?
These are not trivial problems. Indeed, I’d these are insurmountable problems.
The hypothesis you advance creates just so many problems, creates extra levels of complication, and really doesn’t simplify much.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert