brenmcg said
Thanks Hungerhman, its a good summary.

Cheers

brenmcg said
The point about theology over history is Matthew wanting to make Jesus perfect. From Matthew’s understanding the gospel was first preached to fellow Jews, was mostly rejected, and then was begun to be accepted by gentiles. Matthew wants Jesus to have predicted all this, that the apostles were following Jesus’s instructions and that the ultimate goal is discipleship of all nations.

That may not be historically accurate but it is theologically coherent, and coherency is what we’re looking for in priority.

I hear you on the overlay – I can even grant it provisionally. But that overlay does not fix the logico-temporal pretzel of understanding what Jesus is instructing the twelve to do. Even within your theological framing/backdrop, the instructions themselves still strike me as nonsensical if they are supposed to function as foreknowledge of the launch of the gentile mission. It literally has Jesus contradicting himself. And that in my mind causes a problem for coherence. Even saying it is paradox applied as a strategy is all well and good, but even still then, it’s not coherence (but in fact its opposite).

And coherence, I think, is neither suggestive nor dispositive of priority, and neither is it either of these for determining something as derivative in nature. It can and does cut both ways, at least in my head.

brenmcg said

The point about Mark’s style is that even if you could show that it was Mark’s style to insert verses between two verses which naturally read better when uninterrupted, that wouldn’t help with priority. Inserting verses where they don’t belong is a secondary activity, altering an original version.  

Well said. My reponse: Read better to us is one thing, and read better as a criterion for primary vs secondary strikes me as a little tenuous in precisely this situation. I think it works if we know the “insertion” departs from a consistent style – say, sussing out interpolations in Paul. But when we’re talking about compositions that dart and twist a bit erratically all over the place, it becomes much harder to distinguish feature from bug.

Here, I also think we cannot empirically distinguish: (a) a singular compositional stroke all at once that “could read better”, (b) two originally separate pieces that are in the redacting placed nearby to synthesize them into one unit, with an odd interjection in between, and (c) a single original chunk that gets spliced in the redacting by an inserted aside.

We do have some circumstantial evidence that Mark blurts things from time to time. If he didn’t, then this blurt out would be a departure. Since it’s not a departure, perhaps it being part and parcel of Markan style doesn’t establish Markan priority, but it also symmetrically doesn’t establish Markan secondary status either. And then on top of that indistinguishability, Mark 13:10 looks less weird in negative relief of the tortured logic quagmire that results from assuming Matthew is prior here.

Robert said
Lagavulin lilt? That’s a bridge too far for me. Lagavulin is a raging beast that demands more manly respect.   

Hahaha. There’s poetic beauty in even the most unrestrained of these peaty volcanos. Don’t deny me this!

I tremble before the awesomeness of the Bruichladdich Octomore. I dareth not its ire to raise. Should I wrestle it over the course of a night, shall my name need change? 

I have yet to run across it at the store. Perhaps I will need to just order it..

Harder reading criterion would say Mark.

One could make arguments both ways. And one could make arguments from a prior Markan source. I can see why you’d want to make the argument you do – but I’m not succeeding in seeing why it’s the best of the available options.