Stephen said
I support Johannine priority.Why? For the same reasons people think John knew the synoptics, only in reverse. Matthew and Luke are responding to John’s theologizing and amorphous narrative details. (Currently I suspect that Mark did not know John but both Matthew and Luke clearly did. That could change as I keep making stuff up…uh, I mean, thinking things through.) Sooo…
1) Paul’s authentic letters
2) Mark and John, independent of each other
3) Matthew, who knows Mark and John (Q is simply one of Matthew’s sources)
4) Luke, who knows Matthew Mark and John
I still haven’t come up with a catchy name for the Johannine priority hypothesis yet. This is perhaps the most important part.
Why would Matthew and Luke leave out the resurrection of Lazarus?
Omar6741 said
How should we respond to the increasingly popular argument that, since the consensus of recorded early Church fathers was that Mathhew’s Gospel was written first, we should prefer this ancient opinion over the modern critical view that Mark wrote his Gospel first?
Are you saying Mark edited down Matthew as opposed to Matthew embellishing Mark?
Tall tales get longer, not shorter.
Robert said
Mark’s. Definitely. His ending is the more difficult and it best explains the divergent ways that Matthew and Luke try to erase the difficulty. You’re idea that Mark tried to eliminate contradictions between Matthew and Luke cannot explain why Mark he would have create a more difficult alternative nor why he would have also eliminated so many agreements between Matthew and Luke. You must invent another unsubstantiated hypothesis–that Mark’s ending was lost–to try and avoid only one of these difficulties.
I don’t think Mark’s ending was lost avoid any difficulties, I think it was lost because “for the were afraid” is not the original ending. No one who starts their gospel with “this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ son of God” ends with “but the women said nothing to noone for they were afraid”
Of the 6 instances of ἐφοβοῦντο γὰρ or a derivative used in the NT its always at the beginning of a clause not the end of one. “For they were afraid of him” or “for they were afraid of the people” or “for I was afraid of you”, or “For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be”.
The one instance where it ends a clause is at the very end of a gospel giving it an ending that makes no sense.
If you go to the below at 43:55 Reza Aslan recognizes the strangeness of Mark 16:7
” ‘Go tell the disciples and Peter‘ (aside: that’s a weird thing to say) …”
It’s weird because its not the natural way of saying it. The natural way is “go tell the disciples”, which is how its found in Matthew. But Mark is a product of two authors with Peter added into Matthew’s account, for the same reason Luke and John have him. And that’s why it sounds awkward and weird.
Robert said
You should be looking only at the postpositive use of γάρ and you definitely need to look at a much wider corpus of Greek literature than your limited scope of 27 New Testament works, which is much too limited for your desperate attempt at definitive conclusions based on severely limited evidence.
I was only looking at the postpositive uses – and the 27 books of the NT would be the most relevant.
I’m not saying its impossible to end that way but the fact that nowhere else in the NT has a clause ending with “they were afraid for” supports the notion that this wasn’t the intended ending for Mark.
That it makes no sense to you is merely an indication of your lack of imagination, reading comprehension, and a ridiculous bias toward finding arguments of convenience for Matthean priority. It makes plenty of sense to Markan scholars who do share your blatant bias.
The reason it doesn’t make sense is that the harbinger of the resurrection tells the women to go to the disciples and let them know them know Jesus will meet them in galilee just as he told them. Jesus can’t make a false prophecy but how is it supposed to happen if the women say nothing to no-one?
Please, do not expect me to accept Reza Aslan as a New Testament scholar. Try reading some real Markan scholars. But I should also note that even Aslan does not support your conclusion. Just another argument of convenience without any real insight supporting your point. His view is merely that Matthew and Luke were motivated to add differing endings, which essentially agrees with my point above, not yours. Please, Bren, I really do want to spare you such embarrassment.
The point is I’m not the only one who notices something weird about Mark 16:7. That out of the context Aslan realizes there is something strange with how Mark expresses it – but he would never follow through on the implications of this. But he’s correct, there is something weird with how Mark expresses it – and this weirdness makes perfect sense in light of Luke and John’s editions. There aren’t any instances of this with Matthew, where some weird Matthean addition to Mark would make perfect sense in light of Luke/John.
Robert said
You’re still avoiding the fact that Aslan, your own witness, does not in fact support your conclusion. What you consider weird (based on your inveterate objective to argue for a hopeless case)
But I’m not avoiding it. The point is that he doesn’t draw a conclusion. He passes over it only remarking on its oddity. The fact that he would accept Markan priority yet still notice the strangeness in Mark 16:7 negates the claim that I think its weird based solely on an inveterate objective to argue for hopeless cases.
Aslan sees it too – but doesn’t follow through on the implications.
And these are the implications. Its weird because its not natural. Its not natural because it edits the original. Matthew has what looks like the original version.
…the strangeness in ** you do not have permission to see this link **…
Anyone who reads the gospel of Mark seriously will eventually have one of those “WTF?” moments when you are struck by the utter weirdness of the book. The book’s weirdness itself mitigates against it being dependent on Matthew and Luke. Mark is not the solution for anything. As Robert pointed out, for every problem Matthean priority might potentially solve, it creates many more. As I was hinting at with my kleines humorvolles Gedankenexperiment about Johannine priority, if you’re committed to a prior faith position you can rationalize any chain of influence. Only Markan priority solves more problems than it creates. But that still doesn’t mitigate the weirdness of the book by one iota. I’ve said this before but I wish some movie maker would film the gospel of Mark exactly as written. It would instantly become the most controversial Jesus movie ever made. Why? Because most churchgoers never consider Mark as a standalone but always read it (if at all) in tandem with the other, and indeed later, gospels.
Robert said
The implication is merely that Matthew and Luke changed the ending. Whether or not they didn’t understand it (like you) or just didn’t like it is an open question.
So two ancient highly educated literate greek speakers, with more refined grammar than Mark, dont understand his clever use of traditional greek poetic artiface or plot techniques?
Three ancient authors who didnt think 16:8 was a proper ending (Matthew, Luke, and whoever added 9-20). Maybe because in the 1st /2nd century, just like today, 16:8 is not a proper ending.
You seem to regard the original ending of Mark being lost as a historical impossibility. Why?
Stephen said
…the strangeness in ** you do not have permission to see this link **…Anyone who reads the gospel of Mark seriously will eventually have one of those “WTF?” moments when you are struck by the utter weirdness of the book. The book’s weirdness itself mitigates against it being dependent on Matthew and Luke.
Whats weird about Mark? Almost everything in it is in Matthew? Is it just the bits he diesn’t have?
The nativity? Mark goodacre thinks John knew Matthew/Luke, so he has no problem with a later author leaving out the virgin birth.
The ending? Thats weird regardless of whether Mark is first or second (He definitely knows about Jesus appearing to the disciples in Galilee). Whatever answer provided by Markan priority would be the same in Matthean priority, so isnt relevant.
Robert said
Or, as I said above, they didn’t like; in other words, it didn’t suit their purposes. Matthew and Luke are constantly making changes to the gospel of Mark and their changes are always readily understandable.
No they would not always be readily understandable. Matthew changing Mark’s
“Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold” to
“Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty“
is not readily understandable. However Mark changing the other way is.
Matthew changing Mark’s “son of man is lord even of the sabbath” to “son of man is lord of the sabbath” is not readily understandable but the reverse is.
Matthew adding “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” to Mark is not readily understandable but the reverse is.
Matthew adding “don’t go to any town of the samaritans or among the gentiles” is not readily understandable but the reverse is.
etc etc.
Too abstract and anachronistic. It wasn’t a proper ending for their purposes. And today it’s not a proper ending for you, because it doesn’t help your case.
As I said above Mark ending at 16:8 isn’t relevant to Markan priority. If he thinks 16:8 is a good ending he’ll end there regardless of whether or not he’s the original author. We can’t say he was unaware of resurrection appearances.
I never said that. It’s just an unnecessary hypothesis, which you need to support your hypothesis, which has been abandoned nearly unanimously by critical scholars for over a hundred years for very good reasons.
The reason’s for thinking its not the original ending are
1. It’s far too weak an ending for a gospel about the resurrection of the son of god
2. His contemporaries didn’t think it was an appropriate ending
3. It ends with words that everywhere else in the NT are used to begin a phrase not end one.
4. It speaks of events which occur after the ending which can’t occur if the women run away without saying anything to anyone.
Robert said
We’ve discussed most of these before and your idiosyncratic explanations of difficulties are without merit. But, by the way, I deleted the word ‘always’ while you were already quoting me because I remembered how you constantly refuse to understand Matthew’s and Luke’s changes to the gospel of Mark and create idiosyncratic and even fanciful explanations for why you think Matthew’s version is primary. It’s so tedious.
But what’s your explanation for why Matthew would change Mark’s “30, 60, 100” to “100, 60, 30”?
Would the reverse of Mark changing Matthew here not be readily understandable?
It’s very relevant, not from Mark’s perspective, but from the perspective of Matthew and Luke, who both change Mark’s ending in divergent ways that seek to erase the difficulty of Mark’s ending.
Do you agree there’s a difficulty with Mark’s ending? Or how come Matthew and Luke, two more refined authors than Mark, don’t understand his genius?
Some see it as a very powerful ending for a variety of reasons.
But the powerful ending was lost on his contemporaries Matthew and Luke unfortunately. Lost on whoever added 16:9-20. Lost on all those 2nd century christians who preferred the gospel of Matthew. Mark was centuries ahead of his time.
4. It speaks of events which occur after the ending which can’t occur if the women run away without saying anything to anyone.
No, Jesus already told the disciples that he would go before them to Galilee in Mk 14,28. You’re only thinking of some events in Matthew and especially Luke that could not have happened as described there.
No I’m thinking of Jesus meeting his disciples in Galilee. Mark says it happens. But his ending at 16:8 would prevent it happening.
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