Loading...I’m pleased to give this Platinum Guest Post by Dennis Folds, a highly informed and informative assessment of the relationship between the infancy stories of Matthew and Luke. A lot has been said about these stories over the years, but Dennis has an intriguing perspective that I don’t recall seeing before. Terrific! Read it and see what you think. And send some comments/questions for Dennis.
Do you have a post to send along for Platinum members? It does not need to be highly informed, erudite, researched: just something you’ve been thinking about that you would like to share with other Platinum members, anything related to the many issues we deal with on the blog. The queue is virtually empty now, so send your post along!
For now: here’s Dennis.
******************************
The Synoptic Problem is the framework in which scholars debate about the commonalities among the three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. A lot of material is in all three, more material is common to two of the three, and the remainder is found in only one. Very little is found only in Mark, but both Matthew and Luke have significant content not found in the other two gospels. The drastically different nativity stories in Matthew and Luke are often cited as examples.
Perhaps the most common Synoptic Problem position nowadays is the Two Document Hypothesis, which holds that Mark and a long-lost document called Q were two primary sources that Matthew and Luke used, independently, as they wrote their gospels. A major competitor is the Farrer hypothesis, which posits that Mark wrote first, Matthew used Mark, then Luke used both Matthew and Mark as he wrote. In this post I’ll argue in favor of the Farrer hypothesis. I’ll argue that Luke’s nativity story is directly a rewrite of Matthew’s, in which he altered it significantly, making it a much better story. Mary and Joseph become much more appealing characters, at least to the Gentile world.
I gather from Luke’s introduction that he was familiar with “many” other attempts to write an orderly account, but he thought he could do better. Much better. Throughout Luke we find triple tradition material (i.e., Mark, Matthew, and Luke) and double tradition material (Matthew and Luke, but not Mark), in which Luke improves the stories both in narrative and in appeal to the non-Jewish world. Moreover, much of the material that is only found in Luke is exceptionally well-written narrative. For example, the parables found only in Luke tend to be lengthy, with a well-developed plot, and a complex message. The big three are only found in Luke: Prodigal Son, Good Samaritan, and Rich Man and Lazarus.
Before I address his rewrite of the nativity story, I’ll point out the most significant rewrite in his gospel: the crucifixion story. The crucifixion story as told by Luke is the only one in which Jesus behaves in a noble manner. In Mark, he suffers and dies, and just utters one thing, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is an anguished cry, perhaps of defeat. Matthew makes some modifications but retains just the one saying on the cross. In contrast, Luke has Jesus take time while being led to the cross to comfort the grieving women along the way. He prays, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” as he is being nailed to the cross. In both Mark and Matthew, the two thieves on either side of Jesus mock and taunt him, but in Luke, one of them says something to the effect that Jesus probably didn’t deserve to be put to death. Jesus then has a forgiving interchange with him, and promises that, “This day, you will be with me in paradise.” So, in Luke, Jesus behaves as a great man should in the face of death. There is no anguished cry of defeat. He is noble and gracious.
Now for the nativity story: Matthew launches into “now the birth of Jesus happened this way:” and proceeds to narrate a few events, peppered with claims of how those events fulfilled Jewish prophecies. When we read those actual prophecies, none of Matthew’s claims are straightforward readings of the prophecies. If an interested reader goes back and looks at those prophecies, it seems that Matthew really stretches to make them fit the events surrounding Jesus’s birth. Maybe, to the Jewish audience, these hidden meanings are treasured. But to the broader readership, they are unconvincing. Luke leaves all that stuff out. But he takes Matthew’s events and turns them into a well-written, integrated story.
- Matthew says that Joseph was engaged to Mary, and before they came together, she was found to be of child “of the Holy Spirit.” Wow! This is something that never happened before. How could that happen? How did that happen? So, Luke writes the story of how that happened. It started with the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and telling her what was going to happen. Mary questions how it could be, and Gabriel explains how it will be. The Holy Spirit is going to “overshadow” her and cause her to become present. In a way, it is a very sexual image (though not prurient). And Mary agrees to it.
- In Matthew, Joseph is inclined to divorce Mary but does not, after a dream. He marries her and somehow they are in Bethlehem when the child is born. To Luke, Joseph’s abandoned thought of divorcing Mary adds nothing to the story, so he drops it. But how did they get to Bethlehem when everyone knew they were from Nazareth? Luke’s story of how that happened became, perhaps, the most widely read story in history. He invented a census in which everyone was required to go to their “own city” and register for the property tax. (He did not say people went to the cities of their ancestors, but to their own city.) He explains that Joseph had to go to Bethlehem to register, because, by inference, he had property there. In describing this census of the “whole world” he refers to the census taken by Quirinius, about 10 years later, which led to widespread revolt. But in Luke’s story, Joseph is a compliant subject of Rome, doing what the emperor ordered. So that’s how Joseph, with his pregnant fiancé, came to be in Bethlehem. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
- In Matthew, Jesus’s birth is heralded by the appearance of a star, the significance of which was perceived only by a few magi from Persia. At first, the best they can do is come to Jerusalem and ask around. Somehow, they get audience with Herod the Great, who brings in some consultants, who tell them the child would be born in Bethlehem. The star reappears somehow and leads them to the house where the child is found. They bring grand gifts for him, then leave and skedaddle out of town, telling no one what they had found. What a dumb story! Luke rewrites it. First, in the ancient world, the fixed stars were widely thought to be divine beings of some sort, angels you might say, who took their journey across the night sky. The five visible planets were associated with gods. (In Revelation, when there is war in heaven between Satan’s angels and Michael’s angels, when Michael prevails, a third of the stars fall from the sky.) In Luke’s telling, Matthew’s star of Bethlehem becomes the angel of the Lord, who appears to some shepherds near where the child is born. And in plain Aramaic, the angel told the shepherds what had happened, and how to find the child. The angel was then joined by a big group of other angels/stars, the heavenly host, singing praises. No consultants needed. The shepherds go and find the child just as the angel said, and they went away and told everybody. This is a much better story. And it also transforms the special visitors who see the child from esoteric Persian magi to common shepherds. The child is born in an humble setting, laid in a manger, and visited by shepherds. This is a great improvement.
- Matthew has Joseph take Mary and the baby and flee to Egypt. Luke has Joseph take Mary and the baby straight into Jerusalem to do everything the Jewish law required. Not only were Joseph and Mary compliant Roman subjects, they were also compliant adherents to the Jewish religion. These were good folks, nothing to fear here.
- Rather than validate the specialness of the birth of Jesus with obscure interpretations of Jewish prophecies, as Matthew did, Luke has the birth validated by two Spirit-filled elders there in the temple, both of whom were awaiting the appearance of this special child. Both Simeon and Anna recognize the child as the Lord’s chosen one, and proclaimed that recognition to everyone around.
Luke isn’t trying to write “history” in the documentary sense. He is writing the story of a man of faith, a man of prayer, a Spirit-led man who was obedient to the very end, even in a tragic death. He was vindicated when God raised him from the dead. The other attempts to tell his story were inadequate, so Luke improved on them. In modern terms, Luke wasn’t trying to write a documentary of the life of Jesus of Nazareth; he was writing the screenplay for a blockbuster movie. He writes word-for-word dialog between angels and humans. He gives us a quick scene of Jesus at age 12, asking questions in the Temple and impressing the scribes there. Luke’s Jesus can read and write, and teaches his disciples what the scriptures mean.
Luke was not a graduate student writing his thesis, being careful to not go beyond “sources” he trusted nor “traditions” to which he had access. Rather, he was a skilled writer who, in fact, wrote the greatest story ever told.
Terrific article. Very interesting. Thanks for submitting it.
I’m not clear on why the fact that Luke’s nativity story is longer than, more detailed than, and different from Matthew’s means that Luke rewrote Matthew’s. (Whether Luke’s story is “better” is debatable.) Isn’t it just as likely that there were two independent oral (perhaps even written) traditions and that Matthew drew from one and Luke drew from the other. The fact that the two are so dramatically different seems to suggest so. Take away the differences and what’s left? Mary was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was born, and the family ended up in Nazareth. Luke doesn’t need Matthew to take those basic traditions and invent his own version of events.
The view you state is the conventional one, viz, that they are so different they must be independent. My alternative is that, given I see signs of Luke improving Matthew elsewhere in his gospel, I can see his nativity as a major rewrite, using Matthew’s basic elements. The genealogy is embarrassing, with its triple fourteens so contrived. It mentions the spectacular event of a young woman becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit but offers no detail. It has Joseph fleeing from the authorities. It has them in Bethlehem with no explanation of how they got there. And then there’s that dumb magi-and-star story. So I think Luke did a complete rewrite, narrating the conception and having Mary agree to it, having Joseph and Mary be compliant and faithful, not refugees, and having the birth in a pastoral setting, heralded by angels and visited by shepherds. His result rivals Virgil’s account that was widely thought to be the story of the legendary birth of Augustus. I think this is what Luke was after: A nativity story befitting the greatest man who ever lived.
For now, I think your hypothesis is conjectural. Luke is far beyond a “re-write”, beyond the basic motif, is a contradictory account of the nativity stories. So I’d tend to agree with the “conventional” view the accounts were independently conceived. Luke makes John the Baptist Jesus’ cousin, then later writes canticles given by Mary and others declaring Jesus as the Son of God and Israel as the most mighty of nations, pure OT, but how contrived they sound. Having Jesus hometowned in Bethlehem is much more straightforward than having Jesus born in Nazareth with the family needing to register for an historically inaccurate census to get him born in Bethlehem to meet messianic expectations. I have a question though. Just when do you think the idea of a virgin birth via the Holy Spirit first arose? I’m struck by the lack of mention of any birth narrative in either Mark, or John, which was written later. John’s mother is just about, with no hint of a special birth, and accounts a criticism that Jesus was *not* born in Bethlehem but Nazareth, disqualifying him as a possible messiah. What did the Church fathers think of these contradictions. Thoughts?
Certainly I’ve posed a conjecture, namely, Luke had Matthew in hand, found his nativity story to be inadequate, and rewrote it. He kept the basic elements: she got pregnant “by the Holy Spirit”, and gave birth in Bethlehem. He wove a well-written story around those elements, changing the mysterious star to a plain-talking angel, and the rare magi to common shepherds. The “requirement” that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem isn’t really in the text of Micah; a more straightforward reading of that prophecy is that the Messiah would be of David’s “clan”. (I don’t think a non-descendant of David who happened to be born in Bethlehem would have counted.) Matthew just doesn’t develop the potential of his story. One of the common ideas in the ancient world was that the characteristics of a child were determined by the passion of the parents, thus Jesus was the result of the passion of God, not of a human father. And there is a direct reference to that idea in John 1:13. I don’t know the idea of the virgin birth originated, other than Matthew. And I don’t know what the church fathers thought about it.
If not directly in Micah, then commonplace by NT times if either Matthew or John are to be given any value. Both Matt and Luke make sure of it. My point with Luke’s dramatically elevated treatment of Mary is that it was at odds with Matthew, the springboard for the Marian cults which took up such attention later. That would never have happened with only Matthew. The canticles i think deserve special attention here, as i remarked already, they are far beyond a “rewrite”. I also find it hard to believe Luke could variant Matthew on so many points: Jesus born in Bethlehem versus Nazareth; shepherds vs magi, Herod’s plot up to 2 years after Jesus’ birth, slaughter of the innocents, escape to Egypt etc all dropped out entirely by Luke. That is well beyond re-write. And what about making Jesus John the Baptist’s cousin no less! I think you’re pushing way too hard on your conjecture. As for the obscurity of OT references, ALL of the gospels indulged in that one, it was a wholesale hijacking of the OT to serve this new sect’s justifications. Enjoyable post you did nonetheless. Thanks!
This seems like a decent argument that Luke might have had a copy of Matthew’s version of the nativity story (from Q? some proto-Matthew?) that he tweaked. I’m not sure it sells the full Farrer hypothesis (or the two-gospel hypothesis that skips Mark entirely, for that matter). If Luke had a full copy of Matthew, why would he change the names in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus? That’d be really weird and it’s hard to imagine any literary reason to do so. Also, why would Luke not include the Sermon on the Mount? That’s a pretty great story, too, right up Luke’s alley.
Actually there is a very good reason to change the genealogy – Matthew includes Jeconiah, of whom Jeremiah prophesied: Write this man childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed will prosper, sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah”. Also, Matthew fudges to get 14 generations in each block, having to omit some and repeat one. Embarrassing, to say the least. Needed to be rewritten.
Re: “In Luke’s telling, Matthew’s star of Bethlehem becomes the angel of the Lord…”
Couldn’t it have been the other way around? In the rival hypothesis of “Matthean Posteriority” it is supposed that, given Matthew’s theme of unexpected Gentile righteousness (eg. the inclusion of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Uriah in the genealogy), the Magi make a “better” story. Why not suppose that in Matthew’s telling, Luke’s angel of the Lord became a star of Bethlehem?
Sure, you could interpret it that way. I think if you compare the overall rewrites of Luke vs Matthew, the preponderance of the changes look like Luke improving Matthew, not the other way around. But others see it differently. As you can tell, I think the angel speaking plainly to nearby shepherds is better than a mysterious star detected in Persia.
I forgot to say thanks for making a parallel between Luke’s angel of the Lord and Matthew’s star of Bethlehem. I had not heard of doing that before. It makes sense. Is that your original hypothesis?
As far as I know, it is my original. But I’m not a NT scholar so I haven’t read all the literature.
Excellent ideas. Thank you for this. I’ve always been troubled that scholars seem so convinced that Luke did not know Matthew’s gospel. Surely with so few writings to draw from, Christians would have carried copies of what did exist to other communities. It makes sense that a writer such as Luke would be disappointed in Matthew’s version, had a great deal more information to convey through “Acts,” and therefore wrote a better narrative for his community hoping it would travel to other groups of Christians, perhaps supplanting other narratives. Or perhaps he wrote his books and had copies sent to church communities he knew about because he thought he had compiled something that would further the missionary efforts better than what had come before.
Not being a NT scholar, I, too, am puzzled as to why so many of them are convinced Luke could not have known Matthew.. They seem to think that he would have copied it exactly if he had known it. They can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have copied the Sermon on the Mount verbatim, because it is such a grand composition. Luke does use a lot of that material, dispersed throughout his gospel. He does have a shorter version that starts with his version of the beatitudes. But Matthew has Jesus delivering this l sermon up on a mountain somewhere, which is dumb. Luke has him deliver it on a plain, where people could gather and listen to him. The idea that if Luke had Matthew he would have just copied Matthew is fatally flawed, I think. That rule should apply to Q as well. If Matthew and Luke were both using Q, then at least one of them didn’t copy it, but rewrote it. I think that Luke found Matthew to be poorly composed and was inspired to improve upon them, as you say, to improve their usefulness in the missionary efforts.
The objections line up. A few:
1. If Luke’s nativity story is a later add-on, as thought by many, it would not disprove the Q hypothesis. Luke may have been influenced by Matthew for this part, but not the rest of the gospel.
2. The methodology is problematic. If a piece of literature can depend on some precursor by both expansion and overriding, then we have no way of falsifying the hypothesis. In reality Luke and Matthew has almost no overlap and that speaks for independence except for the (inherited) linking of the two villages.
3. “dumb” story elements to be replaced: The dumbest piece of invention ever made is Luke having Joseph dragging Mary through the wilderness just prior to birth, without a marital status. Wildly impossible in a Jewish setting.
I’m a card-carrying scientist, and I can assure you that what I’ve written here is not scientific. Tbere’s no way to ever disprove Q. But it is manifestly true that one piece of literature can be influenced by an earlier piece by both expansion, contraction, and other forms of alteration. When I compare Luke to Matthew and Mark, I find that Luke consistently improves narrative. He drops non sequitur plot points and superfluous detail, adds reason, and enhances the great attributes of Jesus. Coupled with his opening statement about “many” other attempts, I find the idea that he had Matthew and Mark both in mind when he wrote Luke to fit well what I observe when I compare them.
I guess we’ll have to disagree on whether a pregnant woman traveling from one town to another is dumber than a star that only magi could see, that only led them to the general area, and then reappeared to lead them to the house. But you are right in that it would have been an arduous journey for a pregnant woman,
Q, the way is formulated, can be tested. One can look for expected or unexpected structures and thus weaken or corroborate the hypothesis. This has been done, so there is a more evidence for Q than against it.
When there is almost no overlap between Matthew and Luke, it means Luke or Matthew dropped almost everything from the another.
It is not just that the journey is ardous. It is impossible. Her kinsfolk would have said are you completely nuts Joseph. And the townsfolk would have compelled them to marry on the first signs of pregnancy or expelled them. The story does not work historically only in in a fairy tale reference frame, just like Matthew.
I’ll bet the overwhelming number of Christians believe explicit words in the Old Testament explicitly predict the birth of Christ hundreds of years later. I’ll bet very few of those Christians could quote verbatim those words, or cite the verses in which they are found, much less discuss the context in which they were written. The nativity stories are some of the best fairytales ever written. In my view, only the creation and flood tales outdo them. I mean, at least it’s angels that are conversing with humans, not a snake or a jackass.
I think you are right, in that people are told that there is an uncannily high number of prophecies that were all fulfilled precisely by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But when you go read them, it requires finding a hidden meaning, sometimes just a clever play on words, to fit anything about Jesus. I think all these stories serve a great literary purpose and are to be appreciated. They lose much of their value in the face of insistence to take them literally.
That’s an interesting idea. Thank you for writing this up.
I think the argument is rather subjective though. To say Luke’s version is “better” is a matter of preference. Some may argue that they prefer Matthew’s version. Escaping to Egypt is certainly a pretty epic story!
I think there remains one very strong argument as to why Luke didn’t use Matthew or vice versa and that is that the Q sayings appear in totally different orders and contexts (ex: sermon on the mount vs sermon on the plain). If Luke was using Matthew, it’s very odd that he mixes around just the Q sayings. What makes more sense is that both Matthew and Luke used Mark as their primary narrative source and then interspersed Q (which was mostly just sayings like Thomas) into their own gospels as they saw fit. That’s why Q sayings appear in different locations in Luke/Matthew. If Luke was using just Matthew, it’s hard to explain why he remixed just these verses and nothing from what was in Matthew that was drawn from Mark.
Excellent points! However, I am not convinced that Luke was working off of Matthew’s birth story, rather than a generic version that maybe they both had. One reason for thinking Matthew and Luke knew Mark is that they sometimes leave intact exact phrases and sentences from Mark. Not likely unless you are copying. Does Luke use any of the same sentences, word-for-word, that we find in Matthew? Seems odd that he would sometimes leave Mark’s words intact but not Matthew’s. Still, it’s possible. But it would be more convincing if we had such evidence of copying. I agree with your overall assertion that Luke was skillfully retelling the story to “improve” it, and it is an improvement, although it has its own internal problems. Still makes for a good Christmas pageant, though!
As I understand it (and I don’t read Greek), there are many instances of verbatim agreement in the double tradition (Matthew and Luke). So they could have copied Q word for word. If there is no Q, then Matthew could have copied Luke word for word if he was writing third. My main point is that when they differ slightly, Luke’s version improves the story as narrative. I mentioned his rewrite of the crucifixion. Another prominent one is the rewrite of the Transfiguration story. All three synoptic accounts are slightly different. But only Luke gives a reason: Jesus is there talking to Moses and Elijah about his imminent departure (“exodus”). Neither Mark nor Matthew give a reason for the event. That’s just one example, but there are many others (in my view). That’s why I think Luke wrote last and was deliberately improving on the narrative.
Excellent post. I have long imagined Luke reading or hearing Matthew’s story and thinking, “Wow, great ideas but I could tell this so much better! And I always use the analogy of the evangelists as the ancient equivalent of modern-day movie makers: Mark is Oliver Stone, while Luke is Steven Spielberg.* It can’t be proven, and it doesn’t eliminate the likelihood of some independent double tradition. While something like Q is no longer necessary, it certainly is not implausible.
As for verbatim agreements in the Greek text, they are definitely there in much of the hypothetical Q material. Luke uses an awful lot of Mark’s material, but you don’t really see all that much verbatim copying, as is seen in some Q passages. Q already contained pithy sayings, but Mark’s Greek needed almost constant polish.
*Matthew is Barbara Streisand, by the way. Not that great of a story-teller, but she definitely has her own voice.
Very interesting perspectives on the two stories. I see the two stories as different ways of explaining how Jesus could have been born in Bethlehem (to meet prophecies) when people knew he had grown up in Nazareth. In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph and Mary are living in Bethlehem (baby Jesus in a house in 2:11), they flee to Egypt to escape the killing of male children, and decide not to return to their home in Bethlehem because it is not safe and instead go to Nazareth where Jesus grows up. In Luke, they are first living in Nazareth, go to Bethlehem for the census where Jesus is born in a manger, and then return Nazareth. I see the writings as if one wasn’t aware of the other’s, and vice versa.
Agreed, I am of the same mind as well but Luke preferred using his assembly’s apologetics to link Yeshua to Bethlehem and David in particular.
The funny irony is that Nazareth wasn’t a town or a village within the 1st century, no one whatsoever [but the gospels] mentioned a town with that name during that era.
It was Jesus the Nazarene & since the greco-romans [even today within most of non Hebrew speakers] wouldn’t understand what a Nazere/Nazarene is. They assumed it was a town, since people were called by their town, So the Nazarene was garbled to be the Nazareth.
It is very interesting that almost every modern-day spoken or written account of the crucifixion (as in paragraph 4 above) includes Jesus being “nailed” to the cross. It seems a natural flow with “traditional” preconceptions and this sensational detail cannot help but be mentioned. But the term “nails” is never used in any of the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, or in the Pauline letters. Wounds (nail or spear) are not mentioned in the post-appearance story in Luke. Jesus asks his disciples to look at exposed parts of his body not covered by clothing (i.e., his hands and feet) to prove he is not a ghost and to calm their fears.
Thank you for an interesting post !
The late John S Spong argues quite well that the Gospels were at least in part a collection of Jewish midrashic stories that convey the meaning of Jesus, and since you talks about the gospel according to Matthew, keep in mind that it was supposed to have been written in the 80’s or so. when Christianity was still in the synagogues. He also makes plausible arguments that he does not read most of these stories literally. A good and entertaining book that in this context can be interesting to read is his book called “Liberating the Gospels. Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes”.
In Matthew the angel appears to Joseph and it is Joseph who makes all the decisions when protecting the family.
In Luke the angel appears to Mary and Joseph is reduced to a third wheel just tagging along.
By the time Mark writes, Joseph, along with any mention of an earthly farther, is erased entirely from Jesus-the-son-of-god’s story.
This is for Bart. I think the Farrer hypothesis would be a good topic for the blog and hope that you will write about it.
Yup, I keep getting asked about it. I have dealt with it, only not my name, in my posts on Q.
The very beginning of Luke show that his intention was to improve existing gospels
Luke 1:1
“ Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us…With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account”
I think the author of Luke not only had Mark and Mathew and probably other non-NT gospels, he also had the Paul letters and Jospehus works on his desk, but there is a good explanation to the obvious improvement of the (very) poor Mathew work on the Nativity Story….
Bart in a previous work (https://ehrmanblog.org/lukes-first-edition-for-members/)
“I pointed out that there are good reasons for thinking that the Gospel originally was published – in a kind of “first edition” – without what are now the first two chapters, so that the very beginning was what is now 3:1”
In another article/post I can’t now find, Bart explains that what he really thinks is that in fact Luke 3:1 followed Luke 1:4 , and Luke 1:5 – 2:80 was a later addition.
Sir, thanks for your interesting article. A quick question: Do you know of any prophesies in the Old Testament, that in your mind, can be applied directly applied to Jesus without using a play of words as you imply?
The easy answer is “no”. The passages in the prophetic books are always about then-current events, or about eventual Day-of-the-Lord events that still haven’t happened. For example, the passage in Micah that says that the Messiah will come out of the clan of Bethlehem goes on to describe his great conquests – which certainly were not realized in Jesus’s time, no matter where he was born.
In addition to the passages in the prophetic books, there are many passages in Psalms that were (and still are) interpreted as being about the Messiah, and consequently, about Jesus. These are poetic, sometimes generically applying to anyone in distress, sometimes looking forward to some future redemption or national vindication. These don’t require a play on words to apply to anyone, but I don’t think they can be “directly applied to Jesus” in any sort of unique, direct predictions of any one (and only one) future event.
Hi Dr. Folds. You claim that Luke isn’t trying to write “history” in the documentary sense. Three quick questions:
1. Do you think Luke regarded his account of Jesus’ nativity as something like what the philosopher Plato regarded a “likely story” in his Timaeus – in other words, not an historically true account, but as close to the truth as we were ever likely to get?
2. Do you think he intended his readers to take it as nothing more than a “likely story,” or do you think his preface (Lk. 1:1-4) suggests that he intended people to regard his account as historically accurate?
3. Given that the Gospels are bioi, how did historians of antiquity regard the inclusion of non-historical episodes in a biography? My understanding, from reading the writings of Dr. Ehrman, is that even in antiquity, this was a big no-no: you couldn’t fabricate episodes out of whole cloth if you were writing a biography. Or do you disagree?
1. No. I think he intentionally composed a story meant to accurately portray the character of Jesus, using fictionalized accounts of events that likely happened in some form. The truth he was trying to get close to was the character of Jesus, not the literal events of his life. He used Mark and Matthew and probably others as sources of information about those events and composed his story around them.
2. As his introductory remarks state, he wanted his reader to be assured, “so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed”. Those things, I think, were about Jesus being the Son of God, whom God vindicated by raising him from the dead. They were about Jesus as a man of faith, a man of prayer, a Spirit-filled man, who was obedient to his mission. So his narrative emphasized those things.
3. I’m not a scholar of antiquity, but I gather that Plutarch gave advice and exemplars about how to write the story of a great man. I think Luke’s gospel largely conforms with those ideas. The episodes in Luke consistently reflect Jesus’s character.
I can think of several ways the Luke gospel is more developed than either Matt or mark is. One area is his treatment of Jesus’ “eschatological” statements. In mark 13 its a point blank reference to the destruction of the temple. Matthew 24 throws in a ton of stuff really blurring into end of time style references. Luke splits the Matthew account into 2 sections ch 17 and ch 21. It seems clear to me that ch 21 of Luke like mark 13 is pretty much point blank destruction of the temple/Jerusalem, but in ch 17 seems to hint at the coming of the kingdom… whatever that was supposed to be.
I assume that the statements common to matthew and Luke are from a similar received tradition. I am more inclined to believe rather than rewriting matthew as a source per se, he simply was aware of the statements jesus allegedly made and wove them into a setting that spoke toward a fulfillment that had metaphorically been realized by his audience. The earth shattering coming of the kingdom/coming of the son of man to the Luke/acts writer is the birth of the church. What do you think?
I think Luke still expects Jesus to return soon (in Luke’s lifetime). The church is not the Kingdom of God for Luke; but it is part of God’s plan so that his salvation can go to the “ends of the earth” before the end comes.
But Dr Ehrman, look at his treatment of Joel chapter two, as he places it on the lips of Peter. Peter – according to Luke/Acts – claims the wild events spoken of by the prophet Joel were coming about right before their very eyes. Acts 2:14ff even the sun being turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Thats full flavor apocalypse. And Luke/Acts believes it was fulfilled, and so places it on the lips of peter in his famous Pentecost sermon. Who knows what Peter the apostle thought the coming of the kingdom was, i am inclined that he believed jesus was a davidic style messiah, but by the time the Luke gospel was written, i argue that the nature of the imminent catastrophe had shifted. Jesus predicted something would happen, it didnt in his lifetime. Later readers applied it to the 70 CE earth shattering events. Still maybe 15 years later, it was reinterpreted to mean something else. I see a clear progression from Mark to Luke in this way with Matthew in the middle. If Luke/Acts doesn’t see apocalyptic fulfillment of some sort at Pentecost in ch 2, why have Peter claim it is?
He definitely thought Pentecost was was a fulfillment of prophecy. The end times have started. But they have note ended. They end with the coming of Jesus, soon to happen, now that the church has spread throughout the world.
I’m not convinced that there was any intended reference to a 2nd coming (That I refer to as 3rd coming). After the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135) was when Rome erased Jerusalem and Judea off the earth. That would be the “End of Times” The literal belief of the world witnessing Jesus descending in the clouds has issues with a literally round earth. Such return of Jesus would have to be a spiritual (supernatural) vison. I don’t disagree that Luke may not have believed the End Times had ended, but I think it would have been painfully obvious after the erasure of Jerusalem and Judea after he wrote both Luke and Acts. Obviously I believe that all future prophesy was completed by early 2nd century. The physical End Time for everyone is the death of their flesh. At that point they will change into their spiritual body in the twinkling of an eye. I don’t believe this view conflicts with 1Cor 15:52.
Great 😊 ideas Dennis 👏👏.
I am also convinced that the anonymous writer of Luke had Matthew & Mark accessible.
The difference though is mirrored in Yeshua’s brothers stories. The east called them cousins & the west called them Joseph sons from previous marriage.
The issue was simply quite an argument about Mary having sex with Joseph & the concurrent belief among Christians rejected that concept, so each region invented its own Apologetics along with Mary perpetual virginity 🤪.
The same with birth narrative, Jewish faithfuls who rejected Yeshua as the meshiach argued that Meshiach has be son of David, so east invented Matthew’s material & west invented Luke’s material, when Luke was written, he opted to take the tradition within his assembly which was much better dramatic than the Matthew since it was predominantly hellenistic with better drama 🎭 .
Better drama, indeed, both in the gospel and in Acts. That author – might as well call him Luke (irrespective of whether the same person authored both books) — had a flair for writing drama. His depiction of the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and of the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus, are among the best scenes in the NT. They dramatically depict the conversion of the cowardly disciiples into outspoken proponents of the (Jesus) Way, and of the earth shattering reversal of a persecutor of the Way to become its most effective spokesman. Neither story should be seen as documentary, but as a way to understand the importance and magnitude of both transformations.
What do we know about the Virgin Birth tradition outside of Matthew and Luke? The idea comes from a passage mistranslated into Greek from the Hebrew pulled completely out of context from deep within Isaiah to provide support that Jesus was the Messiah. That is quite a stretch and does not seem that the two of them (loosely speaking of the authors as specific individuals) would have come up with the story independently. Neither Mark nor Paul (our earlier sources) mention it. It seems that the story element must have come from a common source or else one tradition borrowed from the other. And if Luke or Matthew bases the virgin birth element on a reading of the other, then it is not a stretch to read one nativity story being developed as a re-write of the other. (EDIT: And if Luke is not using Isaiah for this purpose, why does he create a Virgin Birth story at all? Just to make everything seem that much more magical?)
I think Matthew was attracted to the Jewish notion that their scriptures had clever, hidden meanings. This was their great “wisdom” tradition, typically associated with Alexandria. Some believers in Corinth were also attracted to that tradition; Paul explicitly counters it in 1 Corinthians. So Matthew found a hidden gem in the Isaiah passage about a young woman (rendered as ‘virgin’ in his Greek text) conceiving that had been fulfilled by Mary becoming pregnant “by the Holy Spirit”. No one can know where Matthew got that idea to begin with, but maybe it was Mary’s story and she was sticking to it. In any case, he made a passing reference to it in his gospel. Luke picked up on it and composed the story of how it happened, making is clear that the Holy Spirit was an active agent in the conception, and that Mary agreed to it. I think Luke used Matthew, not Isaiah. He sure didn’t claim that it fulfilled any prophecy.
Early Christians were trying to convince Roman authorities to take them seriously as an ancient religion so they could avoid persecution. What better way to show that than to connect prophecies from the Hebrew Bible to Jesus.
That’s one of the best arguments to understand that Luke relies upon Matthew; the Virgin Birth is a Matthew invention. I agree with Bart in that the first “Luke” did not include chapters 1 and 2 but I think that Luke was written well after Matthew …
I can’t understand why Papias statement about the gospels is so dismissed.
Being “an ancient man who was a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp” he only knew Mark and Matthew ,he was a kind of a prophet that could see the first two gospels of the NT long before the NT began to develop.?
Or is the other way around? These two gospels were included as the two first in the NT because somehow the church knew they were really ancient . Both Luke and John were composed in the 2nd century and this explains why by the time Papias wrote his work he did not mention the third or fourth gospel
The nativities seem quite different statements. Consider the grandfathers:
Jacob in Matthew. This relationship is obvious. Jacob (in Bethel) > Joseph > dreams resulted in exile in Egypt > father and son buried back in promised land (Jacob in Hebron near Bethlehem).
If that sounds a simplistic comparison with Matthew consider the incidentals in Genesis:
Repetition of “three days”
Wine and bread (cupholder and baker)
False accusations
Worship
Myrrh (a throw forward to Jacob’s embalming?)
Pieces of silver
Heli in Luke. Eli was patron (but not actual father) of Samuel. Luke draws upon Hannah’s joy in Mary’s magnificat. Eli > Samuel > is a Nazarite* > last act is anointing David in Bethlehem.
* could reflect geographic sequence of Luke’s nativity or prophetic sequence (JtB > X)
Why would the church allow several versions of the same events in the Bible?
This is quite fascinating! It is indeed interesting to consider the possibility that Luke was working with a copy of Matthew and, finding it inadequate, rewrote it to suit his purposes and tell a better story. I’m still not convinced there isn’t enough evidence to overthrow the Q hypothesis yet, but that doesn’t seem to be your objective – merely to present an alternative – but I definitely think it’s possible. Thank you very much!
I don’t think there’s anyway to “disprove” Q, but I’ve come to think it’s unnecessary. It might not have occurred to me to look at Luke’s nativity as a rewrite of Matthew’s, except I find almost all of the differences in the double tradition material to be instances in which, in my view, Luke improves on Matthew. With that in mind, I saw the nativity (and genealogy) in Matthew to be quite unsatisfactory to a modern reader. The “three fourteens” are contrived. The prophecy “fulfillments” are twisted. And the story of the magi and the star is just plain dumb. So I’ve come to think that he completely rewrote both the nativity story and the post-resurrection story to deliberately improve the narrative (and to eliminate the parts that just wouldn’t work in the larger gentile world.) Thanks for your feedback!
I have to admit that the author of Luke re-writing Matthew in this way makes a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the rewriting that the author did in Acts.
johngeorgie on March 16, 2022 at 11:06 am wrote
“The funny irony is that Nazareth wasn’t a town or a village within the 1st century, no one whatsoever [but the gospels] mentioned a town with that name during that era.”
Rene Salm’s 2008 book “The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (Scholar’s Edition)” makes an archaeological argument that Nazareth was not settled until after the First Jewish War, c. 70CE. It goes into great detail and appears to be quite scholarly, but I don’t know what to make of it.
Bart, are you aware of this book or its author?
Oh yes, I’ve responded to it and had an exchange with him. Check out my posts on Nov. 29, 2012… In fact, maybe I’ll repost them!