Loading...I continue to get terrific questions from readers. Here are two rather tough ones on the Gospel of Luke, with my responses.
QUESTION:
This is a question of whether there is some good evidence that Luke used Matthew (rather than both of them using the hypothetical Q source.)
How do you explain the fact that
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Hello Bart D. Ehrman
I read your blog post about Daniel and the resurrection and i have a question about it
In Daniel 12:2 it is said that “some to shame and everlasting contempt.” but you said that in the old testament there was not a doctrine of hell. Am i missing something?
I have full contempt for Adolph Hitler, but that doesn’t mean he is still a sensient being. These people in Dan. 12 will be despised forever.
“We don’t know what Q did not have; by definition we only know what he *did* have, since the definition is the material found in Matthew and Luke not found in Mark; what we call Q could have had lots of other stuff. It would simply be stuff that either Matthew did not copy, or Luke did not copy, or both of them did not copy.”
This is possible, of course, but it strikes me as a problem with the Q hypothesis. The inability to pin down its contents makes it something of a chameleon document, containing whatever the scholar requires to make it work. We don’t even really have any way of knowing that all our non-Markan Matt/Luke overlaps come from the same document (especially since it’s often worded differently in Matt and Luke). Do you think the Q hypothesis is falsifiable? If so, what might falsifying evidence look like?
It’s not falsiable because it’s not provable. It’s a matter of probabilities. You would not be able to construct all of Mark if all you had was Matthew and Luke, or any of the sources of the Didache if all we had was the Didache (which in fact is the case!), or for that matter any source of any kind that we have only its quotatoins in. That doesn’t mean the sources don’t exist. That has to be determined on other grounds. In this case, most specialists continue to hold to the existence of Q because any other hypothesis (Luke’s use of Matthew, e.g.) creates more problems that the existence of Q does. As my teacher Bruce Metzger used to say, “It’s the least problematic theory.”
Would you kindly provide an example of such problems, if Q did not exist? Please and Thank you.
If Luke got the sayings he shares only with Matthew from matthew (instead of Q) then virtually every time he came upon one of them in matthew’s account he rearranged it to put it in some other part of teh story than in Matthew, unlike the stories he found in mark which most of the time he keeps in the same place. How would he know that when he found a saying in matthew that it was not also in Mark? He’s have to look through Mark each time to see. Seems unlikely…
I understand a significant proportion of the sections common to Luke and Matthew are ‘sayings’.
Is that right, and were sayings gospels particularly uncommon (I know Thomas is, and Papias’ reported Matthew was but I’m not aware of others)?
We don’t know. We have only six (or so) Gospels that can be dated within a century of Jesus’ death, and one of them is a sayings Gospel. And yes, Papias indicates there was another.
Greetings, Bart. To the point that we can’t know if Matthew and Luke had the same copy of Mark, I am curious about your thoughts on what copy of Luke Marcion used. Over the years, most NT scholars I’ve encountered refer to Marcion as having “edited” a more “traditional” copy of Luke into a form that was theologically pleasing to him. However, in his work, “The First New Testament – Marcion’s Scriptural Canon,” Jason BeDuhn argues that we can’t know what copy of Luke Marcion used. For BeDuhn, the traditional idea of Marcion’s redactional manhandling of Luke runs into trouble because it cannot account for the question of why, if he was stripping Luke of troublesome sections, did Marcion choose to leave in so many parts of Luke that one might assume to be theologically displeasing to him. In that light, perhaps Marcion was simply using the Luke he was familiar with. In her latest book, “Ancient Christianitys,” Paula Fredricksen seems to echo this. What is your take? Thanks.
Yes, that’s always been the problem. I’d say we just don’t know for sure, but given the fact that even proto-orthodox scribes regularly changed the texts they were copying there’s nothing implausible about Marcion doing it, in a bigger way. Luke, e.g., certainly changed Mark in a very big way. But it may be it’s simply the Luke he was familiar with.
Or, Luke knew Matthew 🙂
And chose to provide a birth story in which he didn’t copy any of it. 🙂
Nice, but I must ask, “Any”? . . .
I offer a challenge. Make a list of all the similarities in the birth stories in Matthew and Luke. And without claiming oral traditions–we have virtually no evidence of oral traditions about Jesus’ birth, infancy, childhood, or upbringing until we get to writers who know the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (such as Ignatius and the star, or Justin and Isaiah 7:14, etc)–how do we explain the similarities in the birth stories in Matthew and Luke? Some of those similarities are quite difficult to explain based on coincidence.
I think it’s amazingly simple. They have major themes in common that were widely known (names, Bethlehem, virgin birth, ending up in Nazareth), and NONE of the same stories. The themes are widely talked about. If Luke got his account from Matthew, who doesn’t he have any of Matthew’s accounts? (not even teh geneology is in his birth narrative!)
I’m not sure how probative it is that we don’t have any oral traditions until later. We don’t actually have any oral traditions!
Widely known? Just taking the three examples you name, Isn’t it odd that Bethlehem, “virgin”, and Nazareth are never mentioned in the rest of the NT (outside Gospels & Acts) and Apostolic Fathers (exception being “virgin” in the long recension of Ignatius’ letters which comes much later). Those things don’t look widely known and discussed.
A list of 10-15 similarities could easily be made, and some of these are otherwise rare. There’s no evidence of anyone taking Isaiah 7:14 LXX literally as a birth to a virgin until Matthew did so. Same with anyone taking Micah 5:2 literally as the geographical birthplace of a great king/messiah until Matthew did so. But that’s characteristic of Matthew’s peculiar interpretation of the Jewish scriptures, such as his literal take of two donkeys. It’s easier to think these ideas originated with Matthew’s use of Mark (which allowed for these additions) and his idiosyncratic use of the Jewish scriptures. And that Luke came to these same ideas from his reading of Matthew. And Luke can easily see what Matthew added to Mark, but doesn’t want to promote Matthew as a book because it’s too Jewish. So Luke has birth stories that are similar but different.
Fair enough. But we also have no one referring to Jesus’ birth at all apart from Matthew and Luke in the first century, apart from Galatians 4:4.
Is the full post posted?
I thought so!
Dr. Herman, when you say Q didn’t have a Passion Narrative, do you mean there’s absolutely nothing from Q?
Oh, did I say that? I don’t know if Q had the passion narrative or not. There aren’t any verbal overlaps in matthew and luke to make us think it did, but nothing in them to think it didn’t.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, there’s a Hebrew poem (4Q525) that mirrors the structure of Matthew’s Beatitudes. It follows the same “Blessed are the… for they will…” formula, and like Matthew, it features eight short beatitudes followed by a ninth, longer one. This suggests that the Beatitude style was a known literary form among Second Temple Jews.
What’s especially interesting is that Matthew clearly understands and skillfully uses this established pattern—while Luke doesn’t. This might support the claim that Matthew’s version came first. Luke’s version appears to be either a clumsy adaptation of Matthew or a poor rendering of the so-called “Q” source. What we can say with confidence is that Matthew didn’t copy from Luke.
Bart, thanks for the article. I pose a question. Luke 1:67-80 sets forth very clearly and precisely Jesus’ mission: to free, liberate, redeem and save the people of Israel from those who hated them which tells me they were then living in their own promised land which was flowing with milk, honey and Romans who were their bondholders. Jesus even reportedly said he came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then we find that when he had the encounter with the Canaanite woman (a non-Israelite) and her daughter he made reference to such non-Jews as being “dogs”. When I came to the end of Luke where I find the story of Jesus redivivus suddenly joining up with Cleophas and his companion as they were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus I maintain this tidbit was added (made-up, invented and inserted) for one purpose and one purpose only which was to find a way to explain that Jesus’ mission now had changed from that which had already been set forth in Luke 1:67-80. Surprisingly, this imaginary Jesus redivivus even called these two people fools. What do you say? Does my position hold water?
The translation “fools” may not be the best. It literally means something like “O you people who don’t understand…” But I don’t see the passage as suggesyting that now Jesus’ mission had changed. These are two fo Jesus’ Jewish followers.
Well, with all due respect, looks like I waited for nothing as I cannot even figure out what in the world “two fo Jesus’ Jewish followers” means; and worst of all you just state your opinion without providing reasons. You don’t seem to realize that Luke 1:67-80 lays out precisely what Jesus’ mission was (and these two said they understood it as being to redeem [liberate, free and save] Israel) yet this supposedly resurrected Jesus now calls them “fools” even though you water it down by saying they did not “understand”. Well, what did they not understand. No need to respond as I know very well what it was. I politely inquire: do you understand?
With all due respect, as one who has studied Luke in Greek for 47 years, yes, I believe I do understand.
I maintain the reason this fake story was inserted was to explain why Jesus’ mission, which was clearly stated in Luke 1:67-80 (and one that Cleophas and others understood perfectly), had now suddenly changed from the Messiah being a Davidic-type, political savior who was to free, redeem, liberate and save the people of Israel from those who hated them into now being a Messiah of a different sort: a spiritual one. The promised land was then flowing with milk, honey and Romans who held the Israelites in bondage and hated them. If there was any truth to this story, Cleophas would indeed have been a “fool” for not recognizing that this person who joined up with him and his buddy was none other than his nephew, Jesus. But Cleophas was neither a fool for not recognizing his nephew (as this was an impostor in a fictional story) nor was he a fool for not understanding anything as he knew well what the Messiah was supposed to have done and even reminded this imposter Jesus of it: redeem and liberate the Jews. This imposter was preaching a new sermon inasmuch as Jesus had failed to accomplish his mission.
Bart’s the world’s top NT scholar.
The mission is redeeming the Israelites.
The Israelites are stolen slaves from Egypt.
The punishment for stealing slaves on the Abydos stelae is 200 lashes.
This is possibly the redemption, as administered to Jesus once he puts on a robe (or possibly his legal substitute per Mesopotamian rules? It is Mesopotamian symbols and numerology that we see in Revelation.)
Afaik, the Romans do not receive custodianship of the Israelites (people) in any statement by a Lord God, they simply have direct rule over Palestine (land).
My best guess so far for the original covenant/contract holder (and passing this on via lineage) is a Semetic 14th dynasty god-king of Avaris, prior to the 15th dynasty Hyksos like King Jacob. Based on:
• Dr. Bohstrom’s 1650 BCE dating for Abraham in Ur (there’s a record of shepherds).
• Length-wise sacrifices, Mamre the Amorite’s oak grove match Dr. Burke’s assessment of the 14th dynasty as Amorites converted to Egyptian religion.
Ea/Enki/Hayya is the original ‘The Living’ [God] historically. Abraham leaves Ur, Mesopotamia for a Canaan under Egyptian hegemony since ~3000 BCE, where the king is also described as The Living [God].
When Mandaeans return to the area of Eridu (Ea’s city) called Nasoriyah, mission accomplished.
As far as Jesus reappearing, Josephus’ books and the Talmud are chock full of clever escapes and even reappearances. I think Rabbi Ben Zakkai’s is hilarious. There’s tunnels dating back to the First Century and earlier under Palestine, but this isn’t tech that First Century Judaeans are displaying, it’s the Nabataean Arabians, like Galilee’s rightful queen Phaesalis per Josephus, who are famous for underground construction. Archaeologists just found Masada’s escape tunnel.
Camels, perfume, pearls, spices like mustard seed. The names of the towns of some of the apostles. The Book of Isaiah, nicknamed “The Fifth Gospel.”
What do they all have in common?
You can’t get more Arabian lore in the Bible than to read Isaiah, where you learn what tribe will tribute what.
The period of Isaiah historically is the story of Mesopotamia beginning to rule the South (Syrio-Palestine, Arabia and Egypt). First Century Arabians are just very Mesopotamianized.
There’s nothing implausible in a plain reading of the Gospels, just apotropic magic and common Arabian traditions like big feedings and medicinal oils (Jesus as diagnosing physician, disciples anointing the sick) that get mythicized like Santa Claus being the Bishop of Myra.