Farrer Theory ignored: yet another new example

Regular readers of the NT Blog will be familiar with my occasional notices on how the Farrer Theory often gets ignored in scholarship.  The attempt to make the Griesbach Hypothesis the sole alternative to the Two-Source Theory gives scholars an easier ride, especially in introductory works, in which the establishment of Marcan Priority becomes an argument for the existence of Q.  The latest example of the phenomenon is found in Grant R. Osborne, Matthew (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010): 35-8, a preview of which can now be read online.

Osborne says that "now there are two major camps"..  The first is the "Griesbach Hypothesis" and he goes on, "there are stronger arguments for Markan Priority, especially the form called the "two- or four- source" hypothesis formulated by B. H. Streeter, which says that Matthew and Luke used Mark and Q as well as their own special material (M and L)" (36).   Osborne then provides four arguments for Marcan Priority (36-7) and concludes "All of this makes it likely that Mark was the first Gospel and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as well as Q" (37).  None of the arguments is in fact an argument for Matthew's and Luke's independent use of Mark, and so the conclusion that Marcan Priority necessarily leads to acceptance of the Q hypothesis is illegitimate.

Osborne briefly mentions the Gospel of Thomas as providing an analogue for Q, without exploring the important question of the apparent generic contrasts between the two and he adds that "recent work has made the likelihood of Q more viable" (37), footnoting Carlston and Norlin's 1999 article on statistics and Q. That article certainly points in the direction of a Q document on the assumption of the independence of Matthew and Luke, but it does not speak to the issue of Luke's familiarity with Matthew.

I am now so used to this kind of by-passing of the Farrer Theory that fresh examples come as no surprise.  I have in fact come to expect it whenever I open a new book.  I must confess to a touch of additional disappointment in this case, however, given my careful review of a book to which Osborne contributed, and concerning which we had corresponded, in which I spoke of the problems that arise from ignoring the Farrer theory and discussing the Synoptic Problem solely as a question of the Griesbach Theory vs. the Two-Source Theory (Mark Goodacre, Review of David Alan Black and David R. Beck (eds.), Rethinking the Synoptic Problem, NovT 49/2 (2007): 197-9).