Trump and Fatigue

Over the last twenty years or so, I have occasionally drawn attention to "the phenomenon of fatigue", according to which one can see an author making characteristic changes to a source at the beginning of a passage, only to lapse into the wording of the source later on. I have argued that one can see this in Matthew's use of Mark, Luke's use of Mark, Luke's use of Matthew, the Protevangelium of James's use of Matthew and Luke, and Hypostasis of the Archons's use of Genesis (the latter forthcoming). [*Links at the bottom of this post.]

When I am teaching, I of course like to use contemporary analogies for the phenomenon, and one of my favourites comes from the adaptation of one of Enid Blyton's Noddy books for television. But yesterday, I noticed a good example of the phenomenon in Trump's remarks on the coronavirus in his Press Briefing.





Trump likes to call coronavirus "the China virus". It is a typical (and profoundly problematic) trope of his, and although in the earlier briefings, he was beginning to drop the use of the term, it has come back in a major way in the renewed briefings this week.

In yesterday's briefing, Trump was clearly reading from a script that had been prepared for him, but he also appeared to be editing it on the hoof, substituting "China virus" every time that "coronavirus" appeared. Until, later in the speech, he lapses into the wording of the script, and he accidentally says "coronavirus". I quote here from the relevant sections of the speech, in order (full transcript here):

Thank you very much.  Thank you, everybody. Thank you. 

We’ve had a tremendous week uniting the country in our fight against the China virus.  I have reminded people of the importance of masks when you can’t socially distance, in particular.  A strong message has been sent out to young people to stop going to crowded bars and other crowded places . . . . 

. . . .And I said, “There’s nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe, whether that’s from the China virus or the radical-left mob that you see in Portland” — where I want to thank Homeland Security and others in law enforcement for doing a fantastic job over the last few days . . . . 

. . . . Our goal is to protect our teachers and students from the China virus while ensuring that families with high-risk factors can continue to participate from home.  Very important . . . .  

. . . . Fortunately, the data shows that children are lower risk from the China virus, very substantially.  When children do contact the virus, they often have only very mild symptoms or none at all, and medical complications are exceedingly rare.  Those that do face complications often have underlying medical conditions.  Ninety-nine percent of all China virus hospitalizations are adults.  And 99.96 percent of all fatalities are adults.  That means that children are a tiny percentage — less than 1 percent, and even a small percentage of 1 percent. 

In a typical year, the flu results in more deaths of those under 18 in the United States than have been lost thus far to the coronavirus.  Many different names.  Many, many different names . . . . 

. . . . We’re asking Congress to provide $105 billion to schools as part of the next coronavirus relief bill.  This funding will support mitigation measures, such as smaller class sizes, more teachers and teacher aides, repurposing spaces to practice social distancing, and crucially, mask-wearing. 

Trump uses his idiosyncratic, problematic term "China virus" five times in the speech, and I think that each time he is editing "coronavirus" on the hoof, substituting the Trump term for the normal, accepted term. But then he lapses. He uses the correct, universally accepted term "coronavirus", and immediately realizes what he has done, and qualifies with "Many different names. Many, many different names", a standard Trump qualification for when he has veered away from his intended language. From here, he then uses "coronavirus" one more time, in the name of the "coronavirus relief bill", and "China virus" does not recur.

* Links:

Mark Goodacre, "Fatigue in the Synoptics", New Testament Studies 44 (1998): 45-58
NT Pod 39: "Fatigue in the Synoptics

Plagiarism in the Telegraph's obituary of Marvin Meyer

I commented yesterday on the error-laden obituary of Marvin Meyer in The Telegraph.  It turns out that the errors are not the worst of it.  Chunks of the piece have been plagiarized.    I am grateful to Todd Brewer in comments for drawing attention to the following points, which I here develop and illustrate with underlining of the verbatim agreement so that there can be no mistake.

Wikipedia's article on The Gnostic Gospels begins as follows:

The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about fifty-two texts supposedly based upon the ancient wisdom teachings of several prophets and spiritual leaders including Jesus, written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD.

The Telegraph obituary copies this as follows:

The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about 52 texts supposedly based upon the teachings of prophets and spiritual leaders, including Jesus, written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD. 

It is practically verbatim. If the obituary writer is dependent on Wikipedia, it's not surprising that the piece is riddled with errors.

An article in last year's New York Post, The new New Testament, by Maureen Callahan, features the following statements:

These writings, 52 in all, date from between 150-300 AD and offer profoundly differing accounts of the life and death of Jesus Christ . . . .

. . . . The Gospel of Philip ridicules the idea of a virgin birth and of Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead and anyone who would believe either. The Apocalypse of Paul also claims that Christ’s rise from the dead was spiritual, not physical. The Gospel of Mary suggests a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (which served as the basis for “The Da Vinci Code,” Dan Brown’s loopy 2003 bestseller). 

This passage appears to be the basis for the Telegraph's problematic paragraph I mentioned yesterday:

These writings offer profoundly differing accounts of the life and death of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Philip, for example, ridicules the virgin birth and Christ’s bodily resurrection; The Apocalypse of Paul also claims that Christ’s rise from the dead was spiritual, not physical; The Gospel of Mary suggests a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

This is plagiarism pure and simple, and like many plagiarizing students, the author is copying from someone else because s/he does not understand the issues him/herself, carrying over the errors from the source piece.

I am grateful also to Todd Brewer in comments for noticing other elements in the article that appear to be plagiarized.  Take this paragraph from a New York Times article in 2003, The Heresy That Saved a Sceptic,

Early Christians were subject to unimaginable persecutions, and church fathers believed that for Christianity to survive, there had to be a unified belief system, Ms. Pagels said. Some time around A.D. 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons denounced all gospels but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as heretical, ''an abyss of madness and of blasphemy.''

About 50 years after Constantine's conversion early in the fourth century, the New Testament became Christianity's official text.

This is the basis for the first paragraph of the Telegraph obituary:

What we know as the New Testament – the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation – was actually born of thousands of texts and gospels circulated among the early Christians. Members of the new faith were subject to persecution, and the Church fathers felt that for the faith to survive, there had to be a unified belief system. Some time around AD 180, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon denounced all gospels but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as heretical. Later, about 50 years after Constantine’s conversion early in the fourth century, the New Testament became Christianity’s official text.

Notice Elaine Pagels's characteristic use of "Bishop Irenaeus" finding its way into the plagiarized piece, though her name itself is, of course, removed in the copied text.  The copied version has several other typical signs of plagiarized texts, abbreviation by omission of colourful (and tell-tale) detail ("an abyss of madness and of blasphemy") and the substitution of metaphors ("the new faith . . the faith") that in due course revert, by fatigue, to the original wording ("Christianity").

In comments, Todd Brewer notes that there are probably other elements in the piece that are plagiarized too.  He is right.  One major source is the article by Thomas Bartlett, The Betrayal of Judas, in The Chronicle of Higher Education from May 2008, including here:

As he translated, a startling portrait of Judas Iscariot emerged. This was not the reviled traitor who betrayed Jesus with a kiss. This was the trusted disciple, the close confidant, the friend. This was a revelation.

This is rewritten in the Telegraph obituary as follows:

As Meyer began translating the text, a startling portrait of Judas Iscariot emerged. Instead of the traitor who betrayed Jesus with a kiss, he found Jesus’s best-loved disciple and friend, a man singled out to receive mystical knowledge and a hero who helps Jesus return to the realm of the divine and fulfil his destiny as Messiah.

Bartlett's article in The Chronicle continues as follows:

When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled at a news conference in April 2006, it made headlines around the world -- with nearly all of those articles touting the new and improved Judas. "In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal," read the headline in The New York Times. The British paper The Guardian called it "a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history." A documentary that aired a few days later on National Geographic's cable channel also pushed the Judas-as-hero theme. The premiere attracted four million viewers, making it the second-highest-rated program in the channel's history, behind only a documentary on September 11. 

This paragraph is copied in The Telegraph obituary like this:

When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled at a news conference in April 2006, it made headlines around the world, The Guardian hailing the work as “a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history”. Meyer subsequently travelled to Egypt to film a documentary about the discovery, aired later on National Geographic’s cable channel, that attracted record audiences.

Once again, there is abbreviation.  Some is innocuous -- there is no need for a British paper to explain what The Guardian is so that note is dropped.  But the note that "Meyer subsequently travelled to Egypt" is a poor summary of the Chronicle's accurate order of events.  And "record audiences" is also a poor summary of the Chronicle's more nuanced statements on the TV ratings.

Immediately after the above paragraph in the Chronicle, is the following:

But almost immediately, other scholars began to take issue with the interpretation of Meyer and the rest of the National Geographic team. They didn't see a good Judas at all. In fact, this Judas seemed more evil than ever. 

This is taken over by the Telegraph obituary like this:

But almost immediately, other scholars began to take issue with the translation, disputing Meyer’s interpretations of key passages which converted Judas from arch villain to hero.

In the Chronicle article, Bartlett writes in detail about April DeConick's critique:

She started the next day on her own translation of the Coptic transcription, also posted on the National Geographic Web site. That's when she came across what she considered a major, almost unbelievable error. It had to do with the translation of the word "daimon," which Jesus uses to address Judas. The National Geographic team translates this as "spirit," an unusual choice and inconsistent with translations of other early Christian texts, where it is usually rendered as "demon." In this passage, however, Jesus' calling Judas a demon would completely alter the meaning. "O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?" becomes "O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?" A gentle inquiry turns into a vicious rebuke.

The passage is is carried over more vaguely, and with substantial abbreviation, in the Telegraph piece:

In another passage Meyer’s translation has Jesus saying to Judas “O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?” An alternative translation is “O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?” turning a gentle inquiry into an angry rebuke.

The Telegraph piece, which is focusing on Meyer, omits mention of the rest of the National Geographic team and does not give DeConick's name.

The Telegraph obituary does, however, mention James Robinson, and it spends time detailing the controversy between the two men.  As Todd Brewer points out (comments), the material here appears to be gleaned from an article in the LA Times, "Was it virtue or betrayal", by Louis Sahagun, from January 2007.  But that article does not feature the detail that Meyer sported "a silver hoop in his left ear", which I suspect is carried over from the LA Times obituary, where the same phrase occurs.

I think that it is disgraceful that The Telegraph's obituary of Marvin Meyer is a patchwork of passages plagiarized from different electronic articles and I would like to suggest that they acknowledge what they have done, issuing a full apology, and replacing the plagiarized piece with something that appropriately honours Professor Meyer's memory.

John Drane's unacknowledged use of my work in Introducing the New Testament

Regular readers will know that I like to check up on the treatment of the Synoptic Problem in the introductory New Testament textbooks.  As a student of the Synoptic Problem myself, I am always fascinated to see how the topic is getting taught to undergraduate students.  I do have a dog in the fight in that I have argued in books, websites, podcasts, articles and so on for a particular solution, the Farrer Theory, which affirms the Priority of Mark's Gospel but dispenses with Q by suggesting that Luke knows Matthew as well as Mark.

Some New Testament introductions ignore the Farrer Theory; others provide minimal, weak or flawed coverage.  Somehow, I had never thought to check, until recently, on the coverage in one of the most popular New Testament Introductions of all, John Drane's Introducing the New Testament, now in its third edition at Fortress.  As well as checking out the third edition, I found out that I already owned the second edition courtesy of Logos Bible Software.  The story of what I found is an interesting one.*

Drane's coverage of the Synoptic Problem broadly supports the Two-Source Theory but has an extra section entitled "New light on old problems", the first subheading of which is "Did Q really exist?" (177-8).  As I read through this section, I thought to myself, "This looks familiar."  In fact, it was very familiar.  The section is derived from a web page that I composed back in 1997 called Ten Reasons to Question Q.  Although the section in Drane's book is derived from my web page, it does not mention me and it does not cite the web page.

Drane appears to work in sequence through my ten points, abbreviating and paraphrasing, sometimes adding some extra material.  He begins:

There is no hard evidence of its existence. In spite of the confidence with which scholars have reconstructed Q, and even claim to be able to give an account of its own literary history and development, no one has ever seen it. There is not even a fragment of any ancient manuscript of Q, nor is there a single reference to its existence anywhere in ancient literature.  Nineteenth-century scholars believed that Papias was referring to Q in his statement that Matthew ‘compiled the logia in the Hebrew language' . . . . (184)

This is a version of my points 1 and 2:

1. No-one has ever seen Q
Current literature on Q abounds with editions of Q, investigations into its strata, studies of the communities that were behind it and analyses of their theology. In such circumstances, it is worth allowing ourselves the sober reminder that there is no manuscript of Q in existence. No-one has yet found even a fragment of Q.

2. No-one had ever heard of Q
No ancient author appears to have been aware of the existence of Q. One will search in vain for a single reference to it in ancient literature. For a while it was thought that 'the logia' to which Papias referred might be Q. Indeed, this was one of the planks on which the Q hypothesis rested in the nineteenth century. But no reputable scholar now believes this.

Drane's next bullet point begins as follows:

There are no other ancient documents that look like Q. Though some Gnostic gospels (especially the Gospel of Thomas) provide a kind of parallel for interest in collecting sayings of Jesus, and though such interest seems inherently likely among his followers, Q is not actually like Thomas in that it contains some narrative material as well. It is therefore difficult to identify a specific genre to which Q might belong (184-5).

This appears to be based on my point 3**

3. Q is unparalleled in genre
There is no ancient document that looks like Q. Some have claimed that the Gospel of Thomas provides an analogy since it, like Q, is a 'sayings Gospel'. However, there is no parallel in Thomas for the narrative material that has always been problematic for the Q hypothesis, the Temptation (Matt. 4.1-11 // Luke 4.1-13), the Centurion's Boy (Matt. 8.5-13 // Luke 7.1-11) and the Messengers from John (Matt. 11.2-19 // Luke 7.18-35). Some Q scholars, aware of this difficulty, are currently engaging in a desperate search for a genre for Q.

Drane's third bullet point reads:

In a considerable number of passages, Matthew’s and Luke’s texts agree over against Mark’s, in either wording or order. This can generally be explained by the assumption that, at some points, there was overlap between Mark and Q, and that Matthew and Luke preferred the fuller version generally believed to be contained in Q. However, some of these agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark are found in the story of Jesus’ death (compare, for example, Matthew 26:67–68 / Luke 22:63–64 with Mark 14:65), and since every account of the scope of the hypothetical Q has concluded that it did not contain a passion narrative, some scholars want to argue that this phenomenon can more easily be explained on the assumption that Luke used Matthew than by reference to the traditional view that both of them used Q (185).

This is a condensed summary of my points 4-7.  I will not quote those in full here but will draw attention to some pertinent elements:

But the existence of agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark in these very passages suggests otherwise . . . . 

Since the Q hypothesis is founded on Luke's independence of Matthew, agreement like this, agreement against Mark in both wording and order, should not be present. But the force of such major agreements tends not to be felt because of appeal to the phenomenon of 'Mark-Q overlap', both here and elsewhere (e.g. the Temptation; John the Baptist; Beelzebub) . . . . 

If one were to find a Minor Agreement between Matthew and Luke in the Passion narrative (Matt. 26-28 // Mark 14-16 // Luke 22-24), then this would be stronger evidence still against the existence of Q, for no-one thinks that Q has a Passion Narrative.  The good news is that there are several Minor Agreements in this material, the most striking of which is this: Matt. 26.67-8 // Mark 14.65 // Luke 22.63-4

Given the condensing of my points here, there are fewer verbal links in Drane's paraphrase.  However, there is a tell-tale sign of "editorial fatigue" in that Drane begins by writing "the story of Jesus' death", presumably with his introductory audience in mind, but he subsequently drifts into my wording "a passion narrative" later in the paragraph.

Speaking of fatigue, Drane's fourth bullet point (the final one in the second edition, 185, penultimate in the 3rd, 179) begins by paraphrasing my point 8 ("The Phenomenon of Fatigue"):

The existence of Q has also been questioned on the basis of considerations related to the way in which ancient authors might have operated. It has been claimed that when a writer is using a source, while the information might be sharpened up and reshaped at the beginning of the day, as tiredness sinks in there will be a tendency to revert to the underlying patterns of whatever source is being used—and that in the case of the so-called Q material, such evidence always shows Luke reverting to Matthew’s forms of expression. For example, in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30; Luke 19:11–27) Matthew has three servants, and Luke has ten. But as the story is told, Luke mentions ‘the first’, ‘the second’, and then ‘the other’ servant (19:16, 18, 20), which is easier to understand if Luke knew Matthew than if both of them were using the hypothetical Q. 

This is how I had phrased this summary of my own argument:

When one writer is copying the work of another, changes are sometimes made at the beginning of an account which are not sustained throughout - the writer lapses into docile reproduction of his / her source. This phenomenon of 'fatigue' is a tell-tale sign of a writer's dependence on a source . . . .

It is revealing that this phenomenon also occurs in double tradition (Q) material, and always in the same direction, in favour of Luke's use of Matthew. Take the Parable of the Talents / Pounds (Matt. 25.14-30 // Luke 19.11-27). Matthew has three servants throughout. Luke, on the other hand, has ten. But as the story progresses, we hear about 'the first' (19.16), 'the second' (19.18) and amazingly, 'the other' (ho heteros, Luke 19.20). Luke has inadvertently betrayed his knowledge of Matthew by drifting into the story-line of his source (see further my 'Fatigue in the Synoptics', NTS 44 (1998), pp. 45-58).

As in other places above, Drane uses synonyms where possible, "When a writer is using a source" for "when one writer is copying the work of another", "But as the story is told" for "But as the story progresses", "tiredness" for "fatigue", and so on.  Curiously, this excerpt actually illustrates the phenomenon that it is describing, with the wording closer to my wording as the paragraph progresses.

The second half of Drane's fourth bullet-point reads:

Those who wish to dispose of Q also argue that the very notion of gospel writers using sources in this way is a legacy from a previous generation which adopted a ‘scissors and paste’ approach to literature, which can no longer be sustained—and if M and L as separate written sources should be jettisoned, then so should Q.

This is a paraphrase of my penultimate point:

9. The Legacy of Scissors-and-Paste Scholarship
Q belongs to another age, an age in which scholars solved every problem by postulating another written source. The evangelists were thought of as 'scissors and paste' men, compilers and not composers, who edited together pieces from several documents. Classically, the bookish B. H. Streeter solved the synoptic problem by assigning a written source to each type of material - triple tradition was from Mark; double tradition was from 'Q'; special Matthew was from 'M' and special Luke was from 'L'. Most scholars have since dispensed with written 'M' and 'L' sources. The time has now come to get up-to-date, and to dispense with Q too.

This is a good paraphrase, retaining the sense and structure of my point but rewording with things like "previous generation" for "another age".  I must admit that I am not that keen on Drane's use of "dispose of" to replace"dispense with".

Drane's piece therefore paraphrases my "ten reasons to question Q" in order, with points 4-7 significantly condensed and point 10 omitted.  The paraphrase is well done, with effective use of synonyms and generally good summaries of my points.  There are words and phrases in common but overall the verbatim agreement is relatively limited.

It is difficult to know quite how to react to this.  On one level, I am surprised that it has taken me until now to spot it given that the passage in question has been in the book since the second edition of 1999.   I suppose that I am also pleasantly surprised to see my arguments repeated in a New Testament Introduction, even if it is without acknowledgement.  At least some of the key Q sceptical arguments are getting a hearing in an introductory textbook.

Moreover, it would be fair to say also that the genre of introductory textbook does not tend to encourage citation in the same way that scholarly monographs and articles do.  However, given the difficulty that we have in universities and colleges in training students to cite their sources, and to attribute arguments to those who made them, I think on balance that I am not happy with what the author has done here.

The basis of the plagiarism tutorials that we provide at Duke University are the imitation of good scholarly procedures, and that includes "failure to cite a source that is not common knowledge".  One way to think about this is to imagine if a passage came in like this in a student's work in my New Testament Introduction class.  What I would do would be to point out that the student has simply paraphrased a web page without citing the source.  The student in question would be unlikely to get a good grade and would probably be referred to the plagiarism tutorials previously mentioned.

I would be interested to hear what others think.  Am I being fair to Drane?  Is it OK to use scholars' web pages without acknowledgement?

I should conclude by underlining that in this post I just want to sketch out the evidence and to ask the questions.  I am not making any accusations.  Nevertheless, I do have a suggestion for a moral for the future.  If anyone is inclined to plagiarize scholarly work, it is probably not a good idea to plagiarize experts on source criticism.

----------
* Note: there are some slight expansions in the third edition including an extra bullet point (178) that is not derived from my web page.  Most of the pages numbers above refer to the second edition.

** Note: Drane is writing in 1999 and so dependent on an earlier version of the website, and it is that earlier (1997) version of the site that I am here quoting.  As it happens, this is one of the things that I first noticed when reading Drane -- I recognized the older wording of my site, wording that on this point  I subsequently re-worded.

The New Testament in Antiquity on the Synoptic Problem: Some Further Issues

In a post last night, Yet Another NT Introduction Ignores the Farrer Theory, I talked about the treatment of the Synoptic Problem in Gary M. Burge, Lynn H. Cohick and Gene L. Green, The New Testament in Antiquity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009). I focused particularly on its ignorance of the Farrer Theory and I didn't have space to talk about some other curiosities in its presentation, and I'd like to comment on those here.

First let me pick up again on the authors' suggestion "that when Matthew and Luke make editorial changes to Mark, none of Matthew's changes show up in Luke and vice versa."  They add that "If Matthew had known Luke -- or if Luke had known Matthew -- then surely some of the changes would be apparent" (116).  It's a remarkable statement given that the triple tradition in fact features hundreds and hundreds of agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark.  It is true that Two-Source Theorists have explanations for these, some of the major ones as "Mark-Q overlaps" and some of the minor ones as due to independent redaction, or textual corruption, but denying that they are present ought not to be a serious option in the discussion.

Other statements that I would like to question relate to their brief arguments for Marcan Priority, e.g. the statement that "While Mark's gospel is shorter, each of Mark's narratives is longer, and often details are removed in Matthew (but still assumed)"  (115).  I like the drift of the latter element here, which coheres with my argument from Fatigue, but the statement that "each of Mark's narratives is longer" is not true at all.  Many of Matthew's parallels to Marcan narrative pericopes are longer.  The impression of consistent Matthean brevity is derived largely from the triple tradition material in Matt. 8-9, where Matthew is shorter in his parallels with Mark.  Elsewhere, this is less often the norm.

A third puzzling claim is the following:

In Mark 6.5 we learn that Jesus "could not do any miracles [in Nazareth]." Matthew appears to supplement this potentially embarrassing admission by saying Jesus did no mighty work there "because of their lack of faith" (Matt. 13.58). (115).

The line quoted from Matthew is identical in Mark 6.6; Matthew does not so much supplement Mark here as contract it.  I think the authors are aiming to make a contrast between Mark's "could do no . . ." and Matthew's "did not . . .", which is the way that this argument is usually set up, but the re-statement of it loses the necessary clarity to make that point (and, incidentally, it's worth taking a look at Peter Head's Christology and the Synoptic Problem for a nuanced discussion of this example).

A fourth issue is a diagram that appears on the bottom of p. 115.  The diagram has arrows illustrating Marcan Priority plus Luke's use of Matthew.  In other words, it appears to be an inadvertent and unlabelled diagram of the Farrer theory.  But it appears to be used, in context, as a diagram that is supposed (just) to illustrate Marcan Priority, which is what is being discussed either side of it.   It may be that the arrow pointing from Matthew to Luke is deliberate, and that a subtle allusion to the Farrer theory is intended, but I doubt it.  The text goes on to talk about "whether Matthew used Luke or Luke used Matthew", which would suggest alternative arrows, one going in each direction between Matthew and Luke.  I think this lay-out could prove quite confusing to students.

NT Pod 24: Was Mark the First Gospel?

I uploaded the latest NT Pod at the weekend, the second in the current series of back-to-back episodes on the Synoptic Problem, asking Was Mark the First Gospel?. In it I cover some of the main arguments for Marcan Priority, but I decided to save the argument from editorial fatigue for another NT Pod later in the year.

I have also released two extended episodes, which use the audio from my recent classes on the topics, and I will post separately on those in due course.

Why not Matthew's use of Luke?

Over on Exploring Our Matrix, James McGrath asks Did Matthew use Luke? A Neglected Angle on the Synoptic Problem. It is one of the rarer theories to come up in Synoptic studies and it has no detailed published case from recent times. It has been floated by Martin Hengel (alongside Q) and Ronald Huggins and it is now being explored fully in a PhD dissertation at Dallas Theological Seminary by Robert Macewen. I occasionally get asked myself about this view, presumably because it reverses the direction of dependence for which I argue, in The Case Against Q, and so, perhaps, it helps us to think through the plausibility of the case for Luke's familiarity with Matthew. Since James specifically tags me, as it were, in his post, and since it is difficult to resist a good, old-fashioned Synoptic Problem post, I will make a few comments.

My initial reaction when asked about this is usually simply to say that it's a radically different theory from the one I argue for (it reverses the key thing). Sometimes Q theorists imagine that the big issue for Q sceptics, like me, is dispensing with Q at all costs, and that Luke's use of Matthew just happens to be the way we have chosen to do it. On the contrary, I actually quite like Q, but I am unpersuaded that it exists because I think Luke knew Matthew. In other words, I, and others like me, have not begun from the premise, "We must get rid of Q at all costs. Now, what's the strategy?" We begin from finding Luke's use of Matthew, alongside Marcan Priority, to be more persuasive than the alternatives, and that theory entails the end of Q.

It is true that the rhetoric of our case often brings up Q, Farrer's "On Dispensing with Q", my Case Against Q, Goulder's "On Putting Q to the Test", and so on. But the reason for this is largely strategic. In a world where the vast majority of scholars are wedded to Q, one needs to gain their attention somehow. Would my book have been as successful if I had called it "Luke's use of Matthew", or "The Farrer Theory"? I doubt it.

Let me underline then that I really think that Luke knew Matthew. It's not just a game; I actually think that the Farrer theory explains the data far better than the opposing theories. Like others, I frame the case by arguing with Q theorists because that is the dominant alternative. Similarly, when arguing for Marcan Priority (Case Against Q, Chapter 2; Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze, Chapters 3-4, etc.), I frame the case by arguing with adherents of the Griesbach Hypothesis because they have been the dominant group in the academy that opposes Marcan Priority.

But what about the case for Matthew's use of Luke? Could there be anything in it? Certainly it shares many of the strengths of the Farrer theory; it doesn't struggle over the Minor Agreements; it can explain the close verbatim agreement in double tradition material, and so on. But my main difficulties with it would be the following:

(1) Matthean language and imagery. Here it will be easiest if I borrow from an older blog post. The language, imagery and rhythm of the double tradition material can be Matthean through and through, often to the extent that we would not hesitate to ascribe it to Matthew if it were in Matthew alone. Matthew 3 and Luke 3 provide particularly clear examples:

(a) Matt. 3.7 // Luke 3.7: γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν, τίς ὑπέδειξεν ὑμῖν φυγεῖν ἀπὸ τῆς μελλούσης ὀργῆς; ("Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?"). Matthew will use this offensive vocative + rhetorical question (labelled an echidnic by Michael Goulder) twice again in remarkably similar forms, 12.34, γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν, πῶς δύνασθε ἀγαθὰ λαλεῖν πονηροὶ ὄντες ("Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil?") and 23.33, ὄφεις, γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν, πῶς φύγητε ἀπὸ τῆς κρίσεως τῆς γεέννης ("Snakes, brood of vipers! How can you flee from the judgement of gehenna?"). I think we should resist the temptation to play these links down. We are not dealing with everyday phrases. The imagery (snakes' offspring), the rhythm (echidnic) and language (wrath / judgement / gehenna) is strikingly Matthean and tells us in which direction the borrowing is going.

(b) 3.10: πᾶν οὖν δένδρον μὴ ποιοῦν καρπὸν καλὸν ἐκκόπτεται καὶ εἰς πῦρ βάλλεται ("Therefore every tree not producing good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire"). Virtually the identical sentence occurs again in 7.19. Once again it is not just the language but also the imagery that is Matthean. Even my introductory New Testament class knows that Matthew's is the Gospel that exploits harvest imagery to the tell the story of judgement and hell-fire. The Matthean apocalyptic scenario, here appearing for the first time in the Gospel, will be repeated at regular intervals: (a) Demand for good fruits / good works; (b) Separation at the Eschaton; (c) Burning of those whose deeds are evil.

(2) Fatigue in the Synoptics: There are several examples of Luke's secondary nature with respect to Matthew in double tradition here -- see "Fatigue in the Synoptics". In researching that article, I found several good examples of Lucan fatigue in double tradition but none of the opposite. One of the best examples is, I think, the Parable of the Talents / Pounds, where Luke makes characteristically Lucan initial changes to the plot of Matthew's parable (ten servants, one pound each -- typically Lucan 10:1 ratio) but then steadily reverts to the Matthean plot, with its three servants ("the other", 19.20) and money (not city) rewards. In the article, I argue that since we know that Matthew is often fatigued in his rewriting of Mark, it is odd that he is apparently never fatigued in the double tradition material. The reason is that Luke is using Matthew, not vice versa.

(3) Luke's Preface with its "many" inclines one towards a Luke who is self-consciously second generation in a way that is less clear with Matthew. The general indications of date also tend to favour a later Luke.

(4) Luke is almost never the middle term: Mark is usually the middle term among the Synoptics, a scenario easily explained on the assumption of Marcan Priority. Sometimes Matthew is the middle term, a fact that Farrer theorists explain on the assumption that these are triple tradition passages where Luke is focusing on Matthew rather than Mark. It would be odd, if Matthew were the third evangelist, that his use of Luke never results in Luke-as-middle-term.

(5) Order: Why would Matthew break up Luke's superb ordering of the sayings, which are in highly appropriate contexts in Luke, tearing every little piece out of its context, only to lump them together in a wooden fashion in huge, unwieldy discourses? Such a theory would only tenable if we had reason to think that Matthew was a crank.

OK, admittedly my number 5 is a parody, but the other reasons sketch some first thoughts on why I would not find Matthew's use of Luke plausible, but the bottom line is that I am already persuaded by another theory that, in my opinion, explains the data much better.