Monday, September 27, 2010

Adding GTh, pt. 2

In pt. 1, we eliminated any direct link between GTh and GJn.  This means we need only figure out the direct relationship between GTh and the synoptics.

We're therefore looking for seven categories of uses of GTh in the synoptics:

1) triple-tradition logia
2) logia shared only by GMt and GLk/Mc (i.e. logia found in Q)
3) logia shared only by GMt and GMk (other than those found in Q)
4) logia shared only by GMk and GLk/Mc (other than those found in Q)
5) logia unique to GMt
6) logia unique to GMk
7) logia unique to GLk/Mc



Remember that I treat Q as a narrative gospel; I think that "Q" is nothing more than the sayings-section of this gospel.  So Q-sayings, shared between GMt and GLk, will represent logia found in the Q gospel.

And in the case of logia found in GLk, we will pay special attention to those found in Marcion as well--because, we hypothesize that Marcion is a source for GLk.  We need to make sure our hypotheses about GTh are compatible with our hypothesis about Marcion.

In this post, we'll focus on categories 1)-4), those logia shared among two or more gospels.

So, we can form the following conclusions, under the assumption that GMk serves as a source for GMt and GLk/Mc:

1) Triple-tradition logia will be logia found in GMk (because, GMk is a source for both GMt and GLk/Mc).

There is a surprising amount of this material.  It includes the following logia:

4b 5 6 9 20 31 33 35 41 44 46b 47 65 66 99 100 104

2) GMt-GLk/Mc-shared logia will be logia found in Q.

There is an even more significant amount of this material than in the first category.  Again using the Complete Gospels categorization:

2 3:1-2 4 14:4 16 21:5 24:3 26 33:1 34 36 39:1-2 46a 47:2 54 55 61:6 61:3 64 68 69 73 76:3 78 86 89 91:2 92:1 94 95 96:1-2 101

3) GMt-GMk-shared logia will be Markan logia that Matthew used but Luke/Marcion) didn't.  We would expect these to have been added to Mark at the same time as the triple-tradition logia, but we technically need to leave open the possibility of multiple versions of Mark.

There is, intriguingly, almost no such material.  We find only the following:

14:5 71 106

Miller et al note that 106 actually does have an echo in Lk 17:5-6.  I would upgrade this link to a direct parallel, sending 106 to the triple-tradition category--it was simply rewritten by the Lukan author who used Mark--in my diagram, this was Marcion.

As for 14:5, it is quite plausible that the Lukan author (i.e. Marcion) simply neglected it--and this is at least as plausible as any Farrar-Goulder hypothesis.  But notice this falls within the Great Omission.  In the HSH, I think the Bethsaida section of GMk was not found in Secret Mark--so it wouldn't have been found in either.  Marcion may have decided it was spurious, or have disliked it for other reasons, and left it out of his gospel, discarding 14:5 along with it.  GMt, on the other hand, while he also used GMk and GPet, tended to be more inclusive, and added the Bethsaida material into his gospel.

In the case of 71, possibly Marcion didn't understand why Jesus was accused of threatening to destroy the temple, since he doesn't threaten to do so in GMk (or in , I'm guessing).  Marcion doesn't use Mk 15:29, either (and in this case we know for certain that didn't).  Marcion could simply have left it out as a confusing detail, and he may also have wanted to exonerate Jesus from even the suggestion of sedition.  Again, Matthew, who tends to be literalist and inclusive, retained the Markan versions.

So 106 is added to category 1).  14:5 and 71, meanwhile, were added to GMk along with all the triple-tradition material; they just happened to be left aside by Marcion.

(Of course, under my solution, the author of GLk would eventually rewrite Marcion using GMt.  IMO he then adapted the "missing" sayings into Acts: logion 14e into the story of Peter and Cornelius, and logion 71 into the story of Stephen).

4) GLk/Mc-GMk-shared logia will be Markan logia that Luke/Marcion used but Matthew didn't.  Again, we would expect these to have been added to Mark at the same time as the triple-tradition logia, but we technically need to leave open the possibility of multiple versions of Mark.

There is, strikingly, no such material at all.

So all we find here are two direct relationships: one between GTh and GMk, and one between GTh and Q.

We'll see later that the relationship between GTh and GMk is actually a relationship between GTh and Secret Mark.  For now, simply note that there is a direct link between GTh and the Markan tradition.

So we'll move on in my next post to any remaining direct relationships between GTh and individual synoptic gospels.

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