Usually there is no overlap between the field of textual (lower, or post-production) criticism
and higher (pre-production) criticism.
Usually. But overlap does
sometimes occur. Today, we shall briefly
investigate the Synoptic Problem, and look into a few “Minor Agreements” (i.e.,
readings shared by Matthew and Luke, but not by Mark) and consider the
possible/probable implications of these readings for the production of the
Gospel of Mark.
To those
who are entirely new to the Synoptic Problem, the first thing to know is that
the term “Problem,” in this context, simply means “a puzzle to ponder,” not
something that is a troublesome difficulty that threatens to undermine the
Christian faith. (Similarly, the “criticism”
the terms “textual criticism” and “higher criticism” simply means “analysis;”
these fields are not platforms for promoting personal critiques of the contents
of the books of the New Testament, or any other book.
The second
thing to know is that the “Synoptic Problem” orbits the answer to one
question: how do the Synoptic Gospels
(Matthew, Mark, and Luke) relate to one another? Did each author write entirely independently
of the other two? Did two of them use
the other? Did one of them make use of
the other two? Or did all three use a
shared source?
The third
thing to know is that the Synoptic Problem has been solved for the most part: although
it was consistently held in early Christianity that Matthew wrote first,
researchers such as William Sanday, B.H. Streeter and John Hawkins have made a
very strong case that the Gospel of Mark (or something that resembled the
Gospel of Mark) was used by Matthew and Luke, and that Matthew and Luke both
used a second source (known as Q, which stands for Quelle, the German word for “Source”), and that Matthew and Luke
each made use of source-materials that were accessed only by Matthew, or only by
Luke.
The
Four-source Hypothesis – that Matthew used Q + Mark + extra source-material, and
Luke used Q + Mark + extra source-material (for a total of four sources of
material) has a lot going for it, as Daniel Wallace concisely
explains here and as Dennis Bratcher
explains not so concisely here.
The ship of
the simple Four-Source Hypothesis, seaworthy as it may seem, cannot survive the
reefs it faces in the “Minor Agreements” – readings shared by Matthew and Luke
but not shared by Mark – especially in cases where the “Minor Agreements” occur
smack-dab in to middle of the triple-tradition (i.e., material shared by
Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Something more complex has happened.
The diagram
I have made here offers a simple picture of how to account for the evidence,
including the “Minor Agreements.” I
propose that neither Matthew nor Luke used the Gospel of Mark in its full
canonical form; rather; Luke used an early form, and Matthew used a later form. Mark, serving as Peter’s amanuensis, did not
create one definitive text of the Gospel of Mark right away: as Peter continued to preach and teach about
Jesus, his testimony – written down in the Gospel of Mark – continued to
expand. Not until Peter’s martyrdom did
a definitive text of the Gospel of Mark come into being.
In the
course of creating the definitive text of the Gospel of Mark, Mark added and
subtracted a variety of details that had been in earlier forms of his record of
Peter’s testimony, and this resulted in “Minor Agreements.” We shall now zoom
in on some of these points which are like chords in a song which is sung by all
three Synoptic writers, where Matthew and Luke sing in harmony but Mark sings a
different note all by himself.
First,
let’s look at the chord that occurs in Matthew 9:18, Luke 8:40, and Mark
5:21. The scene depicted by all three
Evangelists is the famous opening of the account of the raising of Jairus’
daughter. The first interesting feature
is that when we use the Western text (extant in D 05), only in the Gospel of Mark (5:22) do we find Jairus identified by name. This detail, if it had been known to Luke,
would not be something he would have omitted.
It was probably added by Mark in the course of preparing the final form
of his Gospel-account.
The second
interesting feature in that in Matthew 9:20 and
Luke 8:44, there is an explicit reference to the hem of Jesus’ garment;
meanwhile Mark 5:27 does not. The
parallel and non-parallel is easily shown in Greek:
Matthew: ἥψατο τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ
Mark: ἥψατο τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ
Luke: ἥψατο τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ
It looks as if Matthew and Luke both perpetuated a Markan
text which had τοῦ κρασπέδου after ἥψατο, but in the final form of the Gospel
of Mark, τοῦ κρασπέδου had fallen out of the text, perhaps via simple
parablepsis. Again, this implies that a
distinction must be maintained between the Markan texts (“Ur-Mark” or “Proto-Mark”) used by
Matthew and by Luke, and the final definitive form of the Gospel of Mark. Again:
whatever Markan texts were used by Matthew, and by Luke, were not the
same as the final form of the Gospel of Mark.
At least two extra steps were yet to be taken before the Gospel of Mark
was finished: Jairus’ name was added,
and τοῦ κρασπέδου was omitted.
Throughout
the text of Mark, isolated “Minor Agreements” occur at points where it appears
that Mark added or modified small details that were not in Ur-Mark. Some examples: (1)
the detail in Mark 1:13 that Jesus was tempted by Satan, σατανᾶ, not by “the
devil” (διαβόλου),
(2) the detail in
Mark 1:39 that Jesus cast out demons (τά δαιμόνια ἐκβάλλων),
(3) the detail in
Mark 2:2 that Jesus preached the word,
(4) the detail in
Mark 1:45 that Jesus gave strict instructions to the leper he had cleansed
(5) the detail in
Mark 2:27 that Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath”
(6) The detail in
Mark 3:5 that Jesus looked around with anger
(7) the detail in
Mark 3:20-32 that Jesus’ mother and brothers came to him because they thought
he was out of his mind
(8) the detail in Mk 9:32 that Jesus spoke openly
the word concerning his sufferings, death, and resurrection
(9) the details in
Mark 9:21-27 about Jesus’ questions to the father of the young man with an
unclean spirit,
(10) the detail in
Mark 10:50 that Bartimaeus cast away his garment as soon as he heard that Jesus
was calling for him.
More examples could be given, but these ten should
sufficiently show that there is a difference between Ur-Mark used by Luke,
Ur-Mark used by Matthew, and the final form of the Gospel of Mark.
This has an effect on another issue: the ending of Mark. Stephen Boyce recently chimed in about this. Several of the unique details in
the Gospel of Mark are the sort of thing an eyewitness could add as expansions
of an episode he had described previously; but they are not the sort of thing a
non-eyewitness would throw in arbitrarily. (Jairus’ name, for example, might not have
been known by Peter when he composed Ur-Mark, but Peter and/or Mark may have
discovered it prior to the composition of the Gospel of Mark.) While nothing about this brings anything new
against the idea that Mark 16:9-20 was composed by Mark as a freestanding text,
and was then attached to 16:8 by Mark’s colleagues in Rome, it must also be
granted that nothing stands in the way of a somewhat simpler solution: that Mark, on the same occasion when he
tidied up Ur-Mark and thus produced the Gospel of Mark, composed verses 9-20,
and the narrative disconnect in vv. 9-10 is simply an effect of leaving the
narrative thread dangling, so to speak, on an earlier occasion, or else it is
an effect of replacing a now-lost ending of Ur-Mark with a fuller summary of
the post-resurrection appearances of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
All three
possibilities lead to an embrace of Mark 16:9-20 as part of the canonical text
of the Gospel of Mark.
