Sources of the Synoptic Gospels Part 10

================================================================== | Wernle | All Five | Three or More |Total 5|Total 3 |----------------|----------------|---------------|-------|------- | 7-12 | 7-10 | 7-12 | 4 | 6 | 3-10 | 3-10 | 1-11 | 8 | 11 | 3-48 | 3, 4, 6, 39-40,| 1-4, 6, 11, | 11 | 23 | | 42, 44-48 | 12, 18, 25-26,| | | | | 38, 40-48, | | | | | 13, 32 | | | | | | | | 9-13, 19-34 | 20-33 | 9-13, 20-33 | 14 | 19 | | | | | | | | | | | 1-6, 7-11 | 1-2, 3-5, 7-11 | 1-5, 7, 11-13,| 10 | 21 | | | 17-19, | | | | | 21, 22, | | | | | 24-27 | | | 5-13, 19-22 | 5-13 | 5-13, 19-22 | 6 | 10 | | | | | | 37-38 | | 37-38 | | 2 | 5-16, 23-25, | 7, 10, 12, 13, | 7, 10, 12, 13,| 5 | 22 | 40-42, 26-39 | 15 | 15, 16, | | | | | 24-40 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 33, 20-27, 2-19| 3-9, 11, 16-19,| 2-13, 16-27 | 18 | 24 | | 21-23, | | | | | 25-27 | | | | 22-37, 58-59, | 22, 23, 27, | 22-25, 27, | 8 | 16 | 38-45 | 28, 38, 39, | 28, 30, 32, | | | | 41, 42 | 35, 38, 39, | | | | | 41-45 | | | | | | | | 16, 17, 31-33 | | 16-17, 31-33 | | 5 | | | | | | | | | | | 7, 12-22 | | 7, 12, 13, 15,| | 6 | | | 21, 22 | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1-14 | | 1-10 | | 10 | 1-39 | 13, 23, 25, | 13-15, 23, | 10 | 17 | | 27, 29-31, | 25-27, 29-32, | | | | 34-36 | 34-39 | | | | | | | | 26-28, 37-51 | 27-28, 37-41 | 26-28, 37-51 | 7 | 15 | | | | | | 14-30 | | 29 | | 1 |----------------|----------------|---------------|-------|------- | 302 | 101 | 208 | 101 | 208 ------------------------------------------------------------------

The a.n.a.lysis of Wellhausen is the least elaborate of the five, and that of Wernle is almost as simple. The other three show more disposition to select out the verse or part of the verse which, occuring in the midst of Q material, should nevertheless be a.s.signed to some other source. Weiss adds a question mark to several of his sections, but these have been included in the table. All the students say that not the same certainty attaches to all the sections which they have included. Sir John Hawkins, especially, says he does not consider his work a "reconstruction of Q,"

which, with Mr. Burkitt, he considers a task beyond the data at our command.

According to these five scholars, Q has furnished a source for Matthew in eleven chapters. According to three out of the five, Q is found in sixteen chapters. Harnack and Hawkins agree in finding one verse each in chaps.

xv, xvii, and xix. Weiss alone finds two-thirds of a verse in xxi. Among the five, they find Q in twenty chapters. The only chapters in which Q is not found by any of them are i, ii, xiv, xvi, xx, xxvi, xxvii, and xxviii.

The most conspicuous absences of Q from Matthew are in his first two chapters, in his chapters dealing with the Pa.s.sion (chaps. xxvi-xxvii), and in his story of the empty grave and the resurrection appearances (chap. xxviii).

Concerning the absence of Q from chaps. xiv, xvi, and xx, and its practically negligible presence in chaps. xv, xvii, xix, and xxi, it will be observed that these chapters do not deal exclusively with narrative material. Their content is, in brief, the death of the Baptist, the return of the disciples, the feeding of the five thousand, the walking on the sea, the dispute about hand-was.h.i.+ng, the Canaanitish woman, the feeding of the four thousand, the demand of the Pharisees for a sign, the confession of Peter, the demands for disciples.h.i.+p, the transfiguration, the healing of the epileptic boy, the prediction of Jesus' sufferings, the temple-tax, the strife about rank, the strange exorcist, the speech about offenses and about the rescue of the lost, the rules for reconciliation with a brother and for forgiveness, the parable of the Evil Steward, the dispute about marriage and divorce, the blessing of the children, the danger of riches, the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, the second prediction of sufferings, the demand of the sons of Zebedee, the healing of Bartimaeus, the entry into Jerusalem, the offense of the scribes and priests, the cursing of the fig tree, the purification of the temple, the parables of the Dissimilar Sons and the Evil Vineyard-Keepers.

So far as the narrative material in these chapters is concerned, it is derived from Mark. Of the discourse material, some is connected with the narrative in Mark, and taken, like the narrative, from him.[88] Other pa.s.sages of discourse material, like the demands of disciples.h.i.+p (Mt xvi, 24-28), not closely connected with Marcan narrative, yet apparently taken from Mark, contain verses elsewhere duplicated in Matthew. For these verses, some of which Luke takes from Mark, he has duplicates elsewhere.

Since these duplicates in both Matthew and Luke are elsewhere closely connected with Q material, and are in their other connections apparently uninfluenced by Mark, it appears that in these chapters, where Matthew forsakes Q, he has nevertheless embodied certain material from Mark which originally stood alike in Mark and Q.

Other instances of this kind occur in Mt xviii, 1-5, the strife about rank; in xviii, 6-9, about offenses; and in xx, 24-28, about true greatness. These verses represent pa.s.sages in which, according to Sanday's statement,[89] Mark and Q "overlapped"; or, according to other students (notably Mr. Streeter in the same volume), Mark also copied from Q. As we are here interested, not in the relation of Mark to Q, but only in the content of the latter as it is found in Matthew, we may go back to our statement that Matthew has combined his material from Q in his chaps.

iii-viii and x-xii, and practically (if not quite) forsaken him in chaps.

xiii-xxii.

Going back once more to Table II, the largest content ascribed to Q is given by Wernle: three hundred and two verses (including a few parts of verses). The next largest are from Weiss and Wellhausen, two hundred and forty-eight and two hundred and fifty-six verses respectively. Harnack and Hawkins a.s.sign only one hundred and ninety and one hundred and ninety-four.[90] But the facts that out of the largest content ascribed by any one of the five students (three hundred and two by Wernle), two hundred and eight of the same verses are likewise a.s.signed by two others, and that out of the smallest content (one hundred and ninety by Harnack), one hundred and one are likewise a.s.signed by all five, show that as to the nucleus of Q, including more than half of it according to Harnack and one-third of it according to Wernle, there is practically no dispute.

Table III will show the results of the work of the same five scholars as to the Q material in Luke.

DEDUCTIONS FROM TABLE III

Table III, containing the content ascribed to Q as it is found in Luke, by the same five scholars mentioned above, discloses some interesting results when compared with Table II (pp. 110-11). As was the case with Q in Matthew, the smallest total is a.s.signed by Harnack. That he finds one hundred and ninety verses (including a few parts of verses) in both Matthew and Luke indicates that he has limited his Q pretty closely to the duplicate matter in both Gospels. Hawkins' results are very close in this respect to Harnack's (one hundred and ninety-four Q verses in Matthew and one hundred and ninety-two in Luke), and indicate the same basis of computation. Wellhausen finds Q in two hundred and fifty-six verses of Matthew, and in only two hundred and ten of Luke.

Both tables show that Wellhausen's a.n.a.lysis of Q is much less elaborate than that of any of the other students. Since the number of Q verses which he finds in both Matthew and Luke is considerably larger than that which Harnack and Hawkins find, the disparity between his Q matter in Matthew and in Luke may be accounted for by his willingness to go farther beyond the duplicate material in those two Gospels for his Q. His two hundred and ten Q verses ascribed to Luke are not greatly in excess of the number ascribed by Harnack and Hawkins to both Luke and Matthew. He gives to Luke twenty more Q verses, and to Matthew sixty-six more, than Harnack. Of these sixty-six, he may consider thirty to be duplicates in Matthew and Luke (since what const.i.tutes derivation from a common source must always be matter of opinion). The other thirty-six verses he a.s.signs to Q in Matthew, tho lacking duplicates in Luke, on the ground of their general characteristics. The habits of Matthew and Luke, respectively, in their treatment of Mark, render it practically certain that Matthew would feel less at liberty to omit Q material than Luke. Wernle's a.s.signments (three hundred and two Q verses to Matthew and two hundred and fifty-five to Luke) may be explained in the same way.

TABLE III

MATERIAL IN LUKE TAKEN FROM Q

================================================================= Chapter | Harnack |Wellhausen| Hawkins | J. Weiss | | | | | | --------|-------------|----------|----------------|-------------| iii |7-9, 16-17 |1-7 |7-9, 17 |7-9, 17-18 | iv |1-13 |1-15 |3-13 |1-13 | vi |17, 20-23, |20-23, |17, 20-23 |47-49 | | 27-33, | 27-49 | 27-49 | | | 35b-44, | | | | | 46-49 | | | | vii |1-10, 18-28, |1-10, |1-3, 6-9, 18-19,|1-3, 7-10, | | 31-35 | 18-35 | 22-28, | 18-26, | | | | 31-35 | 28-35 | ix |2, 57-60 | | 57-60 |57-60 | x |2-7b, 9, |1-24 |2-6, 7b-9, |2-3, 13-14, | | 16, 21-22, | | 12-16, | 16, 21-27 | | 23b, 24 | | 21-24 | | xi |2-4, 9-14, |9-32, |2-4, 9-14, |2-4, 9-11, | | 16-17, 19- | 37-52 | 16, 19-20, | 15-16, 24- | | 20, 23-26, | | 23-26, 29-32, | 26, 29-31, | | 29-35, 39, | | 34-35, | 33-35, | | 42, 44, | | 39, 41, 42, | 39-52 | | 46-52 | | 44, 46-51 | | xii |2-10, 22-31, |22-46 |2-9, 22-31, |2-8, 10-12, | | 33-34, 39- | | 33b-34, | 22-31, 33- | | 40, 42-46, | | 39, 40, 42-46,| 34, 39-46, | | 51, 53, | | 51-53, | 51-52 | | 58-59 | | 58, 59 | | xiii |18-21, 24, |34-35 |20-21, 23-29, |18-21, 23-25,| | 28-29, 34, | | 34-35 | 28-30, | | 35 | | | 34-35 | xiv |11, 26-27, |16-24 |11, 26-27 |11, 16-23, | | 34-35 | | | 26-27, 34, | | | | | 35 | xv |4-7 | |4, 5, 7 |3-5 | xvi |13, 16-18 | |13, 16-17 |13, 16-18 | xvii |1, 3-4, 6, |20-35 |1, 3, 4, 6, 24, |1-2, 5-6, 23,| | 23-24, 26, | | 26, 27, 34, | 24, 26, 27,| | 27, 32, 34,| | 35, 37 | 31, 33b-4 | | 35, 37 | | | | xviii | | | |13, 15, 16 | xix |26 |11-27 | | | xxii |28, 30 | |28, 30 |22-25 | --------|-------------|----------|----------------|-------------| Total | 190 | 210 | 192 | 174 | -----------------------------------------------------------------

=========================================================== | Wernle | All Five | Three or |No. in|No. in | | | More | Five | Three |-------------|---------------|--------------|------|------ |7-9, 16-17 |7 |7-9, 17 | 1 | 4 |3-12 |3-12 |1-13 | 6 | 13 |20-49 |47-49 |20-23, 27-49 | 3 | 27 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |2-10, 18-35 |1-3, 6-9, 18, |1-10, 18, 28, | 19 | 26 | | 19, 22-26, | 31-35 | | | | 31-35 | | | |57-62 | |57-60 | | 4 |1-16, 21-24 |2-3, 16, 21-24 |2-9, 12-16 | 7 | 13 | | | | | | | | | | |2-4, 9-26, |9-11, 16, |19, 20, 23-26,| 19 | 39 | 29-36, | 24-26, 29-31,| 29-35, | | | 39-52 | 39, 42, | 39-52, 2-4, | | | | 44, 46-51 | 9-17 | | | | | | | | | | | | |2-12, 22-34, |22-31, 33-34, |2-10, 22-31, | 19 | 34 | 39-46, 51- | 39-40, | 33-34, 39- | | | 53, 58-59 | 42-46 | 46, 51-53, | | | | | 58-59 | | | | | | | |18-21, 28-30,|34-35 |18-21, 24, | 2 | 9 | 34-35 | | 28, 29, 34, | | | | | 35 | | |16-24, 26-27 | |16-23, 26-27 | | 10 | | | | | | | | | | |3-10 | |4-7 | | 4 |13, 16-17 | |13, 16-17 | | 3 |1-4, 23-37 |24, 26, 27, 34 |1, 3, 4, 6, | 4 | 14 | | | 23, 24, 26, | | | | | 27, 31-35, | | | | | 37 | | | | | | | |12-27 | |26 | | 1 | | | | | |-------------|---------------|--------------|------|------ | 255 | 80 | 201 | 80 | 201 -----------------------------------------------------------

Somewhat more difficult to understand is Weiss's a.s.signment of two hundred and forty-eight Q verses to Matthew against only one hundred and seventy-four to Luke. He has here in common sixteen fewer verses than Harnack and Hawkins a.s.sign in common to Matthew and Luke from Q. But he also a.s.signs to Matthew seventy-four Q verses not paralleled in the Q material which he a.s.signs to Luke. The difference goes back again to the difference of opinion as to the degree of literary similarity which must be taken to indicate a common source; as also to Weiss's interest in the special source (S) of Luke. If we deduct from Weiss's Q in Matthew the twenty-eight verses after which he places an interrogation mark, this will leave him with only forty-six Q verses in Matthew unduplicated in Luke.

This is only ten more than Wellhausen has.

All five scholars find Q material in nine of Luke's chapters (against eleven of Matthew's). Three find it in fourteen chapters. Chaps. iii and iv in Matthew correspond with the same chapters in Luke. Harnack finds in Matthew's two chapters seventeen Q verses, and in Luke's two chapters, eighteen. Hawkins finds fourteen in Matthew's two, and fifteen in Luke's.

Matthew's chaps. v-viii (Sermon on the Mount) contain according to Harnack sixty-six Q verses, according to Hawkins sixty-eight. To these three chapters of Matthew, chap. vi of Luke forms a partial parallel. It contains, according to Harnack, twenty-six, and according to Hawkins twenty-eight Q verses, parallel to that number of Matthew's sixty-six. Of the remaining forty Q verses in Matthew (chaps. v-viii), Luke has in other connections, in chaps. xi, xii, xiii, xiv, and xvi, thirty-four parallel Q verses. All but six of the verses a.s.signed by Hawkins and Harnack to Q in the Sermon on the Mount are therefore paralleled by Q material in Luke.

But of this Q material in Luke more than half is scattered about in different chapters, in marked contrast to its concentration in Matthew.

This is perhaps the best single ill.u.s.tration of the fact, often mentioned, that Luke blends his Q material with material from other sources, while Matthew inserts it in blocks.

It does not appear upon the surface why the same five investigators should not reach results concerning Q in Luke with the same consensus as concerning Q in Matthew. It is perhaps explained by the fact that Luke's blending of his material from different sources and his freer treatment of it render Q less identifiable with him. If, however, Wernle, Wellhausen, and Weiss be disregarded, and attention be paid only to the lists of Hawkins and Harnack, these latter lists will be found to agree as closely in their identification of Q material in Luke as in Matthew. This merely shows that we are on firm ground in the identification of Q, so long as we restrict ourselves closely to the duplicate pa.s.sages in Matthew and Luke, and require a reasonably strict agreement before admitting a common source. It is when we leave this duplicate material, to extend the limits of Q beyond it, that the uncertainties begin.

THE NECESSITY FOR A FURTHER EXTENSION OF Q

Yet the presence in both Matthew and Luke, especially in the former, of much sayings-material which is not only imbedded in Q matter, but has all the characteristics of Q; the presence of "translation variants"; the natural a.s.sumption that even if Matthew and Luke had before them the same identical copy of Q, they would not agree entirely in the amount of material they would respectively quote from it; and the desire to a.s.sign as much as seems reasonable to this source before positing another, all lead us to the task of a further determination of the content of Q. This further determination issues in an a.n.a.lysis of Q into QMt and QLk.

PART II

a.n.a.lYSIS OF Q INTO QMT AND QLK

CHAPTER I

THE a.n.a.lYSIS OF Q

Q ORIGINALLY AN ARAMAIC DOc.u.mENT, USED IN GREEK TRANSLATIONS BY MATTHEW AND LUKE

The starting-point of a further determination of the content of Q is the fact that Matthew and Luke seem to have taken their duplicate matter from a Greek doc.u.ment, but that this Greek doc.u.ment was a translation from the Aramaic. If Matthew and Luke had been independently translating from an Aramaic doc.u.ment, they could not have hit so generally upon the same order of words, especially where many other arrangements would have done as well (and occasionally better), nor would they have agreed in the translation of an Aramaic word by the same unusual Greek word, as notably in the ?p???s??? of the Lord's Prayer. The Q they used was a Greek doc.u.ment.

But Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek; and if Q is Palestinian, and as early as 60-65 or 70, it would be strange for it to have been written in any language except that which Jesus spoke. Mark had an Aramaic tradition; and tho he probably wrote in Greek he preserved many Aramaic words and expressions; Q as found in Matthew and Luke has no Aramaic words; this seems to be explicable only upon the supposition that though the original of it was in Aramaic, Matthew and Luke knew it only in its Greek form.

The hypothesis of an Aramaic original for Q is rendered practically certain by some of the variations that occur between Matthew's and Luke's versions of it. The clearest ill.u.s.tration of this is found in the speech against the Pharisees. Matthew reads, ?a????s?? p??t?? t? ??t?? t??

p?t?????. Luke reads, p??? t? ????ta d?te ??e??s????. One of these Greek clauses would be as difficult to derive from the other, or both of them from the same Greek original, as would be the English translation of the words. The meaning of Luke's is far from clear. In an Aramaic original, however, Matthew's verb might have read [Hebrew], while Luke's might have read [Hebrew]. A mere stroke of the pen, if the saying originally stood in Aramaic, explains a variation which cannot be explained at all if the saying was originally in Greek. This statement, however, will apply only if the Aramaic was written and not merely spoken; for the two letters so alike in appearance are not particularly similar in sound.

Tho the above is the simplest and clearest instance, others of the same sort are not wanting. In Matthew's Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, "So persecuted they the prophets which were before you"; while in the corresponding pa.s.sage in Luke's Sermon on the Plain he says, "In the same manner their fathers treated the prophets." Matthew's phrase (v. 12), t???

p?? ???, and Luke's (vi, 23), ?? pat??e? a?t??, are equivalents, respectively, of the Hebrew or Aramaic phrases for "your ancestors" and "their ancestors." But whereas the two Greek phrases look nothing alike and could not be mistaken for one another, the difference in the Aramaic again reduces itself to the difference in one letter between the endings [Hebrew] and [Hebrew]. For Matthew's saying (x, 12), ?sp?sas?e a?t?? (t??

????a?) Luke reads (x, 5), ???ete? e????? t? ???? t??t?. Here Luke preserves the wording of the Aramaic greeting, "Peace be unto you," while Matthew says, "Greet the house." The form which Luke gives of the greeting is that which is used in Yiddish at the present time--[Hebrew], "Peace to you," equivalent to our "good morning." That this is what underlay the tradition in Matthew is indicated by the fact that he goes on to say, "If the house is worthy, _your peace_ shall abide upon it; but if it is unworthy, _your peace_ shall return to you."

The very peculiar Greek used by both Matthew and Luke in the saying about excommunication (e?p?s?? p?? p?????? ?a?' ??? in Mt v, 11, and ?????s??

t? ???a ??? ?? p?????? in Lk vi, 22) seems to go back to the one Aramaic phrase for giving one a bad name. In the speech against the Pharisees Matthew (xxiii, 25) says, "Ye cleanse the outside of the cup and dish but inwardly they [the cup and platter] are full of greed and baseness." Luke makes much better sense by reading (xi, 39), "Ye cleanse the outside of cup and platter, but inwardly ye are full of greed," etc. If it be a.s.sumed that the present tense of the verb "to cleanse" was represented in Aramaic by the participle (which would be the usual construction), and that the second person p.r.o.noun stood with it in the first clause but was not repeated in the second (as would also be natural in the Aramaic), Matthew's change of the verb in the second clause, from the second person to the third, and his consequent use of "cup and dish" as the subject of it, are easily explained; since the participle carries in itself no distinction between second and third person, and the plural form would fit equally the "ye" and the "they." Instances such as these (I owe them all to Wellhausen)[91] seem to prove conclusively (Julicher says "beyond a doubt") that, not merely an Aramaic oral tradition, but an Aramaic doc.u.ment lies behind the Greek Q used by Matthew and Luke.

METHODS OF MATTHEW AND LUKE IN THEIR USE OF Q

Upon the hypothesis that Matthew and Luke used essentially the same text of Q, an elaborate treatment of their respective use of that doc.u.ment is called for to show which of them, in instances where they differ, is to be charged with the alterations, and to a.s.sign the reasons for those alterations. Two scholars, Harnack in his _Sayings of Jesus_ and Wernle in his _Synoptische Frage_, have made such an a.n.a.lysis, with the thoroness characteristic of them. The writer has studied these a.n.a.lyses carefully, and upon the basis of them and of such study of the texts as they suggested, made his own a.n.a.lysis. But upon the hypothesis of Q as originally an Aramaic doc.u.ment, used by Matthew and Luke in Greek translations going back to different Aramaic texts, such an a.n.a.lysis becomes superfluous, because superseded by the a.n.a.lysis of Q into the two recensions, QMt and QLk.

THE a.n.a.lYSIS OF Q INTO QMT AND QLK

If Q was originally an Aramaic doc.u.ment, used by Matthew and Luke in Greek translations going back to different copies of the Aramaic original, it is fair to a.s.sume that these two translations would have had different histories. Q would always be growing, by the aid of oral tradition; and if Q was written before Mark, there was ample time, say twenty-five years at least, before it was used by Matthew and Luke, for the two recensions, circulating in different communities and perhaps originally shaped to suit the needs of different readers, to acquire many dissimilar features. Not only would the same saying in many instances become changed to meet the varying need, or to adapt itself to what was considered a better tradition, but many things would be included in either recension which were not included in the other. Matthew will thus have had a recension of Q which we may designate by the sign QMt, and Luke one which we may call QLk.

The following pages represent an attempt to determine the content of Q, as that is represented in both Matthew and Luke.[92] Of the sections of Matthew and Luke examined, some are marked QMt, some QLk, and some merely Q. By this it is not meant that Matthew and Luke each had a doc.u.ment Q, and besides this a doc.u.ment QMt or QLk, and that they took now from one and now from the other. But where the wording of Matthew and Luke is identical, or so closely similar that the variations can be easily explained as changes made by Matthew or Luke, the material is a.s.signed simply to Q. But where the variations are too great, much greater for example than any changes that have been made by Matthew and Luke or by either one of them where they are taking their logian material from Mark, the material is a.s.signed to QMt and QLk. Reasons for the a.s.signment to QMt or to QLk instead of to simple Q are given in each case seeming to require them. The sum of all pa.s.sages a.s.signed to any form of Q will const.i.tute the total content of Q, so far as it is contained in both Matthew and Luke. This total content will be somewhat larger than the content that could be a.s.signed to Q without the hypothesis of QMt and QLk, since by this hypothesis many sections will be sufficiently alike to be a.s.signed to Q (QMt and QLk) which otherwise would have to be ascribed to different sources.[93]