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In the Two Source Theory, Matthew and Luke relied on Mark’s narrative (i.e. triple tradition) and a hypothetical source called “Q” from Quelle(source) to account for the shared non-Markan sayings in Matthew/Luke (i.e. double tradition).  Scholars posited a hypothetical source, rather than assume that Luke just took over the sayings from Matthew or vice-versa, and gave a number of reasons for the independence of Matthew and Luke.  Since a number of passages in the double tradition are near verbatim, it seems unlikely that Matthew and Luke drew independently on oral tradition alone rather than a written source(s).  The second most popular theory to account for the Synoptic Problem, the Farrer Theory, argues that Luke used Matthew and eliminates the need for Q.  Here are some arguments for and against the existence of Q.

Lack of Matthew’s Additions to Mark

If Luke knows both Mark and Matthew, we would expect Luke to be familiar with Matthew’s redaction of Mark.  John Kloppenborg (“On Dispensing with Q? Goodacre on the Relation of Luke to Matthew” NTS 49 [2003]: 210-36) argues that it would be odd for Luke to not reproduce the following additions to Mark (p. 219):

• Matt 3:14-15 – the dialogue between Jesus and John the Baptist.
• Matt 12:5-7 – additional justifications for Jesus’ Sabbath practices including that Jesus is greater than the Temple and the Hosea proof-text about desiring mercy rather than sacrifice
• Matt 13:14-17 – the Isaiah proof-text to explain why the crowd was unable to grasp the parables.  One could add that Luke frequently does not reproduce the scriptural proof-texts by which Matthew legitimates Mark’s story
• Matt 14:28-31 – Peter walks on water [BUT Mark’s whole episode is cut out in Luke’s great omission]
• Matt 16:16-19 – blessing Peter for his divinely given insight into Jesus’ identity and giving him the keys of the kingdom and power to bind/loose on earth as it is in heaven
• Matt 19:19b – Matthew’s exception to the divorce prohibition [BUT Luke omits Mark’s section on divorce]
• Matt 27:19, 24 – the dream of Pilate’s wife to having nothing to do with an innocent man and Pilate washing his hands of the guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus

Farrer theorists might respond that this objection is framed according to the Two Source Hypothesis.  That is, not only does Luke follow Matthew in the innovation of re-writing Mark with the addition of birth/Easter narratives and expanded teaching material, but Luke does reproduce some of Matthew’s additions to Mark in the minor agreements (e.g., ‘who hit you’ in Matt 26:68/Luke 22:64 against Mark 14:65) and major agreements/so-called Mark-Q overlaps (e.g., temptations in Matt 4:1-11/Luke 4:1-13 against Mark 1:12-13) against Mark.  Second, if Luke knew Mark for a long time before coming into contact with Matthew, perhaps Luke was hesitant to include Matthew’s redactional changes to Mark’s text that had long been used by the community.  Third, Mark Goodacre invokes Austin Farrer’s notion of “Luke pleasing” to explain why Luke takes over some but not many of Matthew’s additions to the triple tradition.  Sometimes we can make educated guesses about why Luke did not reproduce something from Matthew while other times we may be at a loss on Luke’s reasons, though the same applies to discerning the cause for Luke’s omissions from Mark.  Lets take an example:  Mark Goodacre (Case Against Q, p. 50) points out that there is a very good reason to omit the dialogue between Jesus and the Baptist in Luke:  Luke has imprisoned John before the baptism (Luke 3:20)!  However, Kloppenborg (pp. 219-20) retorts that this is Luke’s solution to get over the embarrassment that Jesus underwent John’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins, an expedient that would not have been necessary if he knew Matthew’s solution to have the Baptist protest how he needs to be baptized by Jesus and Jesus respond that his baptism is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.   The question is whether Luke’s omissions can be explained by fidelity to Mark’s text and/or for redactional reasons or better accounted for by Luke’s ignorance of Matthew.

Lack of “M” material

In addition to Q, B.H. Streeter argued that the special material found only in Matthew and Luke went back to distinct sources (“M” and “L”).  Today, most scholars view Matthew and Luke drawing on a diversity of oral or written traditions for their special material rather than treating “M” and “L” as distinct sources (but see Kim Paffenroth, The Story of Jesus According toL; RBL review).  J. Andrew Doole’s What Was Mark for Matthewdistinguishes “M” traditions loosely connected to Mark’s narrative and others that appear to embellish upon Mark itself (33-4).  His list of the latter (e.g., priests work on the Sabbath, Peter walks on water, Peter given the keys to the kingdom, eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, become as children, the innocence of Pilate, other narrative details) belong above under additions to the triple tradition, though Doole sees pre-Matthean oral tradents rather than the conservative Matthew as embellishing Mark, but here are examples of the former:

• Nativity (genealogy, Joseph’s dream, Immanuel, star and magi, slaughter in Bethlehem and flight to Egypt)  (Matt 1-2)
• The healing of two blind persons and a mute one (9:27-34)
• The scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven brings out new treasure along with the old (13:51-52)
• Paying the Temple Tax with a coin from a fishes mouth (17:24-27)
• Judas’ death by hanging (27:3-10) (*note: Acts 1:17-20 describes Judas’ death very differently)
• The earthquake and the resurrection of the saints (27:51b-53)
• The Great Commission (28:16-20)
•  Parables – hidden treasure, fine pearl, good and bad fish, 2 sons, maidens’ lamps, sheep & goats (13:44-50; 21:28-31; 25:1-13, 31-40) (*note: other famous parables are the unmerciful servant in 18:23-35 or workers in the vineyard in 20:1-16)
• Logia – uprooted plants, eschatological predictions (Matt 15:13; 24:10-12, 26) (*note: 24:10-12, 26 does not seem to me loosely connected but other examples might be the yoke saying of 11:28-30 or church rules of 18:15-20)

An obvious retort to why more “M” is not Luke is, if it was included, it would not be “M” since it would be part of the double tradition in Matthew/Luke and Two Source theorists would classify it as “Q” or Farrer theorists what Luke took from Matthew.  Yet Two Source Theorists deem many “M” traditions to nicely align with Luke’s theology (Gentiles, grace/forgiveness, poverty), and ask why Luke would exclude these traditions.  Farrer theorists argue “M” was Luke -displeasing: “Must we therefore distinguish in Matthew two elements, M and Q, M rabbinic in tone, Q popular and nonrabbinic, of which St. Luke knew Q, but not M? Will it not do as well to say that St. Luke let alone what he did not care for, viz., the rabbinic parts of Matthew?” (Austin Farrer, “On Dispensing with Q“, 58).  But this may not accurately characterize “L” with its birth narratives in the style of the Septuagint, scriptural proof-texts in the Nazarene synagogue episode, additional halakhic arguments for Sabbath practices, and so on (cf. the Jerusalem Decree in Acts).  Did Luke have other reasons to pass over M?  Mark Goodacre (Case Against Q) observes that Luke reproduces much of Matthew’s birth narrative (Virgin Birth, Mary/Joseph, Bethlehem), replaces the gloom of Herod’s atrocity with the joy of Elizabeth and Mary or rejoicing angels and shepherds, and eliminates the Magi due to disliking magicians.  Francis Watson (Gospel Writing, 131-6, 141-3) emphasizes Luke’s account as a reaction to Matthew:  the annunciation is to Mary as the main subject rather than Joseph, Luke’s wording echoes Matthew, and Luke’s geneology rejects descent through Solomon’s line (cf. Jer 22:28-30; 36:30-1).  Can one find redactional reasons for Luke excluding M, or revising it (Goodacre notes that Luke 24:46-9 adapts the Great Commission; Watson argues the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 reworks the two sons in Matthew 21:28-31), or are the omissions better accounted for by Luke’s ignorance of Matthew?

Lack of Agreement When Departing From Mark’s Order

Start with a Synopsis and look at when Matthew or Luke depart from Mark’s order.  Matthew switches the healing of the leper (Mt 8:14-7; Mk 1:40-5) and Peter’s mother-in-law (Mt 8:14-7; Mk 1:29-34), relocates the calming of the storm followed by the demoniacs (doubled) (Mt 8:23-34; Mk 4:36-5:20) and the healing of Jairus’ daughter as well as hemorrhaging woman (Mt 9:18-26; Mk 5:22-43), has Jesus designate the “Twelve” later in the narrative (Mt 10:2-4; Mk 3:16-9), and moves back predictions of persecution (Mt 10:17-23; Mk 13:9-13).  Luke moves John’s imprisonment (Lk 3:19-20; Mk 6:17-8) and the Nazarene synagogue (Lk 4:16-30; Mk 6:1-6) and the woman anointing Jesus (Lk 7:36-50; Mk 14:3-9) forward in the narrative, moves the call of the first disciples (Lk 5:1-11; Mk 1:16-20) and Jesus’ true family (Lk 8:19-21; Mk 3:31-5) later in the narrative, switches the crowds following Jesus and the designation of the Twelve (Lk 6:12-19; Mk 3:7-19), and puts the saying about Jesus as one who serves at the Last Supper (Lk 22:24-7; Mk 10:45).

The fact that Matthew and Luke rarely agree when departing from Mark’s order is explained on the Two Source Theory as due to their independent use of Mark.  How might Farrer theorists respond?  By not taking over Matthew’s alterations, Luke may have wanted to restore Mark’s order as his primary source.  Yet Luke also straightens out weak spots in Mark’s order:  John’s imprisonment gets around the problem of John baptizing Jesus, Luke’s Nazarene synagogue is Jesus’ inaugural proclamation that sets the tone (e.g., foreshadowing the Gentile mission), or the call of the disciples is left until after some of the ministry so it is not so random to drop everything to follow a yet-unknown teacher.  In Michael Goulder’sLuke: A New Paradigm, he argues that Luke’s prologue on past attempts “to arrange in sequence” (anataxasthai) a narrative and the author’s goal to write an “orderly” account means that Luke wanted to reconcile chronological disputes between Mark and Matthew (199-200).  Mark Goodacre (Case Against Q) argues that Luke knew, preached, and memorized Mark for 20 years before coming into contact with Matthew (51, 89).  He writes, “In this way, Luke stands at a unique moment in Christian origins, a moment when Matthew’s importance is beginning to be felt, but when Mark is still in many ways valued more highly” (90).  But does the attitude towards the sources in the Lukan prologue (and possibly the representation of “John Mark”) and Luke’s liberty to make changes to Mark, including major alterations (cf. Passion Narrative), expansions (e.g., Lk 4:16-30; 7:36-50), and omissions (Mk 6:45-8:27), suggest that Luke had such fidelity to Mark that the author would not go along with Matthew’s relocation of Markan episodes?  Or is Luke’s ignorance of Matthew’s re-arrangements of Mark more likely?

Alternating Primitivity

Sometimes the form of the double tradition seems more primitive in Matthew and other times in Luke.  This makes sense if either Matthew or Luke alternate between sticking closely to Q or adapting the wording/content of the source to their redactional interests, but, if Luke is copying Matthew (or vice-versa), would we expect Luke (or Matthew) to always be secondary?  Michael Goulder (Luke: A New Paradigm) takes the line that Matthew is the creative originator of the non-Markan material and so Luke’s formulation must be secondary, while Mark Goodacre (Case Against Q) is open to oral/written sources so Luke may sometimes know pre-Matthean formulations.  To decide what is a more primitive formulation, John Kloppenborg and Robert A. Derrenbacker, “Self-Contradiction in the IQP? A Reply to Michael Goulder” JBL 120 (2001): 57-76 explain the reasoning behind determining whether Matthew or Luke better approximate Q in select cases even without having Q to double check:

[A] phrase or word should be treated as secondary (that is, not deriving from Q), (a) when it can be shown by reference to Matthew’s treatment of Mark and by reference to editorial or transitional portions of Matthew that Matthew has a tendency to add the phrase or word, and (b) when Luke has no aversion to the phrase or word. (The same logic applies mutatis mutandisto Lukan phrases and words.) (p. 63)

Additionally, they take from text criticism the preference for the shorter or difficult reading, for a scribe is more likely to expand (elaborate, clarify) than abbreviate and solve than create theological tensions, and use a similar rating system to the United Bible Society on the probability of reconstructions (pp. 59-63).  Lets look at examples.

Lord’s Prayer:  is Luke’s shorter version earlier and “debts” or “sins” more primitive?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And do not bring us to a time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one (Matt 6:9-13)

“Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial. (Luke 11:2-4)

Beatitudes: did Matthew spiritualize the blessing or Luke abbreviate Matthew’s beatitude out of concern for the poor?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3)

“Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20)

Finger or Spirit:  has Matthew replaced Q’s wording since it is unlikely that Luke would skip a reference to the Spirit given the interest in the Spirit in Luke-Acts or Luke change Matthew to “finger of God” to connect Jesus with Moses (Exod 8:19; 31:18)?

But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Matt 12:28)

But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. (Luke 11:20)

The Sender: does Matthew change Q to identify Jesus with wisdom or Luke find Matthew problematic that Jesus sent the prophets of old?  Or Matthew 11:19 has wisdom vindicated by her deeds (done byJesus and/or John?) and Luke 7:35 by her children (Jesus and John?), so is Matthew again altering Q to make the identification with Wisdom explicit or Luke not like Matthew’s wisdom Christology (cf. “M” yoke saying in Matt 11:28-30; cf.Sir. 51:25-6)?

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechari′ah the son of Barachi′ah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. (Matt 23:34-5)

Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechari′ah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. (Luke 11:49)

Sign of Jonah: did Matthew expand an original Q sign about Jesus’ preaching (cf. Ninevah repented at Jonah’s preaching and the queen of the south traveled far to hear Solomon) into a sign about his death and resurrection or Luke abbreviate Matthew?

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matt 13:40)

For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Nin′eveh, so will the Son of man be to this generation. (Luke 11:30)

The Different Order of the Double Tradition

(1) [S]ubsequent to the Temptation story, there is not a single case in which Matthew and Luke agree in inserting the same saying at the same point in the Marcan outline. (2) If then Luke derived this material from Matthew, he must have gone through both Matthew and Mark so as to discriminate with meticulous precision between Marcan and non-Marcan material; (3) he must then have proceeded with the utmost care to tear every little piece of non-Marcan material he desired to use from the context of Mark in which it appeared in Matthew—(4) in spite of the fact that contexts in Matthew are always exceedingly appropriate—(5) in order to re-insert it into a different context of Mark having no special appropriateness. (6) A theory which would make an author capable of such a proceeding would only be tenable if, on other grounds, we had reason to believe he was a crank. (B.H. Streeter, The Four Gospels, 183

Matthew has tidily collected the Q material into great blocks. Luke, we must then suppose, has broken up this tidy arrangement and scattered the Q material without rhyme or reason all over his gospel — a case of unscrambling the egg with a vengeance! (R.H. Fuller, The New Testament in Current Study, 87)

We are not bound to show that what St. Luke did to St. Matthew turned out to be a literary improvement on St. Matthew. All we have to show is that St. Luke’s plan was capable of attracting St. Luke. You do not like what I have done to the garden my predecessor left me. You are welcome to your opinion, but I did what I did because I thought I should prefer the new arrangement. And if you want to enjoy whatever special merit my gardening has, you must forget my predecessor’s ideas and try to appreciate mine. (Austin Farrer “On Dispensing with Q“, 65)

Classically stated, Two Source theorists argue that Matthew integrated Q in Mark’s framework and organized it into five thematic discourses that ended with a statement about “when Jesus had finished these words/parables/teachings” (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), while Luke separated out Q in two main blocks (6:20-8:3; 9:51-18:15; + 3:1-4:16).  Of course, this is a simplification as Mark Goodacre points out double tradition/Q in Matt 3-4; 8:5-13; 8:19-22; 9:37-8; 11:2-27; 12:22-45; 22:1-10 and Matthew’s five discourses are not all mainly made up of Q (Case Against Q, 82-3).  But on the Farrer Theory, why would Luke 1.detach Matthew’s new material (i.e. Q) from Markan contexts in which Matthew placed it and 2. break up Matthew’s arrangement of the material with the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6-8) as a test case.  Here are examples of #1:

Matt 10:10b, 12-16/Luke 10:3-11 – the mission discourse

Matthew has the mission discourse after the commissioning and naming of the Twelve (cf. Mark 6:7, 3:16-19 moved back) and an “M” tradition restricting their mission to the lost sheep of Israel.  Matthew conflates the double tradition with Mark’s mission discourse (Mark 6:8-13).   Luke covered the naming of the Twelve in 6:13-16 and has Mark’s mission discourse after the Commission of the Twelve in 9:1-6, so the double tradition passages are located separately after the “L” tradition of the commission of the seventy (Luke 10:1).  Note also how the sayings in Luke 10:2, 13-15/Matt 9:37-8; 11:21-24 are placed around the commission of the seventy in Luke and in separate contexts in Matthew.

Matt 13:16-17/Luke 10:23-24 = blessed for what they see and hear.

Matthew has this statement after the Isaiah proof-text about how the crowd is hardened to not grasp the parables. Luke has it after the double tradition Christological passage about how the Son alone knows and reveals the Father (Luke 10:22/Matt 11:27)

Matt 18:12-13/Luke 15:4-5 = the parable of the lost sheep

Matthew has this after the warning not to lead little ones (disciples?) into sin and to cut off the source of sin (cf. Mark 9:42-7) and “M” tradition about not looking down on little ones because their angels behold the Father.  Luke has the accusation that Jesus eats with sinners to introduce the parable and follows with related L parables (lost coin, lost son).

Matt 19:28/Luke 22:30 = sitting on (twelve) thrones

Matthew’s promise occurs after Mark’s challenging story of the rich person and Peter’s comment that the disciples left everything (Mark 10:17-28).  Luke puts it in the Last Supper where Jesus confers on the disciples a kingdom and may omit “twelve” to not have the betrayer in the list (Luke also relocates the greatest as a servant from Mark 10:42-5a).

Matt 24:26-8, 37-41/Luke 17:23-4, 26-37 = Unexpected Judgment

Matthew inserts this material fittingly within Mark’s eschatological discourse while Luke has a separate discussion with the Pharisees and disciples on the timing of the kingdom and day of the Son of Man.

Farrer theorists note times Luke has Matthean additions (Q) within Markan contexts in the baptism. temptations, and Beelzebub incident.  Matthew’s/Luke’s agree against Mark in setting up the incident after the exorcism of a dumb demon (Matt 12:22/Luke 11:14; cf. Matt 9:32-4), though Matthew has this shortly after Sabbath controversies and Luke after a section on prayer.  The Centurion’s servant takes place shortly after the Sermon (Luke 7:1-10/Matt 8:5-13), despite Matthew placing the Sermon far earlier in Jesus’ career, with only the healing of the Leper  intervening in Matthew (8:1-4; cf. Mark 1:40-5; Luke 5:12-15) (Goodacre, Case Against Q, 91).  Watson argues that Matthew and Luke draw on Mark 3:7-19 to set up the Sermon:  Matthew’s Sermon is after the healing/exorcism ministry to diverse crowds and Jesus is on a mountain (deleted from the naming of the Twelve in Matt 10:2-4) while in Luke Jesus names the Twelve on a mountain and then heals/exorcizes among diverse crowds before the Sermon on the Plain (Gospel Writing, 151-5).  These examples show that Luke may be aware of Matthew’s location of double tradition and yet, if Mark was Luke’s primary source, mostly moved Matthew’s additions out from the original material in Mark.

The next issue is why break up and relocate whole sections of double tradition in Matthew, truncating Matthew’s Sermon (Lk 6:20-49) and scattering parts in Luke 11-16?  Goulder (“Juggernaut“) and Goodacre (Case Against Q, 92-6) insist, on analogy to how Luke 8:4-18 treats Mark 4:1-34 (omits Mk 4:26-9, 33-4, relocates Mk 4:30-2 to Lk  13:18-9) and Luke 9:46-8 treats Mark 9:33-50 (omits Mk 9:43-8, relocates Mk 9:42 to Lk 17:1-2, Mk 9:49-50 to Lk 14:34-5), Luke dislikes long speeches.  Goodacre defends Goulder against criticisms that Luke-Acts has lengthy speeches (e.g., Lk 12:22-53; 21:5-36; Acts 2:14-36; 7:2-53):  many are not much longer than Goulder’s 12-20 verses rule in averaging about 30 verses, Luke tends to not take over wholesale long speeches from sourceswhile the speeches in Acts may be original, and Luke tolerates long speeches when suiting his agenda (e.g., rehearsal of Israel’s history in Acts 7, the difficulty of detaching Mark’s eschatological calendar in Luke 21 so even Matthew, who relocates Mk 13:9-12 in Mt 10:17-22, reproduces the verses in the eschatological discourse).  Kloppenborg (“Dispensing with Q?“, 229-30) responds that Luke 12:1-13:9 is 52 verses of mostly direct discourse with few interjections to address different persons (cf. Lk 14:7-17:11 at a Pharisee’s house).  Whether Farrer proponents make a convincing case that Luke’s rearrangements make redactional sense, see Farrer (“On Dispensing with Q“, 67-84), Goulder (Luke: A New Paradigm), Mark Matson (“Luke’s Rewriting of the Sermon on the Mount“), Goodacre (The Case Against Q, 97-102), or Watson (Gospel Writing, ch 4).  Luke may forge new links: Luke 6:20 beatitudes concentrate on the reversal for the poor/mistreated are supplemented with “L” woes against the well-to-do and continues to counsel the mistreated to love enemies, not retaliate, live by the golden rule, and not judge.  Luke 11 detaches the Lord’s prayer from Matthew’s context of Jewish praxis (alms, fasting) to precede parables about not giving up hope for answered prayer.  Kloppenborg (228-9) wonders why the eyes as a lamp from Matt 6:22-3 (after the evil eye) would be moved to Luke 11:34-6 and Matt 6:24 on God vs Mammon from Matthew’s next verse about material cares to Luke 16:13 by the “L” parable in 16:1-12 of the unjust manager who uses Mammon to his advantage, but Watson sees links (189-90, 209).  Luke takes the lamp on its stand in Mt 5:15 where it was a call to shine for all to see (Mt 5:16) and links it to the eyes as a lamp so like a lamb the eyes reveal ones inner light (lacking in this generation of Lk 11:29-32).  The L parable about faithful vs unfaithful uses of unrighteous Mammon is supplemented by how we ultimately serve God rather than Mammon (cf. Matson, 23-4).  So does Luke locate the double tradition different than Matthew because both independently used Q, with Matthew re-arranging Q into Mark’s framework and organized discourses, or are there reasons for Luke to re-arrange Matthew’s non-Markan material?

The Distinct Profile of Q

For Austin Farrer, “No one reconstruction [of Q], to say the least of it, is overwhelmingly evident, and no proposed reconstruction is very firmly patterned” and “after an exordium so full of dogmatic weight and historical destiny, is it credible that the book should peter out in miscellaneous oracles, and conclude without any account of those events which, to a Christian faith, are supremely significant?” (‘On Dispensing with Q‘, 57, 60).  In contrast, William Arnal summarizes: “Once posited on particular grounds (the patterns of agreement and disagreement in sequence and wording among the synoptic gospels), the Q that has emerged (and even mechanically) from this literary evidence has taken on a shape that is theologically coherent, formally coherent, generically coherent and appropriate, socio-historically plausible, and whose general formal shape and theological orientation (including the theological motifs and formal features the reconstructed Q lacks) has been independently confirmed by the unrelated discovery and publication of the Gospel of Thomas (however one dates or classifies this document” (‘The Trouble with Q‘, 11. n. 17).  Arnal’s statement takes on Farrer theorists and those who propose that some of the double tradition goes back to oral tradition (Dunn, Horsley) or multiple Greek/Aramaic sources (Casey), though even strict defenders of the classic Two Source formulation tend to admit that the reality was more messy than the model of two sources (Mark, Q) used for heuristic purposes.  Yet Q specialists argue that Q has a coherent genre as either a prophetic book (Schult, Sato, Boring) or wisdom collection (Robinson, Kloppenborg, Kirk) and distinct themes (Jesus as Wisdom’s emissary, judgment on an unrepentant generation similar to Sodom, the death of Jesus in line with the rejected prophets according to a Deuteronomistic History).  Here are some Q studies.

For Farrer theorists, “Q” is really the material that Luke was favorably disposed to and took over from Matthew, so it is not a surprise that its themes stand out from the material that Luke did not take over from Matthew (“M”) and some are in accordance with Luke’s interests (e.g., the speeches in Acts where the leaders are condemned for their rejection of the prophets culminating in the death of the Righteous One according to a Deuteronomistic interpretation of history).  Moreover, the surprise that, by isolating the double tradition in Matthew and Luke (as opposed to Mark, Matthew or Luke’s special material), it would form a coherent source in its own right may just be a product of so much intensive scholarly interest in this section of the Synoptic Gospels.

The Parallel with How Other Ancient Writers Used their Sources

Robert Allen Derrenbacker, Ancient Compositional Practices and the Synoptic Problem (PhD thesis; Toronto, 2001), F. Gerald Downing, Doing Things with Words in the First Christian Century, and J. Andrew Doole,What was Mark for Matthew argue that the Two Source Theory better accords with ancient compositional practices.  The ancients avoided complex harmonizations of multiple sources and, if a discrepancy arose between sources, the agreements between them served as the basis for a new account.  Instead they stuck to one major source at a time, though it might be supplemented from their memory or brief notes from other material, or they alternated between sources in whole blocks.   So on this theory, Luke chiefly alternates between blocks on Mark and on Q (6:20-8:3, 9:51-18:14; exception 3-4, 19:11-27).  Matthew is more difficult as it conflates Mark with Q on occasion, but Matthew still keeps much of the Q material in blocks.  This is another reason why the Griesbach hypothesis, which envisions Mark conflating Matthew and Luke, is impractical.  Goulder, who has Luke jumping around over Matthew and moving forwards and then backwards, must explain this impractical procedure.  Interestingly, Watson agreed on the weakness of Goulder “necessitating a complex to-and-fro movement within the Matthean text” and posits that Luke relied on a notebook when first reading through Matthew and drew from his notes in rearranging pieces of Matthew to forge new connections (Gospel Writing, 170-1, 171 n. 27).  John C. Poirier’s “The Roll, the Codex, the Wax Tablet and the Synoptic Problem” JSNT 35 (2012): 3-30 argues Derrenbacker and Downing overestimate the difficulty of handling a scroll in the way Farrer theorists assume when Luke read through Matthew and that wax tablets could allow Luke to experiment with new arrangements in his notes before the final copy.

Minor Agreements

If Matthew and Luke independently used Mark, agreements in their changes Matthew and Luke make to Mark should be coincidental.  Yet there are literally hundreds of minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark; virtually every episode in the triple tradition has them.  Many examples are trivial, but some create an issue for the presumed independence of Luke from Matthew in the Two Source Theory:

• Jesus is moved with “anger” (or “compassion”) at the request of the leper to make him clean (Mark 1:40-42), but the emotion is omitted in Matt 8:2-3/Luke 5:12-3.
• The Sabbath is made for humankind in Mark 2:27, but this line is omitted in Matt 12:8/Luke 6:5 as only Jesus as the Son of Man is the Sabbath’s Lord.
• The disciples given the mystery of the kingdom in Mark 4:11, but themysteries of the kingdom to know in Matt 13:11/Luke 8:10.
• Jesus rise in three days in Mark 8:31, but on the third day in Matt 16:21/Luke 9:22.
• The guards mock Jesus to prophesy in Mark 14:65, even as they fulfill prophecy in their treatment of Jesus, but they specify to prophesy “who hit you” in Matt 26:67-8/Luke 22:64.

The Farrer theorists point out that Luke reproduces Matthew’s changes to Mark.  The strongest attempt to deal with the minor agreements from the Two Source Theory is Frans Neirynck, The Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke Against Mark with a Cumulative List.  An appeal that Neirynck does not make in the points below, as opposed to other Two Source theorists (Helmut Koester), is that Matthew and Luke knew a proto-Mark different from our Mark.

1. Common stylistic changes (the obvious need to edit Mark’s awkward grammar, style or Aramaisms)
2. Common theological changes (coincidentally editing Mark’s theological liabilities in a similar manner)
3. Influence from oral tradition on the text of Matt/Luke
4. Later scribal harmonizations of the text of Matt/Luke

Major Agreements or Mark-Q Overlaps

There are times Matthew and Luke agree to a larger extent against Mark.  John Kloppenborg’s Q: the Earliest Gospel has a list on page 34 (Q follows Luke’s references).  Two Source theorists argue that Mark and Q recounted some similar episodes (e.g., the Baptizer, the temptation, the Beelzebub accusation) and sayings (e.g., note the doublet on divorce), so they categorize these examples as Mark-Q overlaps and note that, after Matthew 4:13/Luke 4:16, Matthew and Luke do not use the Q overlapping points in the same context (e.g., missionary discourse, eschatological discourse) or the same way. Goodacre posts here, here, here, here, andhere on why this is a weakness for the Two Source Theory and the simpler explanation is that Luke takes over these extended additions to Mark directly from Matthew.

Literary Fatigue

Literary fatigue happens when a writer makes changes to his or her source, but does not carry the changes all the way forward but accidentally reverts back to the source at points, despite the inconsistencies this creates.  Mark Goodacre’s “Fatigue in the Synoptics” NTS 44 (1998): 45-58 and The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze pp. 154-6 offers examples where Luke seems to revert back to the way Matthew reports something, overlooking that it no longer makes sense in the new context established by Luke.  But why cannot Luke be making changes to “Q” wording that is better preserved in Matthew and then unintentionally revert back to it?  In that case, we would expect to find other examples where Matthew shows signs of editorial fatigue in reverting back to Q as it is better preserved in Luke after making changes, but Goodacre cannot find any examples to this effect.  Delbert Burkett has attempted a rebuttal to this point in an appendix of his Rethinking the Gospel Sources, Volume 2: The Unity and Plurality of Q (cf. Goodacre’s response to an example of editorial fatigue in Matthew in the comments on his podcast on the subject).  If Goodacre persuades his peers, this may be a smoking gun for Luke’s knowledge of Matthew.

When we come across a text, it is necessary to understand the type of literary work we are dealing with, whether to classify it as a history, biography, novel, fairly tale, lab report, letter, and so on.  For instance, if the opening line is “once upon a time in a far away land,” you may instantly recognize the “genre” to which this text belongs.  Mary Anne Tolbert notes that genre can broadly cover archetypal plot patterns (e.g., tragedy, comedy, romance), more narrowly classify texts that possess related traits (plotting, characterization, motifs/themes) as belonging in a category (e.g., novels, biography, poetry), or specifically describe features of a single text.  She defines genre as “a prior agreement between authors and readers or as a set of shared expectations or as a consensus of ‘fore-understandings exterior to a text which enable us to follow that text'” [citing Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy, 30] (Sowing the Gospel, 49).  Likewise, Richard Burridge explains that speaking or writing happen in a system of conventions (traits, rules, customs, necessities, properties that constitute verbal meaning) and genre is a contract between author and reader based on shared expectations about what traits make up an utterance (Graeco-Roman Biography, 34-6, 43-4;  cf. John C. Meagher, “Literary Uniqueness,” 205-6).  Meagher adds that a unique genre violates two standard assumptions in literary history:  humans rarely have the ability to produce something genuinely original, as novelty often relates to content rather than to forms which are culturally conditioned, and meaning is understood in the context of shared conventions (211).  What is the Gospel genre?

Form Critics and the Unique Kerygmatic Genre

Martin Dibelius judged the early Christians to be unliterary persons who had no need to record history in light of the imminent end of the age, so the only form in which the Jesus tradition could be preserved was in missionary preaching (kerygma) (Tradition, 60-61). The evangelists too were not literary composers but, principally, collectors/editors of traditions (1, 3).Rudolf Bultmann outlines how the death and resurrectionkerygma became fixed in creeds (1 Cor 15:3-5), expanded to prophetic prooftexts and Jesus’ anointing at the baptism and the Eucharist, expanded with miracles and pronouncement stories confirming Jesus’ authority, and lastly adding sayings originally passed down separately for exhortation or instruction (Mark has some sayings, Matthew/Luke take over “Q”) (Theology, 86).  For Dibelius (5-6) and Bultmann (Synoptic Tradition, 6-7), the closest analogy to the oral traditions are folktales, fairy-stories, folk songs, and cult legends (e.g., hagiography of saints, anecdotes about Rabbis, tales of Hellenistic heroes, the Jataka collection of Buddhist canon). K.L. Schmidt emphasized that the Gospels are not Hochliteratur(high literature) but like folk books or cult legends, the Gospel tradition developed akin to German folktales (e.g., Dr. Faustus) or hagiographic tales in a cultic context, and the Gospels lack an authorial “I” or distinct personality or intention of the author present even in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius (“Literaturgeschichte,” 76, 82, 114).  Boring adds that, unlike biographies, the Gospels juxtapose images of Jesus’ humanity and divinity through the secrecy motif, proclaim the climax of universal history, do not distinguish the past historical figure and present Lord, are constituted by oral units formed out of preaching, and express the Christ-event in parabolic imagery (Mark, 7-8). As kerygmatic narratives, they are unparalleled Christian creations sui generis.

Criticisms:  the evangelist’s limited literary ability has no implications for the genre of their writings, the fact that the evangelist had access to an abundance of types of material that originated in different settings (e.g., preaching) has no implications for the genre of the finished product, the view of the evangelists as compilers of tradition has given way to redaction and literary critical interest in them as creative authors, and a unique genre is a contradiction of terms if genre is a system of shared conventions.

• Boring, M. Eugene.  Mark: A Commentary. The New Testament Library. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, London, 2006.
• Bultmann, Rudolf.  The History of the Synoptic Tradtion.  Translated by John Marsh; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972; The Theology of the New Testament: Volume I.  New York: Schribner, 1951.
• Dibelius, Martin.  From Tradition to Gospel. Translated by Bertram Lee Woolf. Cambridge: James Clarke, 1971.
• Meagher, John C. “The Implications for Theology of a Shift from the K. L. Schmidt Hypothesis of the Literary Uniqueness of the Gospels.”  Pages 203-33 in Colloquy on New Testament Studies.  Edited by Bruce C. Corley. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983.  [Critiques the Form Critical View]
• Schmidt, K.L.  “Die Stellung der Evangelien in der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte” in EYXAPIΣTHPION: Studien zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments [‘The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature’ in Eucharisterion: Studies on Religion and Literature of the Old and New Testaments].

Aretalogy

Hadas and Smith label Luke, Porphyry’s Pythagoras, Philo’s Moses,and Philostratus’ Apolonius of Tyana as aretalogies, a type of biography on a subject’s supernatural birth, wisdom, miracles, defiance of tyranny, martyrdom, and post-mortem vindication.  In Smith’s article, an aretalogus(aretai or miracles) is a “teller of miracle stories” (175): temple functionary (e.g., hymns to Isis) or spinner of tales (e.g., Seutonius,Augustus, 74 on entertainers and aretalogi at dinner parties; Juvenal 15.16 on a lying aretalogus; Manetho Apotelesmaticorum, 4, 445-49 on myth-makers’ aretalogies) (174-5). Aretalogia is “telling tall stories and the praises of a god” (175-6). There are no extant texts, but he notes a miracle story entitled Dios Hēliou megalou Sarapidos aretē (p. Oxy. 11, 1382, lines 22ff [2nd cent CE]) or thanksgiving inscription aretēn Amenōtou (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, No. 67300 [261/60 BCE]) (176). Later he admits that Aretalogia, though used for reporting or the reports themselves (Manetho 4.445ff.; Sir. 36:13, 19), may not have a literary form (“genre”) but distinct content (hero’s wonderful deeds) (196). Few miracle collections survive outside scattered references or inscriptions and these are unlikethe Gospels in lacking linking material in a narrative “life” (cf. 177-8 n. 27, 178), but Damis’ hupomnēmata of Apollonius, Philostratus’ source, allegedly had prophecies, sayings, travels, post-mortem appearances, and miracles (177-9).  Elite writers only mentioned prophets, magicians, or saviors if involved in politics (e.g., Thucydides 7.50.4 on prophets who led the admiral Nicias astray, Livy 39.15-16 on the Roman suppression of the Bacchanalia; Josephus War 2.258-64 on false prophets or messiahs) or to mock (Celsus on possessed prophets in Palestine in Cels. 7.9; Lucian’s satire of Alexander or Peregrinus) (179-81).  The ancients knew of deities/daimones in human guise, demigods born of a god and human who achieved deification, the heroization of benefactors or rulers, historical figures with pretenses to divinity (181-2), and the goal of deification (Platonism, Eleusinian mysteries, magic) (182-4).  Like Asclepius, Jesus was a famed healer, given a folk birth story, represented as a moral teacher or initiator of mysteries, became the principle of the cosmic order (logos) and solar deity (“light”), accused of magic by foes, and ascended to heaven (186).  The issue with categorizing the ‘divine man’ (theios anēr) into types (prophet, magician, ruler, athlete, philosopher, doctor, poet) is that the borders are fuzzy and one’s god is another’s magician (187). Smith argues Jesus fits this type better that Jewish categories (196) and reconstructs an aretalogy underlying Mark 1-10 that runs from the baptism epiphany to the transfiguration (197-8).

Criticisms: there are no extant aretalogies with features that might distinguish it as its own genre (e.g., Damis’ notes on Apollonius are irrecoverable if such a source even existed). There has been significant criticism that the “divine man” (theios anēr) is a modern scholarly invention and abstraction from a variety of ancient figures such as philosophers or miracle workers (see here).

• Hadas, Moses and Smith, Morton.  Heroes and Gods: Spiritual Biographies in Antiquity.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965.
• Smith, Morton.  “Prolegomena to A Discussion of Aretalogies, Divine Men, the Gospels and Jesus.” Journal of Biblical Literature 90 (1971): 174-199

Apocalyptic

Like the form critics, Kee concludes that there is no real analogy for Mark as a whole (i.e. he rejects origins myth, biography, aretalogy, tragedy, comedy, romance, martyriology on pp. 17-29) and is a new genre of the church (30).  However, Kee deems Mark to be akin to apocalyptic literature like Daniel (65).  When a minority group is reduced to political impotence through social ostracism or political oppression, they may question their place in the social order and long for the transformation of society to accord with what the group understanding of the divine will (cf. Talcott Parsons on the intellectualism of the non-privileged group).  Apocalyptic thought assures that the present historical crisis will be overcome by divine victory over evil forces, often leads to a group’s rethinking of interpersonal social bonds or older traditions (scripture) or relationships to socio-political structures, and encourages unwavering commitment (67, 70-4).  Other Judean groups responded to the imperial situation differently – collaboration (Herodians), passive acquiescence while enforcing group purity boundaries (Pharisees), withdrawal from society (Essenes), or revolt (97-9) – Mark chose an open inclusive community that saw itself as a new covenant community, was alienated from the main body and sectarian groups within Second Temple Judaism, and renounced political power through acquiescence to the tribute (Mark 12:17) (100).

Criticisms: apocalyptic may describe features within Mark but not the work itself. Mark lacks many of the features in other apocalyptic texts including pseudonymous authors, angelic guides, otherwordly journeys, coded symbolism of mythical beasts, elaborate timetables (i.e., Mark 13 discourages interpreting wars, natural disasters, or persecution with the end itself and even the Son does not know the exact day or hour of judgment in 13:32).

• Kee, Howard Clark.  Community of the New Age: Studies in Mark’s Gospel.  Philadelphia: the Westminster Press, 1977.

Historiography or a Historical Monograph

Many scholars consider the Lukan prologue to parallel historiography (contra Loveday Alexander, see David Aune, Sean Adams, David P. Moesner, Clare K. Rothschild, Gregory E. Sterling), while proposals relating Luke-Acts to epic with parallels to Homer or the Aeneid (cf. DennisMacDonald, Marianne Palmer Bonz), have not won the day. In his study, Byrskog insists on the importance of autopsy in ancient historiography, defined as obtaining info via sight – visiting locales, experiencing events, unearthing artifacts (Story, 48). Beginning with Heraclitus’s dictum that “eyes are surer witnesses than the ears” (cf. Herodotus1.8; Thucydides 1.73.2; Polybius 12.25.6), chapters 2 and 3 explore how historians (Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus, Tacitus) visited the locales in their sources, lived through the events, interrogated living eyewitnesses, and only used written sources as supplements unless they were bad historians (e.g. Timaeus). Locals with anecdotes about Jesus, individual disciples, women (Mark 15:40-16:8), or family members served as informants for the evangelists (65-90, 190-97). Autopsy is emphasized in Christian texts such as the list of resurrection witnesses, Luke’s consultation of autoptai, the requirement of firsthand participation in Jesus’ ministry for apostleship in Acts, and the value of eyewitness testimony in the Johannine writings and 2 Peter (225-244). Papias followed historiographic standards in interviewing the followers of the Elder John and Aristion and Byrskog defends Papias’ tradition that the evangelist Mark relied on Peter as an involved oral informant (Ecclesiastical History 3.39.3-4, 15; cf. 1 Pet 5:13; Acts 12:12) (272-96).

Collins’ calls Mark an “eschatological historical monograph” about the origins and destiny of an ethnic group, with the story as the culmination of Israelite history and its universal implications in the new age (cf. Mark 13:10) as opposed to just a “life” (bios) of an individual subject (18). Shecites Aristotle (Rhet. 1.4.13=1360A) and Quintilian (Inst. Orat. 2.4.2) on history as memorable deeds, primarily in politics (35).  Its roots are mythography, ethnography, local reports, and chronography as Herodotus collected such data gathered in sequential development (35-6).  Historia(inquiry, research, investigation) stresses the role of interrogation and synthesis of witness’ reports in continuous narrative, though the influence of ethnography meant that not all historians followed Thucydides in testing the accuracy of “reports” (36).  There is tension in seeking reliable oral informants and visiting sites OR using written sources and free invention (36).  Reflecting on famous persons (Socrates, Alexander the Great), histories could narrow on the deeds of a person (cf. Theopomupus,Philippica) and historians wrote biographical accounts of heroes in Hellenistic and Roman periods (36-7).  John Van Seters (In Search of History, p. 1) describes history as “the intellectual form in which a civilization renders account to itself of its past” which befits Israel’s history as more than a sum of its parts (accumulated tradition, biographical anecdotes, prophetic legends); the historian interpreted it together through the lens of Israel’s national history and destiny (37-9).  Prophetic legends or improbable ethnographic reports, some of which Herodotus distances himself and others he retells unquestioningly, shows the miraculous was part of history writing (39), though Greeks like Herodotus or Polybius tended to have indirect divine working in human agency by means of dream-visions or “Fortune” (39-40).  Mark rarely has direct divine intervention (baptism, transfiguration, resurrection) apart from the level of human interaction (40). Other biblical historians set a precedent in not identifying the author or aims and, while Mark’s literary level is low, episodic style characterizes other histories (OT, Herodotus, Cleitarchus, Duris, Curtius Rufus, Livy) (41). Some deem Mark less concerned with accuracy than divine proclamation, but ancient histories must not be judged by positivistic standards, the miraculous was present in ethnography, and it is unclear how literally took some stories (41).  The subject and scope of historia was often politics/war but may focus on individuals (Alexander the Great, Agathocles of Syracuse, Attalus of Pergamum, Ptolemy IV Philopator, Antiochus the Great, Hannibal, Tigranes of Armenia, Pompey) and cultural/religious subjects (41).  Universal histories were longer, but historical monographs shorter (41).  The only difference is Mark is infused with eschatology (42-3). She concludes that Mark is a “historical monograph that focuses on the activity of a leading individual” (43).

Criticisms: Byrskog’s proposal contrasts with how the evangelists never explicitly identify themselves, their sources, their methods, or (apart from Luke) their aims in writing in a conventional historiographical preface. It seems unrealistic to compare to the best historical practice of elite writers like Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus, or Tacitus. Imitating Ancient Near Eastern historians and the Hebrew Bible may make the problem with anonymity less acute. Collins’ question is to the point: are the Gospels about the fulfillment of the divine plan for Israel and the world OR the subject Jesus of Nazareth to instill discipleship to his life/teachings, rebut polemical attacks, and draw out his significance visa-vie Israel and the world?

• Byskog, Samuel.  Story as History – History as Story.  Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2000.
• Collins, Adela.  Mark.  Hermeneia.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.

Bios (life) or ancient biography

Talbert counters the case that the Gospels cannot be bioi due to their mythic content (structure), cultic context (function), and world-negating stance (attitude) (What is a Gospel, 3, 6). Chapters 2 and 3 cover the mythic template of Immortals from unusual birth to ascent and thekatabasis-anabasis pattern (descent-ascent) of divine beings, chapter 4 on how biographical subjects may be recipients of cultic devotion, and chapter 5 on how the eschatology of the evangelists did not lead them to spurn profane literature (parable, aretalogy, “words of the wise”) and how other biographers took over mixed materials to correct one-sided distortions of subjects.  The Gospels’ static characterization is no different to other bioi(3), their status as Kleinliteratur is irrelevant (i.e. the popular Life of Aesop is as much a bios as Plutarch’s Lives) (4), and treating Luke-Acts alone as history is unwarranted (6).  A bios “is prose narrative about a person’s life, presenting supposedly historical facts which are selected to reveal the character or essence of the individual, often with the purpose of affecting the behavior of the reader” (17) and differed from historiography in focus (character vs. “great men” in political/social arena) (16), narration (anecdotes vs. cause/effect), and function (encomium or peripatetic praise, Alexandrian inform, Romance entertain or stir emotions, histories instruct politicians or please citizens) (17). Talbert replaces Leo’s division of bioi as encomium (Isocrates, Evander; Xenophon, Agesilaus; Tacitus, Agricola), Peripatetic (Plutarch, Parallel Lives), Alexandrian /grammarian (Seutonius,Lives of the Twelve Caesars), and Romance (Life of Aesop) (92-3) with a taxonomy of function:  Type A offer a pattern to copy (Lucian, Demonax) (94), B correct false images (Xenophon, Memorabilia; Philodemus,Epicurus, Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana; Porphyry, Pythagoras) (94-5),C discredits someone (Lucian, Passing of Peregrinus; Alexander the False Prophet) (95), D address succession (Diogenes, Lives of Eminent Philosophers) (95-6), or E legitimates or offers the hermeneutical key to a person’s teaching (Porphyry, Plotinus) (96). Lives of rulers belong in all types except D (96-7). Schools used C to discredit rivals, B to rehabilitate a philosopher in response, or D to claim to be true successors (105-6).  Mark fits B in polemicizing against distorted Christology and following the structure of the Immortals (134), Luke-Acts D succession narrative and Breaction against false eschatology (107-8, 134), Matthew E in legitimating and interpreting Jesus’ life and teaching and B in correcting Christology (108, 134), and John B in correcting Christology via a descending-ascending redeemer (135).

Burridge (Graeco-Roman Biography) starts on the lack of consensus (philosopher-vita, Socratic Dialogues, historical monograph, dramatic history, novel, tragi-comedy, bioi) (22-4) and writes “as someone with a classical background, I was unimpressed with the arguments put forward by New Testament scholars, especially in America, to demonstrate the biographical genre of the gospels. Therefore a negative result was expected, exposing the biographical hypothesis as untenable.  However, as the work has developed, I have become increasingly convinced that… it is indeed the right one and that the gospels are part of the genre of ancient βίος [Life] literature” (105-6). He warns that literary prefaces, grammarians or rhetoricians (Quintilian, Menander Rhetor) describe ideal forms not consistently observed (56-7) and that, unlike poetry, prose genres were not well defined (62). In contrast to classical prescriptivism (i.e. a genre must have these essential traits) and nominalism (i.e. the name of a category has no effect on an object’s properties), he settles on a ‘family resemblances’ theory in which works in a “genre” may share features in content or form (structure, tone, purpose) even if no one text has every expected trait (39, 42-4).  Generic features include structure/form and content/material to enable comparison (110): opening features (title, opening prologue/preface), subject (verbal subjects, space given to a subject’s life), external features (mode, metre, length, structure, scale, literary units, sources, methods of characterization), and internal features (setting, topoi or topics, style, tone or atmosphere, the quality of characterization, function, authorial intention) (111-26). He lists 5 biographies written before the Gospel – Isocrates’ Evagoras, Xenophon’sAgesilaus, Satyrus’ Euripides (Peripatetic bios), Cornelius Nepos’ Atticus, and Philo’s Moses (129-33) and 5 after the Gospels:  Tacitus’ Agricola, Plutarch’s Cato Minor, Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars,Lucian’s Demonax, and Philostratus Apollonius of Tyana (155-60).  Chapter 8 and 9 then compare the findings to the Synoptics and John.

Collins has a taxonomy of biographies (30-2): Encomiastic (subtype of epideictic rhetoric that exalts subject, e.g., Isocrates’ Evogoras, Xenophon’sAgesilaus, Polybius lost Philopoimen), Scholarly (or peripatetic or Aristotelian and focus on authors/philosophers or occasionally rulers and impartial or satirical, e.g., Satyrus’ Euripides, Diogenes Laertius Lives),Didactic (instruct on a subject’s way of life to instill allegiance, e.g., Philo’sMoses, Iamblichus Pythagorean Way of Life), Ethical (promote a self-conscious morality or ethical-psychological system; e.g., Plutarch’s Lives of Cato the Younger or Pompey), Entertaining (satisfy curiosity about heroes/poets/rulers, e.g., lives of Homer, Aesop, Secundus, Heraclides, and Plutarch’s Antony) (32), Historical (has awider series of cause-effect in the political arena than just narrowing on a subject’s private life; e.g., Life of Caesar, Tacitus’ Agricola, Seutonius’ Lives of the Caesars though his methods aso fit type 2). Though she sees the Gospels more as historical monographs, she allows that historical and didactic biographies are analogous (33) and accepts affinities with Plutarch’s Lives and lives of philosophers (cf. Lucian’s Demonax), though both have more explicit commentary and biographical interest (43).

Criticism: Unlike biographers the evangelists do not explicitly identify themselves, their sources, or their methods. Mark lacks an account of Jesus’ birth and upbringing and focuses on a narrow window of Jesus ministry and death, which Burridge demonstrates is not unparalleled but remains unusual in a Life. There is considerable blending of the genres (biography, history, apocalyptic, midrash, novelistic elements) that may be a product of both Jewish and Greco-Roman roots as well as the popular nature of the Gospels.  It may also be, as argued by David Aune in “Genre Theory and the Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew,” that Mark intend to parody and invert the values of elite biographies by paying no attention to the protagonist’s pedigree or birth, unlike later Gospels with geneologies and nativity stories.

• Burridge, Richard. What are the Gospels: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography.  Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Hägg, Tomas . The Art of Biography in Antiquity.  Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Talbert, Charles H.  What is a Gospel: the Genre of the Canonical Gospels.  London: SPCK, 1978.

Novel or Epic

Tolbert argues that the Gospels have no obvious analogue, though the 3rd century Life of Apollonius has a similar pattern (Sowing, 55 n. 20).  This may mean 1. Mark is a new genre in light of the Christ event as form critics and “new hermeneutic” supposed (she ruled out a “unique genre” as a contradiction in terms on pp 50, 56 and), 2. the parallels are not extant, or 3. the Gospels are unlike other texts due to the lesser command of literary composition (56-7).   Midrash and apocalyptic describe features in Mark rather than the work itself (58).  The problem with aretalogia or biography or memorabilia, aside from a lack of catalogues of wonder working “divine men” preceding Mark or a biography’s focus on a whole life from birth to death and the subject’s characterization, is that each over-emphasizes an aspect of Mark (aretalogy – miracles, bios – Jesus’ character, memorabilia – teaching) and all three have a higher literary and philosophical quality (58-9). Elite culture is “individualized”, “subtle”, “profound”; pop culture is “conventionalized”, “stereotypical” and “repetitious” and its literature had semi-educated, taxable working consumers (artisans, traders, free slaves in urban centers), albeit without the leisure of the privileged (60-2).  Of her 5 examples of prose novels (Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe, Xenophon’s An Ephesian Tale, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, Achilles Titius’s Leucippe and Clitophon, Heliodorus An Ethopian Tale), Chariton of Aphodisias (ca. 100 BCE-50 CE) and (pseudo?-)Xenophon of Ephesus (ca. 50-263 CE) do not reflect the Atticizing style of the Second Sophistic and are the closest parallels to Luke-Acts and Mark respectively (62-3, 66).  These erotic texts have plot patterns (couple in love, separated, tested, reunited), but romance is secondary to exotic and thrilling adventures/travels (exception: Longus) (63).  The genre has a common myth (a solitary person in a world of danger, filled with gods and mysteries), literary heritage (mixing historiography of known places or figures with drama), conventional style, and authors of varying skill (64-5).  “The Gospel of Mark is obviously not an ancient novel of the erotic type” (65), but its blending genres (history, drama, apocalypse), episodic nature, and conventionality fits fragmentary evidence for a biographical novel with an antecedent in Xenophon of Athens Cyropaedia and later in the Alexander Romance and Philostratus’ Apollonius (65).  Non-extant lives of Pythagoras or Alexander or the fragmentary Ninus Romance (ca 100 BCE) may have been biographical novels, but our only example of the genre are the Gospels (66).  Yet Xenophon of Ephesus and Mark share parallels:  the audience situation (66), minimal introduction, journey motif, episodic plot, key turning point (peripeteia), final recognition scene, minimal settings, brief dialogues, repetition, divine plan unfolding in human action, loose chronology (days/nights), and crude Koine (67).  Other novels are more complex with multiple protagonists, but they are filled with unjust trials, violent death, apparent deaths, and revivals in tombs to captivate audiences and teach morals (68).  As a biographical novel, Mark had mass appeal across the literacy spectrum even while disdained by elite literati (70-4).  Mark sets out the divine/human levels in the action right at the start, a turning point (Peter’s confession), final recognition scene (trial, cross), brief dialogues in episodes, a crowd (=chorus in drama) (76), and flat minor characters (76-8).

Vines builds on the literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin that the genre of a narrative is determined by its “chronotype” that situates its world in a certain time and space (Markan Genre, 30-67).  Through a comparison of Mark to other “Jewish novels” – Daniel, Susanna, Judith, Tobit, Esther,Joseph and Aseneth – Vines argues that the chronotype of all these works is “realistic apocalyptic”, meaning that it narrates divine intervention accomplished through human protagonists in a more realistic historical setting than in apocalyptic literature (153, 159).  Vines argues that the biographical genre does not account for Mark’s emphases on divine activity and eschatology (12).

Criticisms: The Gospel’s low literacy, crude Koine, and popular appeal may be irrelevant to genre. Tolbert has no extant parallels of the sub-type of biographical novels and the subject matter of the Gospels may have far more gravity and serious tone than an entertaining read about romance or exotic traveler tales.  Situating the story in the recent rather than distant and unrealistic historical past (e.g., characters in the above “novels” are situated in the patriarchal, Assyrian, Babylonian, or Persian periods and Judith intentionally fictional with Nebuchadnezzar as ruler of the Assyrians!) and focus on the characterization of a single subject throughchreiai or brief anecdotes makes the Gospels stand out from the other novels.  With some exceptions (e.g., Peter catching a fish with a coin in its mouth), the NT Gospels seem to me to stand out the Infancy Gospel of Thomas or the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles which may have served as more popular entertainment.

• Tolbert, Mary Ann.  Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective.  Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.
• Vines, Michael E. The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel.  Atlanta: SBL, 2002.

Apology

Though she accepts that the Gospels belong to the bios genre of the popular kind (Aesop) (219-31), defined “as prose narratives of medium length with a strong concentration and focus on a single person which determines the whole setting of the book” (223), Roskam argues that this classification does not aid in understanding the authorial intent or context since bios was a flexible genre with all sorts of purposes (encomiastic, exemplary, informative, didactic, apologetic, polemical) and does not explain Jewish influences (eschatology, typology) or distinct elements or motifs in Mark (226-31).  Her proposal (231-6):  Mark is an apology in a polemical situation (231) and its literary form is a secondary vehicle to achieve this purpose (232).  This explains why Mark is uninterested in biographical details (descent, upbringing, appearance) apart from Jesus’ status as the deity’s envoy (232) and organizes material with a bare chronological framework to support the unfolding argument (e.g., the first half establishes Jesus authority and the second his mission to suffer, the messianic secret, the suffering righteous one) (232-6). She concludes, “Mark’s Gospel is best characterized not as a biography of Jesus, but as an apologetic writing in biographical form” (236). Mark aimed to convince readers that Jesus was not seditious against Rome in favor of an independent Israel, redefining messiahship, and to equip insiders to remain steadfast and refute charges of subversiveness (215-7).

Criticism: an apology does not have distinct generic features.  If Mark wished to suppress hints of subversiveness, parallels between the opening verse on the “good news” with the Priene inscription celebrating the good news of Augustus’ rule and the pax Romana, politically charged titles given to Jesus (Christ, son of David, son of God, Lord) and “kingdom” language, images of Jesus driving out the demonic “legion” into the Sea, portrayals of Pilate as a powerless inept governor, and imminent expectations of the return of the Son of Man to gather the elect of all nations and his followers to inherit the vineyard of Israel (I disagree with Roskam that the vineyard is given to the Romans) are not apt.

• Roskam, H.N. The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in its Historical and Social Context.  Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004.

The Acts of the Apostles

Authorship:

• A Sequel to the Gospel of Luke:  “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning” (Acts 1:1).  Scholars have questioned what genre to categorize the two-volume work:  historiography, biography (of the church as an institution?), epic (e.g., Homer, Virgil’s Aeneid) or historical novel?
• The Traditional Position:  “But that this Luke was inseparable from Paul, and his fellow-labourer in the Gospel, he himself clearly evinces, not as a matter of boasting, but as bound to do so by the truth itself.  For he says that when Barnabas, and John who was called Mark, had parted company from Paul, and sailed to Cyprus, we came to Troas; and when Paul had beheld in a dream a man of Macedonia, saying, Come into Macedonia, Paul, and help us, immediately, he says, we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, understanding that the Lord had called us to preach the Gospel unto them. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we directed our ship’s course towards Samothracia. And then he carefully indicates all the rest of their journey as far as Philippi, and how they delivered their first address: for, sitting down, he says, we spoke unto the women who had assembled; and certain believed, even a great many. And again does he say, But we sailed from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came to Troas, where we abode seven days. And all the remaining [details] of his course with Paul he recounts, indicating with all diligence both places, and cities, and number of days, until they went up to Jerusalem; and what befell Paul there, how he was sent to Rome in bonds; the name of the centurion who took him in charge; and the signs of the ships, and how they made shipwreck; and the island upon which they escaped, and how they received kindness there, Paul healing the chief man of that island; and how they sailed from thence to Puteoli, and from that arrived at Rome; and for what period they sojourned at Rome. As Luke was present at all these occurrences, he carefully noted them down in writing, so that he cannot be convicted of falsehood or boastfulness, because all these [particulars] proved both that he was senior to all those who now teach otherwise, and that he was not ignorant of the truth. That he was not merely a follower, but also a fellow-labourer of the apostles, but especially of Paul, Paul has himself declared also in the Epistles, saying:Demas has forsaken me, … and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me [2 Tim 4:10-11]. From this he shows that he was always attached to and inseparable from him. And again he says, in the Epistle to the Colossians: Luke, the beloved physician, greets you [Col 4:14]. But surely if Luke, who always preached in company with Paul, and is called by him the beloved, and with him performed the work of an evangelist, and was entrusted to hand down to us a Gospel, learned nothing different from him (Paul), as has been pointed out from his words, how can these men, who were never attached to Paul, boast that they have learned hidden and unspeakable mysteries?” (Irenaeus,Adversus Haeresis 3.14.1)
• The (in)famous “we” (Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-16; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16):

1. the author was a firsthand participant in the narrated events
2. a dramatic narrative device (cf. Vernon Robbins, “By Land and By Sea:  the We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages“)
3. a sign of an earlier source (e.g., a travel diary) (cf. Stanley Porter,The Paul of Acts, chapter 2 The ‘We’ Passages in Acts as a Source regarding Paul)
4. a pseudonymous fiction (cf. Bart Ehrman, Forgery and Counter-Forgery)

Date

• Dates range from the early 60s to 150 CE.  The majority of scholars date it to the last quarter of the first century, though one can find good scholarship dating it to the 60s (cf. Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History) and between 110-130 CE (cf. Richard Pervo, Dating Acts; Joseph B. Tyson, Marcion and Luke Acts:  A Defining Struggle?)
• Why does Acts end before narrating the deaths of Peter, Paul or James?  Is it because the book was written before their deaths or is it because the book is more concerned with getting the proclamation of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome (Acts 28)?
• Why does the book close before narrating the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE?  Or does Luke 19:43-4 and 21:20-4 exhibit knowledge of the destruction of the Temple?
• Why does Acts never mention that Paul wrote letters?  Was it written before a major publication of a collection of Pauline Letters or has the text been influenced by the Letters (see below)?
• Does Acts reflect knowledge of Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities (ca 93-94 CE)?  Compare Acts 5:36-37 with Ant. 20.97-102, Luke 2:1-3 withWar. 2.117-18; Ant. 18.1-5 or Acts 12:20-23 with Ant. 19.343-50.
• Does Acts envision a situation where the church is composed of a mixture of Jews and Gentiles (especially Gentile “Godfearers” who had a previous relationship with the synagogue rather than ex-Pagans)?  Or does Acts envision a self-consciously distinct “Christian” group (11:26; 26:28) with a developed leadership structure of “elders” (Acts 21:18-25)?

Ideology

• Hans Conzelmann (The Theology of St. Luke) argues that the book of Acts divides history into the epoch of Israel, the time of Jesus and the age of the church.  The fervent expectation for the return of Jesus has settled down so the church can witness the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:6-8).
• The church is governed by the Twelve Apostles (see the replacement of Judas with Matthias to restore the number “twelve” in Acts 1:15-26).  Paul is excluded from the title “apostle” (exception: Acts 14:4)
• The church is completely united by glossing over the occasional cracks that appear beneath the surface such as the division between the Hebrews and the Hellenists (Acts 6:1-15), the issues debated at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15; cf. Acts 21:17-25) or the separation of Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:36-41)
• The church has solid roots in antiquity as Luke-Acts emphasizes the fulfillment of scripture (cf. Luke 1-2) and the Jewish piety of the Apostles.  Before Acts 7 the Jerusalem Church wins over thousands of their Jewish compatriots and Paul primarily missionary field is in the synagogue among Jews and Gentile God-fearers (compare the account of Paul’s target audience in Thessalonica in Acts 17:1-9 with Paul’s own account in 1 Thess 1:9-10).  However, the book of Acts hints that the majority of Jews increasingly rejected the new Christian movement (Acts 13:46-47; 18:6; 28:25-28), though it concludes open-ended (Acts 28:3o-31).

A Specific Example

Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.` After Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders…  But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses’… After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us;and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us.Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.’ The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, ‘My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favourably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name.This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written, “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up, so that all other peoples may seek the Lord— even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.”  Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God,but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.’ (Acts 15:1-22; Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Judas deliver letter to Antioch, Syria and Cilicia)

Study Questions:

1. What social problems might arise between law-observant Jewish and non-observant Gentile Christ followers (circumcision, Sabbath, food, etc.)?
2. What solution was reached in Acts?  How does the Apostolic Decree compare to the laws enjoined on foreigners in Lev 17-18?
3.  Is this the same conference in Galatians 2?  What are the similarities and differences?
4. Would the historical Paul have agreed to the solution as presented in Acts 15 (see 1 Cor 8)?

1. And they shall no longer offer their sacrifices to vain gods after which they go a whoring; it shall be a perpetual statute to you for your generations… Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the sons of the proselytes abiding among you, shall offer a whole-burnt-offering or a sacrifice, and shall not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of witness to sacrifice it to the Lord, that man shall be destroyed from among his people.  And whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers abiding among you, shall eat any blood, I will even set my face against that soul that eats blood, and will destroy it from its people.  For the life of flesh is its blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls… whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers abiding among you shall take any animal in hunting, beast, or bird, which is eaten, then shall he pour out the blood, and cover it in the dust.  For the blood of all flesh is its life; and I said to the children of Israel, Ye shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood: every one that eats it shall be destroyed.  And every soul which eats that which has died of itself, or is taken of beasts, either among the natives or among the strangers, shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and shall be unclean until evening: then shall he be clean. (Leviticus 17:7-15 taken from the Septuagint) [Lev 18 has list of prohibitions against uncovering the nakedness of family members, neighbour’s wife, a woman in her period, etc]
2. Then after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain.  But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us…And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me.On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised… and when James and Cephas and John, acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor… But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned;for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction.  And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’ (Galatians 2:1-14)
3. Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists’, and that ‘there is no God but one’… It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled… We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling-block to the weak.For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols?So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.  Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall. (1 Corinthians 8:4, 7-13)

CRITERIA IN THE QUEST FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS

1.  Double Dissimilarity: A saying is likely to be historically authentic if it cannot be ascribed to either his Jewish predecessors/contemporaries or his Christian followers but is distinctive (can you spot the principal problem with this criterion?)

• “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt 8:21-22; Luke 8:59-60) (contra Gen 23.3-4; Tobit 6.13-15; m. Ber. 3.1; m. Nazir 7.1; cf. Exod 20:12)
• “Love your enemies” (Matt 5:44/Luke 6:27) (but see Prov 25:21, 22; Rom 12:14, 20)
• Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?  As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.  The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.’ (Mark 2:18-20).

2.  Embarrassment:  A saying/deed is likely authentic if it embarrasses or was counterproductive to the aims of later Christian theology.

• John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins… In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John. (Mark 1:4, 9)
• Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. (Matthew 3:13-15)
• [Herod] added this to them all, that he shut up John in prison.  Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened… (Luke 3:20-21; was John imprisoned before Jesus was baptized?)
• John’s Gospel keeps John the Baptist and the Spirit descending like a Dove but skips the baptism itself (see John 1:29-34).
• The Gospel according to the Hebrews has Jesus ask “what sin have I committed, that I should go and be baptized by him’ (Jerome, Pelag.3.2)

3.  Multiple Attestation: The more a saying/deed is found in multiple and independent sources (not just later sources borrowing from Mark), it is more likely authentic or at least early.

• Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (Mark 10:11-12; Matt 19:9 permits divorce for unchastity); Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery (Q = Luke 16:18/Matt 5:31-32 [Matthew adds permission to divorce for unchastity]); To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (1 Cor 7:10, except cannot forbid an unbeliever who wants to divorce a believer)
• Apocalyptic Son of Man sayings in Mark (13:26, 14:62), Q (Matt 24:27, 37-39/Luke 17:24, 26-27, 30), M (Matt 13:40-43), L (Luke 21:34-36), and possibly known to Paul (1 Thess 4:16) and John  (1:51). The title is rare outside the Gospel tradition (Acts 7:56, Heb 2:6, Rev 1:13; 14:14) so it may not be a common title in Christian devotion imputed back to Jesus (i.e. does it qualify as dissimilar to early Christian theology or are the Gospels expressions of one stream of Christian theology?).

4. Aramaic reconstruction

• A different group of scholars argues that behind the Greek title “the Son of Man” (ho huios tou anthropou) lies the Aramaic bar (^e)nash(a),an idiomatic expression either as a circumlocution for “I” (Vermes) or that has a general level of meaning about humanity in general with particular reference to the speaker (Casey).  “The Sabbath was made for [the son of] man, not [the son of] man for the Sabbath, therefore the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28)
  

5.  Coherence (other sayings/deeds may be accepted as they cohere with others that have already passed the criteria of authenticity; this seems like an extremely circular criterion)

6.  Historical Plausibility:  In direct contradiction to double disimmilarity, does a saying/deed fit in the context of a first-century Jew in Second Temple Judaism and also help to explain the rise of the Christian movement after him (historical controversies in Galilee/Judea, Aramaisms,Torah, Temple and purity, halahkic debates, eschatology, etc.)

• “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt 6.9)
• “Father, hallowed be your name.  Your Kingdom come.” (Luke 11.2)
• “May he establish his kingdom in your life and in your days and in the life of all the house of Israel, speedily and in a short while.” (Qaddish, Aramaic prayer addresses ‘their Father who is in heaven’)
• Then comes the end, when he [Christ] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:24)

See also John Kloppenborg’s discussion of the criteria of authenticity (http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~kloppen/criteria.htm).  Recently, several scholars have called into question the aim of the criteria with their aim to separate historically “authentic” facts about Jesus from theological inventions of the early churches or evangelists, insisting that our only access to Jesus is how he was interpreted in the social memory of his earliest follower.  For instance Dale Allison’s Constructing Jesus notes the limitations of memory – it is 1. reconstructive, 2. post-event , 3. projects present circumstances or biases, 4. becomes less distinct as past recedes, 5. sequential, 6. forms meaningful patterns to advance agendas, 7. rehearses the memories valued by groups, 8. shaped by narrative conventions, 9. vivid subjective compelling memory may be inaccurate (pp. 2-10) –  and its ability to capture the gist or general outline (pp. 10-14) – and argues that we should settle for the “gist” or “characteristic Jesus” in the different communal memories of him contained within our earliest sources (pp. 10-14).  What do you think?

Further reading:

• Allison, Dale C. Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and its Interpreters (London and New York: Continuum, 2005);Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010)
• Arnal, William.  The Symoblic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity (London and Oakville: Equinox, 2005)
• Casey, Maurice.  Jesus of Nazareth (London:  T&T Clark International, 2010)
• Chilton, Bruce and Evans, Craig (eds.), Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden: Brill, 1994)
• Crossan, John Dominic.  The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991)
• Dunn, James D.G.  Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003)
• Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler.  Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology
• Fredriksen, Paula.  Jesus of Nazareth:  King of the Jews (New York: Vintage, 2000)
• Freyne, Sean.  Jesus, a Jewish Galilean (London/New York: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2004)
• Funk, R.W., Hoover, R.W. and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Schribner, 1993)
• Horsley, Richard.  The Prophet Jesus and the Renewal of Israel:  Moving Beyond a Diversionary Debate (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012)
• Keith, Chris and Le Donne, Anthony.  Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (Bloomburg, 2012) 
• Meier, John P.  A Marginal Jew (multi volume; New York: Doubleday, 1991-)
• Porter, Stanley.  The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical Jesus Research (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000)
• Sanders, E.P.  Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985); The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993)
• Theissen, Gerd and Merz, Annette. The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 1998
• Vermes, Geza.  Jesus the Jew (London: SCM, 1973); The Religion of Jesus the Jew (London: SCM, 1993)
• Witherington, Ben. The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth. InterVarsity Press: 1997
• Wright, N.T.  Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996)

EXAMPLES IN DETAIL

Example:  Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13/Luke 11:2-4 – Double Tradition or “Q”)

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” (Matt 6:9-13)… “Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.” (Luke 11:2-4)

And do not pray as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in his Gospel, pray thus: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, as in Heaven so also upon earth; give us to-day our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into trial, but deliver us from the Evil One, for thine is the power and the glory for ever.” Pray thus three times a day. (Didache 8:2-3)

May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed.  May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days, and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel, swiftly and soon. (also uses “their Father who is in heaven) – Qaddish prayer

“God is besought to bring about a definitive manifestation of his power, glory and holiness by defeating the Gentiles, gathering the scattered tribes of Israel back to the holy land, and establishing his divine rule fully and forever.  It is within this trajectory that Jesus’ prayer that God will sanctify his name and bring in his kingly rule is to be understood.” –  John P. Meier,A Marginal Jew: Volume II, p. 292

It is unlikely… that Jesus taught his disciples the prayer as a whole, even in its reconstructed form… given the conditions under which oral discourse is transmitted, that he employed the four petitions from time to time but as individual prayers. He, of course, frequently used “Abba” to address God. Someone in the Q community probably assembled the prayer for the first time; Matthew and Luke then copied the Q version, while editing and revising it at the same time. – Robert Funk, Five Gospels, p. 327 (only Abba/Father in Red, rest is pink and grey)

“Still, despite the fact that the Lord’s prayer must be a very early summary of themes and emphases from Jesus own lifetime, I do not think that such a coordinated prayer was ever taught by him to his followers” – John Dominic Crossan, Historical Jesus, 294

Example: The Temple Incident Mark 11:15-17

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves;and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?  But you have made it a den of robbers.’ (Mk 11:15-17)

Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”  But even on this point their testimony did not agree. (Mk 14:57-59, cf. Mk 15:29)

See, your house is left to you, desolate. (Matt 23:38/Luke 13:35 = Q)

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’… Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. (John 2:14-21)

Jesus said, “I will destroy [this] house, and no one will be able to build it […].” (Thomas, 71)

They set up false witnesses who said, ‘This man [Stephen] never stops saying things against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.’… Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands [part of Stephen’s defense for why building the Temple was not God’s intent] (Acts 6:14-15; 7:48)

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises (Romans 9:4)

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; cf. Eph 2:21-22, an implicit critique of the old temple?)

“Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess 2:3-4, cf. Mk 13:14)

“He did not wish to purify the temple, either of dishonest trading or of trading in contrast to ‘pure’ worship.  Nor was he opposed to the temple sacrifices which God commanded Israel.  He intended, rather, to indicate that the end was at hand and the temple would be destroyed, so that the new and perfect temple might arise.” – E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, p. 75

“Mark’s fiction of an anti-temple messiahship (a contradiction in terms) could have worked only after the temple had already been destroyed.” – Burton Mack, A Myth of Innocence, p. 282

“If Jesus had predicted the Temple’s destruction as a sign of the End of the Age… then it is at least odd, I think, that he [Paul] evinces no knowledge whatsoever of Jesus’ prophecy… Shrunk by the size of the Temple’s outer court, muffled by the density of the pilgrim crowds, Jesus’ gesture — had he made it — would simply have been swallowed up.” – Paula Fredriksen, “Gospel Chronologies, the Scene in the Temple, and the Crucifixion of Jesus”, pp. 11, 13

“… Jesus criticism of the financial and trading arrangements in the Temple was consistent with his rejection of oaths by the Temple, with his criticism of the Korban system, of tithing mint, dill and cumin, and of the observance of additional purity laws concerning vessels full from the proceeds of wealth acquired by the rich from the poor.” – Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, 415

Example:  Sabbath Controversies (Mark 2:23-3:6)

One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions’ [*check out 1 Samuel 21:1]… ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath;so the Son of Man [‘human’] is lord even of the sabbath.’ Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ (Mk 2:23-3:6)

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.’ But the Lord answered him and said, ‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for 18 long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’ (Luke 13:10-15)… [After healing a man with dropsy] ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a sabbath day?’ (Luke 14:1-5, see also Matthew 12:11-12)

Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’  At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.Now that day was a sabbath.  So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’  But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.”… Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.  But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God… (John 5:8-11, 16-18)

If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath? (John 7:23)

“Controversy between Jesus and his opponents concerning the Sabbath is one of the best attested features in the Gospels.  It is found in three of the four traditions behind the synoptics and absent only from Q, which is hardly surprising since Q contained but one narrative.  Moreover, the independent tradition behind the fourth Gospel contained two Sabbath controversy stories… the sabbath controversies are best understood as the conflict between holiness and compassion” – Marcus Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teaching of Jesus, p. 158-59

“Are we to imagine that Pharisees regularly patrolled grainfields on the Sabbath, looking for possible violations? Or have the Pharisees sent out a special commission to spy on Jesus and his disciples in this particular grainfield?… “If this scene gives us a true picture of the biblical knowledge and teaching skill of the historical Jesus, then the natural and effective response of the Pharisees would have been not fierce anger and concerted opposition but gleeful mockery. They would have laughed their heads off-and invited the populace to do the same-at this uneducated woodworker who insisted on making a fool of himself in public by displaying his abysmal ignorance of the very scriptural text on which he proposed to instruct the supposedly ignorant Pharisees.” – JP. Meier, ‘The Historical Jesus and the Plucking of Grain of the Sabbath’

“Most importantly for this study is that Mark in no way portrays Jesus condoning non-observance or an abrogation of the Sabbath… Mark 2:23-28 is very Jewish and unlike anything known from the early church.  Thus it is possible that this is a passage that accurately reports an event from the ministry of the historical Jesus” – James Crossley, Date of Mark’s Gospel, 160, 164 [note Crossley does argue that Jesus breaks the Sabbath Law in commanding the man to pick up his mat based on Jeremiah 17:22 and goes beyond Mark in claiming equality with God in John’s Gospel]

Example: the Lord’s Supper (Mark 14:12-26)

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’  (Mk 14:22-25; cf. Matthew 26:17-30)

Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’  Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.  (Lk 22:16-20, italicized words absent in some manuscripts)

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)

And concerning the Eucharist, hold Eucharist thus: First concerning the Cup, “We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the Holy Vine of David thy child, which, thou didst make known to us through Jesus thy child; to thee be glory for ever.” And concerning the broken Bread: “We give thee thanks, our Father, for the life and knowledge which thou didst make known to us through Jesus thy Child. To thee be glory for ever. (Didache9:1-3)

“On the grounds of multiple attestation (Paul as well as Synoptic tradition) Jesus’ words about the cup, the bread, his body and blood are among the most secure elements of our traditions about Jesus.” – Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, p. 299

“[J]esus probably did not use the term covenant to explain his death at the last supper… Jesus probably said only ‘ this is my blood’ – a tidy parallel to ‘this is my body'” (Scott McKnight, Jesus and His Death, 308, 310)

“But the Didache, a late first century document, shows no awareness of a ritual deriving from the Last Supper, no connection with the Passover meal, and no commemoration of the death of Jesus…  What Jesus left behind was the tradition of open eating as a sign of the inclusiveness and equality of life in the kingdom of God.  Later, certain Christian groups created the Last Supper ritual…” – John Dominic Crossan, Who is Jesus, p. 56

“Christian scholarship has traditionally seen here the institution of the Eucharist.  We found instead a dramatic story of Jesus celebrating his final Passover with his disciples… Jesus death was seen in this light.  As God had redeemed Israel at the Exodus, so he would redeem Israel by establishing his kingdom.” – Maurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel, p. 25

John and the Synoptic Gospels

I have adapted some of my list below fromhttp://bible.org/seriespage/major-differences-between-john-and-synoptic-gospels

Study Questions

1. What are some of the similarities and differences of John from the other three Synoptic Gospels?
2. Do you agree with the following 2^nd century Christian writers that John knew the other Gospels and just wanted to supplement them?  Or is John an independent source because it is just too different from the other Gospels to have depended on them?

The Traditional Understanding of John

Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1)

But, last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel. This is the account of Clement [of Alexandria]. (cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.14.7)

“The fourth of the Gospels is that of John, [one] of the disciples. To his fellow disciples and bishops, who had been urging him [to write], he said, ‘Fast with me from today to three days, and what will be revealed to each one let us tell it to one another.’ In the same night it was revealed to Andrew, [one] of the apostles, that John should write down all things in his own name while all of them should review it. And so, though various elements may be taught in the individual books of the Gospels, nevertheless this makes no difference to the faith of believers, since by the one sovereign Spirit all things have been declared in all [the Gospels]: concerning the nativity, concerning the passion, concerning the resurrection, concerning life with his disciples, and concerning his twofold coming; the first in lowliness when he was despised, which has taken place, the second glorious in royal power, which is still in the future. What marvel is it then, if John so consistently mentions these particular points also in his Epistles, saying about himself, ‘What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things we have written to you? For in this way he professes [himself] to be not only an eye-witness and hearer, but also a writer of all the marvelous deeds of the Lord, in their order. (Muratorian Canon)

Similarities of John with the Synoptics

•  There is a basic narrative outline that begins with John the Baptist and ends with the Passion in Jerusalem (compare with a sayings Gospel likeThomas)
• There are parallels that might suggest John’s knowledge of the Synoptic tradition (e.g., compare the anointing of Jesus by the woman in John 12:1-8 with Mark 14:3-9; cf. Luke 7:36-50)
• There is a saying known as the Johannine thunderbolt (no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him) that sounds more like John but is found in Matthew 11:25-27/Luke 10:21-22 (Q?)
• John may supplement the Synoptics at various points.  In the Synoptics Jesus grieves over Jerusalem about how they were unwilling to heed his message (Matt 23:37/Luke 13:34) but only John has Jesus make multiple trips to Jerusalem for the Feasts.  Jesus is accused of threatening to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days in the Synoptics (Mark 14:58; 15:34) but only John has Jesus make a similar claim (John 2:19)

 Major Differences

• Much of John’s dialogue or stories are unparalleled in the Synoptics (e.g., turning water into wine, the resurrection of Lazarus, the extended discourses about his own identity, the extended discourses, the ‘I am’ speeches when Jesus says that he is the shepherd/vine/light/water of life, the washing of the feet, etc)
• John has significant omissions (no virgin birth stories, no temptation by Satan, no exorcisms, no narrative parables about the kingdom of God, no Last Supper, etc)
• Chronology:  John narrates Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem at different festivals; many assume a 3 year ministry of Jesus by calculating the number of Passovers.  Other major events, such as the incident of Jesus making a scene in the Temple, are relocated in a different place than in the Synoptics (cf. John 2:13-24)
• May be a more mystical, reflective Gospel:  “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13)
• Exhibits a “higher” Christology than the Synoptics:

1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [no article before theos]. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (1:1-3)
2. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. (5:17-18)
3. Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ (20:28)
4. “Before Abraham was I am” (see Exodus 3:14; Isaiah 41:4; 43:10, 25; 45:19; 46:4 (2 times); 48:12; and 51:12)

• While Jesus seems to offer short aphorisms or narrative parables in the Synoptics, John features extended discourses of Jesus that span chapters (e.g.,. the farewell discourse in John 13-17)
• Symbolism/double meaning and antithetical dualism (light/darkness, truth/falsehood, life/death, above/below; also found in Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi texts)

1. ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body (2:19-21)
2. ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” ’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive (7:37-39)
3. as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up (3:14)
4. Some take things too literally (e.g., John 3:4 Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?)

•  John seems to replace “kingdom of god/heaven” (only in John 3:3, 5; 18:36) with  “eternal life.”
• Does John have a future or a realized eschatology?  “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life.  Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” (John 5:26-29)
• Differences in Grammar and Style:  John’s Jesus sounds less like the Synoptics and more like the Johannine epistles.