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Editorial Fatigue and the Existence of Q

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2019

Tobias Hägerland
Tobias Hägerland*
Affiliation:
Dept of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 200, SE 405 30 Göteborg, Sweden. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article challenges Mark Goodacre's contention that the distribution of editorial fatigue in Matthew and Luke points not only to Markan priority but also to Luke's dependence on Matthew. Goodacre's argument is criticised through questioning the assumptions that Matthew's handling of Q would have been analogous to his handling of Mark and to Luke's handling of Q, as well as the claim that no instances of editorial fatigue can be detected in Matthew's handling of the double tradition. The conclusion is that the argument from editorial fatigue cannot be used to establish that the existence of Q is improbable.

Keywords

Synoptic ProblemQeditorial fatigue
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 190 - 206
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 Peabody, D. B., ed., One Gospel from Two: Mark's Use of Matthew and Luke. A Demonstration by the Research Team of the International Institute for Gospel Studies (Harrisburg: Trinity International, 2002)Google Scholar. See also Peabody, D. B., ‘The Two Gospel Hypothesis’, The Synoptic Problem: Four Views (ed. Porter, S. E. and Dyer, B. R.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016) 67–88Google Scholar.

2 Goodacre, M., The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001) 155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See Foster, P., ‘Is It Possible to Dispense with Q?’, NovT 45 (2003) 313–37Google Scholar, at 328–32; Burkett, D., Rethinking the Gospel Sources, vol. ii: The Unity and Plurality of Q (SBLECL 1; Atlanta: SBL, 2009) 10, 217–20Google Scholar; Poirier, J. C., ‘Delbert Burkett's Defense of Q’, Marcan Priority without Q: Explorations in the Farrer Hypothesis (ed. Poirier, J. C. and Peterson, J.; LNTS 455; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015) 191–225Google Scholar, at 200–4.

4 Styler, G. M., ‘Excursus iv: The Priority of Mark’, in Moule, C. F. D., The Birth of the New Testament (London: A & C Black, 1980 3; 1st edn 1962) 285–316Google Scholar, at 292.

5 Goulder, M. D., Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974) 35Google Scholar. See also Goulder, M. D., Luke: A New Paradigm (JSNTS 20; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989) 109–10Google Scholar.

6 Goodacre, M., ‘Fatigue in the Synoptics’, NTS 44 (1998) 45–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 46. See also Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 71–2; Goodacre, M., The Case against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg: Trinity International, 2002) 40–3Google Scholar; Goodacre, M., Thomas and the Gospels: The Making of an Apocryphal Text (London: SPCK, 2012) 115Google Scholar; Goodacre, M., ‘The Farrer Hypothesis’, The Synoptic Problem: Four Views, 47–66Google Scholar, at 50.

7 See Styler, ‘Priority of Mark’, 296.

8 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 49–51; Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 74–5; Goodacre, The Case against Q, 42–3; Goodacre, ‘Farrer Hypothesis’, 51.

9 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 47–8; Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 72–3; Goodacre, The Case against Q, 41–2.

10 Styler, ‘Priority of Mark’, 293–4; Goulder, Midrash, 35; Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 46–7; Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 73–4; Goodacre, The Case against Q, 42; Goodacre, ‘Farrer Hypothesis’, 50–1.

11 See Peabody, One Gospel from Two, 159.

12 See Peabody, One Gospel from Two, 126.

13 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 54.

14 See Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 56. Cf. also Wittkowsky, V., ‘Luke Uses/Rewrites Matthew: A Survey of the Nineteenth-Century Research’, Luke's Literary Creativity (ed. Nielsen, J. Tang and Müller, M.; LNTS 550; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016) 3–25Google Scholar, at 19, who suggests that the occasional use in the Sermon on the Plain of ‘reward’ (μισθός, Luke 6.23, 35) rather than ‘grace’ (χάρις, 6.32–4) may have resulted from editorial fatigue. As μισθός is used already in 6.23, this is not an example of fatigue by Goodacre's definition, which requires the lapse into the source's wording to occur towards the end of the pericope.

15 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 56; Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 155. Cf. the criticism in Foster, ‘Is It Possible to Dispense with Q?’, 329.

16 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 55–6; Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 154–5; Goodacre, ‘Farrer Hypothesis’, 57.

17 Garrow, A., ‘Streeter's “Other” Synoptic Solution: The Matthew Conflator Hypothesis’, NTS 62 (2016) 207–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garrow, A., ‘An Extant Instance of “Q”’, NTS 62 (2016) 398–417CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 A. Garrow, ‘What Does Mark Goodacre Think?’, The Problem Page, 11 March 2016, online at www.alangarrow.com/blog.

19 See Shin, H. W., Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem in Historical Jesus Research: The Search for Valid Criteria (CBET 36; Leuven: Peeters, 2004) 107–8Google Scholar for discussion of the principle.

20 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 57–8.

21 Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 155.

22 Burkett, The Unity and Plurality of Q, 217.

23 Poirier, ‘Delbert Burkett's Defense of Q’, 201.

24 See Hultgren, S., Narrative Elements in the Double Tradition: A Study of their Place within the Framework of the Gospel Narrative (BZNW 113; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 46 (emphasis added).

26 Burkett, The Unity and Plurality of Q, 219–20. This is also the process envisaged in Robinson, J. M., Hoffmann, P. and Kloppenborg, J. S., The Critical Edition of Q: Synopsis including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas with English, German, and French Translations of Q and Thomas (Leuven: Peeters, 2000) 196–7Google Scholar.

27 Burkett, The Unity and Plurality of Q, 218.

28 Poirier, ‘Delbert Burkett's Defense of Q’, 202.

29 Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 109–10.

30 Cf. Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 46.

31 Burkett, The Unity and Plurality of Q, 218–20.

32 Poirier, ‘Delbert Burkett's Defense of Q’, 203 (emphasis original).

33 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 54–5; Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem, 155; Goodacre, M., ‘Taking our Leave of Mark–Q Overlaps: Major Agreements and the Farrer Theory’, Gospel Interpretation and the Q-Hypothesis (ed. Müller, M. and Omerzu, H.; LNTS 573; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018) 201–22Google Scholar, at 218–19.

34 Foster, ‘Is It Possible to Dispense with Q?’, 329–30; Burkett, The Unity and Plurality of Q, 218–19.

35 Goodacre, ‘Fatigue’, 66.

36 Foster, ‘Is It Possible to Dispense with Q?’, 330–2.

37 Poirier, ‘Delbert Burkett's Defense of Q’, 202.

38 MacEwen, R. K., Matthean Posteriority: An Exploration of Matthew's Use of Mark and Luke as a Solution to the Synoptic Problem (LNTS 501; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015) 43Google Scholar.

39 MacEwen, Matthean Posteriority, 44–5.

40 Davies, W. D. and Allison, D. C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988–97)Google Scholar i.304, cf. i.312.

41 In an email sent to me on 20 June 2017, Prof. Goodacre pointed out that ‘the “brood of vipers” invective is much more appropriate with Matthew's audience (where it occurs again in 12.34 and 23.33 …) than with Luke's’. I agree that the ‘brood of vipers’ theme is more characteristically Matthean than Lukan in the sense that it recurs in Matthew (see also Goodacre, ‘Taking our Leave of Mark–Q Overlaps’, 220). A hypothetical reader of Luke (or Q) without any knowledge of Matthew, however, would hardly see anything strange or inconsequential about the sole use of the expression in the context of John's preaching.

42 See Dennert, B. C., John the Baptist and the Jewish Setting of Matthew (WUNT ii/403; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015) 158–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar on baptism ‘in holy spirit and fire’.

43 Pickup, M., ‘Matthew's and Mark's Pharisees’, In Quest of the Historical Pharisees (ed. Neusner, J. and Chilton, B. D.; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007) 67–112Google Scholar, at 97.

44 Marshall, M., The Portrayals of the Pharisees in the Gospels and Acts (FRLANT 254; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015) 108Google Scholar n. 99.

45 Davies and Allison, Matthew, i.304. On the concept of ‘inconcinnity’, which is roughly equivalent to what Goodacre defines more precisely as ‘fatigue’, see i.106–8.

46 Wink, W., John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition (SNTSMS 7; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) 34Google Scholar; Ernst, J., Johannes der Täufer: Interpretation – Geschichte – Wirkungsgeschichte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989) 158–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taylor, J. E., The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 198–9Google Scholar; cf. Webb, R. L., John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Study (SNTS 62; JSheffield: JSOT, 1991) 176–8Google Scholar, who argues that Matthew added only the Pharisees.