Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 16:41:20 GMT From: Mark Goodacre To: "William E. Arnal" , crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: Original GThomas William Arnal wrote: > Here we're left guessing. Because of the structure of > Thomas, which is less organized than that of Q, we can't see > detailed micro-insertions into already-organized extended > units of argumentation. Thus the strength available to > Klop's claim that Q's underwent a written series of > recesions is just impossible in the case of Thomas. One can > make arguments one way or the other, but they won't have the > same kind of force. What inclines me to the view that we've > got a WRITTEN series of layers here is that a) the stuff > I've identified as layer one is not heavily redacted from > the perspective of layer two; BUT b) the materials which > comprise layer two were obviously NOT all uniform > COMPOSITIONS of the redactor. In other words, by teh oral > aggregation model, we've got ONE kind of "oral tradition" > which the redactor felt perfectly free to shape to his own > interests, and another which the redactor tended to > respecty, glossing here or there but not broadly reshaping. > This gets us into the same problem as the Goulder hypothesis > (though not as sharply defined): why is it that the redactor > treated one sort of material differently than another? The > easiest explanation is that the earlier stuff was presented > to him already in written form, rather than being gradually > reworked from his group's perspective via their oral memory. > Again, I know perfectly well that this argument is > not nearly so strong as the one that can be made for Q. So > be it . . . I have not had a chance to look at the HTR article yet; I look forward to it. I found this paragraph a bit tightly packed and I may have got the wrong end of the stick, so let me see if I have understood the argument above correctly: Your view is that there are written strata. Stratum 2 shows knowledge of Stratum 1 (a la Q2's knowledge of Q1). This is held to be preferable to the 'oral aggregation model' (one redactor combining strata of oral tradition material) because the latter cannot adequately explain the way in which the redactor would, on this hypothesis, have treated the (oral) strata, viz. in such different ways. "Why is it that the redactor", you ask, "treated one sort of material differently than another? and a comparison with "the Goulder hypothesis" is made. The criticism of the 'oral aggregation model' seems to me a potentially strong one, but I do not think there is any analogy here with the arguments against Q-sceptics. This is why: If Luke owns a copy of Mark (agreed by most) and if Mark is the oldest Gospel (agreed by most) and if Luke comes into contact with Matthew only subsequently (agreed only by some, but including Q sceptics as well as you and Steve) then Luke has a decision to make: how do I incorporate the Matthean material I like into my new Gospel? The answer I would propose is that he uses Mark as a basic narrative framework (though taking liberties with it) into which he incorporates the Luke-pleasing material from Matthew, a decision encouraged by the fact that most of the new Luke-pleasing Matthean material is sayings material. Where narrative is involved, he largely agrees with Matthew against Mark (JB, Temptation, Nazara, Centurion after Sermon etc.). If Luke has fixed on Mark for his basic structure (something agreed by all Markan priorists), and if he knew (and decided to use) Matthew, then acceptance of a theory like the one above is as natural as postulating Q is for those who affirm Matthew's and Luke's independence :-). If you have time, I would be interested to see this statement fleshed out: it looks shocking: > But > then, I'm pretty suspicious of genuine "oral tradition"'s > role in early Christianity. All the best Mark -------------------------------------- Dr Mark Goodacre M.S.Goodacre@bham.ac.uk Dept of Theology, University of Birmingham Homepage: http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre.htm