Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:46:46 +0000 From: Mark Goodacre To: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Re: The Thomas/Q Hypothesis Mike Grondin suggests the following statement as the one that we have been testing: > > Thomas is generally more in agreement with Luke's form of > > Q-sayings than with Matthew's. Perhaps this is useful, but I would regard it as a weakening of the original one: > Luke's form of Q sayings is generally supported by Thomas against > Matthew ... This is a useful, red-blooded statement, which makes a forceful claim. As such it is useful, I would say, for testing. I am not concerned about the language of "support" and "against" here. We often talk, do we not, of synoptic parallels as "agreeing", "agreeing against", "supporting" etc.? Mike wrote: > Jim West, perhaps sensing that this way of stating it might be taken > to imply that Thomas came *after* Luke and Matthew, puts it this > way: > > > Luke is more like Thomas than Matthew [is]. > > Unfortunately, this is a little too simple. The problem with it also is that it does not make clear that it is Q sayings that were subject to analysis. > Let me put myself on the > line and suggest the following alternative: > > > Those sayings in Thomas that correspond to Q are usually more like > > the Lukan form than the Matthean form (where this is understood > > not to imply that Luke & Matthew preceded Thomas). I am unclear why we need the qualifying statement ("where . . . Thomas") here. The possibility that Luke and Matthew precede Thomas is, of course, a quite reputable position and one that we should not write out of the equation before doing this kind of primary research. Even without that qualifying statement, I still prefer the original statement, which seems to me more red-blooded and more amenable to testing. 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 -------------------------------------------- Crosstalk Web Archive: http://www.findmail.com/list/crosstalk