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  Alan Garrow Didache

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The $1,000 Challenge (5): Garrow responds to Goodacre again

16/12/2017

2 Comments

 
[The $1,000 challenge was created when Evan Powell invited Bart Ehrman to find a hole in my solution to the Synoptic Problem as presented at www.alangarrow.com/mch.html. The initial story is outlined in blog post (1).

Mark Goodacre took up this challenge on Ehrman’s behalf – and noted one ‘hole’ in particular. His arguments are set out on his blog. My initial response to Goodacre is in this blog post (3). Goodacre then argued that I had failed to engage with his central point. Again, his full text is available on his blog. In the current post (5) I respond more specifically to the issue at the heart of Goodacre's attempt to win the $1,000 Challenge.]


The ‘flaw’ Goodacre identified concerned the accuracy of a summarising statement I made in the published version of the article, ‘An Extant Instance of ‘Q’’, on p. 399:
​The Matthew Conflator Hypothesis (MCH) argues that there is no scope for ‘Q’ in the Double Tradition passages where Luke and Matthew agree almost verbatim (High DT passages) since these are best explained by Matthew’s copying of Luke without distraction.
Goodacre points out that what I claim to be the case is not actually the case on at least three occasions. That is to say, there are places where Matthew and Luke agree very closely despite the fact that Mark also includes a version of the same episode. When we get down to the detail there are actually exceptionally few occasions where Luke and Matthew achieve a string of verbatim agreement or four words or more at a point where an immediate parallel in Mark is also available (cf. my definition of a High DT passage in the published version of the article ‘Streeter’s ‘Other’ Synoptic Solution’, p. 212). However, even if this were sometimes the case I don’t think it would fundamentally undermine my key observation: when there are exceptionally high levels of agreement between Matthew and Luke this is best explained by direct copying between Matthew and Luke (cf. ‘Streeter’, p. 213). If Matthew sometimes decided to copy Luke verbatim, even while the option to draw on Mark’s slightly different version was theoretical available, this would only show that Matthew was not motivated to conflate Luke and Mark at every opportunity – which would not be especially surprising given the considerable effort required to achieve conflation.

At the level of the precise use of language, therefore, Goodacre has a point. Inasmuch as my summarising statement may be read as suggesting that Matthew will always be ‘distracted’ from the direct copying of Luke if another version of the same event is available then I have overreached myself. If, however, I may be read as saying that, when Matthew and Luke agree almost verbatim this is best explained by Matthew choosing to focus solely on Luke (whatever other versions might also be available), then my claim, in the larger context of my argument, remains defensible.   
​
An irony of the situation is that, on the critical point, Goodacre and I agree: where there is very high agreement between Matthew and Luke this is best explained by direct copying between the two texts. In the initial stages of my argument (‘Streeter’, pp. 212-3) I reserve judgement on the direction of any such direct copying. It is only after other factors have been taken into account that I ultimately draw the conclusion that High DT passages are the result of Matthew copying Luke without distraction. To respond to Goodacre’s criticism, however, I should perhaps expand the summarising sentence in question to read:
The Matthew Conflator Hypothesis (MCH) argues that there is no scope for ‘Q’ in the Double Tradition passages where Luke and Matthew agree almost verbatim (High DT passages) since these are best explained by Matthew’s copying of Luke without distraction – or his choosing (for whatever reason) not to be distracted by other versions of that episode of which he might also have been aware.
This is the only correction required to repair what Goodacre identifies as a key flaw.
2 Comments
Paul D. link
17/12/2017 06:32:58 am

Out of curiosity, are there any "low DT" passages where you believe Matthew is conflating Luke with another source, but that source is unknown?

Reply
Alan Garrow
19/12/2017 03:09:54 pm

Hi Paul, the Low DT passages that, it seems to me, is most likely to have been created by the conflation of two written sources is 'Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees' - because the differences between Matthew and Luke in this passage are somewhat similar to the differences in 'On Retaliation and Love of Enemies'. The quick answer to your question, though, is that I think we *might* have 'the third source' (in the form of the Epistle of James or other passages of the Didache) on one or two other occasions - but apart from that it looks as though the 'third source' (whether written or oral) is lost for all other Low DT passages.

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    Alan Garrow is Vicar of St Peter's Harrogate and a member of SCIBS at the University of Sheffield. 

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