Sources of the Synoptic Gospels Part 3

Luke here displays his freedom in working over the story of Mark. He builds upon Mk i, 19, yet instead of saying that the fishermen were mending their nets in their boats, he says they had gone out of their boats and were washing their nets. He has apparently read Mk iv, 1, also, and builds upon this the statement about Jesus' going into the boat to get away from the crowd (which statement he later omits when he comes to it in Mark's parable of the Sower). (There is a reminiscence here also of Mk iii, 9.) After the draft of fishes, when he comes to the words of Jesus to Peter, he picks up again a fragment of Mark's account, tho still with an addition and with a deviation in the wording; Mark says de?te ?p?s? ??, ?a? p???s? ??? ?e??s?a? ??ee?? ?????p??; Luke says ? f???? ?p? t?? ???

?????p??? ?s? ??????. Luke's closing statement, "They left all and followed him" is substantially, tho not quite in wording, the same as Mark's. No example could be more striking, of Luke's freedom in his treatment of Mark. He exercises this freedom, however, in the narratives rather than in the words of Jesus; when he comes to these latter, even in the midst of a narrative which he has largely created out of mere fragments of Mark, he follows Mark comparatively closely. In not many narratives does Luke go to quite such lengths in his re-working as in this story and the account of the rejection (initial preaching) at Nazareth.

But this is typical of him, as compared with Matthew's treatment of the same source.

THE HEALING OF THE LEPER

(Mk i, 40-45; Mt viii, 1-4; Lk v, 12-16)

Matthew and Luke both omit Mark's ????s?e???, for which they have in this case double ground; it is an unusual word, and it implies that Jesus was angry. Luke avoids Mark's statement that the man directly disobeyed Jesus' command not to tell of his cleansing.

THE HEALING OF THE PARALYTIC

(Mk ii, 1-12; Mt ix, 1-8; Lk v, 17-26)

Both Matthew and Luke have supplied their own introductions. Both subst.i.tute e?pe? for Mark's ???e? (Mk ix, 5) (a correction which Luke invariably makes). Both use subst.i.tutes for Mark's ???att??. Luke avoids Jesus' address to the man as t?????. In the words of Jesus to his critics and to the paralytic, both follow Mark with general fidelity, and tho Mark's vss. 5_b_-10 appear to interrupt the story, both follow him in their inclusion of these verses. Luke's change of Mark's vs. 7 is a fine example of his ability to make an improvement in the sense with the least possible change in the wording. Mark reads, t? ??t?? ??t?? ?a?e?; ?asf?e?? Luke changes to t?? ?st?? ?? ?a?e? ?asf??a?; The latter fits much better into the question, "Who has power to forgive sins except G.o.d?"

Mark has made Jesus, in his dispute with his critics, say "Which is easier, to say, ... or to say, rise, take up thy bed and walk?" Matthew and Luke make him leave out the clause "take up thy bed," reserving this for Jesus' actual address to the man a little later, whereas Mark uses it in both places. Luke heightens the effect of his story by saying "He took up that upon which he had been carried," instead of "he took up his bed."

This may be a heightening of the contrast, or perhaps a hint that he did not know exactly what Mark's ???att?? was, tho he has elsewhere replaced it by ?????d???.[24]

THE CALLING OF LEVI (MATTHEW)

(Mk ii, 13-17; Mt ix, 9-13; Lk v, 27-32)

Matthew and Luke both correct Mark's unusual if not ungrammatical use of ?t? in the sense of why. Mark says "Why does _he_ eat with publicans and sinners?" Matthew improves by reading, "Why does _your master_ eat," etc.

Luke improves still more by directing the question to the disciples in such manner as to include Jesus, "Why do _ye_ eat," etc.

THE QUESTION ABOUT FASTING

(Mk ii, 18-22; Mt ix, 14-17; Lk v, 33-39)

Matthew and Luke avoid Mark's verb ?p???pte?, a word found nowhere but in this verse of Mark's (ix, 21). At the end they avoid Mark's clumsy expression, "The wine and the bottles will be destroyed," and say, "The wine will be spilled and the bottles destroyed."[25] They both omit the last part of Mark's vs. 19, an obvious pleonasm and possibly a later insertion. Luke's addition in his vs. 39 does not fit well, but is bracketed by Westcott and Hort and is probably an insertion. More difficult (and so far as I see impossible) to explain is Luke's suggestion that the patch to be put on the old garment is cut out of a new one--an unusual procedure, certainly. He may possibly have been misled into this statement by his desire to heighten the contrast between old and new.

THE WALK THRU THE CORN

(Mk ii, 23-28; Mt xii, 1-8; Lk vi, 1-5)

Matthew and Luke avoid Mark's expression ?d?? p??e??, which sounds as if Mark meant to say that Jesus made a new path thru the corn. They add, what Mark forgets to say, that he and his disciples ate the grain. Luke adds that they rubbed it in their hands. They are led to these corrections by the fact that the justification of Jesus by the example of David has to do, not with making a road thru the grain, but with eating on the Sabbath and, perhaps, eating something which it would not ordinarily have been proper for him to eat. Matthew and Luke omit Mark's colorless and unnecessary "when he had need," and his historically difficult reference to Abiathar.[26] All three have the clause, "and to those that were with him," but each in a different place. Luke improves the order of the clauses in Mark's 26th verse. Matthew adds to the words of Jesus the reference to the priests profaning the temple and yet being guiltless. The addition is suggested by David's eating the shewbread, but does not fit the case so closely, since Jesus was not defending himself against the charge of profaning a holy place. Both Matthew and Luke omit Mark's saying that "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Sir John Hawkins suggests that the saying may have been offensive to Jewish ears.

This may account for Matthew's omission of it; and Luke may have omitted it because he and his readers had not much interest in discussions about the Sabbath. But it is perhaps still more likely that the sentence is a later addition to Mark.

THE MAN WITH THE WITHERED HAND

(Mk iii, 1-6; Mt xii, 9-14; Lk vi, 6-11)

Luke changes Mark's s?as?? to sa?t?, perhaps because he is not acquainted with the Hebrew (Aramaic) usage of the plural of this word in the sense of the singular. Both Matthew and Luke avoid the direct statement of Mark in his 5th verse that Jesus was angry.

THE CROWD AND THE HEALINGS

(Mk iii, 7-12; Mt xii, 15-21; Lk vi, 17-19)

Matthew's treatment of Mark is influenced by the fact that just before his Sermon on the Mount he has, in iv, 25, given a somewhat similar statement.

Luke's transposition has been noticed.[27]

THE CALLING OF THE TWELVE

(Mk iii, 13-19; Mt x, 2-4; Lk vi, 12-16)

Characteristic of Luke is his "He was continuing all night in prayer."[28]

The addition by Matthew and Luke of the words ? ?de?f?? a?t?? (t?? ?de?f??

a?t??) is held by some to indicate their use of a Marcan text different from ours. The order of the names is not the same in any two of the three lists. Both Matthew and Mark avoid an anacoluthon of Mark in his vs. 16, and omit the appellative "Boanerges," with its translation. Matthew and Luke follow Mark in naming Matthew, tho in their account of his call in Mt ix, 13, and Lk v, 27, Luke follows Mark in calling him Levi. Luke changes Mark's "Simon the Canaanite" to "Simon the Zealot." Matthew alone gives the name of Lebbaeus, Mark alone says Thaddeus, Luke alone names Judas the son of James. No simple explanation suggests itself as covering all these deviations. Matthew or Luke or both may have been influenced by a similar list of names in Q or some other non-Marcan source; but that both of them are here following Mark is rendered practically certain by their addition of the appended parenthetical statement concerning Judas, with which all three accounts close.

THE PHARISAIC ACCUSATION AND JESUS' DEFENSE

(Mk iii, 20-30; Mt xii, 22-37; Lk xi, 14-23)

The discussion of this section is complicated by the presence of the section in both Mark and Q, and is therefore postponed to a later time.[29]

THE TRUE BROTHERHOOD OF JESUS; THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER; THE PURPOSE OF THE PARABLES

(Mk iii, 31-iv, 12; Mt xii, 46-xiii, 15; Lk viii, 4-10, 19-21)

Luke has done more than Matthew to turn Mark's narrative into good Greek, tho Matthew has also improved it. The agreement of Matthew and Luke in the addition of a?t?? in Mt xiii, 4, and Lk viii, 5, where it does not occur in their exemplar (Mk iv, 4), is sometimes held to indicate a text of Mark containing this word. The hypothesis of a.s.similation seems simpler; or in this case even accidental agreement would not be strange. The insertion of p???? in Mk iv, 1, not in Matthew and Luke, has been suggested by Weiss to be the work of an editor who saw the confused character of the geographical references since Mk iii, 7.[30]

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

(Mk iv, 13-20; Mt xiii, 18-23; Lk viii, 11-15)

Matthew changes Mark's Sata??? to ? p??????. The latter is used by Matthew in this sense five times, and not at all by Mark and Luke. The change may therefore be regarded as stylistic. Luke's addition of "lest they should believe and be saved" sounds like a Christian addition, and may be explained by the development of the Christian doctrine. Mark's loose and unliterary addition of "and the desires for the rest of the things," after the "cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches," Luke very naturally corrects into "the cares and wealth and pleasures of life." In iv, 19, Mark uses the participle e?sp??e??e?a? in a somewhat inexact manner: "The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for the rest of the things, coming in, choke the word." Luke's change may be accounted for by his desire to improve the style; which he does without discarding Mark's misplaced participle. For he says, "And by the cares ... as they [i.e., the people who have heard the word] proceed, they are choked and rendered unfruitful." Probably Schmiedel's statement, in his article in the _Encyclopedia Biblica_, that this instance alone would prove literary relation between Mark and Luke is too strong; especially considering the fact that Luke's participle is not precisely the same as Mark's; but the deviation is certainly an interesting one. In the earlier part of the pa.s.sage Matthew and Luke both omit Mark's reference to the dulness of the disciples. The omission is due to their customary deference to the feeling of a later time.

A GROUP OF DETACHED SAYINGS

(Mk iv, 21-25; Mt v, 15; x, 26; vii, 2; xiii, 12; Lk viii, 16-18; vi, 38)

The divergences in wording, the fact that the verses found together in Mark are separated in both Matthew and Luke, and the additional fact of doublets in Matthew or Luke for all but one of Mark's verses, indicate beyond a doubt that these verses stood in both Mark and Q.

THE PARABLE OF THE MUSTARD SEED

(Mk iv, 30-32; Mt xiii, 31-32; Lk xiii, 18-19)