Sources of the Synoptic GospelsPatton, Carl S. (Carl Safford)
Religion
Sources of the Synoptic Gospels
Patton, Carl S. (Carl Safford)
Bible. Gospels -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Sections 42 in Matthew and 16 in Luke contain the saying about the house
on the rock and the sand (with and without foundations). These sections
are universally ascribed to Q, both from their general similarity and from
their position in each Gospel as the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount
(Plain). But the wording is very dissimilar. Only those words are alike
which must necessarily be so if two men were using the same subject as an
illustration; and this is true, not only of the wording, but of the
thought. Those who assign the passage simply to Q are compelled to suppose
that, Matthew representing the original text, Luke has observed that the
correct antithesis is not between a house built on a rock and a house
built on the sand, but between one built with a foundation and one built
without one. So he says nothing about the soil, whether rock or sand, but
says that in one case the man built upon the surface, and that in the
other he digged deep and laid a good foundation. The amount of re-working,
reinterpreting, and re-writing thus required of Luke is wholly
unjustified by any treatment he has accorded to any of the sayings of
Jesus in Mark. It is presumable that he exercised his editorial function
on his recension of Q as he did upon the sayings-material in Mark. But it
is much more natural to suppose that the story that lay before him in his
source lay before him in a form considerably different from that which it
had in Matthew's source. The assumption of the two recensions therefore
has the advantage of preserving the section for Q, without the
disadvantage of ascribing to Luke a wholly unwarrantable amount of
re-working.
Sections 4-11 in Matthew and 4-6 in Luke contain their different versions
of the beatitudes. Those who assign indiscriminately to Q all the verses
contained in these sections have to assume that Luke omitted five of the
beatitudes. No reason can be assigned for his doing so, and it is wholly
improbable that he would have deliberately mutilated a passage so
liturgically complete and impressive. The five omitted beatitudes are
additions to the teachings of Jesus, manufactured on the basis of Old
Testament exemplars. But if anything stood in Q, these five beatitudes
stood there, only not in Luke's recension, but in Matthew's.
WITH MATTHEW'S Q BEFORE HIM, LUKE WOULD NOT HAVE OMITTED SO MUCH OF IT
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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