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.
In the material assigned to Q in Tables IV and V[131] the writer believes
that not many unmistakably secondary traits appear. The messianic
announcement of the Baptist is certainly primary as compared with Mark
predicting Jesus as the fire-judge, contrary to the facts of his life. The
temptation in Q is also primary as compared with Mark, with the exception
of the conversation between Jesus and John in Matthew, which is obviously
secondary and belongs to QMt. Of the sayings, only a few have a secondary
sound. Such are especially those connected with the instructions to the
twelve, which seem to embody some of the experiences, or bespeak some of
the needs, of the early Christian itinerant preachers: "The laborer is
worthy of his hire [or his keep]"; "I send you forth as sheep among
wolves"; "The disciple is not above his master"; "The law and the prophets
prophesied until John"; perhaps also Matthew's long beatitude, "Blessed
are ye when men persecute you," etc.
But by far the most of the secondary traits, and the most unmistakable of
them, are found in the additions to and deviations from the Q tradition
_in QMt and QLk_. Such are the additional beatitudes supplied by Matthew's
Q and made up of Old Testament quotations; the insertion into the
temptation story, in QMt, of the protest of John the Baptist and the
answer of Jesus; the warning against false prophets in Matthew; the speech
about those who say "Lord, Lord"; the prediction of division among
relatives (seemingly answering the condition in which the early church
found itself); the many coming from the east and the west (written in the
days of the expanding church); the sign of Jonah interpreted (in Matthew)
as referring to the resurrection; the parable of the Fish-Net with its
eschatological interpretation; the saying about the twelve apostles on
twelve thrones; and the various sections interpolated, apparently from QMt
and QLk, into Mark's apocalypse.
Closer analysis of particular sections tends to corroborate this
impression of secondary traits as coming not from Q but from the
recensions. For example, the sayings about the light and the bushel and
about the salt that had lost its savor appear to have stood in Q. But from
his own recension of Q, Matthew prefixed to the saying what Luke did not
find in his recension, "Ye are the light of the world," "Ye are the salt
of the earth," two sayings which seem to reflect the exalted estimate of
the apostles in the sub-apostolic age. The Lord's Prayer probably stood in
the original Q much as it is in Luke; Matthew's amplifications, found in
his source, have the liturgical and ecclesiastical coloring that betray
the later time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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