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.
When one remembers the fine-spun analyses of the historical books of the
Old Testament, which, long ridiculed for their elaborateness, have finally
been accepted by most scholars, one hesitates on this account alone to
pronounce an adverse judgment upon Wendling's theory. Yet his analysis
certainly seems over-elaborate. It is a great advantage to be able to
distinguish the more obvious work of the redactor from the earlier
document upon which he worked. All students will feel this with reference
to chap. iv, and the advantage in chap. iii is perhaps only less great.
Still more welcome is the assignment of vi, 45-viii, 27, to the redactor.
The great stumbling-block of this section is its feeding of the four
thousand, so obviously copied from the feeding of the five thousand. That
one and the same author should have written both these accounts has seemed
strange to many readers. But this duplication is as easily disposed of
upon von Soden's theory as upon Wendling's. Von Soden's analysis into two
strata (without the assumption of two writers) is much simpler than
Wendling's analysis into three, with three writers. Wendling's theory is
more secure where it goes with von Soden's, and less convincing where it
goes beyond it.
Some distinction has in any case to be made between the final writer of
the Gospel and the earliest tradition upon which he worked; and Wendling
has indicated the criteria which such a distinction must employ. Von
Soden's division of the Marcan material into a Petrine and a later source
amounts to the same thing. The two critics do not differ greatly about the
passages they regard as secondary. Von Soden's Petrine narrative does not
differ greatly from Wendling's M1 + M2. But the line of demarkation
between M1 and M2, and Wendling's reasons for drawing this, are not as
self-evident as the line which Wendling and von Soden agree in drawing
between the earlier document, or source, and the work of the Evangelist.
CONCLUSIONS OF VON SODEN AND WENDLING COMPARED
A tabulation of the results discloses the following agreements and
disagreements between von Soden's Petrine narrative and Wendling's M1+M2.
Von Soden i, 4-11, 16-20, 21-39 ii, 1-28
Wendling i, 4-14a, 16-34a, 35-39a, 40-44 ii, 1-15a, 16b-17, 18b, 19b
Von Soden iii, 1-6, 13-19, 21-35 iv, 1-9, 21-32
Wendling 21-28 iii, 1-5, 20,21, 31-35 iv, 1-9, 26-29, 33, 35-41
Von Soden vi, 6-16 viii, 27-38
Wendling v, 1-42, 43b vi, 14, 17-30, 33-44 viii, 27-30a, 33b, 36, 37
Von Soden ix, 1 32-40 x, 13-45
Wendling ix, 2-8, 14-27 x, 1, 13-23, 25, 31, 32a, 35-37, 41-52, xi, 1-10
Von Soden xii, 13-44 xiii, 1-6
Wendling 15-17, 27b-33 xii, 1-14a, 14c-31, 34b-37 xiii, 1-2, 28-29
Von Soden 28-37
Wendling 33-36 xiv, 1-7, 10-20, 22-35a, 36-37, 39-41a, 42-56, 60-62a
Von Soden
Wendling 63-72 xv, 1-38, 40-42, 46-47 xvi, 1-7a, 8
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