quotes and notes from
The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition
by
James R. Edwards

There is a long-standing bias among many scholars — and particularly German scholars — that the handling of the traditions related to the formation of the gospel tradition in the church fathers was uncritical. Consequently, patristic evidence has often been ignored in investigations of the origins of the Synoptic tradition. Even when patristic evidence is admitted, it is not infrequently subjected, especially in the cases of Epiphanius and Jerome, to intense suspicion. As a result, consideration of the Synoptic Gospels is often limited primarily or even exclusively to literary data and internal evidence among the first three Gospels. [...] It is, of course, true that the fathers were pre-critical in the modern sense of that term, but were they uncritical?

The formation of the gospel tradition comprises a major theme in the church fathers. [...] It is highly doubtful that a proper understanding of the Synoptic tradition, and perhaps even a resolution to its formation, can be achieved by either denigrating or ignoring patristic testimony, for the fathers devoted their consideration to the problem from a historical and cultural proximity much closer than ours.

According to the criterion of dissimilarity, originality may only be presumed where there is uniqueness or distinctiveness from the surrounding milieu.

The criterion of dissimilarity is no longer riding the crest of popularity it enjoyed when it was first proposed, primarily because it applies over-exacting conditions of causality to states that could arise in several different ways. In assuming a mechanical consistency to which no author would aspire, or of which no author would perhaps even be capable, the criterion of dissimilarity fails to give due weight to the “human factor” in the production of texts. Luke’s style, at any rate, is not consistently the same Koine style. [...] Greek expressions in Luke that resemble Greek expressions in the LXX could of course be derived from the LXX. But such expressions can also be explained in the same way that Semitisms in the LXX are explained, i.e., as genuine translations of a Hebrew original into a Greek medium.

In order to maintain the Septuagint hypothesis in this instance, one would have to argue that Luke used an expression five times on the basis of one occurrence in all the LXX. That contradicts the definition of a “Septuagintism,” which is the conscious imitation of a pattern or characteristic style in the LXX.

The single most important boost to the use of Hebrew in Second Temple Judaism was the Maccabean Revolt, which not only reinforced Hebrew as the language of sacred texts, but also appears in the minds of many modern scholars to have sparked a renaissance in spoken Hebrew. The antipathy against Rome and Roman culture in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. reinforced the Hebrew renaissance. [...] J. T. Milik, the Qumran scholar whose experience with the Dead Sea Scrolls has perhaps exceeded that of any contemporary scholar, notes that the documents of Qumran were mainly written in an imitation of Biblical Hebrew, which he and others term “Mishnaic Hebrew.” The literary and nationalistic fervor unleashed by the Maccabees resulted in a raft of translations into Hebrew of Aramaic documents that had fallen into disuse or oblivion becauase of their omission from the emerging Hebrew canon of the Bible.

The research of Milik and fellow scholars has confirmed what we have already suggested, that Mishnaic Hebrew was not confined merely to sacred texts or to written documents in general. Similar to the Hebrew of Qohelet, Mishnaic Hebrew is the same colloquial language that appears in the copper rolls from Cave III, in various Jewish contracts of the period and in the Hebrew Bar Kokhba letters of the second century. This indicates that Hebrew was not only the genre of sacred religious texts of Second Temple Judaism, but evidently also a spoken language of the era.

If life developed from simpler to more complex forms, then it seemed reasonable to think of the development of historical texts similarly, which became viewed in terms of literary genealogies and pedigrees. [...] Once the earliest components had been determined, texts could be hypothetically reconstructed according to the chronological strata of materials.

A curious paradox has resulted, however, when this methodology was applied to the Hebrew Gospel. In the case of the Pentateuch or Synoptic research, the earliest constitutive literary building blocks were generally accorded a high degree of historical integrity. Generally speaking, the greater their antiquity, the greater their historical value. A text’s reliability increased in proportion to its proximity to recorded events. But this equation failed with regard to the Hebrew Gospel. Some scholars, myself included, believe the Hebrew Gospel derived from the hand of the apostle Matthew around the middle of the first century, perhaps even earlier than the Gospel of Mark. Virtually no scholar, however, assigns it a date later than mid-second century. Despite its uncontested antiquity, the Hebrew Gospel regularly remains under a cloud of suspicion in Christian scholarship. [...] A Hebrew source of the gospel tradition was not something to be recovered but to be superseded in the Greek gospel tradition.

Take the Jesus Seminar, for example. Organized in 1985, the Seminar is a North American manifestation of the quest of the historical Jesus, dedicated to the “momentous enterprise” of determining the degree of authenticity of Jesus’ words and deeds. The Seminar views the Gospel of Thomas as a virtual “Fifth Gospel.” The Seminar also views “Q” as the earliest and most authentic witness to Jesus, in comparison with which the canonical Gospels are in various ways bastardized accounts. Few scholars would date the Hebrew Gospel later than the Gospel of Thomas — and it may well have been composed in the same time frame assigned to the hypothetical “Q” document. But neither the Jesus Seminar nor any modern Gentile authority of whom I am aware invests the Hebrew Gospel with authenticity and authority commensurate with its antiquity.

“German Christians” — a movement that in the Nazi era numbered three out of every four German pastors — were swept up in the theological alchemy of attempting to construct a “heroic” Aryan faith by the eradication from Christianity of every possible vestige of Judaism. [...] Entire institutes were formed — one thinks of the Institute for research into and Elimination of Jewish Influence in German Church Life in Jena, whose research division was directed by the leading NT scholar Walter Grundmann — whose chief scholarly objective was to uncircumcise Jesus, so to speak, to place him on an ethnic dialysis machine that would cleanse his blood of the pernicious stains of Judaism and preserve him for the Aryan cause.

The beginnings of such absurd and nefarious ideas were already present in nineteenth-century Germany. The Third Reich did not invent anti-Semitism; it harvested it. [...] Nor should it be imagined that such anti-Jewish sentiment was isolated to Germany.

Reference works typically give little or no attention to the genesis of the “Q” hypothesis. That would be the more understandable if the beginnings of “Q” were shrouded in mystery, or if it emerged from obscure beginnings. But this is not the case. “Q” has an exact point of conception, and its story plays a spectacular role in nineteenth-century intellectual history. If “Q,” like the combatants at Troy, were to trace its patronage to the Greek pantheon, it would have to claim Athena; for like Athena, who sprang to life from the head of Zeus, “Q” was birthed nearly fully grown by Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834).

At the same time that Harnack saw nothing Jewish in Jesus and everything new in him, Geiger saw everything Jewish in Jesus and nothing new in him. That a learned Christian and a learned Jew could find in Jesus nothing other than reflections of their respective cultures is an acid reminder of the power of culture to influence scholarship.

The adoption of a theory like “Q” was particularly well-suited to the intellectual climate of nineteenth-century Enlightenment Europe. Indeed, the “Q” hypothesis found a handsome escort in nineteenth-century German liberalism. Schleiermacher’s choice to interpret Papias’s words as referring to a compendium of Jesus’ sayings and moral teachings was exegetically strained at the time, and it appears even more so in retrospect. Its scholarly shortcomings were but minor losses, however, compared to the generous gains bestowed on it by the disposition of the Enlightenment. “Q” — or something like it — was clearly encouraged by an anti-dogma, anti-clerical, and anti-papal Zeitgeist. The “Q” hypothesis was like a modern farm chemical that contained an herbicide capable of killing the weeds of miracle and dogma, and also a fertilizer capable of nourishing the ethical core of Jesus’ messsage.

The comparative data point to the more primitive nature of the Lukan material, which was later developed by Matthew.

This conclusion appears to be corroborated in a study of textual transmission, in which Robert McIver and Marie Carroll argue that “[a]ny sequence of exactly the same 16 or more words that is not an aphorism, poetry, or words to a song is almost certain to have been copied from a written document.” McIver and Carroll note 46 passages, each consisting of 16 or more words, that two of the Synoptic Gospels have in common. In no case do all three Synoptics share a text of 16 or more words in common. Luke and Mark have three passages in common, and Luke and Matthew have 11 passages in common. In addition to the three passages that Mark has in common with Luke, Mark has nine passages in common with Matthew.

The Gospel of Matthew appears to represent positions on women, sinners, tax collectors, lawless people, wealth, and possessions that reflect a time period later than the Gospel of Luke. Detailed literary analyses of the relationship between Matthew and Luke are offered by Ronald Huggins and George Blair. Huggins argues that the problem of the relationship between Matthew and Luke is reasonably and satisfactorily resolved on the supposition that Matthew used Mark as his main source, which he supplemented by the use of Luke. In a thorough and minute comparison of Matthew and Luke, Blair sets forth the similar thesis that Mark was the first Gospel, Luke a revision of Mark with additions, and Matthew was a revision of both.

The posteriority of Matthew can also be advocated on historical grounds. Martin Hengel argues that Luke stands closer to the catastrophic fall of Jerusalem in 70 than does Matthew, and that he displays better knowledge of Judaism prior to it. Hengel further argues that the divide between the Christian movement and the Roman state is less critical in Luke than in later Matthew, and that Matthew presupposes the consolidation of Judaism under later rabbinic programs.

The translation of Hebrew into Greek was common enough that many in the early church and since assumed — but again mistakenly — that canonical Greek Matthew was a translation of an earlier Hebrew version of the Gospel written by the apostle Matthew.

Despite the reasonableness of this assumption, it was fatally flawed, for canonical Greek Matthew exhibits no particular signs, as does Special Luke, of having been indebted to a Hebrew original. Special Luke flows naturally back into Hebrew, but rendering Matthew into Hebrew is like trying to place two magnets together. [...] Had scholars doubted their presupposition of a relationship between the Hebrew Gospel and canonical Matthew rather than the Hebrew Gospel itself, the quest could have recovered from its fatal misstep.