Did Mark Conflate Matthew and Luke? | Dr. Thomas R. W. Longstaff

#gospels
#gospelofmark
#gospelofmatthew
#gospelofluke
#gospelofjohn
#thomaslongstaff
#griesbachhypothesis
#twogospelhypothesis


In this live stream, I interview Dr. Thomas Richmond Willis Longstaff. Forty-one years ago he published a book that examined evidence of conflation in Mark back in 1979 which brought the Henry Owen hypothesis also known as the J.J. Griesbach hypothesis back to the attention of New Testament scholarship. The Griesbach hypothesis suggests that Mark was not the first but actually the third Gospel and that he knew Matthew and Luke and conflated material found in both Gospels with his own and then omitted material that he could not conflate in his attempt to harmonize Matthew and Luke. His book had such a major impact in the scholarly community that it prompted a thorough response which was given by Christopher Tuckett in a book titled "The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis: An Analysis and Appraisal (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series)". In this live stream we will be going over a series of slides visualizing several examples of what Dr. Longstaff believes is evidence of Marks Gospel conflating several passages found in Matthew and Luke.





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[riley]

This is probably one of your best interviews, Jacob. What a colorful life. Thank you for interviewing him.

[kneelingcatholic]

Wow, Jacob!👍👍👍
I love your patient approach. Prof Longstaff was not real prepared, but I hope I am as ' with it ' as he is when I approach 90!
You asked the right questions!

[TheColonelKlink]

Who the intended contemporary audience(s) for each of the four canonical Gospels just might be, seems a fascinating aspect of the New Testament discussion that I apparently need brushing up on. Thanks to both you gentlemen for an all too short video.

[MvsEverybody]

Great episode. Have you read or had David Alan Black on the podcast? He is the author of ‘Why Four Gospels’. A good read on Matthean priority, and Mark’s use of both Matthew & Luke.

[kneelingcatholic]

Jacob,
Again, thanks for making an effort to give the Markan posteriority theory a hearing.
Prof. Longstaff, may God bless him, only argued in generalities. I think that it is in the specifics that Markan posteriority makes its strongest case.

I just recently read a book by Peabody Cope and
which supports the Griesbach hypothesis. The authors use statistical analysis of key phrases in the synoptic texts to posit that Matthew very likely did not copy Luke nor Mark and that the inverse is likely. i e Mark writes almost as if he has open scrolls of Matthew and Luke in front of him.
Here is an example of items they

Mark 1:32.
I will number the phrases to help make things

And when evening had come
when the sun had set
they brought to him
all those having illnesses
and the demon possessed

Matthew's parallel version only contains elements i, iii, v
Luke's version: ii and iv

It is easy to see that IF Mark wrote third, he would have been familiar with all the phrases, 12345. (Griesbach) This also explain why Mark's parallel passages tend to be longer. He had a richer deposit of source material to draw from.

However, IF Mark went FIRST, then we must imagine a Matthew and Luke vignette something like... (forgive me if I have already presented this to you)

Matthew: Darn, Lucas!! I really like Mark's 1, 3, 5 for my narrative, so ... back off! You can only have 2 and 4 if you want them. That's my final offer!

Luke: No problem, Bro! I wanted 2&4 anyway. Sometimes Mark gets redundant and wordy, but since he wrote first I'm willing to edit him down only as long as you got my back and are not going to forget to include his 1, 3 &5. BTW, I notice there are a bunch more places where Mark gets wordy, where we need to be careful not step on each other....how about we schedule some more zoom meetings?....

This alternating pattern is not a 'one-off'. It repeats itself > 25 times throughout Mark's 16 chapters, each time, (assuming Mark wrote first) Matthew and Luke perform a careful, apparently choreographed, divvying up of Mark's original text. The Markan priorists cannot give a reasonable answer for why Matthew and Luke would (ever!) be trying not to step on each other's direct copying of Mark's text.

Professor L's point about Matthew being closer both doctrinally and in geographical knowledge to an early Palestinian Christianity than Mark, hence must be earlier than Mark also goes unanswered by the Markam priorists. Griesbach's theory fits the chronological trajectory of early Christianity. Markan priority does not.

[geraldmeehan]

Interesting discussion yet I remain in agreement with the majority of scholars and still support Markian priority. I just feel like Mark is closer to a mystery religion

[canwelook]

Thomas Longstaff starts off talking about Christians needing to face being persecuted. I struggle understanding this argument. Josephus says that around 1 million Jews were slaughtered and a further 90, 000 made into slaves around the time of the destruction of the 2nd temple. THAT is persecution. And that is what Christians avoided by separating themselves from the Jews, and in fact blaming the Jews, rather the Romans, for the crucifixion of Jesus.