The Demise of Arguments from Order for Markan Priority

The Demise of Arguments from Order for Markan PriorityAuthor(s): Malcolm LoweSource: Novum Testamentum, Vol. 24, Fasc. 1 (Jan., 1982), pp. 27-36Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1560548 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 19:28

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Novum Testamentum.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.106 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:28:50 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1560548?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Novum Testamentum XXIV, I (1982)

THE DEMISE OF ARGUMENTS FROM ORDER FOR MARKAN PRIORITY

BY

MALCOLM LOWE Van Leer Foundation Jerusalem

At various times the orders in which pericopes occur in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke have been thought to furnish a strong argument-possibly even the most impressive argument- in favour of the theory of Markan priority. It was claimed, namely, that the observed coincidences of the orders of Matthew and Luke with the order of Mark suggest that the latter's gospel was the basis for the other two authors. Starting from Mark, they inserted material at various places, but largely retained the order of what they found there. This also provides an explanation for why the orders of Matthew and Luke often radically differ precisely in the "double tradition" (the material which they both have somewhere but which is absent from Mark) as opposed to the "triple tradition" (the material common to all three authors) 1).

More recently advocates of Markan priority have hesitated to claim much force for this argument, admitting that other theories can explain the coincidences. Nevertheless, the argument from pericope order has not been forgotten or wholly discarded from discussions of the theory of Markan priority. Some-perhaps many-still feel that it affords at least a measure of support for the theory. Of the considerable literature on the subject, it will suffice to cite (as a relevant recent example) GORDON D. FEE'S article, "A Text-Critical Look at the Synoptic Problem" 2).

1) HANS HERBERT STOLDT, Geschichte und Kritik der Markushypothese (1977), pp. 125ff., cites the argument in WEISSE (1838), HOLTZMANN and others. B. H. STREETER'S English-language classic of Markan priority, The Four Gospels (1924), listed it (p. 161) among the arguments "familiar to scholars" (p. 159). STOLDT shows that it is a mistake (pp. 137ff.) to attribute the argument already to LACHMANN, who ascribed the coincidences in order to a tradition antedating all three evangelists. STOLDT's brilliant polemic against the theory of Markan priority also dispels various other miscon- ceptions (now in Eng. tr.: History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis).

2) Novum Testamentum 22 (1980), 12-28. For other literature advancing or rejecting the argument from order, see the many items discussed in STOLDT, Op. cit.



28 MALCOLM LOWE

The following discussion will therefore examine such arguments in connexion with two theories: Markan priority and the GRIESBACH

hypothesis (which in recent years has become once again the former's leading competitor and is treated as such by FEE). The GRIESBACH hypothesis actually consists of two distinct parts or component hypotheses:

(GA) Luke based his gospel chiefly on Matthew's Gospel. (GB) Mark based his gospel chiefly on Matthew's Gospel and

Luke's Gospel. These are clearly two distinct and independent hypotheses,

such that it is wholly possible to accept just one of them and reject the other (or retain an open mind about it) 3). Similarly, the theory of Markan priority (MP)-the view that Mark's Gospel was the chief source used by both Matthew and Luke-is logically independent of the Q-hypothesis (these two assumptions jointly constituting the two-document theory). It may be noted that a slightly weakened form of GA would not contradict MP (e.g. if "chiefly" in GA were replaced with "in large measure"), but could even be combined with it 4). Consequently, arguments directed purely against GA lend little or no support to MP 5). The real competitor with MP is thus not the GRIESBACH hypothesis in its en- tirety, but simply GB.

The first part of this paper, therefore, will establish what may be called the "general theorem": that no argument based on the mere order of verbal components can favour Markan priority (MP) as against the second part of the Griesbach hypothesis (GB), but at most the latter as against the former. By a "verbal component" of a gospel is meant a pericope, a logion or indeed any word or series of words. The result is called a "theorem" because, using elementary methods of modern predicate logic, it can be shown to be a necessary

3) For instance, one could combine GB with the assumption that Matthew knew both Luke's Gospel and some of the sources of Luke (Lk i 1-4), or just the latter, or that Luke knew Matthew and some of Matthew's sources.

4) Indeed HOLTZMANN, after he had virtually abandoned the proto- Markan hypothesis, combined the two-document theory with the admission that Luke had known Matthew as well as Mark (STOLDT, op. cit., p. 90). Conversely WILKE, one of the earliest advocates of MP (1838), combined it with the claim that Matthew's Gospel is a compilation from Mark and Luke (ibid., pp. 39-43).

5) This conclusion applies not merely to arguments from order, but to arguments of whatever kind against GA.



THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER 29

consequence of the basic assumptions of the theories concerned 6). Having established the general theorem, I shall show how it applies in the rejection specifically of the arguments offered by FEE.

The general theorem applies not merely to the two theories concerned (MP and GB) in their pure forms, but also to the corresponding theories which arise through refining the assumptions of the pure theories in various familiar ways. Also, the specific reasons for which FEE'S arguments fail (or similar reasons) will apply mutatis mutandis to other such arguments. Thus anyone who subscribes to MP on account of arguments from order should logically be more eager to subscribe to GB. In this way, it may be hoped, the ghost of the argument from pericope order can be laid once and for all 7).

The General Theorem

It is a basic principle of the algebraic theory of order, familiar to mathematicians and modern logicians, that any ordering of a collection of elements can be specified by stating for every pair of those elements which member of the pair occurs earlier than which (in technical language: an ordering is a set of ordered pairs). As a consequence, it suffices to show that the general theorem holds for all pairs of verbal components (pericopes, logia or whatever) in the triple tradition. So let x and y be any two such verbal components. According to what may be termed the "pure theory of Markan priority", Matthew and Luke have simply and slavishly copied their orders of triple-tradition material from Mark 8). Consequently,

6) Since relatively few New Testament scholars are familiar with modern logic, the argument will be formulated in such a way that most will be able to follow its drift, while logicians will have no difficulty in recognising its validity.

7) STOLDT's analysis, op. cit., pp. 125-44, goes a considerable way towards achieving this aim, especially as he recognises that the argument from order involves a logical error (p. I33). His argumentation, however, is neither formal nor comprehensive. Only with the methods of modern formal logic can the "general theorem" be formulated precisely and in its full generality and demonstrated with complete logical rigour. Nothing short of this can end a controversy which has been going on for nearly 150 years.

8) Of course, the adherent of Markan priority will concede that they have not always slavishly copied Mark, but sometimes chosen to depart from him. It will be shown in the sequel, however, that this makes no essential difference to the argument, since obviously the adherent of the GRIESBACH hypothesis is permitted to make the corresponding concession, i.e. that Mark did not always slavishly follow Matthew and Luke.



30 MALCOLM LOWE

if x occurs earlier than y in Matthew or Luke, x will also be found earlier than y in Mark. Or, to put it differently: if x occurs earlier than y in Mark, then x occurs earlier than y in both Matthew and Luke. Using E(Mt), E(Mk) and E(Lk) to abbreviate "occurs earlier in Matthew", etc., these two equivalent formulations of what the theory of Markan priority implies for the order of verbal components can be stated as follows:

(MP1) If xE(Mt)y or xE(Lk)y, then xE(Mk)y (MP2) If xE(Mk)y, then xE(Mt)y and xE(Lk)y The "pure GRIESBACH hypothesis", on the other hand, claims

that Mark had before him both Matthew and Luke when he com- posed his own gospel. Although Mark did not use all the material that he found in those sources, he preserved as far as possible their narrative orders. This means that if the verbal component x occurred earlier than y in both Matthew and Luke, then Mark also placed x earlier than y (whereas if they occurred in different orders in Matthew and Luke, then Mark had to make a choice of whom to follow). Or, to put it in other words: if x occurs earlier than y in Mark, then x occurs earlier than y in Matthew or Luke or both. These two equivalent formulations of the second part of the GRIESBACH hypothesis can be stated as follows (where "or" - as is customary in modern logic-means "one or other or both"):

(GBI) If xE(Mt)y and xE(Lk)y, then xE(Mk)y (GB2) If xE(Mk)y, then xE(Mt)y or xE(Lk)y

Any modern logician examining the form of the four statements presented above will perceive immediately that (MP1) necessarily implies (GB1), but not vice versa, and that (MP2) necessarily implies (GB2), but not vice versa. Therefore, anything which contradicts (GBI) necessarily contradicts (MPI), but not vice versa, and anything which contradicts (GB2) necessarily contradicts (MP2), but not vice versa 9). That is, in view of the basic principle

9) (GB1) differs from (MP1) only in having "and" instead of "or" in the antecedent, while (GB2) differs from (MP2) only in having "or" instead of "and" in the consequent. I have eschewed the full formalism of the predicate calculus, in which (MPi) and (GB1), for instance, could be written:

(MPi) (x) (y) (Exy v Gxy -+ Fxy) (GB1) (x) (y) (Exy & Gxy -+ Fxy)

(GB1) is a logical consequence of (MPi); therefore (by modus tollendo tollens) anything which contradicts (GB1) also contradicts (MP1).




of the algebraic theory of order already mentioned, if the orders of any combination of verbal components in the three gospels contradict the second part of the GRIESBACH hypothesis, they also contradict the hypothesis of Markan priority, but the converse is not necessary. In other words, any evidence from the mere order of verbal components which contradicts GB will also contradict MP, but it is not logically necessary that all such evidence which contradicts MP will also contradict GB. But this is precisely the "general theorem" as stated earlier: such evidence cannot favour Markan priority as against the second part of the GRIESBACH hypothesis, but at most the latter as against the former. The theorem has thus been demonstrated.

The point at issue can also be explained in a more informal manner, which is also more readily understandable to non-logicians (and brings out some further implications). If a and b are two verbal components (pericopes, logia or whatever) occurring in all three gospels, then two situations can theoretically be defined. Let Situation I be the case that Matthew and Luke concur in the order of occurrence of a and b, i.e. either a occurs earlier than b in both gospels, or it fails to occur earlier than b in both. Let Situa- tion II be the case that they occur in different orders in Matthew and Luke, i.e. a occurs earlier than b in one of them but not in the other. In Situation I, either the order of occurrence in Mark also concurs with that in Matthew and Luke, which accords with both MP and GB, or Mark has a different order, which contradicts both theories. Situation II, on the other hand, contradicts MP (since either Matthew or Luke has not copied Mark's order), but does not contradict GB (which merely says that in this case Mark will have to choose between the conflicting orders of Matthew and Luke).

This leads on to a further point, which is of interest from the view- point of the philosophy of science. When an explanatory hypothesis P is a logical consequence of another hypothesis Q, philosophers of science in the tradition of POPPER are often inclined to recommend the investigation of Q rather than P, because usually there are further facts which are implied by Q but not by P, that is, facts which "corroborate" Q but are "irrelevant" to P. In this respect, Q is possibly more interesting than P 10). But in the present case there

10) KARL POPPER, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (rev. ed., 1968), ch. 10, e.g. p. 267: ". .. the hypothesis which is falsifiable in a higher degree, or the simpler hypothesis, is also the one which is corroborable in a higher



32 MALCOLM LOWE

is not even this consolation for the theory of Markan priority. The only order situation "irrelevant" to GB is Situation II, that is, when Matthew and Luke place two verbal components in different orders (because then the hypothesis says nothing about which order Mark will choose) 11); but all cases of Situation II contradict (pure) Markan priority, according to which Matthew and Luke should not differ in order (since both are copying Mark). Thus there can be no evidence from the mere order of verbal components which corroborates Markan priority and fails to corroborate the second part of the Griesbach hypothesis.

So far the two theories have been considered in their "pure" forms. It remains to be shown that even when certain refinements are made in the formulation of the theories, no essential change in the situation results. First, nothing whatsoever follows from the mere position in Mark of verbal components which are found in Matthew but not in Luke (or in Luke but not in Matthew). When comparison is made between only two gospels, a mere coincidence in order could be due to either author copying the other.

Second, "weakened" versions of the two theories may be considered. A weakened GB is one which admits that in some observed cases where Mark's order diverges from that of both Matthew and Luke, he has decided in these cases to give his own order. A weakened theory of Markan priority is one which (for similar reasons) admits that Matthew or Luke (or both) may sometimes have changed an order found in Mark. For present purposes, a theory which ascribes such discrepancies to Markan revisions of a proto-Mark can also be regarded as a weakened theory of Markan priority; it makes no difference, as regards the mere order of verbal components, whether one assumes that Matthew and Luke both independently changed an order which they found in Mark, or whether one assumes that they adhere to an order found in a proto-Mark but which Mark has changed 12). It is not difficult to

degree." There is no need to dwell on POPPER'S enormous prestige among philosophers of science (including those who disagree with him).

11) To be precise: no individual case of Situation II as such either corroborates or contradicts the GRIESBACH hypothesis, but is simply compatible with it.

12) The Markan priorist who retreats to proto-Markan priority does, however, eliminate the problem of explaining how Matthew and Luke independently came to identical conclusions. Unfortunately, he creates a new problem: the proto-Mark comes to resemble Mark less and less. This may be illustrated historically with the example of WEISSE and EWALD. WEISSE




see that any evidence according with a weakened MP will also accord with either the pure GB (if Situation II cases alone are involved) or an appropriately weakened GB (if Situation I cases are involved) 13).

Lastly, if GB is modified in the form of assuming that the extant Matthew is a revision of a proto-Matthew by someone who knew Mark 14), or in the form of making a similar assumption about the extant Luke, there is again no essential change. Theoretically, such a modification-in its impact on the order relations between verbal components--could reduce the corroboration for GB in one of two ways. It could imply that a case of Situation II in the extant gospels was originally a case of Situation I which contradicts GB, or that an extant case of Situation I which corroborates GB was originally a case of Situation II which was irrelevant to it. In practice, however, people only modify hypotheses in order to improve the corroboration of theory by observed facts, not in order to reduce it. In other words, such a modification would not in practice be motivated by (and would have no significant impact upon) the order relations between verbal components of the extant gospels, but would have some other motivation (e.g. to explain the existence of Matthean doublets in terms of a proto-Matthew to which additions had been made).

A Specific Application Given the validity of the general theorem, it may be expected

that any alleged argument for Markan priority based on the order of verbal components in the Synoptic gospels will turn out either not to be an argument for Markan priority at all, or to be an argument which is actually based on considerations other than

originally (1838) ascribed virtually the whole of the double tradition to the supposed collection of Jesus' sayings (today called Q). Subsequently, EWALD convinced him that much of the double tradition must have origina- ted from a proto-Mark. EWALD'S proto-Mark, however, would more ac- curately be described as a "proto-Matthew" (it contained the whole Sermon on the Mount!), while WEISSE'S was a kind of proto-Luke. See STOLDT, op. cit., pp. 58ff.

13) In practice, because Situation II cases occur in relatively large num- bers, the theory of Markan priority always appears in a much weaker form than the second part of the GRIESBACH hypothesis. See the criticism below of FEE's first argument.

14) I am inclined towards a theory of this kind. See, at any rate, my paper "From the Parable of the Vineyard to a Pre-Synoptic Source", to appear in New Testament Studies 28 (1981-82).

3



34 MALCOLM LOWE

the mere order of verbal components. Examples of both kinds can be found in FEE'S paper already mentioned 15). He offers, it seems, two (or two main) arguments from order for MP.

To begin with, FEE reasserts the old argument from pericope order, that "although Luke usually is in sequence with Matthew when Mark is the common denominator, he is almost never in sequence with Matthew when they alone share material"; he adds that the all-important point is that immediate sequence is involved 16). In support of this contention, he cites the statistical evidence gathered by TYsoN 17). Unfortunately, this contention -however well supported statistically-does not constitute an argument favouring Markan priority as against the GRIESBACH hypothesis. The second part of FEE's contention (Luke "is almost never in sequence with Matthew when they alone share material") may be an argument against GA 18), but no part of his contention constitutes an argument for MP as against GB. On the contrary, the general theorem shows that: a) all the statistical support for MP is equally support for GB; b) it makes no difference whether immediate or interrupted sequence is found 19); c) the evidence from pericope sequence can at most support GB as against MP.

As a matter of fact, the evidence from pericope sequence does favour GB- as TYsoN's own data show. TYsoN found that the triple- tradition material consists of 90 pericopes in Mark and Luke (98 in Matthew). Of these, 59 follow in the same sequence in both Matthew and Luke (Situation I) and Mark has 57 in the same sequence; this leaves 31 (39) pericopes which do not occur in the same sequence in Matthew and Luke (Situation II) 20). There are

15) I should emphasise that I have not picked out FEE's article because it is less well argued than any other contribution, but simply as a recent confirmation that the argument from order of verbal components still has its adherents. Most of his paper is indeed concerned with other considerations.

1e) Op. cit., p. 15 (text and footnote io). 17) J. B. TYSON, "Sequential Parallelism in the Synoptic Gospels", New

Testament Studies 22 (1975-76), 276-308. 18) It has already been noted that arguments against GA lend little or

no support to MP. 19) The logical relations between (MP1), (MP2), (GB1) and (GB2) remain

the same if "E(Mt)", etc., are taken to stand for "immediately precedes in Matthew", etc.

20) TYSON, op. cit., pp. 191-92. TYSON does not himself explicitly consider the statistical support for GA, GB and MP separately, but contrasts the GRIESBACH hypothesis as a whole with the two-document theory (and other theories).




thus 57 pericopes which in their sequence corroborate both pure MP and pure GB, 2 which contradict the latter, but 33(41) which contradict the former.

A further consideration favouring GB against MP is that on the latter hypothesis one would expect to find cases of Situation II scattered throughout the pericope sequence of Mark's Gospel. But this is not the case. From the tenth chapter of Mark onwards the order of triple-tradition material coincides almost exactly with that in both Matthew and Luke (Situation I), whereas in the first eight chapters of Mark the order mostly coincides either with Luke as against Matthew or with Matthew as against Luke (Situa- tion II) 21). In terms of GB this has a simple explanation: Mark combined the orders of Luke and Matthew by following alternately the one and the other, until he reached a point where the remaining material common to both occurred in more or less the same order 22).

FEE's other argument for Markan priority runs as follows: But how does one explain two phenomena of Luke's use of Matthew:

(i) That he followed Matthew's sequence very carefully 49% of the time, but in the other 51% he not only did not follow Matthew's sequence, but broke up pericopes and logia in an almost shotgun fashion. (2) That wherever he followed Matthew in sequence, he also maintained a rather consistent percentage of verbal likeness to Matthew, but in the 51% of Matthew he chose to distribute helter skelter he fluctuates between the highest verbal percentages to the lowest. Both of these seem more easily explained on the hypothesis that Luke used Mark as his base, but broke up that base with the insertion of materials from other sources (some of which he had in common with Matthew) 23).

This argument invites three comments. First, it is not an argument from the mere order of verbal components, but introduces such considerations as verbal discrepancies and disrupted organic

21) This can easily be verified from the conspectus locorum parallelorum given at the end of ALAND'S Synopsis. The phenomenon is particularly conspicuous in the first five chapters of Mark. It is also notable that Mark's order switches from Lukan to Matthean order at Mk iii 19 = Lk vi 16, that is, immediately before the Sermon on the Plain (almost all of which -like the Sermon on the Mount-is found nowhere in Mark). Rather less conspicuously, Mark's order in most of his first two chapters is Lukan and thus also at Mk i 39 = Mt iv 23 (immediately before the Sermon on the Mount). This fact was already adduced by GRIESBACH; see STOLDT, Op. Cit., p. 186.

22) STREETER, op. cit., pp. 273-75, sought to explain the phenomenon "at any rate partly" in terms of the method of combining Mark and Q which he ascribed to Matthew.

23) FEE, op. cit., pp. 15-16.



36 MALCOLM LOWE

unities (to say that a pericope or logion has been "broken up" is to say that its parts did not merely follow one another, but were so closely interrelated in content as to constitute an original unity). It is actually only these additional considerations, and not matters of mere order, which here provide any evidence for deciding which gospel was the source of which.

Second, there is a remarkable non sequitur between the phenomena cited and the conclusion drawn. FEE supposes that he has produced an argument against both parts of the GRIESBACH hypothesis, but it is in fact an argument against GA which has no relevance whatever to either MP or GB. The phenomena explicitly concern only observed relationships between Matthew and Luke, while Mark is not even mentioned. Why should Mark have therefore been the supposed base of Luke? A more plausible suggestion would be that the base was a lost gospel containing a) the 49% which occurs in the same sequence, and b) the further Matthean material which is found redistributed with only minor verbal changes in Luke. Such a gospel would not by any means be Mark or a proto-Mark, but rather a kind of proto-Matthew. More generally, one might suppose that the character of Luke's base lay somewhere between the kind of document just described and the extant Matthew (since it is not implausible that Luke rewrote some of the material that he redistributed).

Third, the second phenomenon described by FEE is merely evidence that either Luke used (something like) Matthew or vice versa; the phenomenon could equally be formulated in terms of a redistribution of Lukan material by Matthew. Only the first phenomenon mentioned by him is evidence that Luke rather than Matthew was responsible for the discrepancies concerned (the dis- ruption of organic unities).

Thus neither of FEE'S arguments supports Markan priority, but rather the first argument militates against it, while the second argument is not even primarily an argument from the order of verbal components. But these are not weaknesses peculiar to FEE. It has been shown that arguments against GA lend little or no support to MP and that arguments from order will always favour GB at least as strongly as MP. Consequently, if the Markan priorist seeks to attack the GRIESBACH hypothesis with arguments from order, he cannot advance his own cause, but is likely only to cause it unanticipated harm.



Documents

The Demise of Arguments from Order for Markan Priority