I've recently
read „The case against Q“ by Mark Goodacre, who makes a case for
the Farrer theory as an alternative to the more popular two source
hypothesis: He argues that instead of Matthew and Luke
independently redacting Mark using the hypothetical source Q, Luke
used Matthew as well as Mark, and no such document as Q existed.
I found his argument
very convincing in parts, less so in others, but mostly, I was once
again irritated by the notion of Mark-Q overlap, a concept whose
apparently wide acceptance has baffled me for quite some time. In
this post I will try to explain why, starting with an explanation of what Mark-Q overlap is.
Minor and major
agreements
At the center of the
issue is the realization that there is a significant number of
triple tradition passages where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark.
This is a problem for the original two source hypothesis, which
assumes that Mark and Q are two documents with no literary
connection, and Luke and Matthew independently used both to write
their own gospels. In this scenario, there is no way to explain how,
for example, Luke and Matthew could both have the same expanded
version of an originally Markan scene. The additional material
obviously cannot be from Mark, and it can hardly stem from Q, because
the probability that Q included a phrase or phrases which just so
happen to fit perfectly into an unrelated Markan pericope, Matthew
and Luke both recognized this and inserted the material from Q in the
same place in the same way is very low, expecially considering that would have had to happen in a number of places in the synoptic gospels.
These agreements
therefore cannot be explained by the original two source hypothesis,
which limits the hypothesis' ability to explain the evidence we have
and thereby constitutes evidence against it. In order to solve this
problem, defenders of Q have divided these pericopes where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark into two broad
categories, the major agreements and the minor agreements.
The major agreements are in fact so major that there seems to be no reasonable way to explain them without some kind of literary relation between Luke's changes and Matthew's changes. The way the two source hypothesis usually explains material common to Luke and Matthew is by positing that it stems from their common source, Q. A simple thought process therefore lead to the invention of the category of "Mark-Q overlap":
Since Luke and Matthew share material in these passages, it must have been in Q. Since Mark has different, but obviously related versions of the same pericopes, different versions of the same pericope must have been in Mark and Q.
This complicates the
relationship between Mark and Q quite a bit; where before, there were
two documents which were basically unrelated except for the common
theme of being-about-Jesus (and even that can be disputed in the case
of Q), now there has to be some relationship between the two, be it
direct or indirect, literary or oral. But well, if that is the theory
that explains the evidence, then so be it.
Now to the category
of minor agreements, which differs from the major agreements only in
the size of the agreement: Where major agreements have entire phrases
which are present in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark, minor ones
usually only have single words. It seems obvious that the same
mechanism that is used to explain major changes both Luke and Matthew
made to their Markan source material would also be suitable to
explain smaller changes. There is no problem in principle with the
theory that in pericopes which have minor agreements, Mark and Q
simply had very similar, in fact almost identical versions of the
same story, and the version in Q just differed in a few single words. Luke and Matthew then both used Q's version of the
material, and voila, we have a minor agreement.
Yet this is not what
Q theorists have done, otherwise, there would have been no need to
create the two categories of minor and major agreements in the first
place. Instead they basically admitted that they do not know the
exact way the minor agreements came into existence and only offered a
few possible explanations, like later scribes taking over Matthew's
changes to Mark into manuscripts of Luke, or vice versa.
Generally, I would
find this absolutely acceptable, and even admirable, for two reasons:
- Admitting that
there is just no way to know, in cases where there really is just no
way to know, either because one does not have any explanation, or
because there are so many plausible explanations that it seems
impossible and unnecessary to choose one, is just basic intellectual
honesty. This should generally be encouraged, especially in New
Testament studies, where so much of the evidence is suspect and/or
contradictory, so many basic facts are disputed, yet almost noone
admits the enormous amount of uncertainty, and almost everybody seems
to just pick a number of facts they take for granted, either without
justifying their choice at all or with only a short and obviously
deficient justification, and builds their theory on that basis.
- The amount of
trust that is placed in the presence of single words or phrases in
the original gospel texts has always baffled me. Everyone knows the
incredible amount of changes that we know have been made to the
original manuscripts. Logic dictates that one always keeps in mind
that any given phrase in the NT may not originally have been there,
and could simply be the result of a later change which we do not have
the means to detect. In my opinion, this makes any theory that is
based solely on a few single words and phrases suspect from the
beginning.
Yet in this case,
one cannot help but notice that Q theorists offered a perfectly fine
theory for explaining all agreements of Luke and Matthew against Mark
in general, yet chose to only cite it for some of the existing
agreements, and state that another group (which simply has the
property of being "minor") must have come to be via a
different mechanism.
Why did they do
this?
An artificial
distinction
The only
justification for this that I know of, and I would be happy to be
corrected in this case, is that, whereas major agreements occur only
in pericopes concerning Jesus' ministry, there are minor agreements
in the passion narrative as well. And existing scholarship on Q had
already established that Q did not contain a passion narrative, which
rules our the explanation of Mark-Q overlap at least for those
passages.
This reasoning is
obviously problematic if not downright fallacious, for several
reasons.
- First of all, it
holds an entire group of agreements hostage because some of them do
not fit the established theory for explaining them. Why not just
state that Mark-Q overlap explains all agreements in general, and
then state that those which cannot be explained by it must result
from textual corruptions, be accidental changes made by both
evangelists, or some other unknown reason? No, instead, all
agreements considered to be "minor" are taken out of the
Mark-Q overlap category, because some of them are problematic for the
theory. This has three interesting consequences:
- It obscures
the true amount and significance of the agreements by introducing two
arbitrary and unnecessary additional categories.
- It hides the
reason why there is a distinction between major and minor agreements
in the first place.
- It obscures
the fact that any non-passion minor agreement may very well result
from Mark-Q overlap as well.
- The argument is
incredibly circular. It basically states that, based on past
reconstructions of Q, we have concluded that Q did not contain a
passion narrative. Now we have evidence that it might actually have
done so, which would change the reconstruction of Q on which the
initial argument was based. Instead of admitting this, one now takes
the conclusion that Q has no passion narrative as a premise, tries to
explain away any evidence pointing towards the opposite directon, and
approaches future reconstructions on this basis, thereby of course
reinforcing the original conclusion.
- An even bigger,
but related, point is this: The argument for the validity of the two
source hypothesis, and therefore the existence of Q, is mixed up with
the question about the nature of Q. As long as at least the major
agreements cannot be properly explained, the two source hypothesis
simply does not account all too well for the evidence we have, which
means that the argument for the very existence of Q is weak. However,
the existence of Q must be established first before one can reason
about its content and nature in any detail. Letting a result of the
latter process interfere with the former, which is a prerequisite for
the latter, is just bad logic.
The shape and
content of Q
So the handling of
the minor/major issue is more than problematic. However, I mentioned
before that I actually find the very idea that there was an overlap
between Mark and Q even more spurious, because it means that we
cannot possibly establish any certainty at all about the content of
Q.
Let me elaborate:
Once we admit that
Mark and Q sometimes contained slightly different versions of the
same story, we must admit that it is quite plausible that they
sometimes contained exactly the same version. One could of course
dispute this by postulating that the relationship between Mark and Q
is merely an oral one, which would indicate that it is unlikely that
a pericope found its way from one document to the other without any
changes. To this I would respond that we know that a number of
pericopes must have been in both documents in very similar shape,
simply because the versions in Matthew/Luke in overlap material have
a lot of verbatim agreements with the Markan versions. Any mechanism
which leads to the exact transmission of entire phrases from one
document to another is also able to transfer entire pericopes.
If, however, Mark and Q share some pericopes in (virtually) identical form, this means that Matthew and Luke both only had this one version to use in their own gospels. We would therefore see pericopes like this in identical form in all three synoptic gospels and call them triple tradition.
This, however, means that any given triple tradition material which does not feature any agreements of Luke and Matthew against Mark may well have been in Q as well.
Note that I am not
arguing that it is
possible
that pure triple tradition pericopes also appeared in Q, but that it
is probable. Strictly seen, it is possible that Q contained the first
half of the Magna Carta, both both Luke and Matthew simply (and
probably correctly) decided that this material did not belong into a
gospel about Jesus Christ and did not use it. However, this is
obviously highly improbable. Triple tradition passages being in Q as
well as Mark, however, is not improbable at all once we postulate a
relationship between Mark and Q; in fact, we just stated that in the
case of the major agreements, this is exactly the case. For the
reasons I just spelled out, we just have no way to know how much pure
triple tradition material was in Q and how much wasn't; all documents
we have today would look exactly the same either way. Indeed,
it would seem rather unlikely that all passages which were present in
both Mark and Q left exactly those traces in Luke and Matthew that we
would need to classify them as Mark-Q overlap.
But it gets worse.
We have established that some passages were in Mark and Q in
different versions, but here, too, it is impossible to say how many.
Where Q had a different version of a story than Mark, it is
completely plausible that Matthew or Luke sometimes used Mark's
version and sometimes used Q's version. In fact, based on what we
know about their redactional habits when adapting Mark, this picking
and choosing is exactly what we would expect them to do. But if
either Luke or Matthew chooses to pick Q's version while the other
stays with Mark, which in this scenario will almost certainly occur
on many occasions, then Q's version will appear to us like a Lukan or
Matthean addition. This means that for any given Lukan or Matthean
addition to Mark, we must admit that it is plausible (i.e. definitely
possible and not improbable) that it was in Q as well.
In addition, even in
the absence of any Markan context, any pericope exclusive to either
Matthew or Luke may have been in Q as well; the other evangelist may
simply not have used it for whatever reason.
I am obviously
generalising here; for any single pericope, there may of course be
reasons based on its content for why it seems more or less likely that they originated with Q,
Mark, Luke or Matthew. For
the broad outline, however, my argument stands. Moreover, given the
fact that these reasons are usually of the form „Matthew/Luke/...
would/would not have written/used/changed X because of his tendency
to do Y“, and these statements are, again, based on what we think
Matthew/Luke had at their disposal as sources and what they did with
them, many if not most such reasons should be regarded as
speculation.
What this means
for Q
On the assumption that Q existed and overlapped, to some degree, with Mark, this brings us to the following point:
- We know for a number of pericopes that they must have been in both Q and Mark because of the existence of major agreements.
- We have evidence that some others have been in both Mark and Q because of the existence of minor agreements.
- We know that pure double tradition material must have been in Q.
- We know that for absolutely anything written in Matthew and Luke, including pure triple tradition material, Matthean and Lukan additions to Mark, as well as pericopes exclusive to Matthew and Luke, they may plausibly have been in Q as well.
Current reconstructions of Q embrace the first and third point, sometimes acknowledge the second point to some degree, and completely ignore the fourth one. Yet there is no reason to do so. If Mark and Q shared some material, and we simply do now know how they came to do so, then it is absolutely plausible that they shared some more material as well. Based on the amount of material one wants to have Mark and Q share, one can now reconstruct Q in any way one wants, either sharing as few material as possible (which is what most reconstructions do) or sharing a lot more.
In the latter case,
Q could have included all triple tradition material (including, of
course the passion narrative) as well as, for example, all material
exclusive to Matthew (and, of course, the double tradition, which has
to be included in any case). If you find this idea unlikely and
speculative, observe the following two points:
Logically and probability-wise, the currently dominant reconstructions where Mark and Q share as few material as possible are in no way preferrable to the case I sketched above (or anything between those two extremes).
The version I just sketched, where Q includes triple tradition, double tradition, and Matthean additions, would mean that Q is identical to the Gospel of Matthew. This would mean that Luke simply used Matthew in addition to Mark, a view that is the most cited alternative to the two source hypothesis, and defended by reputable scholars like Goodacre and Goulder.
The latter point shows that the Farrer theory is actually just a special case of (and not really an alternative to) the two source hypothesis, where the Gospel of Matthew is Q.
Even if you find all this unpersuasive (please let me know where you think I went off the track), you will have to admit that the content and character of Q is a lot less certain than most scholars think or pretend it is, and that statements like "Q did not containx X or Y" are pure speculation.
The two source
hypothesis as a theory
In
science, a hypothesis has to be falsifiable to qualify as a theory,
which means that it must make predictions which, if they turn out not
to be true, can falsify the theory. This is a standard that can
obviously not be met by the two source hypothesis, but then that is
to be expected, if only because there is no way to conduct any
meaningful experiments on creating-the-New-Testament, and new
documents relevant to the question are not found all too often. For
the same reasons, most other hypotheses about the creation of the New
Testament are not falsifiable either.
Note,
however, that the original two source hypothesis which regarded Mark
and Q as unrelated, was falsifiable. It could be falsified by finding
agreements of Luke and Matthew against Mark in Markan material, and
this is exactly what happened; these were simply not expected and not
explained by the theory.
Once
one allows for Mark-Q overlap, however, there is nothing new one
could find out about the present texts that would actually contradict
the two souce hypothesis. In fact, I cannot even think of any
document one could find that would contradict it.
But
again, in New Testament scholarship, falsifiability is rare and not
essential. Explanatory power, however, is. Let's see what we have in
this department: What we attempt to explain is the shared content of
three documents whose original shape we kind of know. The basic
assumption of Markan priority is not really up for dispute, so what
we really want to explain is the content of Matthew and Luke.
Our
explanation is a postulated document of which there is no record,
which must have contained some passages and likely contained some
others, but we have no way to know which or how many, as I argued
above. Essentially, we can
only speculate about the nature of the document.
Additionally, this document has some kind of relationship with the
gospel of Mark, but we do
not know of which kind. With this document, we can account for the
bulk of the material in both Matthew and Luke, though we have no way
to know if M/L/triple tradition material comes from the document or
not, and we may not be able or willing to explain at least some minor
agreements.
To
me, this does not look convincing at all. The theory replaces one big
question mark with at least two other big question mark, and is not
falsifiable in any way. It also cannot help us too much in
understanding other texts of the time, simply because, as argued
before, the contents of the document at the heart of the theory
cannot be determined with any certainty. In addition, the postulation
of Mark-Q overlap has always felt artificial
and ad-hoc to me, like
something that nobody would have even thought of if it weren't
necessary to safe the theory.
I
mentioned the Farrer theory in the beginning as an alternative to, or
at least a more concrete version of the two source hypothesis. I do
believe this theory has its own problems, but I would probably prefer
it over a vague theory with no predictive power at all whose very
core feels artificial to me. I am, however, convinced that New
Testament scholarship would do well to acknowledge the amount of
uncertainty there is about the content and nature of Q, and stop
taking assumptions for granted which are speculative at best.