Choosing a faith

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Actually, from an Occam's Razor POV, Matthean priority is simpler as it negates inventing "Q", for which there is zero evidence. In effect, Matthew then takes the place of Q.

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This is another falsehood, and an obvious one. Q has nothing to do with the relationship between Mark and Matthew. Matthean priority does not negate Q (it’s widely accepted that Matthew predates Luke anyway), nor does Markan priority require Q (see Farrer Hypothesis)

[quote] I tried to come up with a brief statement but Bauckham as a scholar goes into so much detail that it is difficult to come up with something concise. [quote] Or more likely he never says any such thing, because he would know that it isn’t true.

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The basic point is that the "we" passages are to give John authority and obliquely to make the point that he was an eyewitness.

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“We” is first person, so I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

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Referring to the author in the third person is fairly common in ancient literature.

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Which is not nearly enough to make it evidence of authorship. As I explained before. Do you really not realise that the third person is used for a great many people who are NOT the author? I shouldn’t have had to make that point once, but that you should still not see it after repeated examples suggests a serious problemGo through Matthew, counting up the people mentioned in the third person if you still don’t see that. If we just stick to explicit pronouns in the English, chapter 1 (NRSV) has Jacob, Jeconaiah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, so there is a start for you.

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Both the theory proposed by Farrar and the proposal of "Q" arose a couple of hundred years ago to support those that wanted to get away from the ideas that the Gospels were written by eye witnesses or by those who had direct access to eye witnesses. Up to that time, and right back to the 1st century, Matthean hadn't really been questioned, even to the point of it being the 1st Gospel in the Canon.
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This seems mainly aimed at poisoning the well, by implying bias. It certainly doesn’t address the point that the Farrer hypothesis denies Q but does not endorse Matthean priority. Because Matthean priority has almost nothing to do with Q.And I’ll add that a claim that the Gospel According to Matthew was attributed the the disciple in the 1st Century is questionable at best,

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Your linked site points out numerous problems with both the Farrar theory and "Q".

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More accurately it has Farrer’s criticisms of the Q hypothesis and Streeter’s arguments in support of it. Obviously if you admitted the latter the problems in your claims would be rather obvious.

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With Matthean priority the problems go away

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The problems of Luke using Matthew “go away” if you assume that Matthew was written before Mark? That makes no sense. None.I note that the entire paragraph does not even mention Luke, yet Q is all about the relationship between Luke and Matthew - Mark is not really relevant at all.Well let’s look at Streeter’s points against the Farrer hypothesis. Which are all points AGAINST Luke using Matthew as a source. How does Matthean priority explain these omissions? How does Matthean priority address this point? I would note that this implies that if Luke used both Mark and Matthew, it suggests a preference for Mark…But again how does Matthean priority explain this? How does Matthean priority explain this? How does Matthean priority explain this?If you have any concern for the truth - other than opposing it - it is not visible in this post.

Edited by PaulK, : Minor corrections

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C'mon, gimme a break. I'm not going to say that if it isn't true.

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You have no problem saying things that aren’t true. As a simple matter of logic it can’t be true that third person references are evidence of authorship. It wouldn’t be true even if authors always used the third person to refer to themselves - which is not the case.More importantly if Bauckham does make that claim, it would be a very serious problem.

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If you get a copy of "Jesus and the Eyewitness" he writes `14 pages on the subject. (Pages 369 to 383)

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Most of which would be completely irrelevant. Anything establishing that ancient authors did refer to themselves in the third person, for instance. It’s the argument that matters here not the evidence (because we understand the evidence and the claim is laughably false).

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In most of the book he doesn't use the 3rd person but only when he particularly wants to emphasize a point and establishing that he has personal knowledge.. A bit like the use of the Royal We

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The author of Matthew does no such thing. Assuming you mean John, this behaviour still seems strange. [Corrected] How does pretending not to be a witness establish personal knowledge? That’s bizarre. A Roman author wanting to establish personal knowledge would indicate such - using the first person.[ABE]
Reading around I have found that the reality is even worse for you than you are prepared to admit. Bauckham does not endorse Matthean authorship and does endorse Q. The whole idea that Bauckham argued that the use of the third person is evidence of authorship in Matthew is clearly false. He clearly doesn’t endorse your false argument for Matthean priority - that it gets rid of Q - either.

Edited by PaulK, .

Edited by PaulK, .

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Sure, except that with Matthean priority like Farrer does away with a need for Q.

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False. The idea that Luke derived the “Q” material from Matthew does away with the need for Q. It is that material - shared between Matthew and Luke but not Mark - and the problems of the idea that Luke used Matthew that create a “need” for Q. Simply arguing that Matthew was written before Mark addresses none of the issues.

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It is the general consensus though

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Is it? Wikipedia states that the earliest attribution is Papias - in the 2nd Century. And, as I recall there is reason to doubt that he was talking of the same work we have.

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I'm not sure of your point but I see no need for Q and Streeter's views require it.

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The point is that the arguments against the Farrer hypothesis are arguments FOR Q. None of them are arguments for Matthean priority. You were implying that the Farrer hypothesis should be rejected BECAUSE there is a need for Q.

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Here is a very short summary of the Fourfold Gospel hypothesis by David Alan Black.
I think that rather that working from Streeter and Farrar it makes more sense to start with Black.

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Streeter and Farrer are rather important in the argument over Q. You cannot assess the “need for Q” without addressing Streeter’s arguments, Nothing Black says in that short summary address any of the arguments.
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They were written for different audiences. Also Luke was written from Paul's perspective. Luke would have referenced Matthew but wasn't solely dependent on it.

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That is not an answer to the question. To answer it you have to show that the idea that Matthew was written before Mark is sufficient in itself. Because that is what you claimed.

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Papias writes that Matthew was first written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek. My own view is that it was Matthew himself who did the translating as the church expanded into the diaspora. Luke could have supplemented his book that was largely influence, probably directly, by Paul.

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This is not an answer for the same reason as the previous one.
(Also any relationship between the Aramiac document referred to by Papias - assuming he was right about that -and the document we call Matthew is speculative.)

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The Farrer proposal also has Matthew written prior to Luke and so the responses that are given to counter the Streeter proposal will also hold true for the Matthean priority of the fourfold Gospel theory.

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Those would be the responses you implicitly rejected as inadequate, and which you explicitly claimed that you did not need. According to you it is enough to assume that Matthew was written before Mark.

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Why do you guys have to resort to insult to try and bolster your point.

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It is not insult. It is fact. What you are really asking us to do is to pretend that obvious falsehoods are reasonable positions. Even when those obvious falsehoods are fabricated strawmen of our own position. No. We are not got to do that. Nor is it in any way reasonable for you to demand that we do.

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I have formed my own conclusions about who is correct and having read Black's book twice I believe that he is on the right track.

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Given that you failed to even understand that the arguments against the Farrer hypothesis were arguments for Q - and other rather clear failures - your evaluation tells us only that you like Black’s conclusions. There is no reason to think that you could even accurately present Black’s arguments, let alone discuss them rationally.

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I'm suspecting that GDR is having a serious crisis of faith. He probably started this thread in an attempt to reassure himself, hoping that his doubts would go away.

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He’s been hiding from the truth and making hopeless excuses for years. This isn’t new.

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The Bible is evidence. It is obviously written to be believed although not always literally. You argue that it isn't reliable and give reasons. However, it still remains that it in fact exists. It might contain truths or it might be a total lie, but it is evidence to be considered.

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It is also true that you find it absolutely necessary to prop up the reliability of the Bible without regard to the truth. Even the order in which the Gospels were written causes you to make obviously false claims. How many of Streeter’s arguments “go away” if you assume that Matthew was the first? None of them. Zero out of five. Yet you claimed that all of them would “go away” even after seeing those arguments.Would someone who cared about the truth do that?

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There is no evidence that any known authors of any part of the Bible were knowingly or intentionally writing fiction.

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This does not seem to be true. It certainly appears that the stories about Daniel were created by the author in the 2nd Century BC.

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Well we kinda do, but it is a choice between a "God of the Gaps', or a "Science of the Gaps" solution

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I hate to break it to you, but nobody tries to use gaps in our knowledge to show that science exists.

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I have never claimed that you called me a liar. You didn't and just the opposite in fact. There have been two posters on this thread that did and so I stopped replying to their posts. If you notice I'm still replying to yours.

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I have not called you a liar but I note that you are not replying to my posts.

You haven’t responded to or acknowledged Message 716 and I really think you need to take it on board.If nothing else it might give you some understanding of why people might call you a liar.

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Firstly Streeter's proposal is very nearly 100 years old. There has been a considerable amount of work done by scholars since then. The diagram on this page presupposes Markan priority, and as near as I can tell is consistent with Streeter.
Four Document Hypothesis
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Which is a complete irrelevance to the fact that you told falsehoods, that you should have known to be false.

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Now we can look at the Griesbach hypotheses which presupposes Matthean priority. There is no need of "Q". Essentially Matthew fills that function. Two Gospel Hypotheses

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Another irrelevance.

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As you can see, there is no need for "Q" and this was the view held by all the early church fathers

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All? I don’t think Papias said any such thing, and the early church fathers are generally silent on the authorship of the Gospels, Papias being the exception. So I think this is an invention or in need of substantial caveats.The implied message you are sending is that you do not care about the truth, that you think it is just fine to make false claims, that there is no need to do even basic checks. And you are saying that very clearly.

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It was kinda tongue in cheek, but you might go back and look the full discussion. It was about an area that science might and might not fill.

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It’s hardly the first time you’ve used the phrase. It’s just a false equivalence used to dismiss a perfectly rational position.

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I have no idea what you are referring to.

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To start with the laughably false assertion that Matthean priority would make the arguments for Q “go away”. You couldn’t make even one of Streeter’s five arguments go away - Message 622. You can’t even justifiably claim ignorance of those arguments.

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You claimed that Matthean priority didn't do away with the need for "Q". I clearly showed you that it did and this is your reply.

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You did no such thing. In fact when you tried to answer Streeter’s five arguments Matthean priority played no role whatsoever. So my claim was already proven - by you.Anyway let us look again at your claimed demonstration.

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Now we can look at the Griesbach hypotheses which presupposes Matthean priority. There is no need of "Q". Essentially Matthew fills that function. Two Gospel Hypotheses

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As we can see all that you show is that there is a hypothesis assuming Matthean priority without Q. That does nothing to answer any of the arguments for Q. Nor does the linked page have any answers to he arguments for Q based on Matthean priority. Indeed it says: It cannot be true that generic arguments for the Two Source hypothesis would work against the Griesbach hypothesis if simply assuming Matthean Priority made them “go away”.So your assertion is indeed, irrelevant. It does not address the point I made and it does nothing to support your assertion - which it implicitly denies,So again we have you telling the most blatant falsehood, and one which looks very like an outright lie.

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So, the times when you are wrong are just irrelevances.

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But I am not wrong and I told the truth. It WAS irrelevant.

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Here is a quote from Eusebius quoting Clement.

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So, Eusebius says that Clement said that Luke and Matthew preceded Mark - but he does not say that Mark was derived from Luke and Matthew. That is rather thin pickings and according to the Wikipedia page cited above: One second-hand quote hardly shows that the early Church Fathers in general held such a view, and it seems that other views prevailed.

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Because I care so much for the truth, I have whole books on the study and have done considerable internet research

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That only means that you cannot claim ignorance as a defence. If you knew of the arguments for Q and knew that the assumption of Matthean priority did not make them “go away” how could you honestly claim otherwise? And if you had really done the research it seems impossible that you could not know that.

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Just how much time have you put into the subject or do you just enjoy being contrary, without doing the research

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I do enough to avoid telling blatant falsehoods. Obviously you do not.

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With the Griesbach or four fold Gospel theories Have Matthew written first.

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And, as you know the Farrer hypothesis also does away with Q without assuming Matthean priority.So if you are trying to claim that the existence of the Griesbach hypothesis is somehow evidence for your claim you are making a false claim. If you are not making that claim you are engaging in diversion. In neither case are you showing a concern for the truth - just the opposite.Assuming that Luke used Matthew is ALL that is needed to do away with Q. And that does not require Matthean priority at all. And you have no excuse for not knowing that. And because if that just pointing at the Griesbach hypothesis and saying that it has both Matthean priority and dies away with Q is irrelevant. Even if you can’t be bothered to understand the arguments (which again would show that you didn’t really care about the truth) the existence of the Farrer hypothesis is certainly enough to show you that you are wrong.Indeed the only way that Matthean priority could be needed is if the main argument for Q was that Luke was written before Matthew. But it isn’t. And if you really have done the research you claim you would certainly know that.And having said that, I am beginning to lose patience with all these falsehoods - especially after the blatant false accusation. The benefit of the doubt only goes so far and you are greatly straining it.