Markian Priority
(Please read the previous post first to get an understanding of Historical Criticism).
So today we discussed the idea of the Documentary Hypothesis, that is, that the Pentateuch was written or compiled by at least five different people (Bloom suggests that D is infact two or three people). Of course, Historical Criticism doesn't stop there.
One of the most famous examples of HC is called Marcan Priority. This states that, contrary to Christian tradition, the St. Mark's was the first Gospel (tradition holds that they were written in the order they appear). We will not touch on St. John's Gospel because, as it is not a synoptic Gospel, it does not fit into the 'Synoptic Problem.' This is based primarily on the idea that the Gospel according to Saints Matthew and Luke say everything said in Mark and then add a little. This common extra is suggested to come from the Q document (Q from Quella, German for source) which was also written around the age of Mark.
The primary problem? No hint of Q has ever been discoereved. Thousands of other so-called gospels (of Thomas, Judas, Philip, etc.) exist in partial or nearly complete documents, but nothing that could be Q has ever been found. The Q Hypothesis, as it is called, exists on nothing but a similarity between two stories about the same man.
Imagine three people wrote about George Washington. One was a short biography, and two were longer. Arguably, everything in the short one would be found in the long as well, and then the long two would include what else they considered important. Much of this would logically overlap. No one would assume that the short biography was the source for the longer two, nor would they assume the longer two shared another source.
Also, it would be well to note that the first appearance of Historical Criticism in the New Testament argued that Mark was the last gospel to be written, on account of it bringing together the more Jewish nature of Matthew with the more Gentile nature of Luke.
I currently have fifteen more posts in some sort of planning, so I figure I will be writing a lot. I will try to post no more than once a day, but if I do, I apologize in advance. Feel free to comment on anything.
So today we discussed the idea of the Documentary Hypothesis, that is, that the Pentateuch was written or compiled by at least five different people (Bloom suggests that D is infact two or three people). Of course, Historical Criticism doesn't stop there.
One of the most famous examples of HC is called Marcan Priority. This states that, contrary to Christian tradition, the St. Mark's was the first Gospel (tradition holds that they were written in the order they appear). We will not touch on St. John's Gospel because, as it is not a synoptic Gospel, it does not fit into the 'Synoptic Problem.' This is based primarily on the idea that the Gospel according to Saints Matthew and Luke say everything said in Mark and then add a little. This common extra is suggested to come from the Q document (Q from Quella, German for source) which was also written around the age of Mark.
The primary problem? No hint of Q has ever been discoereved. Thousands of other so-called gospels (of Thomas, Judas, Philip, etc.) exist in partial or nearly complete documents, but nothing that could be Q has ever been found. The Q Hypothesis, as it is called, exists on nothing but a similarity between two stories about the same man.
Imagine three people wrote about George Washington. One was a short biography, and two were longer. Arguably, everything in the short one would be found in the long as well, and then the long two would include what else they considered important. Much of this would logically overlap. No one would assume that the short biography was the source for the longer two, nor would they assume the longer two shared another source.
Also, it would be well to note that the first appearance of Historical Criticism in the New Testament argued that Mark was the last gospel to be written, on account of it bringing together the more Jewish nature of Matthew with the more Gentile nature of Luke.
I currently have fifteen more posts in some sort of planning, so I figure I will be writing a lot. I will try to post no more than once a day, but if I do, I apologize in advance. Feel free to comment on anything.
posted by J.M.R. Burgard @ 4:43 PM
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