Sharon Mattila and the Synoptic Problem

I've recently put the finishing touches on an essay challenging the historical viability of the image of the synoptic evangelists that arises from much source-critical inquiry. Then, in a footnote in Adela Yarbro Collins's Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia; 2007), I came across Sharon Lea Mattila's article, "A Question too Often Neglected" (NTS 41 [1995], 199–217). Mattila builds on the work of F. Gerald Downing and highlights "the question of compositional procedures . . . as being fundamental to establishing the boundaries of what can or cannot be presumed reasonable in the positing of a synoptic model" (199). Mattila carefully considers the compositional techniques that probably account for the writings of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Josephus, Livy, Diodorus, and Arrian, but she also considers the different cultural locations between these authors and the synoptic evangelists. The fact that this essay is fifteen years old and yet not, as far as I am aware, very widely cited presents a serious blindspot for source criticism (and gospels scholarship in general) in the early twenty-first century.

The article as a whole deserves a careful reading by everyone interested not just in the patterns of similarities and differences between the synoptic gospels (and other Christian literature!) but also in integrating those patterns with historically and culturally appropriate models of text-composition. But I leave you with just a small quote from Mattila's conclusion (which builds upon the work of my doctoral supervisor, Loveday Alexander):

Ignoring an essential set of parameters because it is not easy to determine cannot e justified, for such a practice removes source criticism from its concrete historical context into a realm of abstraction that is ultimately historically meaningless. The question of compositional procedures must be addressed so that we can be sure we have grounded the synoptic gospels and related literature, together with those who composed them, in a concrete and historically credible world. (217)

I made exactly this point in Chapters 2 and 4 of Structuring Early Christian Memory (T&T Clark, 2010), though without knowing about Mattila's article. That's unfortunate, for she has stated her case more succinctly and in greater detail than I have.

how we make our points (or not) in NT discourse

I've picked up again an article I began writing last July and will hopefully have its first draft finished this week or next. More on that later, perhaps. But in the process of gathering some research, I returned to Charles H. Talbert's 1978 essay, "Oral and Independent or Literary and Interdependent? A Response to Albert B. Lord" (in William O. Walker, Jr., ed. The Relationships among the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue [San Antonio: Trinity University Press], 93–102), which responds to Lord's argument that the synoptic gospels are examples of oral traditional literature.

Lord was a world-class, first-rate scholar whose breadth of knowledge was vast and whose ability to raise and address unexpected questions was enviable. His landmark book, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960) gave birth to an entire field of study (Oral-Formulaic research). And although some of his proposals now seem narrowly restricted in light of the variegated expressions and experiences of oral performances throughout history and around the world, we can ask the questions we ask in part because Albert Lord taught us how.

I emphasize Lord's stature because it provides the frame of reference from which I re-read Talbert's response this afternoon. Talbert—himself an impressive scholar and, perhaps more importantly, a gentle and kind person—picks up on Lord's conclusion:

The texts of the Gospels "vary from one another to such an extent as to rule out the possibility that, as a whole, one could have been copied from another" (p. 90). From my point of view, however, the divergent wording is no obstacle to our viewing the Synoptic Problem as a literary one. Given the practices of the Hellenistic Age, it is exactly what one should expect. (Talbert 1978: 95; my emphasis)

Does Talbert suppose that Lord is unaware of the relevant "practices of the Hellenistic Age"? If so, it would have been nice of him to state them briefly and explain why these mitigate the force of the comparative arguments Lord adduced for his conclusion. Instead, Talbert turns to to Josephus's use of sources for his Antiquities of the Jews, although the utility of Josephus and his Antiquities of the Jews for understanding either the evangelists or their writings is highly questionable. Should we assume that Josephus was a "normal" or unremarkable example of "practices of the Hellenistic Age"? Even if so, which practices, precisely, does Talbert have in mind?

Even five years ago, when I first encountered Walker's book, I was struck by the non-answer Talbert provides to Lord's arguments. Granted, Lord's Oral-Formulaic paradigm isn't as applicable to the gospels as we might have thought in 1978. But Talbert's response is, in essence, to suggest that Lord's explications of oral-traditional dynamics also apply to literary products. Talbert seems to assume this settles the question of whether or not the synoptic problem is properly addressed as a literary problem, but instead I think it raises the question of the oral (or better, traditional) dynamics of written texts in the ancient world.

But I come back to the dismissive gesture I italicized in the quote from Talbert's response, above. The appeal to the ill-defined, unspecified "practices of the Hellenistic Age" ducks and dodges Lord's argument rather than responds to it. And while I'm interested in the questions Lord's legacy has left behind for gospels scholars, I would also like to encourage myself, my students, and my colleagues to avoid the very sorts of appeals to "the way it would have been" that allow us to shy away from actually very interesting and challenging questions.

synoptic problem miscellania

Last month Mark Goodacre posted a very brief response to recent discussions amongst bloggers on the synoptic problem. I link to it here only because the erosion in the confidence with which NT critics hold to the Q theory is fascinating. Not simply that many scholars no longer "believe in" Q (the theological-esque language is interesting here), but that even many of those who do support the Q hypothesis do so more tepidly.

Goodacre's post is well worth reading, and the links worth following. Note also the article by E. P. Sanders referenced in the comments section.

bias in the field

I'm currently writing a lecture on source criticism, which has forced me to reread some material on the subject. I've read quite a bit of Mark Goodacre's very significant work in this area, both in traditional print formats as well as his considerable collection of online resources. A constant refrain in Markan (Goodacre, that is) discourse on source criticism concerns the bias in the field to privilege the Griesbach and Two-Source hypotheses and then to argue the superiority of the latter (largely on the basis of the strength of Markan [the evangelist] priority). Where, asks Goodacre, is the thorough and even-handed discussion of the Farrer-Goulder perspective?

I'm certainly no proponent of any of the literary solutions to the synoptic problem. As I argue in Structuring Early Christian Memory, as well as in an article I'm writing for JBL, there are very problematic assumptions underlying the confidence with which NT scholars have employed literary paradigms to pursue source-critical agenda. Even so, as I read Stein's article on the Synoptic Problem in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, I'm amazed that the Farrer hypothesis isn't even mentioned in the listing of the "most common explanations involving interdependence" (786). Apparently the demonstration of Matthean and Lukan independence on p. 790 suffices to dismiss Farrer (and Goulder and Goodacre) without even mentioning them!

Again, I'm no disciple of the Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre school. But Goodacre's discussions of the Synoptic Problem (admittedly, most of his writings are post-1992) are extremely careful and well-argued. The fact that the institution of source critical inquiry apparently doesn't (or didn't) mind ignoring a major challenge to its dominant narrative suggests, at least to me, that that narrative and its influence over gospels scholarship is susceptible to serious, even catastrophic, blind spots.