From: PASAlist@aol.com
Date: Sun Oct 06 2002 - 01:10:41 EDT
Adrian wrote,
<< So, you are saying that the fathers were referring to a collection of
sayings of Jesus taht they attributed to the Apostle Matthew and
written in Hebrew, which is a different version from the Greek. And
then the current Greek version that we have is drawn from that (and
hence attributed to Matthew also) but also borrowing from Mark and
possibly Luke. This is certainly plausible, but I need to ask what
about oral traditions? Why do scholars seem to downplay the
signifance of shared oral traditions? Couldn't Mark and the edited
Greek Matthew draw from the same oral tradition that finds its source
in the Apostle Matthew? >>
There is still an interest in oral tradition(s). The problem is getting back
to them. The patristic evidence you have cited refers to Matthew _writing_
down traditions in Hebrew. Hypothetically, both the Greek Matthew and Mark
could have drawn upon that Hebrew document, or the oral tradition from which
it came. But, the tradition about Mark is that he got his information from
Peter, not from a Matthean source.
You could argue that Peter and Matthew were passing on the same Aramaic oral
tradition. Matthew wrote it down in Hebrew, as the patristic tradition
states; and Peter passed it on to Mark, who set it down in Greek. But the
Greek Matthew often repeats Mark's wording and generally follows his order;
so, although it adds "Q" for want of a better word, it seems most likely that
it was getting its information from the Greek Mark, not the original Aramaic
tradition.
A number of theories have been proposed, but I think the above is the
consensus amongst both Protestant and Catholic scholars. If you get into the
volumes of NT introduction, you will find discussions of the various
theories.
Paul
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