← Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
In Search of Q: The Hypothetical Source for Matthew and Luke
00:48:35
Loading summary
Transcript44 lines
- [00:00]
A
You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today@shopify.com winner.
- [00:30]
B
Understanding where the writers of the Gospels got their information is the foundation of source criticism. But how does that work really when the original Source is hypothetical? Dr. Bart Ehrman is here with me today to talk about the Q source. Welcome to Ms. Quoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. The only show where a six time New York Times best selling author and world renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating little known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus and the rise of Christianity. I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. Hey friends, I have a quick reminder for you. Our biggest event of the year. New insights into the New Testament is coming up at the end of this month from September 26th to 28th where our theme is going to be the Historical Jesus. We'll be hearing the latest insights from 13 Jesus scholars including Elaine Pagels, Mark Goodacre, Paula Friedrichsen and of course Bart Ehrman. And for all of September, we've got something special just for Misquoting Jesus listeners. When you grab an elite pass to Nint through the link bart erman.com mjconference you'll get our very first merch ever created for the show. A custom Misquoting Jesus coffee mug. Look how pretty it is. Now you can't buy this mug on our Etsy store or anywhere else. It's just exclusively available through this promotion. It is our gift to you for joining us at this incredible three day event with the top scholars in the field. All you have to do is sign up for an elite NINT pass in September and it is only available when you Register through bart erman.com for thanks and I hope to see you there. Welcome back everybody to Misquoting Jesus where today we are going to be talking about the Q document, a hypothetical written source for Jesus life. We've also got a brand new bonus segment right at the end, so be sure to stick around for that. But before we get into things, I do have a question. Do you ever get hate mail?
- [02:46]
A
Oh yes, thanks for asking. Oh boy, do I. You know, it's, it's actually not as bad As I would have expected. It's. I rare. I sometimes get hate mail. I mean, we're like it just, you know, vitriol. I. What I get more often are people explaining to me why I'm wrong and wondering why I'm leading people astray, you know, and whether I really want to go to hell or not. And, and so I guess that's. Yeah, that is kind of hateful. But often it's well meaning people who generally have, have Christ, some kind of Christian faith and they are, they're concerned and they really, you know, somewhat concerned about me, but mainly concerned because they think I'm leading people astray. They're almost always people who have like never read my stuff or heard my stuff. It's almost always people who have heard about me. And so usually when they, you know, when they, they want to know something, it's usually incorrect information. And I've got to say, you know, some of my, some of my friends spread this misinformation. I've had debates, like, I had a debate with Mike Lacona, who's a friend of mine who swore up and down that a student had told him that my, that I announced in my classes that my goal is to deconvert people. That is like so wrong. I've never ever said that to a class. But you know, I mean, Mike had it on good authority and I said, I said, well, Mike, you know, this just shows you the value of eyewitnesses. You know, you trust them when it comes to the Gospels, but I'm just telling you. And so anyway, I, I do get some hate mail and it's understandable. I don't, I don't get any threats. I haven't gotten threats alth. So, you know, I may well do, but I, I haven't luckily. Let's hope that on a topic like Q talking about today, you know, like, you know, not too many, not too many people gonna be angry about Q.
- [04:53]
B
Mark Goodacre could be in your inbox.
- [04:57]
A
Well, yeah. You, you've interviewed Mark, right? On the.
- [04:59]
B
I have, I have. He's delightful.
- [05:01]
A
Yeah, he's fantastic. He's great. He's. He, he's the guy. If you, if you want to believe Q did not exist, he's the guy to talk to.
- [05:10]
B
So on the subject of Q, I wanted to start with looking at the synoptics and why it is that people think they shared a written source.
- [05:21]
A
Okay, so just to define terms here. So the Synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark and Luke. And so they don't Include John. So they're Matthew, Mark and Luke over against John. And it's because Matthew, Mark and Luke tell many of the same stories, the exact same stories, often usually in the same sequence and you know, often word for word, the same. And so if you've got, if you have two accounts of something like a sporting event or a political event, and you have paragraphs that are like word for word the same, somebody's copying somebody. I, I'll, I'll say that, you know, I have trouble convincing my 19 year old undergraduate students of this. They think, no, look, if two people are reporting an account, of course they could have the same sentences. So I, I always do this exercise with them. We may have talked about this on the blog before, but I'm on the podcast before, but it's worth doing again because I just love this exercise. I come into class a few minutes late so that everybody's there and seated and wondering why I'm coming in late. And I start messing around in front of the class and I out my, my book bag, I take books out and then I turn on the lights and then I turn on my overhead, then I turn off the overhead. I put my, put my bag back and put my books back in my bag. I keep, I'm like, I'm doing stuff for a few minutes and at the end I asked when I'm done, as soon as you're looking at me sharing what the, what's going on in here? And I tell them to take out a piece of paper and a pen and to write down what they've seen me do and, and just write down what you've just seen me do. And so then I take three volunteers and, and I read their accounts and I, I tell the rest of the class, I want to know if any of you in this class has heard this wrote, wrote down the same sentence. Did any of you write down the sentence? And they never do. And I compare the three. There are always differences between each other. And so, you know, you never get the same sentence. You never get like four words in a row the same. And so I ask, I asked the students, what if I picked up two papers and they were like the same. Like you had like two sentences, exactly the same word for word. What then? And they say, oh yeah, well, somebody was cheating, you know, or somebody copied. Yes, somebody was copying. How else can you explain it? You know, some guy in the back row always says it's a miracle. So, okay, so it's either a miracle or somebody's copying somebody. And Even if somebody is copying somebody, it's, you know, you still could say it's a miracle. Maybe God did that. I mean, I don't know. But yeah, so the synoptics are like that. You get word for word, like sentences between the three. And so somebody's copying somebody.
- [08:00]
B
So that's the idea that they're all either copying from each other or using a common source to write their narratives.
- [08:10]
A
Yeah, I mean, those are the options. I mean, they're either copying each other and, or in some places they have some other source that we don't have that they're, they're all getting it from and copying that.
- [08:25]
B
Now, consensus scholarship is that Matthew and Luke both used the Gospel of Mark as a source for what they then wrote. Why is it that academics think this,
- [08:38]
A
you know, this, this is one of those topics that many academics find really interesting. You know, as I said, Mark, Mark Goodacre has really spent many, many years of his life working on this issue. And he's just, he's just really enamored by it. And I find it pretty interesting. My students, as rule, do not. I've never been able to figure out a way to teach this to anyone to keep their attention for 15 minutes because the kind of evidence you have to use is kind of down in the weeds. And it's, it's. So, it's, it's. Yeah, it's hard, but, but so the question is if somebody, you know, if you got these three and copying is going on, is it possible that one, for example, was the source for the other two and if so, which one was it? And how do you know? And so there are a lot of, there are a lot of arguments that go into this. I'll just give you, I'll give you one of the arguments which is that if you look at the word for word agreements, suppose you've got a, suppose you've got a story that's in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It's the same story. And there are word for word agreements in places. Sometimes all three of them will have the same words. You know, the verse will be exactly the same in all three. Sometimes all three will have different words, wordings for the verse, same idea, but different, worded differently. Sometimes Matthew and Mark will have the same wording and Luke will have a different wording. Sometimes Mark and Luke will have the same wording and Matthew will have a different wording. What you almost never have is Matthew and Luke having the same wording, but Mark not. Okay, so if you diagram that on the board As I do, as my students are falling asleep. If you kind of lay it out on the board, then it. What becomes clear is that it only makes sense if Mark is the common factor between Matthew and Luke. It's because if Mark was first and Matthew, Luke both copied it, sometimes they both copied it exactly as Mark had it. So they're all three the same. Sometimes they each decided to change it one way or another. And so in that case, all three are different. Sometimes Luke changed it and Matthew did not. So Matthew and Mark are the same. Sometimes Matthew changed it. And so Mark and Luke are the same. And so it explains the entire thing. And you can't do that if either Matthew or Luke was the source, because if one of them was the source for the other two, then you'd have a lot of agreements of Matthew and Luke where Mark had changed it. See, so it kind of gets in the weeds if you put it on the board. I don't know. I find it really interesting, but it's one of the things. That's one of the things. There are like, you know, seven or eight arguments the scholars use. And it's the kind of thing. It's like when. When scholars started really getting serious about this, they. They got really deep down, and the arguments they mounted are so convincing for Mark being first that, you know, virtually everybody agrees on that. There will be. Some people think Matthew is first, but basically these arguments are really convincing.
- [11:42]
B
So when then was this idea of there being a lost source of Jesus sayings, when was that introduced into biblical scholarship?
- [11:52]
A
Well, the. You know, the, the. In the 19th century, there were a lot of scholars, especially in Germany, who got interested in this question. The question, to some extent, was driven by a different concern. Scholars had realized that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all present different ways of portraying Jesus. And sometimes there are contradictions between them and that they're not infallible, inerrant sources. And so you got to figure out which sources can you trust the most. And they had the idea that makes sense, that the earlier the source, the more likely it's trustworthy. And so if you've got these gospels and you know that one of them was the source for the other two, then when those other two change that source, you know, maybe they're changing it away from the older form of the text, the older. The older version of the story. So they wanted to know the earliest form of the story. And so they get Mark. They realize based on these various arguments, I gave you one of the. Okay, Mark is probably the source. But then they have an interesting situation. Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke have a number of passages or at least a number of verses that are in, that they have where they agree word for word or close to word for word in passages that Mark does not have. Okay, so, so you've got Mark as the source for many of Matthew's stories and sayings, many of Luke's sayings and stories, but they've got other stuff that's not in Mark. So they obviously did not get that from Mark. But sometimes they're word for word agreements and they're the same sequence sometimes. So you work all that out and you figure out, well, what's going on then. Well, there are lots of options for this. This entire thing is called the synoptic problem. And so when a scholar says the synoptic problem, they don't mean the problem that the synoptics are sometimes not historical or sometimes the synoptics disagree with each other or they contradict each other. The problem is, how do you explain these similarities and differences? So you've got Mark, Matthew, Luke, also have material almost entirely sayings of Jesus that are, that are sometimes word for word the same they didn't get from Mark. So the two major options, you can come up with others, the two major options are that either one of them copied the other. So either Matthew copied Luke or Luke copied Matthew, or they had a common source. And so these were German scholars who came up with this. And they recognized that most of these materials in Matthew and Luke, not in Mark, are sayings. And so they, they started talking about Matthew and Luke having a sayings source. They had reasons for thinking that neither one copied the other. And so they must have had an independent thing. And that independent thing they call the sayings source. The word for source in German is kavala, Q U, E, L, L, E, cavella and starts with a q. And so scholars began calling, using the word Q as the shortcut to explain the saying source common to Matthew and Luke for materials not found in Mark.
- [15:01]
B
How did biblical scholars react to this idea? Was it well received or was there some pushback?
- [15:07]
A
Oh, anytime there's, there's a, a new idea in scholarship, there's pushback. And usually there's far more pushback than acceptance. And you know, people, you know, you know, there were, there were plenty of scholars then and now who thought there's no copying going on here. There's, you know, these are inspired authors who, you know, got the word of God and they're just writing down what happened. And so you had that kind of thing. But there were, there were other forms of pushback and it was much disputed. And still it's, it's become disputed again. But for a long time it wasn't much disputed because it makes such sense. But you know, people were a little bit nervous about this idea of a hypothetical source because we don't have Q. If there was a Q. If Matthew and Luke did have some kind of gospel thing that had sayings of Jesus that seems to have not had narratives or very few narratives in it apparently, then that would have been unusual. And, you know, if we don't, we don't have it, you know, do we really want to say it existed? I mean, it seems kind of speculative. And so that was one of the big arguments. It's just like it's too speculative.
- [16:20]
B
I'm enjoying this conversation. I'm looking forward to asking you some more specific questions. I know the audience is probably interested in that as well. We occasionally get comments saying, no, no, no, you have to get into the weeds. That's why we're here. So we'll have some weedy questions coming up. But we're going to take a very quick break to talk about a new course by Yale professor Dr. Joel Baden that is starting today. And we will be right back into our interview. You so the first thing for this week's update, as I mentioned earlier, we have a Hebrew Bible course with Yale professor Dr. Joel Baden starting today at 5:00pm Eastern. So this is your absolute last chance to join the very first live recording. You can go to bartiman.com Hebrew Bible for more information or to register and be sure to use the code mjpodcast at the checkout for a special podcast discount. And I would like to take the opportunity to remind you that while the course, the whole course in itself costs $395, if that is out of your budget, you don't have to just buy the course as a standalone thing. You can sign up for a free trial of Biblical Studies Academy and get access to the course through that. That's a 14 day free trial. And then if you do decide to stay, it's just $49.95 cents every month after that. And if you'd like to learn more about that particular option, you can visit bart erman.com BSA and our second update. But your ethics book, what is going on with it? How is it coming? When is can people buy it? Oh, tell us the things.
- [17:55]
A
Okay, well, yeah, yeah, well, it's going to, you know, it's not Coming out till the spring. So it's coming out in March. Yeah, coming out in March. But I am just elated because they sent me the copy edited version like last week. And scholars, I tell you, you know, when you finish a book you're not finished, it takes forever to finish a book. And you know, from the time you send in the manuscript till it appears, it's a year. And during that year you're still doing stuff. You just, you know, and you think, God, I just finished this and why can't it be finished? But they send you the copy editing thing and the copy editor goes through and you know, correct your typos and your, your grammatical mistakes and like your, you know, use your various kinds of mistakes. And sometimes it is a huge chore. And this time it was not a huge chore. It was like the, the manuscript I sent him is pretty clean. So that's off my desk. So, so I'm really, I'm really pumped about it. They've got a great cover for it and I. Yeah, this is, this is when you start relaxing a little bit.
- [18:58]
B
So your hands are officially off it for now.
- [19:01]
A
Well, for now. I mean, I have other things they'll send, then they'll send the page proofs I'll have to read through again and the indexing and stuff like that. But it's going to be out in March. It'll sometime kind of mid March sometime. It'll be odd. It's called Love Thy Stranger. And I think the publisher and I are both thinking this is a very timely book about the Christian ethic, about how you should love those who are different from you in the Christian ethic and how that changed the way we think about ethics in the modern world.
- [19:30]
B
I have to say I am quite looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. And I'm sure we'll do an interview closer to the release date, talking a bit more about the content of the book. So thank you for that update. That's very exciting. We will get back into our interview now. We finished the first part of our interview by talking about how scholars reacted to the idea of Q, this hypothetical source, when that idea was first floated. I want to turn now to why some academics question whether the Q source is a viable historical hypothesis. If you've been a longtime listener, you probably know that written sources from the ancient world could quite rarely survive to modernity. And we do sometimes get hints about them in other writings. So from my assyriological neck of the woods, we have the Babylonica, which was written in the third century BC and is quoted by Eusebius and Josephus. But we don't have an actual copy of the Babylonica itself. Is this the case for Q? Do we have references of it or quotes from it in other sources?
- [20:34]
A
No, that exacerbates the problem. We don't, I mean, there's nothing explicitly about it. We don't have any references to there being a saying source. And our only knowledge of it is this phenomenon of Matthew and Luke agreeing and materials not in Mark. And so the, the evidence of it cannot be like because other people talk about it. The evidence is internal to Matthew and Luke in relationship to Mark. And so that's where the argument, that's where the arguments lie.
- [21:05]
B
And this is where we're getting into the weeds. So everyone who's been asking for it, you're welcome. I hope this, this fills your need for more detailed discussions. One of the issues that some Q skeptical scholars point to in their arguments as to why we, we shouldn't be thinking that Q actually existed are instances of Luke agreeing with Matthew and going against what is written in Mark. Now you said that this is a relatively rare occurrence, but there are a couple of instances. Could you explain why this is problematic if we're trying to think about the existence of Q?
- [21:40]
A
Okay, so. Right, time for the weeds a bit. So, okay, so here's the deal. You know that somebody is copying. You're pretty sure somebody's copying if they're word for word agreements. And so if, and, and other things, you look for other things. I'll give you one other thing you look at because this is going to be important. If you've got three accounts of Jesus life. Matthew, Mark and Luke, you know, Jesus life, let's say his ministry lasted three years. Okay, Just, we aren't sure, but suppose it lasted three years. Mark's gospel takes about two hours to read out loud. And so you've got two hours of material about a three year ministry. Okay, that means that there are thousands and thousands of things that Jesus said and did that are not in Mark necessarily. Okay, how do you explain the fact that Matthew and Luke happen to tell all of those same stories, virtually all of them between Matthew, Luke, you get virtually all of Mark replicated. How would that happen unless they had it as a source? How would they choose those stories? And not only that, how do they choose them in the same sequence? Now sometimes the sequence makes sense, you know, that, that, you know, Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist came before he got crucified, you know, And Jesus, Jesus probably ministered in Galilee before he went to Jerusalem. And, and there's some events that are closely connected with each other, which makes sense. They're in that sequence. But there are a lot of things that are just like, you know, Jesus did this, then he did that, then he did the other thing, then he did the other thing. And why is it in the same order most of the time? Well, you. And why is it just these stories? You know, why do you have all these? And so those two whys suggest that Matthew and Luke were copying Mark and they. Sometimes they would rearrange. One of them would rearrange a story. Sometimes they both rearrange, but at different places. But often, usually it's the same sequence. You can't explain that if three of them were independently coming up with the stories to tell about Jesus. See what I mean? I mean, what. Why this particular healing? Why not, you know, why not one of the other 50 ones that were available you to talk about? Why do you choose this one? And it happens to be the one in the other two gospels? Like they all, you know, independently came up with telling this one every time. And so, so that would, that would suggest. That's another reason for thinking there's copying going on. What do you do about the fact that sometimes, though, you get something like that with Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark, if one didn't copy the other, why do you have sometimes these, you know, these word for word agreements and these. And okay, so if you've got two, like if you've got Matthew and Luke agreeing in something that's in a story also in Mark. Okay, so suppose there's something like when Jesus is like in his passion narrative, like Jesus going to Jerusalem or something, and you got a line that's in Matthew, Mark has a story, but you have a line that's in Matthew and Luke that's not in Mark. Well, how could you explain that if they're not copying each other? See, that's, that's the issue. And so for people who believe in Q, like me, and I'll say, I mean, this is Q continues to be the majority view among critical scholars. This is. It just tends to be because people think it's the most convincing. But we have to explain that. How can you sometimes get agreements of Matthew and Luke and material not found in Mark?
- [25:23]
B
So how do we explain things like Matthew and Luke both having nativity scenes?
- [25:31]
A
Ah, okay, so this is not a problem. I will say that people. I don't think it's a problem. I will say that people who argue that, that Matthew, what people always argue if they don't believe in Q, they, they almost never argue that Luke was first and Matthew copied it for a variety of reasons. We're not going to get into here. But, you know, if they think there's some copying going on, it's always that Mark was copied by Matthew and the Luke either copied Matthew or copied Matthew and Mark. Okay, so one argument that people who discount Q use that I, I frankly have never understood and I'll explain why. I mean, I understand it. I don't think it's a very good argument. I'll tell you why is that they both have nativity scenes. Mark does not have an account of the birth of Jesus. And Matthew and Luke both do have accounts of Jesus. And you know, Jesus in both accounts is. His parents are Mary and Joseph and he's born in Bethlehem and she's a virgin. And even though he's born in Bethlehem, he ends up in Nazareth. And so, like, you know, they both have that. So doesn't that show that somebody's copying the other? That's the argument. And I'll tell you why I think it's a terrible argument. It's. Let me give you. I'll do it by giving an analogy because it'll make best sense if I just explained the analogy. Suppose you write. Suppose you read two separate accounts of last year's super bowl. Okay, so The Super Bowl, 2025, it was on February 9th. It was in New Orleans, is the Kansas City Chiefs, my team versus the Philadelphia Eagles. And the, the Eagles were led by quarterback Hertz, John Hurt, Jalen Hurts, and Kansas City's led by the quarterback Patrick Mahomes. And Kansas City got crushed, okay? To my great disappointment. Okay, suppose you have two accounts of that event that have paragraphs that are the same word for word. The same two different people reporting word for word. The same basically covering the same material. Basic and often this. Then you say, well, somebody's copying somebody. What if you don't have that? What if you have two accounts that have many of the basics the same what day it was on, where it was held, what the teams were and one of them getting crushed, you know, and who their quarterbacks were. Like the basic, like basic information that people telling the story about the super bowl would tell. But there are no word for word agreements or if there are, if you get occasionally a word for word agreement, it'd be like, it'd be something that you like somebody telling this story. It would not be Implausible that two people would say exactly the same thing. For example, they say the Eagles and held Kansas City scoreless in the first half. Okay. Held them scoreless in the first half. You would just like, that's just how people would talk about a football game if in fact the team didn't score in the first half. Okay, so you have the same words, but like, something like that wouldn't show that somebody was copying somebody. You would need, like extensive agreements. Okay? So that's what you get with Matthew and Luke when it comes to the nativity stories. They both, you know, Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary, Virgin. You get the basic stuff like you would with the super bowl, but they're completely different. They tell different. The stories they actually tell aren't the same. Their perspectives are different. Matthew focuses more on Joseph. Luke focuses more on Mary. When you look at what they actually say, they're not the same stories, let alone with word for word agreements. So why would you think that one's copying the other? He's obviously not copying the other. He doesn't have the same stories as the other, let alone the word for word the same. So I just think that's a bad argument. That just shows people are telling stories about Jesus being born in Bethlehem to a virgin. Yeah, there are probably thousands of people telling that story. So the fact that two authors have that story doesn't show that one copied the other, means they both know basics of the story.
- [30:03]
B
So it's not troubling to you that there are minor agreements between Matthew and Luke in some maybe words or phrases that they have in common?
- [30:12]
A
Well, there are minor agreements and that's how they're labeled. Scholars who work on this material will talk about the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke. And there are a number of them, and some of them really are striking. And so, like, will there be like a half a sentence? It's virtually the same, you know, it's, Whoa. Huh? How'd that happen? You know, and so the thing is that there, there are lots of reasons that may have happened. And so that's back in the weeds again for a minute. But when we say that Matthew and Luke used Mark, we understand that our version of Matthew and our version of Luke and our version of Mark are different from what they may have been in the year 80. Right. So if Matt, for one thing, if Matthew and Luke both had a copy of Mark, they wouldn't have had the same copy. Okay? So that if Matthew has a copy and, and Luke has a copy, they would be different copies. And our Copies of Matthew and Luke that we have today are not. Are not the ones that they originally wrote. Okay? Scribes copied them over the centuries. And one of the most common things scribes do when they're copying manuscripts, like in the Middle Ages, like starting as early as the third, fourth, fifth centuries, when they're copying Matthew and they run across a verse that's similar to a verse in Luke, but the scribe knows that they're different, he'll harmonize the two. In other words, you're copying, you know, the Lord's Prayer and Luke leaves out a line. Then the scribe knows the Lord's Prayer and he adds the line to Luke. So it looks like Matthew and Luke are agreeing in something word for word, when in fact, you know, they weren't originally. And so, so we don't know what copies they had of. Of. Of Mark. We don't know what their original copies looked like. And so. So the idea that they could occasionally have agreements might be because it's a scribal error. It may be because of having various copies of this, that or the other thing. And so there are ways to explain these things as accidental agreements and error. That term, accidental agreements and error, is a common term in the field that I spent most of my early research on scribal changes of a text. We can have two manuscripts of the New Testament that we know these scribes are not copying each other, but they'll. We have lots of reasons for knowing that. But there'll be like a verse, it's worded the same way, unusually, you know, and. But you look at that verse, you say, well, yeah, but it makes sense they would have changed it that way. That's an accidental agreement in error. The same thing can happen with Matthew and Luke against Mark. I'll just give you one other example of this in when the rich man comes up to Jesus and says, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus says, keep the commandments. He says, which ones? In Mark, one of the commandments Jesus gives in Mark is not just one of the Ten Commandments, but the commandment do not defraud. That's not found in Matthew and Luke, you see. Oh, that's an agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark that shows that one of them copied the other. No, the reason do not defraud probably could have been taken out independently by Matthew Luke is because it's not one of the Ten Commandments. So they both might have had the same reasoning in some places. So that's. So the minor agreements, almost, they are. They're very minor in most places, and I think they can be explained on other grounds.
- [33:50]
B
I wanted to ask about one more specific example. In the Passion narratives of Matthew and Luke, they have an identical spot that reads, who is the one who smote you? Would you classify that as an accidental agreement or something else?
- [34:07]
A
Well, we don't know. It's not found in Mark, and it's word for word the same between Matthew and Luke. So if you're doing this seriously, you have to explain it, and you have to come up with a good explainer why, you know, who is the one who smote you, you know, who's the one who struck you, who, who hit you. And since you've got it in both places, you have to explain it. And so possible explanations are that Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark that had it in it, that got taken out by. By a scribe accidentally or, or on purpose. It could be that they both heard this story about. Of course they, they both heard stories about Jesus being beaten before his, you know, before his crucifixion. And it may be that one of the common lines was, who is it that smote you? Just as talking about the super bowl, you could say that the Eagles held them scoreless in the first half. You know, it's the kind of thing where you, you could understand how it got in there. And so it also could be that a scribe wasn't originally Luke, but a scribe added it to Luke. So it, it has to be taken very seriously. And what I think is that when you're coming to a decision about Q, it is less the individual little instances than big picture issues. And there's a big picture issue that really, I think, changes everything that isn't taken very seriously enough.
- [35:28]
B
What's that big picture issue?
- [35:32]
A
Yeah, so the big picture issue, the reason people are inclined to say Matthew copied Luke instead of saying that Luke copied Matthew instead of saying there was an independent source, is because why do you need an independent source? Why do you need something hypothetical? You should eliminate as many hypotheticals as you can. And, and so you should get rid of this hypothetical source. Okay, fair enough. So the issue, though, is, does that create more problems than it solves? If you get rid of Q, does it create problems that you wouldn't have otherwise? That's something that's really important to ask. And the answer is absolutely yes. In my judgment, not my judgment. This is like the common argument that people who want to get rid of Q don't bring up half the time. And the problem is this. These Materials in Matthew and Luke are mainly sayings. Jesus said this, said that, so that. The other thing, as I pointed out, Matthew and Luke and Mark often agree in the sequence of their stories. Matthew and Luke agree in their sequence of stories almost entirely. When those are stories also in Mark, the sayings they have in common appear in different places in Mark's outline between Matthew and Luke. If there was an independent source that simply gave lists of saying, a list of sayings of Jesus, kind of like, you know, later the gospel, Thomas gives 114 sayings of Jesus without any stories, any narratives. If somebody has a list of Jesus sayings, they don't know when Jesus said this, that or the other thing, but they think, okay, this is something, something he said. If these two authors each have an independent source, then they're just sticking in these sayings in the narratives where it makes sense. And they'll put them in different places. You know, they wouldn't, you know, rarely would they put them in the same thing. They might sometimes, but not off. Not usually. But if Luke is copying Matthew, how do you explain that? It would mean that whenever Matt. So Luke has Matthew in front of him and he. Or and he has Mark in front of him and he's got Matthew in front, and somehow they didn't use desk, by the way. So I guess he's doing this on his knees somehow. He's got two manuscripts on one knee and one man he's got on the other knee, I suppose, and he's writing this. He comes to Matthew and he comes. Suppose he's coming to a saying of Jesus, and he comes to a saying of Jesus, Matthew, he says, oh, that's not in Mark. So I'm going to put it in a different place. Well, first of all, why? What's wrong with the place it's in? Second of all, how do you know it's not in Mark? Because sometimes Matthew's sayings that shares with Mark are in different places from Mark. So unless you read through Mark again to make sure that this one liner is not in Mark, how do you know it's not in Mark? And then why do you decide to change it? This is not like an unusual problem in Luke. It like it happens all over the place. So I did a blog post on this. A couple earlier this year, I did a couple blog posts on this where I actually gave the data. And it's really. It's really kind of surprising. I'll just, I'll just give you some illustrations here. If you start reading, like, if you read In Luke chapter 11, there are a bunch of sayings of Jesus in Luke 11. And so, like, you've got like. I don't know, you got like 10 of them. The first ones are Matthew 6. In other words, how do I say this? If Luke is copying this, he's getting it from Matthew 6, the next one's from Matthew 12, next one's from Matthew 5, the next one's from Matthew 23. But Luke's put them all together in that case, he's put them. And so why. Why are they in different sequence when you get to. Like in chapter. If you start in chapter 14, if you just go the beginning of chapter 14, there are 10. There are 10 sayings of. Of Jesus that are in different orders than in Matthew, Matthew. So there in Matthew, Luke has put these together from disparate places. In Matthew, he also goes the other way. But, you know, once from Matthew 23, the next one from chapter 22, next one from chapter 10, next one from chapter 5, next one, chapter 18, next one from chapter 6, you can go the entire thing like every one of these has changed in sequence. How do you explain that? I mean, Matthew, so he's taken desperate sayings. He knows they're not in market, so he puts them in different places every time. Or he collects ones that are not in market, puts them in the same place from all throughout math. I just think it's completely implausible. I think that it creates more problems than it solves. If they simply had a list of sayings, they just put them wherever they think it makes sense. Otherwise, Luke is spending 12 years trying to figure out if this thing's in market, where do we now. Where to put it?
- [40:20]
B
Now, to play devil's advocate for a moment, is there an argument against Q that you think is maybe stronger than the others?
- [40:29]
A
An argument against the. The strongest argument. That's the hypothetical source that we don't have and that it's always better to. To eliminate as many hypotheses as possible. So the simpler solution generally is better. That's, you know, it's true in the sciences, and it's in. It's true in literary studies as well. If you don't need a hypothetical, you're better without it. Some scholars have worked on this synoptic problem. They come up with really complicated scenarios, this hypoth, you know, like 12 hypothetical sources to explain the Synoptic Gospels. And I do think, though, that if you don't have Q, you create far more problems than you solve by. Than you solve if you don't have it.
- [41:14]
B
So you think until more evidence is uncovered, excavated, discovered somehow, that going with the existence of, of this hypothetical Q document is probably the, the best bet.
- [41:28]
A
Well, I don't think there's going to be any more evidence discovered. It ain't going to happen unless I dig up Q. That'd be good. But I mean, there's nothing that's. We have, we have the data. We have the data. And based on these data, you know, you know, based on these data, most critical scholars continue to think that, that there was a cue. But as I said, you know, Mark Goodacre has written several books on the Synoptic gospels and one of them is called the Case Against Q. And you know, it's a full book and, and it's the best argument that could be made. And I did not find it at all convincing, as I've told Mark. So sorry, Mark, I just don't like this convincing. But, you know, so, but the thing is, it's the kind of thing where like you're convincing one thing, the other guy's convinced about something else. And like, you just, you just are. It's just so. But if people really want to look in this, there's a lot of stuff written on it and they can see for themselves, but they, if they really want it, they, they really need to look at the best stuff on both sides.
- [42:33]
B
Well, thank you Bart so much. That's it for today's interview. We are going to take a very brief break and then we will be back with this week's brand new bonus segment.
- [42:46]
A
If you're enjoying the Misquoting Jesus podcast, you'd probably like my online courses as well. I've produced a number so far with multi lecture courses on the New Testament Gospels and the books of the Pentateuch, standalone lectures on the Christmas story and the earliest Christian views of Jesus, and a six hour debate on whether Jesus was actually raised from the dead. If you're interested, check them out@barturman.com you'll receive a discount on your purchase simply by entering the code MJ Podcast.
- [43:24]
B
Now we have got, as I've said, a brand new bonus segment today and it is called Misquoting Bart. And I will be reading a quote, usually about Bart or commenting on his scholarship and then allowing Bart to respond. Because who doesn't enjoy being publicly criticized on a podcast? Today's Misquoting Barth statement comes from Ty Curley writing in the De Soto Times Tribune. Last week we considered New Testament critic Bart Ehrman's Suggestion that the historical story of what happened to Jesus after he died was changed and corrupted over years of oral transmission before the Gospel accounts were written. On the contrary, we noted that the oral transmission of histories in ancient Near Eastern culture was not only a very serious and highly structured undertaking, but to corrupt the oral transmission of Jesus stories was to corrupt their own identity. Beyond that, the oral transmission of Jesus stories was viewed as the historical basis of their beliefs and stood as a permanent historical record. Great care was taken to preserve the true story down the line. But what are your thoughts or comments?
- [44:33]
A
Wow, okay, let me say at the outset for people don't know. I, you know, I don't know. I didn't know what she was going to ask. So, so, like this is, like this is on the spot. But I'm just saying, man, I wrote an entire book on this that he hasn't read. I don't know who this person is, he hasn't read my book. And what he's, what he's saying is just modern legend, modern mythology about, about oral cultures in the ancient world. It's just not true. If people weren't changing stories about Jesus and if they weren't inventing stories about Jesus, why do we have gospels that he himself thinks is filled with fabricated accounts? Does he doesn't believe that the infancy Gospel of Thomas was that Jesus really, as a 12 year old or a 5 year old, was zapping his playmates when they irritated him or withering his teachers when they got on his nerves? And he doesn't think that these are Christian texts? Well, who came up with these stories? A Christian came up with these stories. How can you possibly say that Christians were not inventing and changing stories? Does he think all the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas are, are authentic that Jesus really said those things? No, somebody made them up. And so, so, so that's number one. Number two, the idea that in oral cultures they preserve their, their traditions accurately in our sense, that they kept them word for word the same as we're just talking about with the synoptic problem, that this happened at the oral level, that, you know, we all learned that in graduate school and almost nobody ever produced any evidence of it. And so, you know, at the time I just assumed it was true too, until I looked into it. And so I have a book devoted to this issue. My book, Jesus before the Gospels deals with what anthropologists know about oral cultures and how oral traditions change over time. And when it comes to the teachings of Jesus or the, the deeds of Jesus, there is no question that people are changing the stor just within the New Testament. The stories are different from each other. So how can you possibly say that? Nobody changed the stories. They even changed them when they're written down. And so I understand the motivation to want to say, look, we know exactly what Jesus said and did. It's a religious motivation. But if you, if you don't have that religious reason to want to say that we've got it all accurately exactly as happened. If that's not one is, that's not your religious reason, then you, then you look at it historically and try to understand how did oral cultures work in the ancient world and how do they work throughout history, how they work today? How do we know if we have the actual words of sayings of Jesus? It's not good enough just to say that, well, you know, they kept them all accurately. Somebody who says something like that would not say the same thing about other religious traditions. You know, they wouldn't say that. The Mormons are right. What they have to say about Joseph Smith, they say, oh, no, they changed all that because they're not religiously committed to that view. If you're, you've got a perspective that you're religiously committed to, you know, you need to examine whether that's whether it's historically right or not. Historians don't base their judgment on religious views. So I, I think that he's, he's, he's terribly wrong about that. And, you know, he hasn't studied it clearly. He just, you know, he's heard that he heard it from somebody.
- [47:53]
B
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Bart. AUDIENCE thank you all for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the show. If you did, please subscribe to the podcast to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Remember that you can use the code mjpodcast for a discount on all of Bart's courses over at www.bartehrman.com and that you can visit barterman.com hebrewbible for information on Dr. Joel Baden's Hebrew Bible course, which starts today. Misquoting Jesus will be back next week. Bart, what are you talking about next time?
- [48:24]
A
Well, we're talking about the view of the inerrancy of the Bible. Is the Bible inerrant without error? What does that even mean? And is this, like, always been the view of Christians? So, good question.
- [48:36]
B
Thank you all and goodbye. This, this has been an episode of Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. We'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday, so please be sure to subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcast listening app or on Bart Ehrman's YouTube channel so you don't miss out from Bart Ehrman and myself, Megan Lewis, thank you for joining us.