Ted Hoffman
July 11, 2003, 11:36 AM
This is not intended to be a refutation of Yuris "thesis": evolutionary view of the gospels (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53550) . I have read it and its my view that its a huge and important subject that he ought to have given a more detailed treatment - especially given his passionate "campaign" against "Markan priority" and the favourable acceptance MP has enjoyed so far. I discern a feeling of resignation in Yuris' writing - he doesnt go into details of supporting his assertions. He is like one who is simply expressing his thoughts, letting his position known but not interested in convincing the reader that his position is correct.
I came off feeling he was rehashing the same concept in scholarly circles - except he was distancing himself from the herd, sharply criticizing it for its complacence and inability to "think outside the box". The main thing is that he layed MORE emphasis on the evolutionary theory - its my assertion that its always been there and its generally accepted.
Yuris unmasked contempt for "NT Scholars" throws a heterodox cloak around his thesis and his comparison of NT Scholars with creationists bereaves his article of scholarly objectivism and seems like sour grapes at work. His lack of effort in supporting his ideas seems to justify this view: he only wants to discredit the NT Scholars to cathartically let out his vitriol - not put up a solid alternative view.
I am a layman in this so Yuri will have to forgive me if I ask questions whose answers seem obvious.
It seems to me that the way our mainstream biblical scholars still see the early history of Christian gospels can be best compared with Creationism. After all, each of our mainstream Synoptic theories today -- whether it is 2ST, 2GT, or Farrer -- is premised essentially on the assumption that all of the Synoptic gospels somehow emerged into the world in a single act of creation -- each put together by a single writer, it seems, an exegetical genius of some sort, locked up in a private study somewhere, and isolated from all the others.
I dont think the statement "all of the Synoptic gospels somehow emerged into the world in a single act of creation" is correct.
First of all, Q is a document whose existence is generally well established (the only unknown thing is its exact extent) and its use in the Gospels as a source is clear. Midrashic writing of the Gospels is equally well accepted (that is OT as a source). And these two alone (leaving aside "mimesis" and the origins of the passion narrative question) refute Yuri's assertion above (about a single act of creation).
That means, Q was a source, the OT was a source and midrashic writing also was used to expand on the OT, fulfil prophecies (see Matthew and Isaiah 7:14) and this is leaving sources like Philo's Against Flaccus and Concerning Flaccus as the source of the passion narrative aside.
From here (http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/) :
The dominant source theory among scholars today, the 2SH holds that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and became the primary narrative source for Matthew and Luke (Markan priority). In addition, Matthew and Luke independently supplemented their Markan material with sayings of Jesus from a lost sayings collection, termed "Q".
Two basic propositions for 2SH/2ST:
a. The existence of Q.
b. The priority of Mark (mp) - Mark 1:1-16:8 was used by bothe Mathew and Luke.
Arguments for the 2SH as listed by Stephen C. CarlsonA. Priority of Mark
The contemporary argument for the priority of Mark is cumulative. It rests not on the strength of any one argument but on the cumulation of many arguments. (Stein 1987: 88; Tuckett 1992: 264) These arguments supporting Markan priority include:
Argument from Omission. Easier to see certain material (infancy accounts, Sermon on the Mount) being added to Mark by Matthew and Luke than Mark's omitting them from Matthew and Luke. (Stein 1987: 48-49; Tuckett 1992: 264)
Argument from Length. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's compressing the text of Mark to add their own material rather than Mark's abridging the content and expanding the words of one or both of the others. (Stein 1987: 49-51; Tuckett 1992: 264)
Argument from Diction. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's improving Mark's colloquialisms in vocabulary rather than Mark's intentionally or incompetently being less literary. (Stein 1987: 52-53)
Argument from Grammar. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's improving Mark's grammar rather than Mark's "dumbing down" one or both of the others. (Stein 1987: 54)
Argument from Aramaic Expressions. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's removal of Aramaicisms for their Greek-speaking audience than Mark's addition of them to his source(s). (Stein 1987: 55-58)
Argument from Redundancy. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's eliminating Mark's redundancies. (Stein 1987: 58-62; Tuckett 1992: 267)
Argument from Difficulty. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's modifying certain "harder readings" of Mark rather than vice versa. (Stein 1987: 62-67; Tuckett 1992: 265-66)
Argument from Order. Easier to understand reasons for the specific divergences of Matthew's and Luke's order from that of Mark's than vice versa. (Tuckett 1992: 264-65)
Argument from Literary Agreements. Easier to explain how Matthew and Luke seem to occasionally refer to omitted explanatory material in Mark. (Stein 1987: 70-76)
Argument from Redaction. Easier to see Matthew's adding his theological emphases than Mark's removing them. (Stein 1987: 77-81) Easier to account for an uneven distribution of Mark's stylistic features in Matthew. (Stein 1987: 81-83)
Argument from Theology. Easier to see Matthew's and Luke's more frequent use of "Lord" being later developed than Mark's one use. (Stein 1987: 84-86)
I think argument from diction and grammar are very strong. Carlson references Robert H. Steins The Synoptic Problem very heavily above.
Yuris task will be to methodically refute each of the arguments above.
B. Existence of Q
The existence of Q follows from the conclusion that Luke and Matthew are independent in the double tradition. Therefore, the liteary connection in the double tradition must be explained by an indirect relationship, namely, through use of a common source or sources.
Arguments for Luke's and Matthew's independence:
Disuse of the other's non-Markan material in triple tradition.
For example, it is easier to understand Luke's near total omission of this material as due to not having it before him.
Different contexts for the double tradition material. It is argued that it is easier to explain Luke's "artistically inferior" arrangement of the double tradition into more primitive contexts within his Gospel as due to not knowing Matthew. Easier to see the disparate treatment of the order of the Double Tradition versus the Triple Tradition as the result of two sources. This argument is more cogent for an oral Q rather than a written Q.
Mutual primitivity: Easier to explain why the form of the material sometimes appears more primitive in Matthew but other times more primitive in Luke
Doublets. Sometimes it appears that doublets in Matthew and Luke have one half that comes from Mark and the other half from some common source, i.e. Q.
Disuse of the other's non-Markan, non-sayings material outside the triple tradition. Easier to explain the different infancy, genealogical, and resurrection accounts as due to not knowing each other.
Arguments for Q being a written document:
Exactness in Wording. Sometimes the exactness in wording is quite impressive. E.g. Matt. 6:24 = Luke 16:13 (27/28 Greek words). Matt. 7:7-8 = Luke 11:9-10 (24/24 Greek words).
Some Correspondence in Order. There is some common order between the two Sermons on/at the Mount.
Doublets. Doublets are often a sign of two written sources. Used to great effect in the Documentary Hypothesis (OT analog to the 2SH).
Again, Yuri needs to show that these arguments are invalid. Alternatively, he can point us to a site that has already done that.
Now lets continue examining Yuris work "the evolutionary view of the gospels":
Yuri states:
And after each of the gospels had been written down "during the first century", it had been frozen textually, more or less, somewhat miraculously perhaps?
I think it would be best if you specified which NT Scholars subscribe to this strawman-sounding allegation.
But what I'm offering here, on the other hand, is essentially an evolutionary view of gospels' history. And, on this view, no single date can ever be affixed to any of our 4 canonical gospels.
Date of what Yuri? Start date? Date of continuation? date of writing? date of redaction?
Their development was a continuous process, that started perhaps even before 70 CE, and continued well past 200 CE. And, all throughout, while this process unfolded, there had been a lot of cross-pollination among the gospels -- the sort of a cross-pollination that's usually pretty obvious even to a casual reader. After all, especially after the 4 gospels had been assembled together into a single edition ca 170 CE, the whole collection was owned by the Church, so all 4 gospels had a potential common editor who was quite interested in making their accounts appear more harmonious.
So the editor remained the same? Same political and theological bias - accross a century? Was the sociological
So what follows, I submit, is an entirely realistic and rational account of the early history of Christian gospels, based on solid historical and textual evidence.
This may well be so, but you have failed to provide the "solid historical and textual evidence".
And so, as I see it, the development of the gospels may have started even before 70 CE
200BCE is before 70 CE - so how far before 70 CE? It sounds like an ad hoc dating.
So it's the liturgical role of the gospels that I'm now talking about; from the earliest times, these texts were meant to be read during Church services.
Whats the link between the liturgical (or other) role and the dating? The shift in argument is unclear.
Is it your argument that they were meant to be read during Church services ALONE?
What do you mean by Church? - considering we are talking pre-70 CE era?
But even this suggestion, itself, that the gospels have always been primarily the liturgical documents, is already likely to raise some hackles among today's NT specialists, (and here, I see some hidden Protestant bias at work, about, which later). All too often, scholars would like to see the history of the gospels quite apart from the history of the Church -- which would already be a significant departure from the scientific historical perspective. So here we already get into the fantasy world of "the isolated evangelists", writing quite apart from the natural dimensions of time and space, and quite oblivious of the larger world around them, as if suspended in a vacuum somewhere.
There is a difference between disagreeing that the gospels were primarily used as liturgical documents and "seeing the history of the gospels quite apart from the history of the Church".
Which scholars see the evolution of the gospels as entirely unrelated to the history of the church? Where do they state this?
But let's get back to the real history now. So, at some point in time, most likely well after 70 CE, there happened to emerge a first complete gospel narrative -- the first Christian proto-gospel, that soon began to serve as a model for some further creative efforts in this direction by other groups of believers.
Hmmmm...dont you know that markan priority has a variation that supposes the existence of an early form of mark called Uk-Markus or deutero-Mark?
How is it any different from your proto-gospel? save you fail to specify a name for yours and choose to leave it open to be either Lukan or Markan?
Myself, I believe that that original, and still rather mysterious proto-gospel was produced by the Jewish-Christians outside of Israel. It was probably very short, and textually looked the closest to our Gospel of Luke. I would date this important break-through at shortly before 100 CE. And, before that time, the Christians just used the Jewish Scriptures, adding to them, for some special occasions, a few liturgical texts of their own.
Note that you have failed to offer any support for your argument above.
As soon as the news about its production got around, it seems that there was a response from the Jewish-Christian believers who were based in Jerusalem (and there's evidence that quite a few of them remained there even after 70 CE).
Speculation.
As for John's Gospel, it's clearly very close to Lk in a number of important respects, so it was probably originally also based on "L".
Which were these important similarities between Lk and Jn?
How "strong" were they? What is the basis for giving Luke precedence over Jn - is it based on the similarities?
But then, after some considerable evolutionary development of its own, the final edition of John did come to diverge from "L" more substantially.
Speculation.
The original Jewish-Christianity was now being systematically supplanted by the victorious proto-Catholic forces; it was gradually and systematically pushed out to the periphery of things.
What time frame are you talking about? 70CE-110CE? 70CE-500CE?
What were these proto-Catholic forces?
The first solid historical attestation of any Christian gospel is associated with Marcion, a very important early heretic, active in Rome ca 140 CE.
Am writing a paper on Dohertys treatment of the apostolic fathers vis-a-vis Christ logos and HJ (and I have been interested in Marcion) - what qualifies as "solid historical attestation of any Christian gospel"?
But, of course, he wasn't necessarily considered a heretic at first, and for a time he even hoped to be elected as the Christian bishop of Rome. Marcion used some sort of a short version of Luke, minus the name "Luke".
What made what Marcion used "Lukan"? what were its characteristics.
First, it indicates that the proto-Luke was the gospel that was most popular at that time either in Asia Minor (where Marcion hailed from originally), or in Rome, or perhaps, quite likely, in both places at once.
So, the proto-gospel was most popular in Asia Minor or in Rome because Marcion used it?
Otherwise, why would have Marcion chosen proto-Luke as his main gospel?
Maybe because they all looked the same to him? maybe because its all he had at the time?
But still, we need to be clear what constitutes as "lukan characteristics". And when you say "main" gospel - does that mean it was not the only one? Which were these others?
Papias was well aware of Mark and Matthew.
And therefore Marcion must have been aware of them too?
And let's also keep in mind that this Marcionite controversy came against the background of Jewish-Christianity being basically outlawed by the Roman state.
For the uninitiated readers like me, a brief description of the nature and magnitude of this marcionite controversy would be very helpful.
There can be very little doubt that these momentous events, taking place in the larger Roman society, could not fail but leave a deep imprint on what we now consider the canonical gospels
State the suppositions you are making in constructing this assertion please.
I was looking for your arguments against markan priority (of course I am disapointed). The evolutionary view as proposed by you is not contra mainstream NT Scolarship per se. Unless you are basing your argument on their position about the gospels having been developed and used for liturgical purposes. The literary cross-pollination, redaction, syncretizing and enlargement of the gospels, I believe is accepted even by Crossan (in The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant), Price (in Of Myth and Men) the socio-political influences on the gospels (though in different flavours - the latter largely on literary borrowings), I believe, has been given due consideration by NT Scholars unless you want to be more specific?
I found the protestant bias very interesting.
I came off feeling he was rehashing the same concept in scholarly circles - except he was distancing himself from the herd, sharply criticizing it for its complacence and inability to "think outside the box". The main thing is that he layed MORE emphasis on the evolutionary theory - its my assertion that its always been there and its generally accepted.
Yuris unmasked contempt for "NT Scholars" throws a heterodox cloak around his thesis and his comparison of NT Scholars with creationists bereaves his article of scholarly objectivism and seems like sour grapes at work. His lack of effort in supporting his ideas seems to justify this view: he only wants to discredit the NT Scholars to cathartically let out his vitriol - not put up a solid alternative view.
I am a layman in this so Yuri will have to forgive me if I ask questions whose answers seem obvious.
It seems to me that the way our mainstream biblical scholars still see the early history of Christian gospels can be best compared with Creationism. After all, each of our mainstream Synoptic theories today -- whether it is 2ST, 2GT, or Farrer -- is premised essentially on the assumption that all of the Synoptic gospels somehow emerged into the world in a single act of creation -- each put together by a single writer, it seems, an exegetical genius of some sort, locked up in a private study somewhere, and isolated from all the others.
I dont think the statement "all of the Synoptic gospels somehow emerged into the world in a single act of creation" is correct.
First of all, Q is a document whose existence is generally well established (the only unknown thing is its exact extent) and its use in the Gospels as a source is clear. Midrashic writing of the Gospels is equally well accepted (that is OT as a source). And these two alone (leaving aside "mimesis" and the origins of the passion narrative question) refute Yuri's assertion above (about a single act of creation).
That means, Q was a source, the OT was a source and midrashic writing also was used to expand on the OT, fulfil prophecies (see Matthew and Isaiah 7:14) and this is leaving sources like Philo's Against Flaccus and Concerning Flaccus as the source of the passion narrative aside.
From here (http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/) :
The dominant source theory among scholars today, the 2SH holds that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and became the primary narrative source for Matthew and Luke (Markan priority). In addition, Matthew and Luke independently supplemented their Markan material with sayings of Jesus from a lost sayings collection, termed "Q".
Two basic propositions for 2SH/2ST:
a. The existence of Q.
b. The priority of Mark (mp) - Mark 1:1-16:8 was used by bothe Mathew and Luke.
Arguments for the 2SH as listed by Stephen C. CarlsonA. Priority of Mark
The contemporary argument for the priority of Mark is cumulative. It rests not on the strength of any one argument but on the cumulation of many arguments. (Stein 1987: 88; Tuckett 1992: 264) These arguments supporting Markan priority include:
Argument from Omission. Easier to see certain material (infancy accounts, Sermon on the Mount) being added to Mark by Matthew and Luke than Mark's omitting them from Matthew and Luke. (Stein 1987: 48-49; Tuckett 1992: 264)
Argument from Length. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's compressing the text of Mark to add their own material rather than Mark's abridging the content and expanding the words of one or both of the others. (Stein 1987: 49-51; Tuckett 1992: 264)
Argument from Diction. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's improving Mark's colloquialisms in vocabulary rather than Mark's intentionally or incompetently being less literary. (Stein 1987: 52-53)
Argument from Grammar. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's improving Mark's grammar rather than Mark's "dumbing down" one or both of the others. (Stein 1987: 54)
Argument from Aramaic Expressions. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's removal of Aramaicisms for their Greek-speaking audience than Mark's addition of them to his source(s). (Stein 1987: 55-58)
Argument from Redundancy. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's eliminating Mark's redundancies. (Stein 1987: 58-62; Tuckett 1992: 267)
Argument from Difficulty. Easier to see both Matthew's and Luke's modifying certain "harder readings" of Mark rather than vice versa. (Stein 1987: 62-67; Tuckett 1992: 265-66)
Argument from Order. Easier to understand reasons for the specific divergences of Matthew's and Luke's order from that of Mark's than vice versa. (Tuckett 1992: 264-65)
Argument from Literary Agreements. Easier to explain how Matthew and Luke seem to occasionally refer to omitted explanatory material in Mark. (Stein 1987: 70-76)
Argument from Redaction. Easier to see Matthew's adding his theological emphases than Mark's removing them. (Stein 1987: 77-81) Easier to account for an uneven distribution of Mark's stylistic features in Matthew. (Stein 1987: 81-83)
Argument from Theology. Easier to see Matthew's and Luke's more frequent use of "Lord" being later developed than Mark's one use. (Stein 1987: 84-86)
I think argument from diction and grammar are very strong. Carlson references Robert H. Steins The Synoptic Problem very heavily above.
Yuris task will be to methodically refute each of the arguments above.
B. Existence of Q
The existence of Q follows from the conclusion that Luke and Matthew are independent in the double tradition. Therefore, the liteary connection in the double tradition must be explained by an indirect relationship, namely, through use of a common source or sources.
Arguments for Luke's and Matthew's independence:
Disuse of the other's non-Markan material in triple tradition.
For example, it is easier to understand Luke's near total omission of this material as due to not having it before him.
Different contexts for the double tradition material. It is argued that it is easier to explain Luke's "artistically inferior" arrangement of the double tradition into more primitive contexts within his Gospel as due to not knowing Matthew. Easier to see the disparate treatment of the order of the Double Tradition versus the Triple Tradition as the result of two sources. This argument is more cogent for an oral Q rather than a written Q.
Mutual primitivity: Easier to explain why the form of the material sometimes appears more primitive in Matthew but other times more primitive in Luke
Doublets. Sometimes it appears that doublets in Matthew and Luke have one half that comes from Mark and the other half from some common source, i.e. Q.
Disuse of the other's non-Markan, non-sayings material outside the triple tradition. Easier to explain the different infancy, genealogical, and resurrection accounts as due to not knowing each other.
Arguments for Q being a written document:
Exactness in Wording. Sometimes the exactness in wording is quite impressive. E.g. Matt. 6:24 = Luke 16:13 (27/28 Greek words). Matt. 7:7-8 = Luke 11:9-10 (24/24 Greek words).
Some Correspondence in Order. There is some common order between the two Sermons on/at the Mount.
Doublets. Doublets are often a sign of two written sources. Used to great effect in the Documentary Hypothesis (OT analog to the 2SH).
Again, Yuri needs to show that these arguments are invalid. Alternatively, he can point us to a site that has already done that.
Now lets continue examining Yuris work "the evolutionary view of the gospels":
Yuri states:
And after each of the gospels had been written down "during the first century", it had been frozen textually, more or less, somewhat miraculously perhaps?
I think it would be best if you specified which NT Scholars subscribe to this strawman-sounding allegation.
But what I'm offering here, on the other hand, is essentially an evolutionary view of gospels' history. And, on this view, no single date can ever be affixed to any of our 4 canonical gospels.
Date of what Yuri? Start date? Date of continuation? date of writing? date of redaction?
Their development was a continuous process, that started perhaps even before 70 CE, and continued well past 200 CE. And, all throughout, while this process unfolded, there had been a lot of cross-pollination among the gospels -- the sort of a cross-pollination that's usually pretty obvious even to a casual reader. After all, especially after the 4 gospels had been assembled together into a single edition ca 170 CE, the whole collection was owned by the Church, so all 4 gospels had a potential common editor who was quite interested in making their accounts appear more harmonious.
So the editor remained the same? Same political and theological bias - accross a century? Was the sociological
So what follows, I submit, is an entirely realistic and rational account of the early history of Christian gospels, based on solid historical and textual evidence.
This may well be so, but you have failed to provide the "solid historical and textual evidence".
And so, as I see it, the development of the gospels may have started even before 70 CE
200BCE is before 70 CE - so how far before 70 CE? It sounds like an ad hoc dating.
So it's the liturgical role of the gospels that I'm now talking about; from the earliest times, these texts were meant to be read during Church services.
Whats the link between the liturgical (or other) role and the dating? The shift in argument is unclear.
Is it your argument that they were meant to be read during Church services ALONE?
What do you mean by Church? - considering we are talking pre-70 CE era?
But even this suggestion, itself, that the gospels have always been primarily the liturgical documents, is already likely to raise some hackles among today's NT specialists, (and here, I see some hidden Protestant bias at work, about, which later). All too often, scholars would like to see the history of the gospels quite apart from the history of the Church -- which would already be a significant departure from the scientific historical perspective. So here we already get into the fantasy world of "the isolated evangelists", writing quite apart from the natural dimensions of time and space, and quite oblivious of the larger world around them, as if suspended in a vacuum somewhere.
There is a difference between disagreeing that the gospels were primarily used as liturgical documents and "seeing the history of the gospels quite apart from the history of the Church".
Which scholars see the evolution of the gospels as entirely unrelated to the history of the church? Where do they state this?
But let's get back to the real history now. So, at some point in time, most likely well after 70 CE, there happened to emerge a first complete gospel narrative -- the first Christian proto-gospel, that soon began to serve as a model for some further creative efforts in this direction by other groups of believers.
Hmmmm...dont you know that markan priority has a variation that supposes the existence of an early form of mark called Uk-Markus or deutero-Mark?
How is it any different from your proto-gospel? save you fail to specify a name for yours and choose to leave it open to be either Lukan or Markan?
Myself, I believe that that original, and still rather mysterious proto-gospel was produced by the Jewish-Christians outside of Israel. It was probably very short, and textually looked the closest to our Gospel of Luke. I would date this important break-through at shortly before 100 CE. And, before that time, the Christians just used the Jewish Scriptures, adding to them, for some special occasions, a few liturgical texts of their own.
Note that you have failed to offer any support for your argument above.
As soon as the news about its production got around, it seems that there was a response from the Jewish-Christian believers who were based in Jerusalem (and there's evidence that quite a few of them remained there even after 70 CE).
Speculation.
As for John's Gospel, it's clearly very close to Lk in a number of important respects, so it was probably originally also based on "L".
Which were these important similarities between Lk and Jn?
How "strong" were they? What is the basis for giving Luke precedence over Jn - is it based on the similarities?
But then, after some considerable evolutionary development of its own, the final edition of John did come to diverge from "L" more substantially.
Speculation.
The original Jewish-Christianity was now being systematically supplanted by the victorious proto-Catholic forces; it was gradually and systematically pushed out to the periphery of things.
What time frame are you talking about? 70CE-110CE? 70CE-500CE?
What were these proto-Catholic forces?
The first solid historical attestation of any Christian gospel is associated with Marcion, a very important early heretic, active in Rome ca 140 CE.
Am writing a paper on Dohertys treatment of the apostolic fathers vis-a-vis Christ logos and HJ (and I have been interested in Marcion) - what qualifies as "solid historical attestation of any Christian gospel"?
But, of course, he wasn't necessarily considered a heretic at first, and for a time he even hoped to be elected as the Christian bishop of Rome. Marcion used some sort of a short version of Luke, minus the name "Luke".
What made what Marcion used "Lukan"? what were its characteristics.
First, it indicates that the proto-Luke was the gospel that was most popular at that time either in Asia Minor (where Marcion hailed from originally), or in Rome, or perhaps, quite likely, in both places at once.
So, the proto-gospel was most popular in Asia Minor or in Rome because Marcion used it?
Otherwise, why would have Marcion chosen proto-Luke as his main gospel?
Maybe because they all looked the same to him? maybe because its all he had at the time?
But still, we need to be clear what constitutes as "lukan characteristics". And when you say "main" gospel - does that mean it was not the only one? Which were these others?
Papias was well aware of Mark and Matthew.
And therefore Marcion must have been aware of them too?
And let's also keep in mind that this Marcionite controversy came against the background of Jewish-Christianity being basically outlawed by the Roman state.
For the uninitiated readers like me, a brief description of the nature and magnitude of this marcionite controversy would be very helpful.
There can be very little doubt that these momentous events, taking place in the larger Roman society, could not fail but leave a deep imprint on what we now consider the canonical gospels
State the suppositions you are making in constructing this assertion please.
I was looking for your arguments against markan priority (of course I am disapointed). The evolutionary view as proposed by you is not contra mainstream NT Scolarship per se. Unless you are basing your argument on their position about the gospels having been developed and used for liturgical purposes. The literary cross-pollination, redaction, syncretizing and enlargement of the gospels, I believe is accepted even by Crossan (in The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant), Price (in Of Myth and Men) the socio-political influences on the gospels (though in different flavours - the latter largely on literary borrowings), I believe, has been given due consideration by NT Scholars unless you want to be more specific?
I found the protestant bias very interesting.