Historical questions

[vz71]

The most well-known example given is the Our Father:

Matthew:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”

Luke:

“Father,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”
Luke’s more terse version of the prayer is believed to be more original than Matthew’s, because it is thought unlikely that Luke would have pared down the Matthean version so familiar to us. The Q version of the prayer, then, will have probably looked more like the Lukan version, and the extra Matthean parts will be additions distinct to Matthew, such as “our Father in heaven” (since the phrase “your Father who is in heaven” is apparently a favorite of Matthew’s). Likewise the Beatitudes: Luke’s “Blessed are you poor” is thought to be more original than Matthew’s more spiritual “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The reverse idea, wherein Luke derives his more down-to-earth version from Matthew, is thought to be unlikely. In these and other cases, it is felt that the Lukan version is less characteristically Lukan than the Matthean version is characteristically Matthean, a situation easily explicable if both are independently redacting an unknown source, but implausible if Luke is redacting Matthew.
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Funny.
I always attributed the difference to two people in the crowd not hearing every word.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Funny.
I always attributed the difference to two people in the crowd not hearing every word.

Let us atart with basics.
The difference in Semitic tongues between ‘Father’ and ‘Our Father’ depends on a postfix particle. For instance, in Arabic, very similar to Aramaic, ‘Friend’ is ‘habib’, and ‘my friend’ is ‘habibi’.
In a written language which has no vowels, the differenc is reduced to context.
In translation, context is often lost.

Beware of your conclusions, they may be founded on little but mist.

 

[gkrohm]

Dave makes an interesting point about the ambiguity of Semitic languages.

Yet the earlier point that Matthew is quite fond of the word “heaven.” He changes “the kingdom of God” to the “kingdom of heaven” (used 32 times by Matt). Thus, it seems very plausible to me that Matt expanded the opening to “Father in heaven” to meet his literary preference.

I also agree that the Lukan version of the Our Father seems more primjtive. I also agree that both Matt and Luke could have been reworking to varying degrees their own independent sources.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Today I was reading my Bible and I noticed that the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer are not in the gospels of Mark and John.

This bothers me. I believe that Mark was written by a companion of Peter, and John was written by John. Wouldn’t Mark and John know about these very important teachings? Why would these most-quoted teachings of Jesus be absent from two of the gospels?

I am inclined to think that the prayer and the sermon are distillations of many teachings of Jesus, and that different authors distilled them differently. Still, this issue really bothers me. Do any of you have any thoughts as to why the prayer and the sermon would be absent from John and Mark?

I am guessing…
Mark just wrote the essential.
Matthew and Luke joined mor details.
John said everything but what what other had already said.

 

[gkrohm]

Thanks Patrick and Voco for your lively and informative posts. I learned a lot from your comments. Even a half hearted study of modern scholarship on scripture is will produce some very, very disquieting feelings in most committed Christians who have never questioned the absolute accuracy of eye witness accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Yet, through prayer and balanced consideration of scholarship and studying the acceptance of that scholarship by popes and Catholic homilists, a Catholic can strengthen and expand his or her understanding of who Jesus Christ and his gospel message.