Jesus' stump-speech

The usual-suspects a couple days ago linked, by the usual-removes, to Eric Lyons, concerning how there exists no contradiction between Luke and Matthew about the Sermon on the Plain-or-Mount. Most of us wouldn't waste our time but, well. Maybe it was aliens?

The core is, as so-often, the Synoptic Problem - in this case a fairly-major agreement between Matthew and Luke, against Mark. The speech-variants and nearly all their content is/are absent from Mark. One question is whether Mark knew of a specific speech. I think... Mark did. But it wasn't the Sermon on the Mount (or plain).

The one fact we must base ourselves upon is that Luke was aware of earlier apostolic-memoirs - because Luke had told us so, in his first chapter. We can further deduce that at least one of these memoirs looked a lot like Mark. Another looked like Matthew. Farrer and lately Goodacre are fairly well-regarded by now.

So: Mark. Mark concentrates Jesus upon preaching the imminent kingdom of God; first by himself (1:14-15), later delegated to the apostles-in-training. If people wanted to hear what Jesus had to teach, those people went to the synagogues - at least at first (1:21f). Mark was more concerned to rush on to the Passion than to list every word and deed Jesus said/did, sure. Later Mark is rife with scenes in which the people gather around Jesus; he's got two (Mark 6:30f, 8:1f) in which Jesus must somehow feed them. For Mark that crowd is often there for miracles, usually healing; Mark doesn't tell much of what Jesus preached to a crowd outside bet-midrash. Mark knew that Jesus had teachings, and Mark respected those teachings; so it is of interest that Mark doesn't have his Jesus delivering a summary thereof to a general audience.

- unless Mark was saving it up for later. At the end he'll issue the famous chapter 13, an apocalypse. Mark prepends this sermon to the Passion chs. 14-15, in Jerusalem. Mark 13 is, for that Evangelist, that News which Jesus came to deliver. (Recall Papias/Pierius warning that Mark doesn't arrange the events in the correct sequence.)

Matthew, updating Mark, has an update to Mark 13 in his own chs. 24-5. But Matthew by contrast also offers what Jesus said to the crowds, before all that. This sermon from the mountain is entirely not Mark 13 / Matt 24-5. This (for Matthew) would be the capstone manifesto of Jesus-ism (if you will). Matthew figured Jesus for the latter-day Moses, not an Elisha or a Joel or whatever. Luke was more concerned with the Spirit itself, which can come through Jesus, but can also come upon and through the Apostles as at Pentecost - although, here Luke had other motives (which I'll get to).

One argument is that the Sermon On The [?] was a stumpspeech which he shopped around the various villages. Luke got wind of one version; Matthew of another. In effect a hellenophone stenographer of Christ Himself would be "Q".

Against this, Luke and Matthew aren't acting like tradents of "Q". I would bring the sociology of Matthew versus that of Luke. For Matthew, is a hierarchy: G-d above, Christ, then Saint Peter and finally the camp of the sainted people. Matthew's Jesus blesses the poor... in spirit. Luke's Jesus, on the same (altitudinal) level as the people, blesses the poor. Matthew's Jesus forgives sins; Luke's Jesus forgives debts. If we allow that these two speeches are in two different places, then Jesus was a first-century Yassir Arafat: preaching hierarchy to group A (in Greek?) and socialism to B (in Aramaic?).

On the one hand, yeah; these were not the same speech. But they are relayed by not-the-same tradents. I do not think so little of Christ's ethical mindset as, apparently, Christian fundamentalists think.

Matthew acts like one steeped in Torah. Luke for his part acts like he knew Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, disliked it, but had to relate something like it. (Luke will do similar with Pentecost.) Luke figured that if there existed such a nonapocalyptic speech, it must sketch the socialist Assembly as Acts will portray it.

The historian must default to Crossan's dictum. To whit, we are not here to explain(-away) what could have happened, but to figure what most-likely did happen. What happened here is that Matthew concocted a Mosaic speech, in all senses of "mosaic". Luke smelled a rat and, why not, since Matthew is doing it, why not me.

Overall Mark, once more, is the most-likely right. Jesus did have a stumpspeech. That speech was Mark 13.

MEANWHILE 9/10: POxy 5575 presents another synopsis for Matthew. The Evangelical Textual Critics, in a supreme irony, announced this whilst my poast here was in (gradual) composition. I think this relays Matthew's source (and Thomas' of course).