Using New Testament Greek (David A. Black)-Part XI

In Using New Testament Greek, Black next moves to tradition criticism: it's an umbrella term that encompasses several categorical subsets. Tradition criticism endeavors to locate or identify the sources behind our current texts; it seeks to track the historical path that texts took to arrive in their present form. The first type of tradition criticism I'll discuss is source criticism, then the discussion will transition to form criticism before trying to explain redaction criticism.

Black reports that source criticism arose between 1863-1924: Julius Wellhausen was one of the main players but other preceded him. Nevertheless, as the name implies, source criticism tries to determine which sources the biblical writers used to compose the Pentateuch or in the case of the GNT, the Synoptic Gospels or other parts of the Christian scriptures.

A famous way of explaining the putative sources behind the Synoptics is to say that Mark was written first (Markan Priority), then both Matthew and Luke employed Mark as a source along with Quelle (a hypothetical source purportedly containing Jesus sayings). One illustration that has been given is a student using sources to write a research paper or a journalist employing sources for a story.

If this view is tenable, then GNT writings should reflect some type of literary dependency; in fact, source critics argue this is just what one finds in the Synoptics. While John's Gospel is supposed to be over ninety percent unique, Matthew allegedly reduplicates practically all of Mark's Gospel and Luke contains roughly eighty-eight percent of Mark's content (Daniel Wallace). However, the inverse is not true for the other Gospels' relationship to Mark whose Gospel reduplicates relatively little of the others. 

GNT scholars are inclined to view Matthew and Luke as expansions of Mark: twenty percent of Matthew does not appear in either Mark or Luke, but two hundred verses in both Luke and Matthew are similar to one another like the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 5-7; Luke 6:20-26; Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4): this parallel material is often identified with the hypothetical Q source.

Conversely, David Black says one cannot ignore the originality of each Gospel. They are so original that it's difficult to tell which Gospel was written first. Yet the strength of literary dependency theories is that they purportedly explain more about how one Synoptic Gospel relates to another than alternative constructs.

On the other hand, form criticism (Formgeschichte) claims that one can identify oral sources by means of occurrent parables, sayings, miracles, and pronouncement stories that appear in the Synoptic Gospels, that is, the so-called Gattungen that ostensibly existed between 30-50 CE (Black); another name for Gattungen is "pericopes." This type of analysis originated between WWI and WWII, beginning with Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932) and later shaped by Martin Dibelius (1883-1947) and Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976).

Reconstructing how the accounts of Jesus' life might have existed in oral form seems to involve a good deal of speculation or reading behind the text. That is why Paul Anderson has been particularly good at demonstrating the limitations of Bultmannian form-critical constructs. Rudolf Bultmann is apparently Anderson's primary target when he critiques form criticism within the context of GJohn; furthermore, Anderson wrote an introduction for Bultmann's Johannine commentary which offers constructive feedback on the latter's work.

Another preoccupation of Formgeschichte is analyzing the possible Sitz im Leben of early Jesus pericopes. In other words, how were these pericopes used in the early ecclesia? How did they function? For example, Black suggests that the account in Mark 7:24-30 may have been remembered in the oral tradition because it communicated a lesson about Jesus' treatment of those outside Judaism. This could have been the account's Sitz im Leben (life situation).

Black thus concludes: "Form criticism, then, though extremely subjective at times, can both clarify the process responsible for the remembering and recording of the text and can lead to a greater appreciation of the text’s life in the experience of the early church."

A final consideration in this entry is redaction criticism; this form of tradition criticism is the latest one to arise and it emerged at the end of WWII. "Redaction" means that the Synoptic writers supposedly  did more than compile prior Gattungen: redaction criticism would contend that the Gospel writers edited preexisting material--they allegedly selected, arranged, and presented things from their theological point of view. Black gives the example in Mark 1:13 about Mark being the only Synoptic writer to mention "wild beasts" during Jesus' temptation. Why did Mark include this detail whereas others did not? What about the slave of the high priest whose ear was cut off by Peter? Only Luke records Jesus healing the man's ear. Why is this detail only in Luke? Redaction critics would say that Mark or Luke added these details to get across a certain point.

I am not trying to defend any forms of tradition criticism, much less redaction Geschichte, but scholars routinely wield these methods. So it is good to know what they all entail. In my two concluding two posts on Black's book, I will discuss some ways that one can do exegesis with Hebrew or Greek biblical texts.