Studies in the Gospels (Part Five)

 


Welcome to the fifth installment of my series on the gospels.  In this post we will look at the “Sermon on the Mount,” which is a famous part of the double tradition.  Just to review, the “double tradition” denotes material that appears in Matthew and Luke but not in any of the other Canonical gospels.  As we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we’ll take note of some important differences in the way the two authors present it.  I will present the data in parallel and then I will make some comments.  I will put the verse numbers in parentheses before each section of text.  I am using the Revised Standard Version of 1971 for the text.

1.       The Setting of the Sermon:

Matthew 4:24-5:2

Luke 6:17, 20

(4:24) So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. (4:25) And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

 

(5:1) Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. (5:2) And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

(6:17) And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.

 

(6:20) And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

 

Note that the setting is different in Matthew and in Luke.  We can conclude that either the double tradition document did not contain a setting or that one of the gospel writers changed the setting. To review, the double tradition was a literary collection of Jesus’ wisdom sayings, parables, controversies with the Pharisees and miracle stories.  Each unit (saying, parable, story, etc.) stood on its own and could be grouped with other units according to the design of the gospel writer. Matthew and Luke arranged these units in different sequences and sometimes had to supply a setting for a set of units that they grouped together.  In this case, Matthew chooses the setting to be Jesus sitting on the top of a mountain surrounded by his disciples, speaking to them and to crowds presumably at the bottom of the mountain. Luke chooses the setting of a level place where Jesus is standing and speaking, surrounded by his disciples and a large crowd of followers. The original document probably did not contain a setting for this grouping of sayings. In Matthew this becomes the "Sermon on the Mount" and in Luke it is the "Sermon on the Plain."

Let’s now look at the set of sayings within this sermon commonly known as the Beatitudes. I have placed in brackets and italics any text that does not appear in both gospels. I have left an empty space when there is a saying in one gospel without a parallel in the other gospel.

2.      The Beatitudes

Matthew 5:3-12

Luke 6:20b-23

(5:3) Blessed are the poor in spirit,

            for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 

 

[(5:4) Blessed are those who mourn,

            for they shall be comforted.]

 

 

[(5:5) Blessed are the meek,

            for they shall inherit the earth.]

 

 

(5:6) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[(5:7) Blessed are the merciful,

             for they shall obtain mercy.

(5:8) Blessed are the pure in heart,

              for they shall see God.

(5:9) Blessed are the peacemakers,

              for they shall be called sons of God.]

 

[(5:10) Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.]

(5:11) Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

(5:12) Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(6:20b) Blessed are you poor,

                for yours is the kingdom of God.

 [6:24 – But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(6:21) Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied.

[6:25a – Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger]

 

[(6:21b) Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh.]

[6:25b – Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(6:22) Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man!

(6:23) Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

[6:26 – Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.]

 

 

We can observe several things from this passage:

·         They both keep to the same general order, beginning with the blessing for the poor and ending with the blessing on those who are reviled and hated for Jesus’s sake, followed by a final exhortation to rejoice.

·         Matthew contains six blessings which do not appear in Luke (see the ones in italics above in the Matthew column).

·         Luke has added four “woes” which contrast with each of his blessings.  Matthew does not have any “woes.”

·         Luke has one additional blessing which is not in Matthew (6:21b).

·         They both have three blessings shared in common (verses 3,6 and 11 in Matthew) along with one command to rejoice also shared in common (verse 12 in Matthew).


Looking carefully at the first two blessings shared in common we notice something interesting.  Luke is writing about the physical conditions of poverty and hunger, but Matthew “spiritualizes” both of those to be about humility (poor in spirit) and holiness (hungering for righteousness).  This is an editorial change.  Most scholars think the Lukan passages are closer to the original source, and that Matthew has changed them for theological purposes.  In general, the tradition moves from simpler sayings to more complex sayings. If we have two versions of the same saying, the simpler one is probably earlier and more authentic. Jesus' original blessings were probably spoken to people in the crowds in Galilee who were literally poor and literally hungry.  Many people in rural Galilee in the first century were tenant farmers and they lived in poverty. One theory is that Luke copied the source document, but Matthew changed the wording to produce a meaning related to morality – elevating the character traits of humility and a hunger for righteousness. Another possibility is that they were working from two different sources and they both copied their sources verbatim.

The beatitudes are unique to Matthew and Luke.  They don’t appear in Mark or in John. They are very memorable and form a core of what most Christians think of when we think about the teachings of Jesus. It’s interesting that Luke included woes and did not include several blessings that Matthew included.  This leads scholars to think that both Matthew and Luke had unique traditions that they used as sources (in addition to the double tradition), which the other author did not have access to.  Mark did not have access to these sources either.  We call Matthew’s unique source “M” and Luke’s unique source “L”.  The double tradition material (material common to Matthew and Luke but not found in any other gospel) is generally designated by the letter Q, from the German word quelle, meaning source.  That leads to these formulas:

Luke = Mark + Q + L

Matthew = Mark + Q + M

The fact that Luke did not add the additional beatitudes to his sermon on the plain probably indicates that he did not have access to Matthew.  Similarly, the fact that Matthew did not add Luke’s woes means that he probably did not have access to Luke.  Most scholars think that these two gospels were produced independently of one another between the years 80 and 85 CE.  This is 15 to 20 years after the publication of Mark's gospel.

When we do a detailed study of the double tradition (Q) material, we find that it consists of parables and wisdom sayings related to rural, agrarian settings, not urban settings.  This leads some scholars to conclude that this material was based on Jesus’ teachings in Galilee, where the audience would have been rural and agrarian. Based on this, we suspect that the double tradition material may actually be older than the material in Mark.  In other words, these wisdom sayings and parables may have existed as a written collection circulating in Galilee before the gospel of Mark was written in 65 CE.  Some scholars date the double tradition document to around 50 CE.

In my next post we will explore in detail the two accounts of the Lord’s prayer.  That is also part of the double tradition and it appears in one version in Matthew and in another version in Luke.

 

 


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