Kyle Hughes, a Dallas Theological Seminary
student and soon-to-be PhD student at the University of Virginia, kindly sent
me an early copy of his forthcoming Novum
Testamentum article “The Lukan Special Material and the Tradition History
of the Pericope Adulterae.” Kyle argues from Lukanisms in the Pericope Adulterae that an early version
of the text was in “L,” the source Luke allegedly used alongside Q and
Mark. In so doing, he adds further argumentation
to a view associated at various times with Henry Cadbury, Bart Ehrman, and
Josep Rius-Camps. Hughes takes a couple
shots at some of my publications on the Pericope
Adulterae, specifically the fact that I don’t think arguments based on
linguistic style are ultimately persuasive.
He hasn’t changed my mind there.
At the end of the article he agrees with my argument about the Pericope Adulterae’s insertion into
John’s Gospel, so it all balances out! All
in all, this is an impressive contribution for a piece of work that I suspect
was originally a ThM paper! Dan Wallace
is clearly investing heavily in his students, and he has bright ones in which
to invest. Congrats to Kyle.
This sounds really interesting. Does he interact with the reference in Papias to a woman being accused of many sins before the Lord as found in the Gospel of Hebrews (HE 3.39.17)? I know James R. Edwards (The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition) uses this as evidence for his reconstruction of the Hebrew Gospel, which he also argues is the source for much of the special material in Luke, but I was not quite convinced by his arguments that the references to such a Gospel in Epiphanius and Jerome are to a Gospel or Gospels that post-date the Synoptics. So I just wonder if Papias found this in one of the Synoptic sources like "L" (alternatively Dennis MacDonald puts it in his reconstructed Q+) and mistakenly attributed it to a "Gospel according to the Hebrews" or is this an anachronistic reference from Eusebius - what do you make of that whole issue?
ReplyDeleteThis would also fit well with George MacDonald's suggestion that Luke used Papias' Exposition of the Logia of the Lord, which is mentioned as having contained a story that seems to correspond to this one.
ReplyDeleteAre you referring to George MacDonald, the 19th century Scots author, poet, and minister, or Dennis R. MacDonald, whose book on Papias and the synoptic problem you just reviewed for RBL?
ReplyDeleteKyle here: Mike, I do interact extensively with the Papias tradition. I follow Ehrman (see his "Jesus and the Adulteress," NTS 34 (1988) 24-44) in distinguishing between two early forms: Papias/Didascalia and Didymus/G.Hebrews. It is the latter form that I believe to have the similarities to the Lukan special material in terms of style, form, content, and provenance.
ReplyDeleteGiven the way ancient citation worked and the interaction of oral and written tradition, I still can't see personally that there's enough evidence to conclude that there are two distinct traditions (as argues Ehrman). Also, if I remember rightly, the Greek in Eccl. Hist. is not clear about whether Papias or Eusebius attributes the story to Gos. Heb. I think, too, that someone, seems like it was AJ Klijn in New Testament Apocrypha, offered an interesting suggestion that, whoever it was, he didn't really have a copy of Gos. Heb.; he was just guessing, which is why there are no other traditions that the story was in that text. I don't think Kyle deals with some of this, but that's not to fault him. There's a lot of complexity in dealing with this particular problem and you can't cover it all in a journal article. Correct me if I'm wrong here, though, Kyle. I don't want to misrepresent your argument.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kyle for the reference. Ehrman helps resolve my discrepancy that Papias knew an early form of the story in some source but only later Eusebius labelled it as coming from the Gospel of the Hebrews, because when I look at some of the other patristic citations of the Hebrew Gospel it seems to me to come from a source(s) that postdate the Synoptics and probably Papias. But perhaps the Gospel of Hebrews incorporated a form of the pericope that goes back much earlier and was originally part of Luke's special material? I will have to read your article to find out.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I made a typo above: I meant to argue that I was not convinced by Edward's argument "against" the references to such a Gospel in Epiphanius and Jerome are to a Gospel or Gospels that post-date the Synoptics (i.e. since he sees all the patristic quotations as going back to a single Gospel text in Hebrew that was the source for Luke)
Chris is absolutely right that there is lots of complexity concerning these earlier traditions. A big part of the problem is that Eusebius (H.E. 3.39.17) considers the accounts found in Papias and the G.Hebrews to refer to the same account. Following Ehrman ("Jesus and the Adulteress," 41-42 n. 46) and Michael Holmes (Apostolic Fathers, 726), I think Eusebius was mistaken.
ReplyDeleteI think it really comes down to what you make of the relationship (or lack there of) between the entrapment story of Jesus freely pardoning a sinful woman (Papias, via Eusebius H.E. 3.39.17) and the story of Jesus' intervention in an execution proceeding (Didymus, Comm. Eccl. 223.6b-13a). I think they complement each other rather nicely, and together roughly approximate what we find in Codex Bezae, but of course not everyone agrees (Chris takes issue with Ehrman's reconstruction in his "Recent and Previous Research on the Pericope Adulterae," CBR 6 (2008) 387; I respond to him in note 5 of my article). I'd encourage interested people to look at these primary sources and decide for yourself! No doubt more could be written on all this.