Subject: Occam's razor (Anti-Q continued)

From: "Vinton A. Dearing" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 14:03:21 PST

Ulrich Schmid has made a good point: when using Occam's razor you 
must be careful what you are shaving -- in the old phrase, you can't 
cut blocks with a razor. Some further points:
     The scattered verbal agreements among the Gospels I attribute to 
wandering scraps of written information that the Gospel authors 
transcribed. Dr. Schmid asks whether it would not be simpler to 
suppose that this information had already been collected and that the 
Gospel authors transcribed from the collection, for this supposition 
would reduce the number of sources for the Gospels. After 
considerable thought, I answer no, the number of sources is not 
reduced but increased by interposing a collection of scraps between 
the scraps themselves and the Gospels.
     Second point: Bob Waltz says the parables of the pounds and the 
talents are two versions of the same parable. His reasoning is 
similar to that of W. F. Howard in the old Interpreter's Bible, VIII, 
536-538, who says that the healings of the nobleman's son and the 
centurion's slave are two versions of the same healing. With respect 
to the healings, if Jesus could heal through the Spirit without 
visiting the sick he could have done so more than once -- and "absent 
treatment" being the norm among Christian Scientists today and in 
fact expected by all those who mean it when they say on parting from 
a friend, "pray for me," shows that Jesus could heal in this way. 
Therefore we must require close correspondences between narratives of 
healing before we decide that they are versions of the same event. 
The nobleman's son had a fever, the centurion's slave was paralyzed, 
the nobleman, a Jew, asked Jesus to come to the bedside, the 
centurion, a gentile, said "the word" was enough. Are these 
differences sufficient to classify the narratives as accounts of 
different healings? I think so.
     Jesus also taught in public and private for a number of years. 
His message transcended human experience and even his best students 
were slow to grasp it fully, but he was remarkably brilliant in his 
ability to devise metaphors expressive of the spiritual truths he 
had so often to repeat. Therefore we must require close 
correspondences between parables before we decide that they are 
versions of the same story. With respect to the pounds and the 
talents, (1) the pounds is based on the career of Herod's son 
Archelaus, the talents is not; (2) the pounds speaks to poor people, 
the talents to rich; (3) the pounds explicitly brings out the 
infinite benefits of God's grace -- turn $20 into $200 and you will 
rule over ten cities, as opposed to turn $5000 into $10,000 and you 
will rule over "many things" and enjoy favor; (4) the pounds has an 
additional message, for the talents concerns what we may call 
"positive" and "zero" thoughts and actions and the pounds concerns 
the "negative" as well (the rebellious citizens); both parables say 
that only the "positive" are rewarded, the pounds adds that the 
"negative" forces of evil will be destroyed. Are these differences 
sufficient to classify the two stories as separate parables? I think 
so.
     Third point: Stephen Carlson says that Herder and Lessing had 
different concepts about the sources of the Gospels, the former 
positing a lost oral gospel and the latter a lost written one. If you 
accept my definition of a document, namely, that it may have 
different forms, then there is no essential difference between Herder 
and Lessing, both suppose a document intervening between the facts of 
Jesus' life and the four Gospels (my 2a), one saying it had an oral 
form, the other a written one.  Carlson also says that over 200 years 
of New Testament textual criticism have confirmed Lachman's 
observation that Mark was generally a middle term between Matthew and 
Luke. Again, if you accept my axiom (actually Greg's, whose work and 
logic in the eyes of textual critics of English literature superseded 
Lachman's 50 years ago, though it seems to be widely unknown in 
Biblical studies), Mark cannot be a middle term. My axiom in this 
respect does not allow the qualification "generally." Even excluding 
the so-called Q material, and confining ourselves to passages where 
the three Gospels run parallel, Matthew and Luke repeatedly agree 
against Mark, so that, under the axiom, Mark is not a middle term. At 
most, he draws on a lost document that was a middle term, and it 
seems to me to be unnecessary to posit such a document.
       Vinton Dearing

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 97 17:11:05 +0100

>From my point of view, the scenario looks somewhat different. Consider this:
Two wandering scraps of written information (A + B) happen to be found in all 
four Gospels (Mt, Mk, Lk, Joh). If the authors, independent of one another and 
no collection (X) interposed, incorporated A + B within their narratives, we 
have to assume eight independent relations (connections) between A + B and Mt, 
Mk, Lk, Joh. 
On the other hand, postulating an intermediary collection (X) that already 
incorporated A + B reduces the number of relations between the various entities 
down to six, two between A + B and X, and another four between X and the 
Gospels. The number of entities has increased by one, but the number of 
necessary relations has decreased by two.
Now, when assuming that one of the existing Gospels was X with respect to A + B, 
i.e, e.g., Mark collected A + B and the rest is dependent upon Mark, the number 
of entities has not increased, yet the number of necessary relations has 
decreased by three when compared to the first scenario.
If we add just another two scraps of written information (C + D) things get much 
worse for theories about independently incorporating entities of that type. Yet, 
within the canonical Gospels we have much more than only A + B + C + D. 

Therefrom I conclude that the number of entities is by no means the sole 
parameter when applying Occam's razor. One also has to account for the number of 
necessary independent relations between the entities. 
I'm still not sure which hypothesis provides the most satisfactory balance (Once 
I used to be more enthusiastic about the role of 'Q' than now). However, the 
'wandering scraps of written information without any intermediary stage' theory 
is not among my favourits up to now. Maybe I will change, but there is more 
evidence needed to convert me.

>different healings? I think so.

In my view this assessment is much to hasty. This is more or less a mix up of 
parts of the individual narratives, then somehow eclectically split into two 
separate events.
a) The "son" vs. "slave" issue displays the following distribution: "son" 
(hYIOS: John 4,46.50.53; PAIDION: John 4,49; PAIS: Mt 8,6.8.13; Lk 7,7!; John 
4,51!) - "slave" (DOULOS: Lk 7,2.10) [BTW-- I am perfectly well aware that PAIS 
can also stand for slave, but this is not an issue here, for only the Lukan 
account unambiguously labels the sick "slave"]. When assuming only one healing 
and applying the way of reasoning as outlined in the initial post (Anti-Q), I 
could easily vindicate Luke of being "wrong" (Mt + John: hYIOS+PAIS = "son" vs. 
Lk: DOULOS+PAIS = "slave", i.e. two against one).
b) The same goes for "fever" (John 4,52) vs. "paralysation" (Mt 8,6). Now what 
says Luke? Well Luke says that the "slave" was "ill" and "going to die" (Lk 
7,2). This fits much better with "fever" than with "paralysation". Moreover, 
John also says that the "son" was "ill" (4,46) and "going to die" (4,47). With 
regard to this feature definitely Matthew is "wrong".
c) Moreover, in my view there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that the 
BASILIKOS (John 4,46.49) was a Jew. 

BTW-- It doesn't matter much that Christian Scientists regularly practise 
"absent treatment" when Christ usually practised "face to face or nearby 
treatment". This is the norm within the Gospels. Therefore, the unusual "absent 
treatment" is additional evidence that we are ultimately dealing with the same 
tradition in the various accounts of this healing narrative, in my view at 
least.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster