Here is the relevant portion of the slightly less
rough draft. Basically on these terms I agree
with Tim, but with the nuance that we treat all
three somewhat individually. (And this has
relevance to examining proposals for treating the
minor agreements on the basis of non-harmonised
readings in early versions of Mark, for example).

I have already mentioned something
of the new materials discovered and published in
the first half of the twentieth century. In some
ways, the century of the papyri has passed the
synoptic problem by without making any
particularly significant impact. While Matthew is
well served in terms of the number of early
fragments on papyrus from the late second and
early third century (P104 = POxy 4404; P64+67;
P103 = POxy 4403; P77 = POxy 2683&4405), not very
much text is extant in these four witnesses.
Indeed, judging by extant manuscripts up to the
fourth century Matthew (along with John) was one
of the most popular texts, extant in up to
seventeen manuscripts, but most of these are only
a portion of a single leaf, and in three cases
(which includes P45) fragmentary portions of two
leaves remain. Of course any evidence is
important, and the extant fragments can tell us
something about the relative popularity of the
gospels (at least in Egypt), about the formats
and contents of codices etc., but for the text of
Matthew as a whole we remain dependent on the fourth century uncials.
This is even more the case for Mark.
One of the striking results from the last hundred
years has been the lack of fulfilment of the
looked for event which Turner mentioned – the
hope that earlier manuscripts of Mark would
emerge from the period before the major uncials.
Indeed, with respect to the text of Mark our
knowledge has barely moved in a hundred years. In
the period before the uncials we have only a
single manuscript: P45, a mid-third century
codex, originally containing the four gospels and
Acts, but now extant in only 155 verses, or
approximately one quarter of Mark.[1] Even then
this includes the maximal figure, since most of
the Mark pages are considerably damaged. It is
notable that if we take Oxyrhynchus material
alone we have 13 copies of Matthew; 14 copies of
John; 2 copies of Luke and none of Mark.[2]
Unlike the other gospels then, we have no access
to evidence of Mark before or outside of its
inclusion into this (and then later) four gospel
codices (unlike the other gospels). In fact the
absence of Mark’s Gospel becomes a datum of
significance which is both significant in its own
right and also cries out for explanation
(assuming, as I think we must, that this is not
simply a random kind of variation).
Only for Luke do we have early papyri with
extensive amounts of text (esp. P75, but also P4
and P45: 7 leaves; 5 mss in total for II-IV); and
even more so for John (P66, P75: twenty mss in total from II-IV).
Clearly it is a vital concern of NT textual
criticism to study this early material (as well
as the early patristic citations) in order to
understand the transmission of the text back into
the second century, but the fact remains that our
knowledge of the text of Matthew and more
especially Mark in the second - third centuries is extremely limited.


[1] 4.36-40; 5.15-26; 5.38-6.3, 16-25, 36-50;
7.3-15; 7.25-8.1, 10-26; 8.34-9.9, 18-31; 11.27-12.1, 5-8, 13-19, 24-28.
[2] Matthew (13 copies), Luke (2 copies), John
(14 copies), Acts (3 copies), Romans (4 copies),
1 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1-2
Thessalonians, Hebrews (3 copies), James (3
copies), 1 John, Jude, and Revelation (3 copies).


At 09:41 11/04/2008, Tim.Lewis wrote:
>No, I was not suggesting that the Gospel of Mark
>postdated either Matthew or Luke. I was asking
>if, having better and/or earlier witnesses to
>the texts of Matthew and Luke, whether our
>reconstructed/critical text of Mark (NA27) more
>likely reflected a later text than what we have
>been able to do for Matthew & Luke. I.e. whether
>our reconstruction of Mark gets us, say, a
>reasonable mid-3rd century resemblance, while
>our recontructions of Mt & Lk push us half a
>century or so earlier? Has anyone made use of
>such an argument before? Perhaps this is more so
>a text critical question which would better suit a different E-list?
>Cheers,
>Tim
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: E Bruce Brooks
>To: synoptic@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 6:11 PM
>Subject: Re: [Synoptic-L] Anyone reading the
>conference papers? I want to discuss age of reconstructed Mk
>
>
>To: Synoptic
>In Response To: Tim Lewis
>On: Reconstructed Gospels
>From: Bruce
>
>TIM: In answer to Bruce's second question (what is meant by "reconstructed
>gospels?"): yes, it refers to text critics' best attempts at reproducing the
>alleged 'earliest' texts (i.e. autographs of Mark, Matthew & Luke) i.e.
>NA27(+).
>
>BRUCE: OK. If I rephrase the question this way:
>
>"what is the relative age of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as we know them via
>Nestle-Aland 27?"
>
>am I asking the same question? Otherwise, I think one is simply asking for
>the publication date of NA27. I would proposed to answer it thus:
>
>"The order of the final compositional versions of these texts is Mark,
>Matthew, Luke."
>
>Whether right or wrong in fact, does this qualify, in form, as an answer to
>the question?
>
>Tim's original question was: "Isn't our reconstructed text of Mark later
>than that for Matthew and/or Luke?" I still find that perplexing. The signs
>in the text (as known via the most up-to-date text criticism) seem still to
>point to the conclusion that Mark is earlier than both Matthew and Luke.
>
>Peter Head (mentioned by Stephen Carlson in his reply, not by Tim) on p259
>of his book has this: "Our first and perhaps most obvious conclusion is that
>*the traditional Christological argument for Markan priority is fatally
>flawed and unable to support on its own the priority of Mark in relation to
>Matthew*" [his italics, my capitalization]. It might then seem that he
>claims to have refuted Markan Priority. Not at all. His second and third
>conclusions are:
>
>[2] "*the data we have surveyed provide little encouragement for modern
>defenders of the Griesbach hypothesis.*" [ditto]
>
>[3] "*the Christological argument, if transformed in such a way as to focus
>on the positive redactional interests of the Evangelists, provides powerful
>support for Markan priority.*" [ditto]
>
>Peter's Oxford paper (cited by Stephen) seems minus its conclusion, but much
>of what is extant does discuss the effect of text criticism on Synoptic
>theory, particularly the fact that certain text critical decisions affect
>the number of "minor agreements" to be dealt with by that theory. That is,
>some MA are referred, by some text critics, to subsequent scribal
>corruption, and not to the respective supposed originals (or better,
>archetypes). I don't get the impression that Peter thinks that the MA vanish
>as an issue, but we should let him speak for himself, presumably in the form
>of a more complete draft. (Perhaps he already has; I notice that Oxford has
>not freshened this portion of its web side since the middle of March).
>
>Bruce
>
>E Bruce Brooks
>Warring States Project
>University of Massachusetts at Amherst
>
>
>
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>Synoptic-L homepage: http://NTGateway.com/synoptic-lYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
Peter M. Head, PhD
Sir Kirby Laing Senior Lecturer in New Testament
Tyndale House
36 Selwyn Gardens
Cambridge CB3 9BA
01223 566601