This is quite an interesting little passage, but you should include Mark 3:1-6 and Luke 6:6-11 to see what’s going on.
What Luke is doing here is clear enough to me anyway. Mark 3:1-6 is the original story, concerning the man with the withered hand. Matthew expands it in 12:9-14, and adds the illustration. Luke, following Mark, has already summarized the story early on in 6:6-11. So far so good, and not too controversial, I hope?
Now is where it gets fun. Here in Luke 14:5, I think, Lukes has arrived at the same story in Matthew, and doesn’t want to drop the very nice illustration. But he has already summarized the withered hand story from Mark and can’t just repeat it, nor go back and erase. So the ἄνθρωπος χεῖρα ἔχων ξηράν becomes ἄνθρωπός τις ὑδρωπικός – a bit of a wink to the reader – and he tells an altered version to preserve the Matthean content.
I agree and furthermore my assessment of the entire field of Synoptic research is more critical than Eta Linnemann’s. My favorite book on the topic is by David Laird Dungan.
David Laird Dungan, History of the Synoptic Problem, Yale UP, 1999.
Linnemann, Eta. Is There a Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary
Dependence of the First Three Gospels. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Interesting, plausible, and like nearly all theoretical reconstructions, subjective and impossible to prove. One of the things that makes NT studies so much fun…
Seeing as this seems like a respectful forum full of healthy positive energy, let me share something that I found quite interesting when I was looking into Joel’s suggestion to read Luke 6.
It seems that in composition / compilation, Luke needed to add an extra phrase to the end of verse one to complete the sentence, so he added a clause based on ψήχειν/ψώχειν (a synonym of τίλλειν) to round out the thought beginning with ἠσθιον used as a contextualiser. I guess that the Medieval redactors felt that there was no much telicity in having the direct object τοὺς στάχυας with that verb, so they bumped that object up to the previous (specific) clause with τίλλειν. As far as being a composer / redactor, Luke was able to round out (or make complete) thoughts, but in this case, he left his introductory or contextualising phrase too heavy for the sensibilities of wider readership.
My first reaction to this was to think that you were being sarcastic and deliberately writing a post to prove my point. But in case you are serious, note that Matthew has:
Note that Matthew also “adds” καὶ ἐσθίειν, so would you say the same dynamic is coming into play, the need to round out the thought? And why would anyone think there is no “telicity” for the verb τίλλω? And what medieval redactors? The vast majority of manuscripts from ancient times read this way, and the textual variation that exists does not affect the point.
ψώχω (Hesych.; Etym. Mag. p. 818, 44; as a mid. Nicander, Theriaca 629) to rub someth. under pressure so as to make it smaller (cp. ψώμιον), rub so as to thresh or separate the seed from its husk (Diosc., Mat. Med. 5, 159 pass.) ἤσθιον τοὺς στάχυας ψώχοντες ταῖς χερσίν Lk 6:1.—DELG s.v. ψήω D. Frisk s.v. ψῆν. M-M.
τίλλω impf. ἔτιλλον; aor. ptc. τίλας (ApcrEzek [Epiph. 70, 10]). Pass. pf. ptc. gen. τετιλμένου Is 18:7; aor. 3 sg. ἐτίλη Da 7:4 (Hom. et al.; pap, LXX; PsSol 13:3; AscIs 2:11) pluck, pick τὶ someth. (Diod S 5, 21, 5 τοὺς παλαιοὺς στάχυς τίλλειν; τίλλ. χόρτον: PFlor 321, 47; 322, 20.—Philo, Leg. ad Gai. 223, De Jos. 16) στάχυας heads of wheat Mt 12:1; Mk 2:23; Lk 6:1.—Dalman, Arbeit II 339; BCohen, The Rabb. Law Presupp. by Mt 12:1 and Lk 6:1: HTR 23, 1930, 91f; Murmelstein (s. on σπόριμος).—DELG. M-M. Spicq. Sv.
Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 1004). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Beautiful pictures. Which on eof them did Matthew imagine was being eaten when he simply wrote καὶ ἤρξαντο τίλλειν στάχυας καὶ ἐσθίειν? I think it was the second one. There is however, the logically possible argument that Mark and Matthew mention the disciples’ hunger, so they could be assumed to have skipped the step involving rubbing off the husks and eaten what they had plucked, like livestock. But, it guess that it would be shorter period of time from sight to swallow if the didn’t have a mouth full of stalks and husks.
Consider that a sentence like, “She killed a chicken and they had delicious lunch.” doesn’t imply that they ate raw meat, like foxes. The word “killed” means “cooked”, in that it mentions just a part of the process. Because both “killed” and “cooked” are talking about the same thing in reality, they are synonyms. Another person can say, “She cooked a chicken and they had a delicious lunch.” and we understand that it was killed (and plucked) too, before boiling or roasting. When I am mentioning “synonyms”, that is the sense that I am using it in. Luke uses a synonym = he uses another word that describes a step in the preparation process to talk about the whole process. Perhaps you could think of it as synecdochic synonymy.
To come back to the bigger picture for a moment, in essence I’m saying that Luke uses a pleonasm for the sake of maintaining stylistic forms.
It is useful to differentiate between three types of telicity; lexicosemantic, morphosyntactic and discourse-structural. Because τίλλειν is lexically telic, the association of the extra element τοὺς στάχυας with it would syntactically limit an already limited word - like something with two coats of paint of the same colour is still the same colour. When Luke wrote ἐσθίειν τοὺς στάχυας, the τοὺς στάχυας added an element of morphosyntactic telicity that may have conflicted with its discourse-structural need to have a lack of telicity - like painting a darker colour over a light colour in a place where light colours are expected.
I’m practically speechless. Really? Not only are kill and cook not synonyms, but the “logic” you use to arrive at your conclusion is incredible. You are giving your own idiosyncratic definition of synonym, a definition to which nobody else will agree.
This conversation sounded hauntingly familiar to me, and then I remembered:
Of course, that invites the question, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
ἑκηβόλος: See, Curly has rounded out Larry’s thought using a contextualiser, adding telicity with “bit,” synonymous as it is to “pick.” Curly has left his contextualising phrase to heavy for our sensibilities. For Larry, “pick” is synecdochic for “bit and ate.”
Barry: “ap·ple/ˈapəl/ noun 1. the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh. Many varieties have been developed as dessert or cooking fruit or for making cider. 2. the tree which bears apples.”
Joel: Curly’s composition is based on Larry’s. The Shemp document is a 19th-century fever dream of German scholarship.
Michael: sees an opportunity to troll believers in Moe
The classical definition, in which synonyms which are valid in (non-contextual) abstract, which everybody agrees to, reflects the idea that words in themselves and of themselves have a meaning - Classical rule; Synonyms are words which of themselves have similar meanings. If we move to the view that words have meanings in context, and without context (verbal or non-verbal) there is no meaning, then the definition of synonym needs to to be defined in terms of contexts too - Context based rule; Synonyms are words with have the same or similar meaning as each other in the context in which they are used. Further to the contextual meaning and synonymy, in the case where a word infers far more than its simple meaning in a context, then anything else that could infer the larger meaning is “synonymous”. Going the other way, inherent or zero context synonyms are a particular type of contextualised synonyms where the value of context is zero or null - everybody agrees with my definition its zero condition. Most people agree that words interact with their contexts for meaning to be developed. I find a conflict between holding to the idea of contextualised meaning, while maintaining the concept of decontextualised synonymy.
In a translational text like the New Testament, there is and added issue of different (hypothetical) approaches to translation are expressing an original meaning, and whether different renderings of a Vorlage are synonymous.
I think that the standard by which a synonym can be judged is interchangeablity. If one word can be put in place of another in a given context, and the overall meaning is about the same, then there is a case for synonymy. Within the absolute or non-contextual definition of synonymy, substituting one word for the other at the head of a definition is sufficient interchangeability to warrant the recognition of synonymy. In a context driven definition of synonymy, interchangeability in a given context is adequate to define words as synonymous in that particular context. In the case of synecdoche, then a word, which can infer the same whole, might be considered synonymous, because the meaning to be conveyed is not the part which conveys it, but rather the whole, which is implied in context by the part.
I draw a blank on that. You’ll have to explain it to me.
They aren’t synonyms in the Luke verse. One word refers to plucking the heads, the other to crushing them in the hand to get the kernels.
In Matthew the “pluck” signifies the whole process (yes, this is “synecdoche”). And “rub” or “crush” could have been used to refer to the same. The meanings would have been synonymous in such an (imaginary) case. There is no “classical” about it. However, in Luke, neither word signals the whole process, and there is no synecdoche, and there is no synonymity.
Your initial statement did not make any such tortured theory as you have now tried to argue. Reviewing, it appears that you made a blunder, and are trying to throw up squid ink now. I don’t see the point. People who don’t know the technical vocabulary you are using can’t understand you anyway, and people who do know the technical vocabulary that you are using aren’t impressed by its overuse.
Interestingly, the impetus for this part of the thread comes from the repeated use of εὐδία by our believing friends. Seeing bedwere put εὐδία at the very end of a sentence irritates me. Without some disconnective strategy, such as putting it in a prepositional phrase, it can’t be there.
You have more-or-less got that, so here is the background. Assuming Marcian precedence and then working in the details from Matthew, the crux comes when Luke tries to remove the periphrasis and replace it with the inceptive (ingressive) imperfect. The basis for composition is the pairing of verbs, and that is worked out by the three authours in different ways.
In Mark, the scene begins with the first pair of vebs in the (possibly) Semitic structure of Καὶ ἐγένετο¹ παραπορεύεσθαι² αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς σάββασιν διὰ τῶν σπορίμων, That structure may in fact not follow the phrase pairing rules so closely. After that, in the second verbal pair the periphrastic tense is paired with the following participle καὶ ἤρξαντο¹ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ὁδὸν ποιεῖν¹ τίλλοντες² τοὺς στάχυας.
In Matthew, the ἐγένετο structure is dropped, leaving the παραπορεύεσθαι in first position in the verbal pair. Quite predictably, it is put into the “passive” form of the middle-passive voice to signify that a verb which is usually used in the second place in a verbal pair, is now being used in first place. (Carl Conrad doesn’t seem to have made an attempt to account for patterns of usage, that show up when the dual speech styles are analysed, when he talks about in his two-voice theory). Ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἐπορεύθη¹ ὁ Ἰησοῦς τοῖς σάββασιν διὰ τῶν σπορίμων· The verb in second place follows that οἱ δὲ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἐπείνασαν², Next, there are two ways to analysis what is happening. Either the ἄρχεσθαι is the first verb of the pair and there are two verbs in the second part, viz. καὶ ἤρξαντο¹ τίλλειν² στάχυας καὶ ἐσθίειν², OR that the periphrastic tense is the first verb with its status as a (periphrastic) first verb coming from the ἄρχεσθαι, and verb in the infinitive by itself (separated by the καί) is the second verb, viz. ἤρξαντο¹ τίλλειν¹ στάχυας καὶ ἐσθίειν². There are reasons for each of those choices being valid, so I’m undecided.
When Luke redacts that, he gets rid of the periphrastic tense with ἄρχεσθαι, and that has a knock on effect in the structure. Luke treats ἐγένετο + infinitive here as a periphrastic tense taking the positiin of the first in the pair, viz. Ἐγένετο¹ δὲ ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ διαπορεύεσθαι¹ αὐτὸν διὰ τῶν σπορίμων· The second phrase concerns the disciples that are doing their action in the context if Jesus’ action (ie. walking too) καὶ ἔτιλλον οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ τοὺς στάχυας, That first pair is followed by another pair, with καὶ ἤσθιον, ψώχοντες ταῖς χερσίν., in which ἐσθίειν has been moved into the position of the first (contextualising) verb in the pair. It seems to be good compositional practice to avoid leaving a first phrase hanging there, in the absence of a second phrase to complement it. That is to say, Luke added a second phrase expressing another part of the larger foraging / eating action. Such an action was already entailed in the story, and was explicated because there was a need to add another type 2 phrase.
Type 1 phrases tend to be less telic than type 2 phrases. That suggests that in the variant reading καὶ ἤσθιον τοὺς στάχυας ψώχοντες ταῖς χερσίν. (attested in P4, P75, Vaticanus and Ephraemi Rescriptus) should possibly be read with the τοὺς στάχυας grouped with the ψώχοντες.
Our zealous friend bedwere has got himself into a similar situation as Luke was forced to avoid, I think, with his recent composition.
It seems that his second phrase is another first phrase. If his εὐδία ἐγένετο is rightfully a contextualising phrase, then it needs another more telic phrase after it. That could be achieved by using inherently telic vocabulary, perhaps with more use of direct objects.
