Goodacre Defends Luke Using the Gospel of Matthew

I'm continuing my way through Mark Goodacre's The Case Against Q.  In my latest reading, Goodacre is defending against detractors the view that the Gospel of Luke drew from the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, as opposed to drawing from a Q source that the Gospel of Matthew also uses.  In this post, I'll talk about how Goodacre responds to two arguments.  I won't mention every single argument that Goodacre attempts to refute, nor will I mention every argument that Goodacre gives in response, but I will select the arguments that stood out to me.

1.  One argument that defenders of the existence of Q use against the notion that Luke drew from Matthew is that there is an absence of Matthean-like phrases in the Gospel of Luke.  Goodacre has a variety of responses to this argument. 

First, Goodacre says that Luke may have a reason to strip the peculiarly Matthean content of the stuff that he draws from Matthew.  For example, Luke's Sermon on the Plain has "Blessed are the poor" rather than Matthew's "Blessed are the poor in spirit" because Luke likes to emphasize the poor.  Moreover, according to Goodacre, Luke says in the preface to his work that he drew from a variety of sources, and so he may have sometimes preferred other versions than what he found in Matthew, but that does not mean that Luke was unaware of Matthew's Gospel or never used it.  Luke's Lord's Prayer, for example, is more succinct than the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, but that could be because Luke was accustomed to the shorter version and chose to use that, even though Luke was aware of Matthew's version.  Similarly, Catholics recite a particular version of the Lord's Prayer in their services, even though they know about other versions.

Second, Goodacre argues that there are cases in which Luke indeed does draw from Matthean phraseology.  For example, when discussing what John the Baptist was saying in exhorting people, Luke's telling of the event resembles what is found in Matthew more than what is found in Mark (Luke 3:16-17; Matthew 3:11-12; Mark 1:7-8).  

Third, in response to the argument that Luke often fails to use the order of events found in the Gospel of Matthew and omits things from Matthew, which would be odd if Luke were actually using Matthew's Gospel, Goodacre looks at how Luke is using Mark.  Luke shortens some things that he finds in Mark, or he redistributes what he finds to other contexts.  If Luke could do that with Mark's Gospel, why couldn't Luke do so with the Gospel of Matthew?


2.  I remember when I heard a New Testament professor present the view that Luke used Matthew, and I wondered why Luke and Matthew would have such different and contradictory infancy narratives, if such were the case.  Goodacre addresses that issue. 

First of all, Goodacre notes commonalities between the two infancy narratives: Jesus is born of a virgin, Jesus is born in Bethlehem, etc.  Matthew 1:21 is also similar to Luke 1:31.  In Matthew 1:21, Joseph is told, "She will give birth to a son and you shall call him Jesus."  In Luke 1:31, Mary is told, "You will give birth to a son and you will call him Jesus."  According to Goodacre, the statement is more appropriate in Matthew's Gospel, for even Luke acknowledges that the father (or both parents) named the children (Luke 1:13, 59-66; 2:21).  But Luke "has taken over a clause that was more appropriate in its original context in Matthew" (page 57).

Second, Goodacre argues that Luke may diverge from Matthew because he dislikes elements of Matthew's story.  Defenders of the idea that Luke did not use Matthew have asked why, if Luke knew of Matthew's infancy story, Luke did not mention the magi, when that would have coincided with Luke's pro-Gentile message.  Goodacre responds that Luke's Gospel is often silent about Jesus' interaction with Gentiles, for Luke goes to great lengths to "keep the Centurion out of Jesus' sight" (Matthew 8:5-13//Luke 7:1-11) (56).  Goodacre also notes that Luke has a negative view of magi in Acts 8:9-24 (the story of Simon Magus), and so Luke's omission of the magi from his infancy narrative is not surprising.

Third, Goodacre speculates that Luke decided to write an infancy story because he saw the one in Matthew and wanted to improve upon it.  And, in the eyes of many, he did, Goodacre notes, for many churches use Luke's infancy story.

I think that Goodacre's arguments are powerful, but I have three points to make.  First, in determining whether Luke used Matthew or Matthew and Luke both used Q, I think it's important to look at the parallels and see where Luke omits Mattheanisms, and to ask if Luke would have a reason to make such an omission.  When the omission would accord with Luke's ideology, fine, but what if it does not in certain cases?  Should we assume that Luke simply had it in for Mattheanisms and wanted to omit them in his own telling of events?  Or does it make more sense to say that Luke does not use those Mattheanisms because he was not using Matthew, but rather the Q source?

Second, on a related note, I can see why Luke would omit pieces of Matthew's infancy narrative that contradict his own ideology.  But why would Luke totally disregard elements of Matthew's narrative that do not appear to relate to his ideology, one way or the other?  Why would Luke present Joseph and Mary going from Nazareth to Bethlehem due to a census, when he could have simply imitated Matthew by placing Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem at the outset?

Third, how do we know that Luke is using Matthew and not vice-versa?  Luke coming after Matthew in date may simply be assumed within New Testament scholarship.  After all, Luke's Gospel appears to be late because it admittedly draws on different sources, plus Luke highlights that Christ is taking a long time to return, indicating that much time has passed.  But I still think that Goodacre should interact with how we can tell that Luke is the one using Matthew and not vice-versa.  (Maybe he did address that point and I've missed it, or I have not come to that part of the book yet.)