This series of posts (previous one here) on Dungan’s summary of arguments for the Gospel of Mark being the last of the canonical Gospels to have been composed is contrarily working backwards. My first post (the one previous to this) outlined Dungan’s final points in his chapter. I am saving his “first points” for last. They address an interesting phenomenon in biblical studies that mythicists certainly know exists among these scholarly ranks: winning arguments by means of ad hominem attacks and declaring the opposition “long since defeated” when it has merely been ignored. (Well what do you expect from a vestigial religion study from medieval days?) And don’t forget the circular reasoning that becomes so embedded in the conventional wisdom that most who read it tend to be hypnotized by the spiral and come to believe they are travelling through the straightest of tunnels.
But to continue here with one of Dungan’s argument for Markan posteriority from somewhere in the middle of his discussion . . . .
Dungan structures his discussion on Mark being the last written of the canonical Gospels around B. H. Streeter’s formulations. In chapter 7, The Fundamental Solution, of The Four Gospels (1924),
The primitive character of Mark is further shown by
(a) the use of phrases likely to cause offence, which are omitted or toned down in the other Gospels,
(b) roughness of style and grammar, and the preservation of Aramaic words.
Since these are generalized headings Dungan zeroes in on some of Streeter’s specifics that fall under them. One is Streeter’s explanation for Matthew’s and Luke’s “improvements on Mark” is that they “have a reverential motive”. Again from the same link to chapter 7 above, Streeter wrote: Continue reading “Do Mark’s Primitive Language, Aramaicisms and Theology Really Argue for Markan Priority?”