From Dave Black Online:
1:52 PMNijay muses about Matthew’s Greek. “It is an unfortunate commonplace in classrooms of seminaries and Christian colleges to hear that Matthew improved and corrected the ugly and unintelligent Greek of Mark,” he writes. A fine compliment to our classrooms, but he is right. Questions about Mark’s “inferior” Greek crop up whenever I’m asked to speak on the topic of the synoptic problem. The fact is that Mark never set out to write a Gospel. He simply recorded the words of Peter viva voce as the latter gave a series of didaskalias before high-ranking officials in Rome. Oh, this is a “fact” only if you take the church fathers seriously, which most of us don’t — and which is another reason why our classrooms are failing our students. If you really want to dig into the synoptic problem, you’ll find yourself struggling with uncharted territory, including patristics. But it’s worth it!
(Used by permission. David Alan Black is the author of Energion titles Why Four Gospels? (2nd Edition), The Jesus Paradigm, and Christian Archy.)
