Saturday, August 22, 2009

Observations on the Use of the Synoptic Gospels in the Writings of Justin Martyr

Martens, Gottfried. "Observations on the Use of the Synoptic Gospels in the Writings of Justin Martyr." All Theology Is Christology: Essays in Honor of David P. Scaer.  Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press. 49-65.

This is one of the more hard-core academic articles I've seen in a while.  I hope I understood it adequately.  By the way, it's the kind of writing and topic that I'm interested in early Christian literature.  Cuts right to the chase of how the Scripture is understood by early orthodox believers.

Justin Martyr (ca. 110-165) makes many quotations or alleged quotations from the synoptic gospels but often his wording doesn't seem to match up with the gospels as we have received them.  How do we explain this?  Is it due to a faulty memory?  Is it due to Justin's use of non-canonical gospels?  Does Justin use some sort of a harmony that has errors?  Is there a form criticism thing going on?  Martens lays out the problems but does not settle on a solution immediately. He considers the work of Arthur Bellinzoni, a scholar who has tried to resolve these problems using Form Criticism, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of Bellinzoni's work.

Martens compares some of Justin's quotations of texts in the synoptic gospels and observes that while Justin tends to say approximately the same thing as he has said elsewhere in his written works, and while the concepts are quite the same as those found in the synoptic gospels, the wording is significantly different.  Bellinzoni assumes this to be evidence that Justin did not have access to the definitive text of the synoptic gospels.  Unfortunately, Bellinzoni is unable to show where Justin has the same reading of the gospel text that any other church father does.  This would be highly unlikely.  If there were a text in circulation, one would think some other church father would have used it as well.

Is this oddity of Justin's quotation a matter of a faulty memory?  That would be a nice assumption, but Justin says quite specifically that he is quoting from a written source.  Is it a harmonization that has paraphrases?  Again, we can't seem to find any other evidence of such a document with those particular readings.  Martens goes on to discuss what we do know from Justin's writings about his understanding of the synoptic gospels.  First, he refers to them as being three in number, and in written form.  He considers them authoritative texts.  Justin's arguments are also clearly dependent on the concepts in the synoptic gospels, with Matthew being the most important and Luke less so.    Justin is also someone who clearly thinks highly of the written Scriptures, taking issue with the Marcionite canon.  So we don't want to assume Justin is taking the Scripture lightly in any way.

In the end, Martens does not tell us why he thinks Justin would have this oddity in his quotations.  Justin is obviously someone who thinks very highly of Scripture and to whom the specific meaning of what Jesus did and taught was of the utmost importance.

I personally find it worth considering that maybe Justin was holding to a different standard of quotation than the standard we would hold someone to today.  I recall some of the reading I did in the Journal of Early Christian Studies indicating that the idea of a "translation" was often extended to a new, expanded, paraphrased, or otherwise altered edition of a work.  It may be that we need to reconsider the rigid definition we have of a quotation, at least when we look at ancient authors.

That said, if you quote me, please use today's standards for what a quotation is.  Otherwise, claim credit for the words and ideas yourself!

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