Sunday's sermon was based on 2 Corinthians 12:1 ff., but what caught my attention was the Gospel appointed for the day, from Mark 6:1 ff., where Jesus sends out the disciples "by two and two," commanding them to take "nothing for their journey, save a staff only" and to "be shod with sandals."
The parallel in Matthew 10 contradicts these details, where Jesus says "provide . . . neither shoes, nor yet staves . . ." (vss.9-10), whereas Luke fails to mention the staves altogether, but agrees with Matthew about the footwear (10:4).
Neither Mark nor Luke represent the episode in the explicit eschatological terms which thoroughly infuse Matthew's parallel account. Indeed, Matthew transfers much of the eschatological imagery and language which Mark reserves for the yet somewhat distant time of his "little apocalypse" in Mark 13 into a much earlier period of the ministry of Jesus. In Matthew 10:23 Jesus says, "For verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." This latter is the startling saying which so preoccupied the imagination of Albert Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus. As such these differences are a reminder of how the author of Matthew is at pains to correct the record of Mark. Luke also does this in his own way and at a later date, and openly states it as his aim in providing his own orderly and accurate account, the existence of other similar declarations of the gospel (presumably Mark and Matthew) notwithstanding (Luke 1:1 ff.). The Synoptics thus represent a stream of tradition worked and reworked because of perceived but unstated deficiencies, the fact of which underscores the importance of the work of redaction criticism and of the need to let the individual compositions speak for themselves and be understood on their own terms as much as is possible.
Every critic will have his favorite problem texts from the Bible. One of mine is from 2 Peter 2:6-8 where the reader is reminded about righteous Lot, who "vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds" in Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus is made to recount this story of Lot's escape from God's judgment on those cities in Luke 17:28 ff. But neither author seems to be in the least bothered by the seamy conclusion of the story in Genesis 19 whereby "both the daughters of Lot" were "with child by their father" (vs. 36). Having lost their husbands (!) to the fire from heaven and being unable to find new ones in their mountain hideaway, they got their father senseless drunk (on successive evenings, at least) to get children by him without his knowledge. The apples don't fall far from the pillar of salt, so to speak. What a family.
And never mind the internal problems with the story in Genesis 19. Are the daughters virgins (vs. 8) even though they have husbands (vs. 14)? Or has some considerable but unstated period of time intervened? Lot at length finds himself in difficult straights, barricaded in his house, but does a righteous man offer to throw his own flesh and blood to a mob of rapists in the street to protect the messengers of God within? It's as if none of this is known, or matters, to the authors of 2 Peter and Luke.
Another wonder is the famous example from Titus 1:12 f., which approvingly quotes the ancient maxim "The Cretans are alway liars." If you need a proof text for stereotyping an ethnic group, there you have it. Some say such reputations were justly deserved, however politically incorrect it may be today to say so openly. But it is hard to imagine the Paul of the Epistle to the Romans saying such a thing: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (12:18).
Some problems are more serious than others, for example, the difficulty with identifying Cyrenius the governor of Syria from Luke 2:1 f. It bears repeating, however, that such problems are not unique to the Bible. Tacitus' understanding of the Jews in his Histories is riddled with mistakes, but we don't give up in despair of learning from him about matters nearer to Rome because of it. It should more often be considered that the weaknesses we discover on the page are more nearly a reflection of our own, and tell us more about the human condition than we care to admit, the theme of the sermon, had I been paying better attention.
