1 Timothy 5:18 (Nielsen)

D.R. Edwards dedwards@bae.uky.edu
Tue, 10 Mar 1998 00:59:42 -0500 (00889531182, 9803100554.AA08497@bae.uky.edu) 


>> D R EDWARDS

>> I'm sure this has come up before, but what's the take on 1 Tim 5:18?  The

>> writer refers to the phrase "The worker deserves his wages" as scripture,

>> when this saying is recorded in the bible only in Luke 10:7.  The

>> bibliolaters (well, the better read ones, anyway) like to cite this as

>> evidence that Gospel of Luke was in circulation and regarded as

>>scriptural in Paul's

>> lifetime.

>>

>> I do not believe this.  I hold to the view of the pastorals being

>> pseudo-Pauline; at the time of their writing, G of L could well have been

in

>> circulation and regarded as authoritative.  If 1 Timothy should happen to

>> be Pauline, then the addition of the phrase in question could represent a

>> scribal addition introduced some decades after its composition.

>

RALPH NIELSEN
The writer of 1 Timothy, whether Paul or otherwise did not necessarily copy
the statement from Luke. First of all, Luke's gospel was not original; it
was copied from other sources, as he says in Luke1:1-4. One of the sources
from which Luke (and Matthew) copied was the lost gospel called "Q". And
sure enough, if you check the text of Q, there it is.

EDWARDS
Agreed.  However, the fact that the Timothy writer might have copied the
proverb from Q doesn't seem to be very helpful, because it would imply only
that the Timothy writer considered Q to be "scripture" rather than Luke.
Perhaps Q was considered scripture at the time 1 Timothy was written, but
I'm unaware of any evidence in support of this.  I personally find it more
likely that the proverb in question was a scribal addition at some later
date (or, as mentioned above, that 1 Timothy was written at a late enough
date that Luke could well have been considered scripture), but I've been
unable to locate any support for this idea in terms of textual variants.

As to the business of Q, I'm aware that the four document hypothesis is the
most popular explanation of gospel composition.  However, there's an idea
developed by Farrar and refined by Goulding (Goulder?) which holds that Luke
used Matthew, rather than Q per se, as one of his sources, implying that "Q"
was really Matthew's "M" material (to use Streeter's terminology).

NIELSEN
For more information on Q, read The Lost Gospel; the Book of Q & Christian
Origins, / Burton L. Mack (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993). Although the
aforementioned book contains the text of Q, you should buy The Complete
Gospels; Annotated Scholars Version. Rev. & exp. ed. / Robert J. Miller,
editor (HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. ISBN 0-06-065587-9 $18) It is a goldmine
of useful information. For convenience, scholars use the chapter and verse
numbering of Luke to identify what is borrowed from the lost gospel of Q.

EDWARDS
I have the book by Mack, and it's definitely a good book, as is his book,
Who Wrote the New Testament?  I don't have the book by Miller, however, and
I thank you for the tip on it.  I'll put it on my "to buy" list, along with
about a half-dozen others - birthdays just don't come often enough for me

:-/


NIELSEN
So this quotation in 1 Timothy is not late, but a pre-Lukan oral tradition.
1 Timothy itself, however, is generally regarded as not being by Paul. So
its author could have copied either from Q, or from the much later gospel
of Luke.

EDWARDS
Agreed that the saying itself isn't late and that epistle itself could very
well have been.  If the author copied from Q, however, then the implication
is that Q was considered authoritative, which strikes me as only slightly
more likely than considering GoL authoritative.