September 07, 2007

Minor Agreement of the Week: "You say that I am."

I'm not planning on an ongoing series (not even weekly but certainly not daily), but this is another fun agreement to point out.

When Jesus is asked at his interrogation before the chief priests whether or not he is the Christ, in Matthew Jesus says "You say [so]" and in Mark Jesus says "I am" while in Luke Jesus says "You say that I am!"

I suspect most would argue against calling this a minor agreement. But I will argue against the notion that Luke and Matthew both independently turn the question back on the interrogators, as Jesus does in all three gospels when interrogated later by Pilate.

Mark 14.62 Luke 22.70 Matt 26.64

σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστὸς
ὁ υἱὸς
τοῦ εὐλογητοῦ;
ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς
εἶπεν·

ἐγώ εἰμι

σὺ οὖν εἶ
ὁ υἱὸς
τοῦ θεοῦ;
ὁ δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς
ἔφη·
ὑμεῖς λέγετε
ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι.
ἡμῖν εἴπῃς εἰ σὺ
εἶ ὁ χριστὸς
ὁ υἱὸς
τοῦ θεοῦ.
λέγει αὐτῷ
ὁ Ἰησοῦς·
σὺ εἶπας.


"Are you the Christ,
the Son
of the Blessed?"
And Jesus
said,

"I am."

"Then are you
the Son
of God?"
And he
said to them
"You say
that I am."
"Tell us
if you are the Christ,
the Son
of God."
Jesus
said to him,
"You said so."

Luke's context comes after first giving the elongated answer about "If I tell you, you will not believe it" (Can't you just hear Jack Nicholson hollering "You can't handle the truth!"?) I note that manuscript Θ does have Mark's response including Matthew's "You say".

I wonder if one might offer the simplistic solution that Luke combined Matthew's "You say" and Mark's "I am" to get "You say that I am."

2 comments:

Ben said...

Good post, Joe.

I'm not sure about Jack Nicklaus saying "You can't handle the truth!" The truth about missing a easy putt, perhaps? It's Jack Nicholson you're after.

Ben

Joe Weaks said...

Doh! Change made.