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Gnomic Quatrains in the Synoptics: An Experiment in Genre Definition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
An abiding challenge for NT study is that of defining generic relationships among texts. The problem is especially significant for gospel sayings material, literary texts which most explicitly evoke and imitate the styles and forms of spoken language. It will be useful, then, to define generically a hitherto unnoticed Synoptic sayings-type exemplified just seven times in the gospels, especially if a class of unusually difficult texts may thereby be illuminated. Its rarity notwithstanding, the ‘Gnomic Quatrain’ (GQ) should be of particular interest as a special elaboration of the much more fundamental genre of the gnomic sentence.
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References
1 (1) Matt 6.24/Luke 16.13; (2) Luke 16.10–12; (3) Matt 6.22–23/Luke 11.34–(36); (4) Matt 10.24–25/Luke 6.40; (5) Matt 7.6; (6) Mark 2.21–22/Matt 9.16–17, Luke 5.36b–39; (7) 10.26b–27/Luke 12.2–3.
2 E.g., Betz, H.-D., ‘Matt 6.22–23 and Ancient Greek Theories of Vision’, Essays on the Sermon on the Mount (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 71–87, 72–4Google Scholar; Allison, D., ‘The Eye is the Lamp of the Body (Matthew 6.22–23 = Luke 11.34–36)’, NTS 33 (1987) 61–83, 71–8Google Scholar; Philo-nenko, M., ‘La parabole sur la lampe (Luc 11 33–36) et les horoscopes qoumrâniens’, ZNW 79 (1988) 145–51, 146.Google Scholar
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56 κύριος-δο
λος/δουλεύειν: Luke 16.13//, Matt 10.24//; μαμων
ς: Luke 16.13//, Luke 16.10–12; ῥήγνυμι: Mark 2.21–2//, Matt 7.6; φ
ς/φωτεινός-σκοτία/σκότος/σκοτεινός: Matt 6.22–3//, Matt 10.26–7//.
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