Ancient Bioi and Luke's Modifications of Matthew's Longer Discourses

Abstract

Matthew's Gospel is known for its long, flowing discourses. The speeches in Luke, by contrast, are shorter and scattered throughout his narrative. Some believe this difference is evidence against the so-called ‘Farrer hypothesis’ – the view that Luke used both Mark and Matthew as sources. One response, however, is that Luke wanted to bring his speech lengths into closer conformity with the literary standards of Greco-Roman bioi. An analysis of seventeen representative bioi suggests that Matthew's speeches were exceptionally long for medium-sized biographies such as his own. This fact provides a plausible literary motivation for Luke to abbreviate Matthew's discourses.

Mimetic Mediators in Mark: How Graeco-Roman Biographies Use Secondary Characters to Offer Multiple Patterns of Imitation

“…Koskenniemi (1994: 169–89) points to Philostratus’s considerable time-gap to Apollonius, his use of questionable sources, and obvious inaccuracies in Apollonius’s involvement in world politics to conclude that Philostratus’s biography tells us more about the third century than the first. Archer (2022: 85–86) unconvincingly argues that Philostratus’s work is too long to be counted as a biography. Yarbro Collins (2007: 166–67, 278–79) notes similarities between Apollonius’s and Jesus’s wonderworking abilities.…”