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Title: The Doublets in 19th-Century Gospel Study
Author(s): VAN OYEN, G.
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 73    Issue: 4   Date: Dec. 1997   
Pages: 277-306
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.73.4.504828

Abstract :
In his recent “Studies on Q” (1996), C.M. Tuckett states that the presence of the saying doublets in Mt and Lk is a traditional argument for the existence of Q, although it is “perhaps one of the weakest arguments” and its presence “could equally well be explained in other ways”. This is a strange and unexpected step in Tuckett's reasoning. First, he rightly argues in the same volume that the Mark–Q overlap texts are “probably one of the strongest arguments” for the two-source theory and against other hypotheses. But is not the discussion about Mark–Q overlaps mainly due to the presence of the doublets in Mt and Lk? Second, in his earlier comments on the doublets Tuckett, referring to P. Wernle, argued that doublets are “a powerful argument in favour of the view that there are two streams of tradition”; they can not be used as an argument for dependence of Mk on Q, because they would “appear to demolish one of the strongest arguments in favour of the very existence of Q”. But how strong an argument is the presence of doublets in nineteenth-century scholarship?

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