Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 26:1 (Mar 1983)
Article: A Surrejoinder To Douglas J. Moo
Author: Robert H. Gundry

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JETS 26:1 (March 1983) p. 71

A Surrejoinder To Douglas J. Moo

Robert H. Gundry

The order of this surrejoinder will follow, for the most part, the order of Moo’s “Rejoinder.” He starts by asking what makes my view preferable to others. My answer: its adequacy and economy in explaining the textual data. But the answer does not satisfy him, because I have not usually compared my view with other views so as to show in detail how it surpasses them in adequacy and economy. He chooses as his parade example the way I handle the interpretation of the parable of the sower (Matt 13:18–23): “He [Gundry] assumes throughout that Matthew had Mark’s text before him as he wrote … Yet not a single argument for the priority of Mark in this passage is advanced. And this despite the fact that David Wenham has made a strong case for the view that all three synoptics are using pre-canonical tradition in this pericope and that, if anything, Mark uses Matthew.”

Moo is criticizing me for failing to do what in my Commentary I invite readers to do (“make critical comparisons of their own,” p. 1; of. my ETS paper, pp. 1-3, 12). Yet a commentary the size of mine has too little room not only to present the author’s own views fully but also to survey and criticize the views of others, which, as Moo knows, are legion. Occasionally I do take up another view.1 Frankly, however, I did not think Wenham’s case strong enough to deserve special treatment. Moo’s and my judgments obviously differ here. But if limited space keeps him from detailing why Wenham thinks all three synoptics are using pre-canonical tradition and Mark may be using Matthew, why he thinks Wenham’s case is “strong,” and why he still holds to Mark’s priority (at least in general) despite Wenham’s “strong case,” the rug slips out from under his criticism that I should have detailed why I think Wenham’s view is weak in comparison with mine. Apparently Moo expects his readers to look up Wenham’s article, compare his arguments with mine, and make their own judgments. Well, then, I can expect readers of my Commentary to follow the same practice.

More specifically, Moo is asking for the impossible: the kind of treatment for each pericope in Matthew that one can find only in full-scale articles and monographs. Not even the bulky two- and three-volume commentaries (with 500–1000 pages in each volume) being published nowadays meet that demand. And despite their apparent comprehensiveness they contain numerous gaps. Moo even wants me to supply “reasons in particular texts” for my dependence on the Mark-Q hypothesis-i.e., he wants me to argue, pericope by pericope, with Farmer, Lindsey, Rist, and Léon-Dufour (whom h...

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