In this, probably the last in my current series on editorial fatigue, I discuss another instance of "sudden onset fatigue syndrome," according to Mark Goodacre. Goodacre postulates that Luke eliminates the fact that Jesus was in a house when the paralytic was brought to him, then suffers "fatigue" and reintroduces reference to the house when he gets to the point where the paralytic's friends go up onto the roof. But this so-called "fatigue" comes up almost immediately after the verse in which Goodacre is insisting that Luke eliminates the house! And Luke has even implied a house a bit earlier by saying that they were trying to bring their friend "in." Goodacre carries this to the point of a wild overstatement--that in Luke men are going up to the top of a house which Jesus has not entered. But of course Luke has never indicated nor even implied that Jesus "has not entered" a house. He simply didn't mention the house immediately in the very first verse of the story, as Mark did.

This series shows the enormous implausibility of Goodacre's editorial fatigue theories.

Lay readers should be encouraged that so-called experts in Gospels studies do not have some special "line" on interpretive truth about the Gospels which allows them to discern that the evangelists are making factual changes in the stories. Though Goodacre scatters his article with Greek quotations, there is not some hidden "Greek wisdom" that shows that Goodacre's editorial fatigue theories are right. Instead, his theories defy legitimate, common sense reading and reasoning.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Freebibleimages.org

Thanks to Erik Manning for splicing this video when I had to record it in two segments.