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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Referencing the Gospels: A Statistical Analysis
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
So I have a little time on my hands at the moment and thought I’d do a little bit of statistical analysis! Over the last few months of so I have been reading through a number of threads that go into Biblical analysis in order to just increase my knowledge of my own faith.
It has been an interesting journey. As I’m sure you all know we don’t agree politically on very much, but I do absolutely acknowledge that most posters on here are brilliant theists and leave me standing in the breadth and depth of their knowledge of Christianity.
Now, as I’ve been reading the threads I felt that certain Gospels were being referenced more than others. It felt like Matthew was the most commonly referenced, followed by John, Luke, and more rarely, Mark. That was my instinctive feeling, nothing more.
So this morning I have done some totally unscientific and methodologically questionable statistics to see if I was right or wrong. I picked 20 threads in Kerygmania and Limbo: Kerygmania that had a goodly number of posts in them. Then I looked in printer-friendly mode to get all of the posts, and then I did a “Find” in my browser (Firefox) for “Matthew “, “Mark “ and “Luke “. I missed John out because there was too much confusion between John the Apostle and John the Gospel writer. Note the space after each name. This was to get rid of “market” and usernames with “mark_” in and so on.
Here are the numbers…
Matthew: 165
Mark: 137
Luke: 213
So Luke is the most referenced Gospel, and Mark the least referenced.
It would have been nice to do the numbers for John’s Gospel, but I still feel it to be one of the most referenced, just from my reading around.
My questions then are…
1)Is it reasonable to conclude that John will be as heavily referenced as I believe?
2)Why is Luke so heavily referenced?
3)Why is Mark the least likely to be referenced?
4)Why is the Ship drawn towards certain Gospels and not others?
As I say, it isn’t a rigorous analysis in the least, but the numbers do back up my instincts a little bit. Things like this just make my brain itch!
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Honestly. The things people get up to in their spare time!
On the first question (John), I suspect the stats would be skewed by the existence of multi-year long thread on John's Gospel, a verse at a time. If that thread was excluded, though, there may still be a high count, because from memory there have been threads specifically dealing with matters in John's Gospel. There was one on Nicodemus, one on the dating of the crucifixion...memories fails. I suppose you would also have to iron out references to John the Baptist.
The question about Mark is interesting. Could it be that he is the least readable when it comes to interesting details - Matthew and Luke score rather more highly on birth narratives, for example, always a favourite at Christmas!
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Honestly. The things people get up to in their spare time!
On the first question (John), I suspect the stats would be skewed by the existence of multi-year long thread on John's Gospel, a verse at a time. If that thread was excluded, though, there may still be a high count, because from memory there have been threads specifically dealing with matters in John's Gospel. There was one on Nicodemus, one on the dating of the crucifixion...memories fails. I suppose you would also have to iron out references to John the Baptist.
The question about Mark is interesting. Could it be that he is the least readable when it comes to interesting details - Matthew and Luke score rather more highly on birth narratives, for example, always a favourite at Christmas!
Your points on John are noted. I didn't inlude John in my so-called analysis as it was just too difficult to separate out the various "Johns".
Actually one of the threads I did search on for Matthew, Mark, and Luke was the decade long thread on John! I am currently reading it. I am currently up to January 2008!
[ 08. March 2016, 09:15: Message edited by: deano ]
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
Luke is the longest gospel, Mark the shortest. Simply put, there is less to reference in Mark than there is in Luke.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
If you've been looking at recent threads (still in Keryg), a decent proportion of our threads derive from lectionary readings and many of us are Luke's Year (C) right now.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I don't always like Luke. He's a bit of a self-congratulating arse sometimes.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
Luke is the longest gospel, Mark the shortest. Simply put, there is less to reference in Mark than there is in Luke.
Plus, being synoptics, with many texts there is only a 1 in 3 chance that we'll quote it in that particular book. John obviously has more exclusive material so that of course will cause it to skew higher. I'm new to kerygmania so may be reading the lay of the land wrong, but would guess that John would get more hits because he makes more controversial claims-- the strongest claims for the divinity of Christ, for example, are in John. But maybe that falls in other territory.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
My questions then are…
1)Is it reasonable to conclude that John will be as heavily referenced as I believe?
Could be. John is so very different from the other three "Synoptics" with so many unique stories. If you have a question on, say, the parable of the mustard seed, you could just as well reference Mark, Matthew, or Luke, thereby splitting the number of hits. On the other hand, much of John's gospel does not find a parallel in the Synoptics - so if you wanted to discuss, say, Thomas the Doubter, it's only John. I would also agree with cliffdweller that John focuses on such things as "signs" - miracle stories - which make for good questions and threads.
quote:
2)Why is Luke so heavily referenced?
3)Why is Mark the least likely to be referenced?
The numbers of references you cited above are, interestingly, in order of the relative length of the gospel. It makes sense that Luke and Matt have more references than Mark, simply because Luke and Matt have much more material than Mark (more parables, sermon on the mount, Jesus' teachings, etc.)
quote:
4)Why is the Ship drawn towards certain Gospels and not others?
Interesting question! I wonder if we are, in fact, drawn more to certain Gospels or if that's just what comes up in a search (the search capabilities on the Ship being somewhat limited). Also, there's no real way of extracting all Kerygmania threads that now reside in Oblivion, so that's a whole bunch of references with no way of being checked. And, as Adam said, you might get more Luke references this year because many of us use the Revised Common Lectionary and it's the "Luke" year, so that's what we are hearing in church.
Just a few random thoughts.
[ 08. March 2016, 21:59: Message edited by: Mamacita ]
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't always like Luke. He's a bit of a self-congratulating arse sometimes.
Yeah well he did spend a lot of time hanging out with Paul AND he was a doctor and you know what they say about the difference between God and doctors...God doesn't think he's a doctor. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Anselm
Shipmate
# 4499
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Posted
Did you also search for abbreviations; like Mk for Mark, Lk for Luke, etc?
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carpe diem domini
...seize the day to play dominoes?
Posts: 2544 | From: The Scriptorium | Registered: May 2003
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