Scholarly Reflections
Wenham, David. "Chapter One: Paul's Use of the Jesus Tradition: Three Samples." in Wenham, David (editor), The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984, 7-37.
Wenham has previously concluded that Paul was familiar with teachings of Jesus, including those which do not appear in the Synoptic Gospels (Wenham [editor] 1984, 7). In this chapter he consders three passages which were not part of his previous study.
In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, speaking of divorce, Paul cites the Lord's teaching, but the teaching he states is nowhere in the canonical Gospels. Wenham considers it clear that Paul's language indicates a direct and purposeful quotation (Wenham [editor] 1984, 8). There are clear similarities between 1 Corinthians 7:10 and Mark 10:9, 11 and Matthew 19:6, 9. Because of these similarities, Wenham concludes that Paul was familiar with this material.
Wenham next broadens his survey to a larger part of Matthew 19 and Mark 10. He does find some similarity in content. For instance, both Paul and the evangelists speak in terms of marriage being a "one flesh" relationship which is broken by separation. Singleness as a gift of God in 1 Corinthians 7:7 is similar to Matthew 19:11 where some receive Jesus' teaching about singleness (Wenham [editor] 1984, 9). This suggests to Wenham that the tradition put to use here is earlier than many scholars have suggested.
The four important symoptic texts about divorce are Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:6, 9, Luke 16:18, and Mark 10:9-12. Wenham compares these texts and catalogs the grammatical and content similarities and differences (Wenham [editor] 1984, 10-11). He does find that the construction in part of Matthew 5:32 is similar to Luke, while the other part is similar to Mark, suggesting some element of influence. Wenham goes on to catalog a number of less obvious inconsistencies, then he observes that Paul's text in 1 Corinthians 7:10-15 has points of agreement in his grammar with Matthew and Luke but not Mark.
Wenham proposes a partial solution to the challenge of the origin of the text, that there were two basic narratives and that they were used differently by the various authors (Wenham [editor] 1984, 13).
The last portion of Romans contains many possible references to Jesus traditions. Wenham chooses to analyze Romans 12:14-21, which has strong echoes of the material from Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount/Plain" (Wenham [editor] 1984, 15). Particularly Romans 12:14 has parallelism which is very like Luke 6:28. When comparing the overall ideas expressed in these passages, Wenham observes that there are clear parallels between Luke 6:27-28, 32-33, and Matthew 5:43, 46-47 (Wenham [editor] 1984, 16). Wenham considers that Paul may have used a tradition which was also used in part by Matthew and Luke.
Romans 12:17-20 likewise shows a connection with Matthew 5:38-48 and, similarly Luke 6:27-36 (Wenham [editor] 1984, 17). The ethic described is that of doing good in return for evil. What Wenham finds significant is the similarity of the sequence of ideas (Wenham [editor] 1984, 18). The sequence of ideas is, in Wenham's estimation, quite possibly pre-synoptic, and was used both by the evangelists and by Paul (Wenham [editor] 1984, 19). After displaying the Greek text for both the Matthew and the Luke passages side by side Wenham observes that the differences have been a matter of scholarly debate, and that one or the other is assumed to be more similar to the underlying tradition. He then reconstructs what he thinks to be a likely reading of the traditional material (Wenham [editor] 1984, 21-22).
Wenham again finds that the Pauline material is very similar to the texts he can hypothesize as an early tradition underlying the Synoptic texts (Wenham [editor] 1984, 23).
In Galatians 1-2, Paul knows and tells some things of Peter which we might wonder at, particularly Peter's role as the apostle to the Jews (Wenham [editor] 1984, 24). The portrayal of Peter's apostolic work from Matthew 16 would not have been known to Paul at the time he wrote Galatians. Yet Paul speaks of the differences of his commission and Peter's commission (Wenham [editor] 1984, 25). Wenham concludes that Paul appeared to know about the traditions underlying Matthew's account, and that he knew it independently of the account in Matthew's Gospel itself (Wenham [editor] 1984, 28).
Overall, Wenham concludes that Paul knew quite a lot of the Jesus traditions even though he did not actually have the Synoptic Gospels. This suggests strongly that Paul had a storehouse of information about Jesus, his actions, and his values (Wenham [editor] 1984, 29).