"Major Agreements"? The Synoptic Problem and Mark Goodacre's Redescription of the "Mark–Q Overlaps"

Synoptic specialist and Lucan posteriority proponent Mark Goodacre has recently called for a "mandatory retirement" of the term "Mark–Q overlaps" as a description of a set of data. He suggests that it fails to characterize neutrally the overlap phenomenon between the double and triple Synoptic traditions, proposing instead the following redescription: "major agreements." In this essay I examine Goodacre's argument, showing it to exhibit a questionable characterization of a number of aspects of the Two-Document hypothesis and to inadequately redescribe the data. Along the way, I clarify the use of the term "Mark–Q overlaps" as comprising, on the Q side of the overlaps, sayings rather than narrative material. In the conclusion, I propose a neutral solution to the issue of nomenclature.