As with Matthew 5-6, let's start with a general parallel:

• 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
• 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
• 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
• 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
• 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. (Luke 6:37-42)
• 6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
• 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
• 8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
• 9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
• 10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
• 11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Luke 11:9-13) -- Luke's version uses "Holy Spirit" in place of "good things" and is therefore regarded as more theologically primitive. Here I also refer the reader to the parallel of Serbocroatian ballads found here. Read this again, and then compare Matthew and Luke for the meat of this passage (Luke 11:9-13//Matthew 7:7-11):
  • And I say unto you/no parallel
  • Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you/same
  • For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened/same
  • If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?/Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
  • or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?/ Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
  • Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?/no parallel
  • If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children/same
  • how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?/how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

  By comparison to the Serbocroation lit, it is clear that it is more than adequate to explain that Luke and Matthew represent variant oral traditions, and of a much closer link than the Serbocroatian ballads; or else, that Luke used Matthew and added material based on his own research of the oral traditions. Q is yet again superfluous.

  Not that there are not some attempts to dig Q out of this. One Q proponent points out that Luke 11:9-26 has 59 out of 74 words in common with the Matthew version, so a common written source must be posited. I have never seen the critical validity demonstrated in such number-crunching -- at what point would we dispense with "common written source" as an explanation? At what point does "Luke copied Matthew" work? At 65 out of 74? 71 out of 74? 59 words out of 74 is 79%. The second Serbo-poem has a ratio of 69 out of 98, or 70%, and that goes up to 69 out of 78 (89%) if we take out the exclamatory lines. Is that 9% or less the wedge between oral and written copying, especially in light of the amount of time the Serbs had to transmit their tradition?

  Another point made is that if Luke is copying Matthew, he has collected what is broken in Matthew, where the parallels are in Matt. 7:7-11 and 12:22-27. As elsewhere we wonder how this proves a Q document, since clearly, either Matt or Luke would have had to fracture the order in Q to get their order, so why can't we cut out the middleman and think that Luke fractured Matthew, or that Matthew fractured an Ur-Matthew?

  Q opponents point to a few anomalies as well indicating a copy job or awareness of Matthew. It is pointed out that Luke 11:15 makes sense as a rewrite of Mark 3:22 with knowledge of Matt. 9:34. 11:23 serves no obvious purpose in Luke, whereas the parallel in Matt. 12:30 introduces a new topic. Direct use of Ur-Matthew by Luke, or of a common oral tradition, is once again a more economical and sensible explanation.

• 12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (Luke 6:31) -- Luke does not have the "law and prophets" phrase, which some take as a case for Q; we take it as a case for an Ur-Matthean form that was without this, and was used by Luke, and a second edition by Matthew in which he added this as part of a topical collection.
• 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
• 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Luke 13:24)
• 15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
• 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Luke 6:44)
• 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. (Luke 6:43)
• 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
• 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
• 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
• 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
• 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
• 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
• 24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
• 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
• 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
• 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (6:47-49)

Luke has together passages Matthew has separate from Matthew 7. For Matthew, "blind leading the blind" is in Matt. 15:14 in a screed against the Pharisees. The disciple-teacher bit is in Matt. 10:24. Who has broken the order? Given Matthew's artificial structure, it is more likely he who did so -- and that Luke here has Matthew's original Ur-Matthew in Aramaic (whereas others think he had Q, which is unnecessary).

The differences here are minor and are what we would expect from two competent translators of the same language to another.

Ur-Matthew Reconstruction

He spoke And parable to-them Not is-able blind blind to-guide. not Will-they-both not pit fall? Not is disciple above the teacher of-him having-been-perfected but every one will be as the teacher of-him. why And do you see the chip (the) in the eye of-the brother of-you the but beam (the) in the own eye not do-perceive? Or how will-you-say to-the brother of-you Permit to-take the chip from the eye of-you and behold the beam in the eye of-you? Hypocrite, take-out first the beam out of-the eye of-you and then you-will-see-clearly to-take-out the chip out of-the eye of-the brother of-you.

Internal data fits direct Lukan reliance on Matthew as well as anything. The Semitic parallelism of Matthew 7:24-27 is broken apart in Luke's parallel, as is quite normal with his handling of material. Q supporters may be fond of pointing out, for example, that Luke 6:41-2 and Matthew 7:35 have 50 out of 64 words in common, and may cite similar figures elsewhere, but how this assists a Q hypothesis rather than direct copying with alterations attributable to oral tradition, stylistic variations, or note-taking procedures is not explained. Another interesting evidence of Matthean priority in the parallel between Luke 6:47-9 and Matthew 7:24-7 is that whereas Matthew mentions rain, flood and wind as forces going after the house built on the rock, whereas Luke only refers to a river. Why? Perhaps because Matthew goes on to give the famous "rock" statement (Matthew 16:18, "upon this rock I will build my church") that Luke also bypasses. It seems likely that Luke found Matthew's language a bit too excessive and poetic and shortened it (as I would argue he was prone to do, writing in a more serious, more Hellenistic historical style). Or perhaps, since 16:18ff is part of Matthew's unique material, it only appeared in a later Greek edition of Matthew that Luke had no access to. (It has been noted that the pun upon Peter's name would only be possible if the conversation had been in Greek.) In any event, Q here becomes yet again a pointless hypothesis.