Mark 8:11-12	Matt 12:38-42	Luke 11:29-32
	38 Then some	29 As more and more
	of the scholars	people
11 The Pharisees	and Pharisees
came out
and started to argue	responded	were crowding
with him.	to him,	around him,
To put him	"Teacher,
to the test
they demanded	we would like to see
a sign	a sign
from heaven.	from you."
12 He groaned	39 In response	he began
under his breath
and says,	he said to them,	to say,
"Why does
this generation		"This generation
	"An evil and adulterous	is an evil
	generation	generation.
demand a sign?	demands a sign	It demands a sign,
Let me tell you,
this generation		but
won't get any sign!"	and no sign	it will be given no sign---
	will be given it---
	except the sign of Jonah	except the sign of Jonah!
	the prophet!
	40 You see,	30 You see,
	just as Jonah	just as Jonah
	was in the belly	became a sign
	of a sea monster
	for three days	for the Ninevites,
	and three nights
	so the son of Man *	so the son of Man *
	will be in the heart	will be a sign
	of the earth
	for three days	for this generation.
	and three nights.
	[see Matt 12:42 below]	31 On judgment day,
		the queen of the south
		will be brought back
		to life
		along with members
		of this generation,
		and she will condemn
		them, because she came
		from the ends
		of the earth
		to listen
		to Solomon's wisdom.
		Yet take note:
		what is right here
		is greater than Solomon.
	41 On judgment day,	32 On judgment day,
	the citizens of Ninevah	the citizens of Ninevah
	will come back to life	will come back to life
	along with	along with
	this generation	this generation
	and condemn it,	and condemn it,
	because they	because they
	had a change of heart	had a change of heart
	in response	in response
	to Jonah's message.	to Jonah's message.
	Yet take note:	Yet take note:
	what is right here	what is right here
	is greater than Jonah."	is greater than Jonah."
	42 On judgment day,	[see Luke 11:31 above]
	the queen of the south
	will be brought back
	to life
	along with
	this generation,
	and she will condemn it,
	because she came
	from the ends of the earth
	to listen
	to Solomon's wisdom.
	Yet take note:
	what is right here
	is greater than Solomon.
	Matt 16:1,4
[see Mark 8:11 above]	1 And the Pharisees
	and Sadducees came,
	and they put him
	to the test
	by asking him
	to show them a sign
	from heaven.
	2 In response
	he said to them,...
[see Matt 12:39 above]	4 "An evil and adulterous
	generation demands
	a sign
	yet no sign will be given it
	except the sign of Jonah."

* Greek: ὁ ὕιος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (lit: "the son of the human")

Sources

Jesus is asked to perform a sign at least once in each canonical gospel. Matthew has two accounts, whose primary difference is the length of Jesus' response.  The longer version (Matt 12:39-42), which is paralleled only in Luke, is based on Q. The shorter (Matt 16:4) is parallel to Mark's account, but includes words in Jesus' response that are closer to Q. The request for a sign in John 6:30 is followed by a completely different set of sayings.

Versions

In Mark, Jesus simply rejects the request to produce a sign for "this generation." In Matthew and Luke that refusal is qualified in two ways. The generation is characterized as "evil" and an exception is allowed: the "sign of Jonah." Matt 16:4 stops here. But Q has two more sayings related to Jonah. In the first Jonah is paralleled to "the son of Man" (Luke 11:30//Matt 12:40). In the second the response of pagans to the preaching of Jonah is cited to warn an unrepentant current generation. A parallel saying about Solomon was included for good measure.

Like Q's earlier pericope about a Roman centurion, the second set of sayings portrays non-Israelites as more receptive that Jews. Matthew and Luke present these paired sayings with almost identical wording but in reverse order. Matthew kept Q's order, which linked two sayings with the catchword "Jonah." Luke broke that oral link by moving the Solomon saying ahead of the second Jonah saying, probably to set these figures in correct historical order.

Matthew and Luke's sayings about "the son of Man," however, differ in almost every detail but one. Both use "son of Man" simply as Jesus' self-designation, without any connotation of solidarity with generic humanity or a future apocalyptic event (see cameo essay on "son of Man").

Attribution

Sign for this generation	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 11:29 Luke 11:30 Matt 12:39 Matt 12:40 Matt 16:4 Mark 8:12		0 0 0 0 3 6	20 14 6 0 17 20	17 23 19 9 20 23	63 63 75 91 60 15	19 17 10 03 21 27	black black black black black grey
Greater than Jonah
Luke 11:31-32 Matt 12:41-42		4 4	15 15	19 19	63 63	20 20	black black

Matt 12:40 has two signs of being formed after Jesus' death. It refers to Jonah's experience by quoting directly from the Septuagint (Jonah 2:1b), the Greek version of Jewish scripture standard among Hellenistic Christians. And it compares Jonah's three days inside the "whale" to the period between Jesus' death and resurrection. The later would be a sign to "this generation" only if it had already occurred.

Luke 11:30 is less Christianized. But it takes Jonah's message of doom (or "repent") to  pagans as the model for the mission of Jesus. This role of the prophet of judgment occurs often in Q passages (for instance, Luke 3:7-17//Matt 3:7-10; Luke 10:13-15//Matt 11:21-24) which most Fellows deemed incompatible with the thrust of genuine Jesus sayings.

The same reservation applies to Luke 11:31-32//Matt 12:41-42. These sayings prefer pagans to Jews, which is typical of Q (see Luke 7:9//Matt 8:10). But this probably reflects the attitude of later Christians rather than Jesus himself.

The key question is whether the first Jesus saying in this cluster was originally a flat refusal to produce a sign (Mark) or allowed the "sign of Jonah" as an exception (Q). Some Fellows thought Mark might have dropped the reference to Jonah because he regarded Jesus as more than a prophet (Mark 8:27-30). The majority, however, viewed Mark 8:12 as earlier than the versions that mention Jonah. It would be like Jesus to give a curt retort inverting expectations. Yet other aspects of Mark 8:12 are not distinctive of Jesus. Criticism of  "this generation" was common among early Christian preachers like Peter (Acts 2:40) or Paul (Philp 2:15). Mark 8:12, moreover, lacks a graphic twist or cutting edge to mark it clearly as a genuine Jesus saying. Thus it was rated only grey.