The Synoptic Gospels in the New Testament

The first three books of the New Testament, Luke, Mark and Matthew are referred to as Synoptic Gospels. This title was given to them on the basis of their similarity between each other and common difference from the Gospel of John. Irrespective of their similarities, there are still a lot of debates regarding their relations towards each other and finally these debates created the most controversial topics in the realm of New Testament research. It is known under the name The Synoptic Problem. “The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar to each other that, in a sense, they view Jesus “with the same eye” (synoptic), in contrast to the very different picture of Jesus presented in the Fourth Gospel (John) or the non-canonical Gospels.” (Funk, 1998, p. 13). Along with this it is necessary to admit that there is a number of significant differences between the three variants of the Synoptic Gospels. The similarities between Luke, Mark and Matthew are numerous and these three gospels are very close in relation to the order of the information presented as well as in the exact wording of relatively long passages from the texts. Most of the researchers agree that it is not correct to explain all these similar features purely with the help of common oral tradition. They assume there is a need to acknowledge and research some form of literary dependence as well. In other words there is such a chance that someone had copied some part of the previously written text from somebody else.  Some of the evangelists might have used some parts of the complete earlier Gospels for composing of their own writings. One more important fact should be pointed out that the sequence of the material is not the same in different Gospels. Thus the basic problem is related to defining of the author, who wrote first and then who copied from whom of these authors.

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest one and big parts of it could be traced in the Gospels by Luke and Matthew. At the same time Matthew and Luke have a lot of verses, approximately 200, which are not in the Gospel of Mark. The similarities are based upon the subject matter, order of events and exact wording. In case some materials could be found in all three Gospels, then it is called triple tradition. If the materials could be found in Luke and Matthew, this is called a double tradition or Q. The materials, belonging only to Mark, are united under the name of M tradition and those, which belong to Luke, are called L tradition.

There were various solution theories worked out in order to solve the Synoptic Problem. According to the Traditional Augustinian Theory Matthew was the first one to compose his Gospel and then the Gospel by Mark and then Gospel by Luke followed. Thus the second and the third Gospels relied upon the fist written Gospel as their source of material. “Some view a preservation of Matthean priority as essential because of certain statements by early church fathers. One of those statements came from Augustine who said that the evangelists “have written in this order: first Matthew, then Mark, third Luke, and last John.” (Just, 2015, p. 3). Other supporters of this theory were Basil Christopher Butler, John Wenham, Hugo Grotius.

One more theory is The Two-Gospel Hypothesis or Griesbach Theory. This theory supports also Matthean priority, however the Two-Gospel Hypothesis assumes that Luke was the second Gospel and the Gospel by Mark was the third one. This means that Luke had used the materials of Matthew as his source and then Mark did the same with the materials of Matthew and Luke. “Again, Matthean priority finds support in the church fathers. It was Clement of Alexandria who wrote that the Gospels with genealogies (Matthew and Luke) were written first.” (Funk, 1998, p. 28). Here there is a problem with Matthean priority. The Gospel by Mark is the shortest and the greatest part of its materials could be found in Luke and Matthew.

The most widely accepted is the two-source theory. Most of the modern scholars prefer exactly this one. This could be explained by the fact that this theory is able to settle the problem with Matthean priority. In the frames of this theory the priority is passed to Mark. Matthew and Luke are considered to have used the materials of Mark. “Matthew reproduces the vast majority of Mark, while Luke also incorporates more than half. In addition to using Mark as a source, Matthew and Luke also used a common source called Q.” (Just, 2015, p.2).

Q is taken from the German word Quelle, which means the source. Q could be related to different things, it could be interpreted as the first century document, parts of a number of the first century documents and oral traditions, it could be used to mean double tradition material in Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels.

The Three-Source theory is less popular and is very close to the Two-Source Theory, apart of one difference. This theory states that Matthew had impact upon Luke. In other words first was written the Gospel by Mark, then by Matthew and then by Luke.

The Four-Source Theory is constructed on the basis of the elements of the Two-Source Theory. This is a kind of explanation of the relationship between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. It states that there were at least four sources for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: the Gospel of Mark and three other sources, which were lost: Q source, M-source and L-source. This theory was proposed and developed by Burnett Hillman Streeter in 1924, when he redefined the two-source hypothesis into a four-source hypothesis. Street conducted his analysis of the non-Marcan matter in Luke and came to the conclusion that it should be distinguished into two sources, which were called Q and L. At the same time he stated that Matthew used peculiar source, which could be either M or Q. Luke had no idea about M, Matthew did not have any idea about L. “Source M has the Judaistic character (see the Gospel according to the Hebrews), it suggests a Jerusalem origin, source L he assigned to Caesarea, and source Q connected with Antioch. The document Q was an Antiochene translation of a document originally composed in Aramaic — possibly by the Apostle Matthew for Galilean Christians.” (Streeter, 2008). In other words the first Gospel consists of a combination of the traditions of Jerusalem, Antioch and Rome and the third Gospel is related to Caesarea Antioch and Rome. Taking into consideration the importance of the Churches it is clear that the Antiochene and Roman sources were utilized by Evangelists Luke and Matthew. Streeter was not able to find the evidence that other sources could be considered less authentic. Streeter (2008) hypothesized a proto-Luke document, an early version of Luke that did not incorporate material from Mark or the birth narrative.According to this hypothesis, the evangelist added material from Mark and the birth narratives later.

Overall, there are a lot of controversies and discussions regarding the sources and order of the synoptic Gospels of the New Testament; researchers studied the texts thoroughly in order to find the supporting arguments of their theories. One of the most widespread theories is the Four-Source Theory.

Reference list

Funk, Robert W, 1998, The acts of Jesus: the search for the authentic deeds of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco Just, Felix 2015, The Synoptic Problem

Streeter, Burnett, H 2008, The Four Gospels, a Study of Origins treating of the Manuscript Tradition, Sources, Authourship, & Dates

Theissen, Gerd, Merz, Annette 1998, The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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