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Home , Synoptic Gospels

Journey, Fall 2020 Week 1: The Synoptic

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Introduction and Overview for Fall 2020 Using Zoom: stay muted if background noise, raise hands to speak, use chat, contact me to troubleshoot, give each other lots of grace Picking up Deuteronomy (didn’t finish spring or winter; do Deut in Jan; others in summer?) Check out the website for notes and resources: https://www.smlcfamily.org/BJ-Synoptics-Acts Schedule (next class Oct 4, Mark); both Sunday and Monday, every other week, but break at Thanksgiving

Reading the Gospels Together and Apart Two ways to read: as part of that , and in comparison with the other Gospels Each Gospel is its own literary work, with its own emphasis and themes, and so each needs to be read from front to back on its own However, all four Gospels tell the story of , and all four have overlapping stories, and they also have differences, so it would be impossible not to compare them in some way Our focus in the coming classes will be each Gospel independently, so here we will focus on the comparison of them (I’m not talking about Acts today; we’ll look at an overview of Acts during the first week on that)

The Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the “Synoptic Gospels.” synopsis = “seeing together” There are many parallels among these three Gospels, so it is common to lay out these three in parallel columns and compare them. Often John is included in this type of synopsis too, but John has far less overlap. This title is acknowledging that there is a lot of similarity among these three Gospels and looks especially at the relationship among the three. So, even though there are four Gospels, they really present only two traditions, or two unique/distinct perspectives: John and the Synoptics.

Inspiration, Composition, and Editing of the Gospels (For more on inspiration and composition, see What Is the Bible) The inspiration of Scripture is not referring to a single moment (such as an angel whispering the text into the ear of the writer) but refers to the inspiration of entire process, from researching sources through the final editing, and even the copying and translation of the text. The Word of God is the message communicated through the individual words of the text. When we read the Gospels especially, we should be focusing on the overall message about the life and , not the exact wording, or even exact historical timeline.

Luke’s Prologue (Luke 1:1-4) Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and

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servants of the word, 3 I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. What is Luke telling us about his process and his sources?

From “What Is the Bible”: How the Bible Was Written & Edited into Canonical Form *Oral tradition and written sources (see Luke 1:1-4): various books have preexisting material in them: stories and oral traditions, sayings of Jesus, and hymns, annals of kings *Composition of the text (oral and written): writing materials were expensive, and culture depended more on oral than written information; writers took notes on wax tablets and sometimes composed the text orally or by memory before writing it down *Dictation or writing of the text (see Jer. 36:1-6, 21-23, 32; Rom. 16:22; Gal. 6:11): it was a normal practice to compose a text by dictating it to a scribe *Editing of the text: some biblical texts went through a process of editing (e.g., beginning and end of Job; Psalms collected into five books; John 21 may have been added on after the fact); the authoritative version of a book is the final version, not a hypothetical early edition

The Synoptic Problem We know that Matthew, Mark, and Luke have a lot of overlap, including verbal overlap. It is clear that there is a literary relationship among the three; the question is, what is that relationship? What order were they written in? Had they read each other’s Gospels? Did they use each other Gospels as a source for their own? If so, why did they write a new Gospel when others existed? How did they use or modify each other’s text? What other sources did they use?

Why is it a “problem”? Think of problem as in a math problem, or a puzzle to solve. There are many theories, and we will look at a couple of dominant theories, but there are many, many more and no single consensus.

(For the following topics, see https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/synoptic-gospels and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels, as well as other links under “Resources,” below.)

Markan Priority “Markan Priority” is the theory that Mark’s Gospel was written first among the Synoptics (and was used as a source for Matthew and Luke).

Two-Source Hypothesis The “two sources” are Mark and Q (see below). This theory argues that Matthew and Luke both, independently, relied on Mark and Q as written sources for their own Gospels.

Four-Source Hypothesis Building on the two-source hypothesis, this theory argues that in addition to the two sources Mark and Q, Matthew and Luke had access to two additional sources: M (representing material unique to Matthew’s Gospel) and L (representing material unique to Luke’s Gospel). Thus, in total there were

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four sources available for composition of the Gospels: Mark, Q, M, L. (However, Matthew and Luke each used only three of these sources.)

Q Quelle (German) = “source” Scholars use the abbreviation Q to refer to a written source in Greek that was used by both Matthew and Luke. The content of Q therefore consists of material that Matthew and Luke have in common that is not present in the other Gospels.

Is there such a document as Q? Maybe. There is no manuscript evidence of Q, but we do have manuscripts of sayings collections, which may be a similar genre. Some scholars are convinced that Q was a real document, and some have even written commentaries on Q and its community. Other scholars think it is an unnecessary hypothesis; such scholars typically explain the overlap between Matthew and Luke by arguing that one of these was dependent on the other (most commonly, that Luke used Matthew as a source). The best approach is to accept Q as a hypothesis and as a way of describing the common material between Matthew and Luke, whether it was an actual document or simply is shorthand for this grouping of common material.

The Bottom Line Bottom line: Why does it matter whether we know any of this? If you are reading Bible notes or a commentary, it helps to know what Q is, and possibly also M and L. Most modern commentaries or study will assume that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke were dependent on Mark. If we want to understand the differences between the Gospels and the editorial choices they made to tell their story, it is helpful (or even necessary) to know which Gospel came first (for example, did Matthew expand on Mark, or did Mark abbreviate Matthew?). In our life application, comparing the different Gospels helps us to recognize which aspects of the Jesus tradition are more established ( and of Jesus, words of Jesus, the fact that Jesus healed and did miracles, the crucifixion and , etc.) and which aspects of each Gospel are shaped to convey the message of that Gospel.

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