The Synoptic Problem

Four Views

Porter, Stanley E., Dyer, Bryan R., Stanley E. Porter, Bryan R. Dyer

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780801049507
• eBook ISBN: 9781493404452
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Leading Scholars Debate a Key New Testament Topic

The relationship between Matthew, Mark, and Luke is one of the most contested topics in Gospel studies. How do we account for the close similarities--and differences--in the Synoptic Gospels? In the last few decades, the standard answers to the typical questions regarding the Synoptic Problem have come under fire, while new approaches have surfaced. This up-to-date introduction articulates and debates the four major views. Following an overview of the issues, leading proponents of each view set forth their positions and respond to each of the other views. A concluding chapter summarizes the discussion and charts a direction for further study.

1
The Synoptic Problem

An Introduction to Its Key Terms, Concepts, Figures, and Hypotheses

Stanley E. Porter and Bryan R. Dyer

The Unity and Diversity of the Four Gospels

The New Testament begins with four accounts of the life, teaching, and death of Jesus of Nazareth. These accounts, or Gospels, are formally anonymous but throughout the history of the Christian Church have been attributed to four writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four Gospels tell a similar story about Jesus: he came from Nazareth; he was announced by John the Baptist; he had twelve disciples, taught them many things, and performed a variety of healings; his disciple Judas betrayed him; he was crucified and raised from the dead. Numerous events are told in all four Gospels: the baptism of Jesus, the miraculous feeding of five thousand people, Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Peter’s confession, and many events surrounding Jesus’s death (his arrest, trial, and burial). There is strong agreement among the four Gospels regarding who Jesus was, his historical context, and the theological significance of his life. Broadly speaking, each Gospel writer paints a similar portrait of Jesus.

Yet, while these Gospels provide similar accounts, they are also four separate and distinct Gospels. This may seem obvious, but it is not uncommon for the four Gospels to be conflated into one narrative. The most common example of this is the imagery and retelling of the nativity scene surrounding the birth of Jesus, reenacted every Christmas season.1 Almost any person sitting in a pew during a Christmas service can describe the scene: Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born and placed in a manger in the presence of farm animals, angels, shepherds, magi offering gifts, and a bright star above. It is a familiar scene, but one that takes bits and pieces found in different Gospel retellings. In fact, only two Gospels—Matthew and Luke—contain accounts of Jesus’s birth; Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus’s baptism, and John’s Gospel begins on a cosmic scale, describing the divine logos. Luke’s is the only Gospel to situate the newborn Jesus in a manger and the only one to include shepherds. While Matthew’s Gospel similarly places Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, it is the only Gospel to give the account of magi following a star and presenting gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

This illustrates the great benefit of having four Gospel accounts. Mark’s Gospel, for whatever reason, does not include a description of the birth of Jesus. If it were the only Gospel we had, we would know little of the various traditions surrounding Jesus’s birth. Fortunately, Matthew and Luke, while sharing several details, both offer unique descriptions that represent differing traditions of Jesus’s birth.2 However, it is not always the case that each Gospel either shares the exact information with the other Gospels or provides brand-new information not otherwise accounted for. It is often the case that these Gospels provide the same account but offer differing viewpoints or provide specific information unique to the Gospel. All four Gospels, for example, describe the person Barabbas, the prisoner whom the crowd chooses to receive freedom instead of Jesus at his trial (Matt. 27:15–23; Mark 15:6–14; Luke 23:17–23; John 18:39–40). In his Gospel, Matthew describes Barabbas as a notorious prisoner (Matt. 27:16); Mark and Luke describe him as a murderer who started an insurrection (Mark 15:7; Luke 23:19); John simply notes that he was a robber (John 18:40). These descriptions of Barabbas need not conflict with one another; he may have been a notorious prisoner who started an insurrection and was guilty of murder and theft. But it is curious that each Gospel writer chose the description that he did. If Barabbas were a known murderer, why would Matthew and John not mention this?

The differences between the Gospels regarding Barabbas may seem insignificant, but what are we to do with even greater differences that we encounter in the four accounts? Each of the Gospel writers describes Jesus’s cleansing of the temple, but should we understand that it happened right at the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry (John 2:14–22) or at the end of his ministry while in Jerusalem (Matt. 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46)? Did Jesus cleanse the temple on two occasions? Or, when Jesus miraculously fed five thousand people, should we understand it as occurring in the city of Bethsaida (Luke 9:10), on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee (John 6:1–3), or in an uninhabited, deserted place (Matt. 14:13; Mark 6:32)? Most readers who have spent significant time with the four Gospels have asked these or similar questions. What is the relationship of the Gospels to one another? Why do some stories appear in multiple Gospels and others in only one? What are we to do with the differences between accounts, whether minor points or more significant variations?

Harmony and Harmonization

In the middle of the second century, within a hundred years of the Gospels’ compositions, a Syrian Christian by the name of Tatian created the earliest known attempt to smooth out the differences of the four Gospels into one single narrative. Titled Diatessaron (meaning “through the four”), Tatian’s work is the first of what has become known as a harmony of the Gospels.3 Tatian’s harmony wove together main sections from all four Gospels into one continuous story and essentially became the Gospel manuscript used throughout Syria into the fifth century. No full copies of the Diatessaron exist today (Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus in the fifth century, destroyed over two hundred copies out of orthodox zeal), but various later versions and commentaries on it remain, and numerous early Christian writers refer to it.

The Diatessaron was probably not the first and certainly not the last attempt to harmonize the Gospels.4 In fact, it is a popular approach to addressing the differences that appear within the Gospel accounts. Another famous example is Andreas Osiander’s Harmoniae Evangelicae, published in 1537, which similarly combined the four Gospel accounts into one seamless narrative. Unlike Tatian’s harmony, however, it was common for Osiander to interpret differing accounts of a similar incident as indications of two (or more) separate occasions. So, for example, Jesus is presented as raising Jairus’s daughter twice, and Peter is portrayed as denying Jesus nine times instead of three.

Today few follow Osiander to the extent that he went to disprove any potential contradictory elements in the Gospels, but harmonization remains an approach to explaining at least some of the differences encountered when surveying the Gospels. Harmonization, then, refers to the attempt to reconcile seeming contradictions in the Gospels by arguing that the Gospel writers are describing separate events or different aspects of a single event.5 The opening example of combining the birth narratives of Jesus into one story is an illustration of harmonization. In the last two centuries harmonization has been approached with skepticism, although it is often pointed out that any re-creation of any historical event involves some level of harmonization of sources.

A Synopsis and the Synoptics

In order to compare the Gospels and assess their similarities and differences, a tool called a synopsis is often utilized. A synopsis (from the Greek syn, “with,” + opsis, “seeing”) presents parallel texts from each of the Gospels side by side in vertical columns in order to compare and contrast the individual accounts. Table 1.1 indicates what a synopsis might look like for the passages describing the confrontation at Jesus’s arrest.

A synopsis is set up so that similar material appears horizontally; in this way, it aids in seeing where and how the Gospel writers include both similar and different materials in their discourses. So in the example above, it becomes obvious that while all four accounts mention the high priest’s slave’s ear being cut off, only two (Luke and John) specify that it was his right ear. Similarly, all four Gospels make clear that the person with the sword was standing by Jesus, but only John’s Gospel attributes the act to Simon Peter. Only Matthew’s Gospel contains the famous saying that those who “take the sword will pe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. The Synoptic Problem
• 2. The Two Source Hypothesis
• 3. The Farrer Hypothesis
• 4. The Two Gospel Hypothesis
• 5. The Orality and Memory Hypothesis
• 6. Two Source Hypothesis Response
• 7. Farrer Hypothesis Response
• 8. Two Gospel Hypothesis Response
• 9. Orality and Memory Hypothesis Response
• 10. What Have We Learned regarding the Synoptic Problem, and What Do We Still Need to Learn?
• Glossary
• Contributors
• Index of Authors and Subjects
• Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources
• Back Cover