Where are the synoptic gospels today?

Answer 1

A:We do not really know who wrote any of the four New Testament gospels or where, since they were anonymous until assigned to Mattew, Mark, Luke and John later in the second century, on the assumption that perhaps these were the most likely authors. However, modern scholars say there is no good reason to accept those attributions. Thus, we can not locate the places of authorship by locating the likely locations of the authors.

However, we can perhaps identify the region in which they were written by the language in which they were written, since they were written to be read by people in their own language. All four were written in Greek Koine, the lingua franca of the ancient Near East, but somewhat different to the classical Greek dialects used in Greece itself. Mark's Gospel was the first gospel to be written, and this clue suggests it was written in the Near East for a Near Eastern audience, although a widely accepted tradition is that it was written in Rome, where the most widely used language was Latin.

Matthew and Luke were substantially based on Mark, so it can not be reliably assumed that they were also written in the Near East, although this region was still the most likely region of authorship. Alternatively, it might have been most convenient to have copied in the same language, Greek Koine, even if written to be read by people more familiar with classical Greek. Although Matthew was written well before Luke and John, this gospel seems to have been entirely unknown to the two later evangelists, suggesting a geographical separation.

Answer 2

The synoptic (which simply means "the same") gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all tell the same story, just from a different view point.