Synoptic Gospels

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The synoptic Gospels (from the Greek 'syn,' meaning "together," and 'optic,' meaning "seen") are three Gospels in the New Testament the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Luke, that display a high degree of similarity ( see also the Gospel according to the Hebrews) in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence and paragraph structures. These gospels are also considered by Biblical scholars to share the same point of view. ^[1] The fourth canonical Gospel, John, differs greatly from these three, as do the Apocryphal gospels. The synoptic gospels are the first three books of the canonical New Testament. The synoptic problem concerns the nature and origin of the literary relationship among these three accounts.

Differences from the Gospel of John

The Gospel of John differs significantly in theme, content, time duration, order of events, and style, reflecting a Christian tradition different from that of the synoptics.^[2]

Some differences:

However, the origin of the concept, per se, stems from much earlier: As early as the 4th century, these three books were "seen together with the same eyes", starting with the Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who had devised a method that enabled scholars to find parallel texts.

In the 5th century, Augustine of Hippo developed what was later known as the Augustinian hypothesis, which proposed why these three gospels were so similar. In this view, the gospels were written in order of presentation, but that Mark was Matthew's "lackey and abbreviator"^[6] and that Luke drew from both sources (see illustration).

This view went unchallenged until the late 18th century^{[citation needed]}, when Anton Büsching posited that Luke came first, and Mark conflated Luke and Matthew.

In 1774 Johann Jakob Griesbach published his landmark parallel study, calling it a Synopsis. Over the subsequent years, he developed what became known as the Griesbach hypothesis, and now called the two-gospel hypothesis, or simply "2GH". This hypothesis maintains the primacy of Matthew, but proposes that Luke is directly based on it, while Mark is based on both (see illustration).

Since then, other hypotheses have been proffered in order to deal with the synoptic problem. These hypotheses include the Ur-Gospel hypothesis (1778), the two-source hypothesis (1838, 1863), Farrer hypothesis (1955), the Lindsey hypothesis (1963), Jerusalem School hypothesis (1973), and the Logia Translation hypothesis (1998).^[7]

The widely accepted modern scholastic understandings (the two-source and four-source hypotheses) agree^{[citation needed]} that Mark's Gospel was the first written, and published in Rome in the early 70s AD (see Gospel of Mark). This Gospel was independently available, along with other verbal traditions, to Matthew and Luke, both of whom wrote in the 80's or 90's.^[8][9]

Yet other material is common to Luke and Matthew that is absent from Mark. The name given to this material is Q document, abbreviated to Q (see illustration).

The question of the origin of the remainder of the content of each of the latter two synoptic Gospels remains an open one, yet the name commonly given^{[citation needed]} to sources unique to these authors is L for Luke, or M for Matthew. In the culture at the time, it was very common for communities to preserve and pass on important stories and evidence by word of mouth from person to person.^{[citation needed]}

Dating

Scholars generally date the synoptic gospels as having been written after the epistles of Paul and before the gospel according to John, thus between 60 and 115 AD.^[10] As to the specific dates for each book, this largely depends on (or supports) the particular hypothesis used to account for the books' textual relationship.

A student of Polycarp, a disciple of John, wrote that Polycarp taught that Matthew wrote his Gospel first, Mark wrote Peter’s Teachings, Luke wrote Paul’s teachings and John wrote his last. Papias, also a disciple of John, confirms the order of the writing.

Clement I wrote that Mark wrote the teachings of Peter and when Peter learned of it, he gave it his blessing.

Similarities

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The relationship between the texts is the subject of the synoptic problem, which essentially seeks answers to the question of why the texts are so similar. At times the texts use exactly the same wording and mention the same sequence of events, despite the fact that other intervening events must have happened, even if they were mundane events such as Jesus sleeping or people gossiping about him.

The synoptic gospels all tell the story of Jesus, proclaiming him the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah (Christ), the judge of the future apocalypse. The synoptic gospels start either with Jesus' birth or his baptism and conclude with the empty tomb and resurrection appearances, though some texts of Mark end at the empty tomb (see Mark 16). In these gospels, Jesus cures diseases, exorcises demons, forgives sins, and displays dominion over nature.

See also

• Gospel harmony
• Omissions in the Gospel of John

References

• 1914: The New Testament from the Greek Text as Established by Bible Numerics. New Haven: Bible Numerics Co.
• Dr. Chuck Missler Evidence of Design

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Synoptics