Who were the audience for each of the synoptic Gospels?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:

• Matthew's original, it is thought, may have been made for the church in Jerusalem, from which other churches obtained copies.
• Mark may have intended his book for the church of Rome. Copies, no doubt were sent to other churches.
• Luke wrote his Gospel for an individual named Theophilus, which may have been a high official in the Roman government.

God inspired these men to write exactly what He wanted them to write for the use of all people of all generations, yet they themselves must have had in mind the background of their immediate readers, which may have influenced their choice of material. Not only did the four evangelists write for different readers, but each one reflected his own personality in his writing. They had the same story to tell, the story of a man, of how He lived, and what He did and said. But each told the story in his own way, mentioning that which especially appealed to him, which is what accounts for the differences between the Gospels.

Answer 2

Many people are surprised to learn that the gospels were originally anonymous and that we do not really know who wrote any of them. Then, if we do not even know who wrote the gospels, it is largely speculation when we try to say for whom they were written. Nevertheless, there are some clues.

All the New Testament gospels were written in Greek Koine, so they were unlikely to have been written for the Latin-speakers of Rome, or for Palestinian Jews.

The earliest New Testament gospel was Mark, written for people familiar with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The use of mimesis flags suggests the possibility that he sought to keep outsiders in the dark as to what Christians really believed. This is parallelled by Chapter 4, where he talks of Jesus speaking in parables so that others would not understand. So it may be that there were really two audiences for Mark's Gospel - outsiders such as the Romans and the Jewish religious leaders, and the Christian converts who would really understand what the Gospel was meant to say.

In early Christian times, Matthew was thought to have been the first gospel, written at a time when few Gentiles had yet joined the church, with Mark and Luke copied from it. Having been attributed to Matthew, a Jewish disciple of Jesus, it was therefore natural to think of it as written for Jews. However, at least on the face of it, Matthew could not have been written for Palestinian Jews. It is plausible that Matthew's Gospel was written for Jews of the diaspora, who would have been familiar with the Septuagint or for pagan God-fearers. It could also be argued that it was written for illiterate Palestinian Jews who, following the destruction of the Temple, had no one they trusted to compare Matthew's Old Testament references with the Hebrew scriptures and would not listen to the teachings of the rabbis. A problem with this last argument is that the gospel was not written in Aramaic or Hebrew and would have been incomprehensible to most Palestinian Jews. It is more likely to have been written for Greek-speaking Christians of the Near East, perhaps in Syria.

Steve Mason (Josephus and the New Testament) says that Luke may also have been writing an apology for a wider audience than converts and potential converts. To suit the times, this would require him to demonstrate antiquity and virtue. In this context, virtue was high communal ethic, political respectability and cooperation with the Roman peace.

Answer 3

The audience for the Gospel of Matthew was primarily Jewish Christians, as evidenced by its focus on fulfilling Old Testament prophecies and Jesus as the fulfillment of the Messiah. The Gospel of Mark was likely written for a Roman audience, emphasizing Jesus as a powerful and active figure. The Gospel of Luke was intended for a broader audience, including Gentiles, and emphasizes Jesus' compassion for the outcasts and marginalized.