Today, I want to build upon the historical context from last post, which showed the building of theological doctrines to an eventual Orthodoxy, as well as establish some basic historical context. We focused on the varying groups that existed between the 1st & 4th centuries, what they believed about the nature of Jesus specifically, and the notable leaders of each movement. Concluding with our 4th century Orthodoxy that most modern Denominations base their theological system upon.
The natural question should be, if one is reading with objective curiosity, if the Orthodoxy that most Christian denominations base from is from the 4th century - What is the historical flow of events post Jesus to that date then? Spoilers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John do not represent a historical flow of events.
There is an entire post to be written about the development of Canon (Marcion being the first to seemingly gather a collection of books), and the types of methods Christians utilize to read the Bible; ranging from “Spirit teach me” flip open to a random page approach, to those who pull out their lexicon and line by line in Hebrew or Greek for a specific study. The casual reader treats a Bible like any other book, reading Genesis to Revelations like a single book. I am not arguing a theological correct way to read, simply looking from a historical method; the Bible is not pieced together in an index of historical dating, rather as a story with several insertions and expansions upon the original writings.
Given how most of us approach reading books, most start at Matthew and read to Revelations. Often taking the entire thing as a singular narrative instead of each book independent books themselves as they are designed. If we started Chronologically, the casual reader would be surprised to learn that to our archaeological records, Paul is the first writer historically in the New Testament, Galatians being the first letter we maintain on record - the general consensus from scholars being Galatians written 45CE give or take a few years. Matthew, the first book if we flip open our Bible, is written no earlier than 70CE & no later than 110CE -with most scholars falling in the 80-90CE range. That is an entire generation later from Paul writing during the Gospel periods, two generations from the death of Jesus.
Most Christians have the assumption that there are literal figures named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who wrote the Gospels, and these are no more than Church Traditions. Iraneus is the early church father who established the tradition of the disciples writing these because it provides authority to state the disciples of Jesus wrote books about him - who better than his friends? The simple reality is that we know the disciples themselves did not write the documents - the documents were written 30 - 60 years after they would have been dead. See the issue?
Paul pre-dating the Gospels also provides its own unique problem. Paul only knows Jesus through visions & does not put Jesus into a literal historical setting or attempt to discuss the life or journey of Jesus or disciples, in fact, the Greek word for disciple is not once used by Paul in all of his writings. The traditional assumption is that Paul clearly knew those details already, but we simply do not know, and objectively speaking the evidence points to the likelihood Paul’s Jesus is different from the Gospels - which we will get into later. Paul is obviously in stark contrast to the Gospels which mention disciples and have varying accounts of a life of Jesus.
If we know that most of the Gospels we have written in our Bible came years after Paul’s writings, what’s the possible solution to the above predicament? Finding a common source material - an original material that the later Gospels pulled from. A source we still have yet to find archaeologically, but have some hints in the text themselves.
Which finally leads us into the focal point of today’s post - The Synoptic Problem. This is in reference to the first 3 Gospels and how they seem to share a common Greek source, as well as diverge into their own theological points, and discrepancies. John is left out because John has its own unique theology.
The Synoptic Problem is best summarized as thus:
· Markan Priority – Although some scholars disagree, the vast majority of researchers believe that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, sometime around the year 70. [1] Early writing theories place it as early as 50CE in some cases, most cited don’t go earlier than 65CE & these are largely held on assumptions of tradition.
Multiple Theories, No Genuine Consensus
· Majority of NT scholars fall in line with either the Two Source Hypothesis of Holtzmann or the four-source hypothesis of Streeter.
Two Source Hypothesis (2SH)
· The 2SH attempts to solve the synoptic problem by advancing two propositions, Markan priority to explain the triple tradition, and the existence of a lost Q document to solve the double tradition. In summary, the two-source hypothesis proposes that Matthew and Luke used Mark for its narrative material as well as for the basic structural outline of chronology of Jesus' life; and that Matthew and Luke use a second source, Q (from German Quelle, “source”), not extant, for the sayings (logia) found in both of them but not in Mark.
· The 2SH explains the double tradition by postulating the existence of a lost "sayings of Jesus" document known as Q, from the German Quelle, "source". It is this, rather than Markan priority, which forms the distinctive feature of the 2SH as against rival theories. The existence of Q follows from the conclusion that, as Luke and Matthew are independent of Mark in the double tradition, the connection between them must be explained by their joint but independent use of a missing source or sources. (That they used Q independently of each other follows from the fact that they frequently differ quite widely in their use of this source)
Three Source Hypothesis (3SH)
· It combines aspects of the two-source hypothesis and the Farrer hypothesis. It states that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used the Gospel of Mark and a sayings collection as primary sources, but that the Gospel of Luke also used Gospel of Matthew as a subsidiary source. The hypothesis is named after the three documents it posits as sources, namely the sayings collection, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Matthew. The sayings collection may be identified with Q, or some (typically narrative-related) material normally assigned to Q may instead be attributed to Luke's use of Matthew.
Minor Agreements
The "minor agreements"—the word "minor" here is not intended to be belittling—are those points where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark (for example, the mocking question at the beating of Jesus, "Who is it that struck you?", found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark). The "minor agreements" thus call into question the proposition that Matthew and Luke knew Mark but not each other. Streeter devoted a chapter to the matter, arguing that the Matthew/Luke agreements were due to coincidence, or to the result of the two authors' reworking of Mark into more refined Greek, or to overlaps with Q or oral tradition, or to textual corruption.
A few later scholars explain the minor agreements as being due to Luke's using Matthew in addition to Q and Mark (3SH). But the modern argument for Q requires Matthew and Luke to be independent, so the 3SH raises the question of how to establish a role for Q if Luke is dependent on Matthew. Accordingly, some scholars (like Helmut Koester) who wish to keep Q while acknowledging the force of the minor agreements attribute them to a proto-Mark, such as the Ur-Markus in the Markan Hypothesis (MkH), adapted by Mark independently from its use by Matthew and Luke. Still other scholars feel that the minor agreements are due to a revision of our Mark, called deutero-Mark. In this case, both Matthew and Luke are dependent on proto-Mark, which did not survive the ages.
"Therefore, the minor agreements, if taken seriously, force a choice between accepting pure Markan priority on one hand or the existence of Q on the other hand, but not both simultaneously as the 2SH requires.
Just How Many Theories are There?
· The traditional view is represented by the Augustinian hypothesis, which is that the four gospels were written in the order in which they appear in the bible (Matthew → Mark → Luke), with Mark a condensed edition of Matthew. This hypothesis was based on the claim by the 2nd century AD bishop Papias that he had heard that Matthew wrote first. By the 18th century the problems with Augustine's idea led Johann Jakob Griesbach to put forward the Griesbach hypothesis, which was that Luke had revised Matthew and that Mark had then written a shorter gospel using material on which both Matthew and Luke agreed (Matthew → Luke → Mark).
· In 1955 a British scholar, A. M. Farrer, proposed that one could dispense with Q by arguing that Luke revised both Mark and Matthew. In 1965 an American scholar, William R. Farmer, also seeking to do away with the need for Q, revived an updated version of Griesbach's idea that Mark condensed both Matthew and Luke. In Britain, the most influential modern opponents of the 2SH favor the Farrer hypothesis, while Farmer's revised Griesbach hypothesis, also known as the Two Gospel hypothesis, is probably the chief rival to the Two Source hypothesis in America.
· The Q+/PapH has similarities to previous solutions to the Synoptic Problem. Like the Two-Document Hypothesis (2DH), the Q+/PapH affirms that both Matthew and Luke have used a Q document. Like the Farrer Hypothesis (FH), it affirms that Matthew used Mark and that Luke used both Mark and Matthew. Like the Modified Two-Document Hypothesis (M2DH), it affirms that Mark also used the Q document. Advanced by Dennis R. MacDonald, the Q+/Papias Hypothesis (Q+/PapH) offers an alternative solution to the Synoptic Problem. MacDonald prefers to call this expanded version of Q the Logoi of Jesus, which is supposed to have been its original title. Logoi is a Greek term that means "words."
· Dunn proposes an Oral Q hypothesis, in which Q is not a document but a body of oral teachings.
Recommended starter readings:
Mark Goodacre’s The Case against Q for a good overview of current research and a simpler approach to the Synoptic Problem – Farrer Theory.
Michael Goulder Luke, A New Paradigm
Barbara Shellard, New Light on Luke: Its Purpose, Sources and Literary Context (T&T Clark)
William R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis (2nd ed.; Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press,1976);
David L. Dungan, A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition and theInterpretation of the Gospels (New York: Doubleday, 1999)
Basil C. Butler, The Originality of St. Matthew: A Critique of the Two-Document Hypothesis (London:Cambridge University Press, 1951).
Chris Keith & Anthony Le Donnes “Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity” T&T Clark
M.D. Hooker “Christology & Methodology” – New Testament Studies 17 pp 480-87
John Gager “The Gospels and Jesus: Some Doubts about Method” – Journal of Religion 54, no 3 pp 244-72
Christopher Tuckett “Sources & Methods” The Cambridge Companion to Jesus pp 121-37
John Meier“Criteria: How Do We Decide What Comes From Jesus?”A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesusvol 1 pp 167-195
H.W. Shin“Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem in Historical Jesus Research: The Search for Valid Criteria” pp 135-220; 320-34
[1] http://www.bc.edu/schools/stm/crossroads/resources/birthofjesus/intro/the_dating_of_thegospels.html