Synoptic Gospels

Synoptic Gospels [Gr. synopsis=view together], the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), considered as a unit. They bear greater similarity to each other than any of them does to John, which differs from them also in purpose. The question of the relations between the three is called the Synoptic problem. Most Protestant and some Roman Catholic scholars agree that Matthew and Luke were written later than Mark, which they followed closely. Matthew then divided Mark into five portions and used them in order, separating them by other material. Luke divided the book only in two, nine chapters being inserted between. Mark, however, only accounts for half of the other two Gospels. Matthew and Luke each have about 100 verses in common, most of them sayings (notably the Beatitudes); to explain this agreement, scholars assume that there was a primitive document, which they call Q. It consisted largely of sayings of Jesus and was circulated in forms varying from place to place. Matthew and Luke are said to have used different versions of Q. This leaves a good third each in Matthew and Luke that cannot be explained by a common origin; there is no one widely accepted theory on the source or sources for these portions. The traditional Roman Catholic view is that Matthew (in an Aramaic version) preceded Mark and Luke, but that Matthew's Greek translation of his Aramaic Gospel may have come after Mark and Luke.

The synoptic gospels are the first three gospels of the New Testament in the Christian Bible. They are: Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Although styled as first-hand accounts, when these three gospels are placed next to each other they can be seen to share a common synopsis. In other words they recount the same stories about Jesus in the same sequence with similar choice of language. The interrelationship between the accounts, and the difficulty explaining them is called the 'synoptic problem'.

Origin

A synopsis (from the Greek, συν, syn, together, and όψις, opsis, seeing, meaning "seen together" in the sense of an overall view) is a general outline or summary of a longer work showing the essential components of that work. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke have their own individual style but when analysed carefully can be seen to share a common synopsis. In other words there is a 'standardised narrative' shared by the three authors. The attempt to account for this is the synoptic problem. The term synopsis might have first been used in 1583 by Georg Siegel, but it was not until 1774, when Johann Jakob Griesbach published his Synopsis that the base term entered the scholastic vernacular, and not until about the 1840s that the term began to be used as an adjective. From the 1830s onward, scholars generally began using the term synoptic gospels instead of the term first three gospels.

"Synoptic" is a Greek word meaning "having a common view." 1 John differs significantly from the synoptic gospels in theme, content, time duration, order of events, and style. "Only ca. 8% of it is parallel to these other gospels, and even then, no such word-for-word parallelism occurs as we find among the synoptic gospels." 2 The Gospel of John reflects a Christian tradition that is different from that of the other gospels. It was rejected as heretical by many individuals and groups within the early Christian movement. It was used extensively by the Gnostic Christians. But it was ultimately accepted into the official canon, over many objections. It is now the favorite gospel of many conservative Christians, and the gospel least referred to by many liberal Christians. Some differences:

Item	Matthew, Mark, Luke	John
First event mentioned	Jesus' birth (baptism in Mark)	Creation of the world
Authors: according to conservative Christians	Apostle Matthew; Mark and Luke, co-workers of Paul	Apostle John
Authors: according to liberal Christians	Unknown authors	2 or more unknown authors
Virgin birth	Mentioned in Matt, Luke	Some interpret John 1:14 as denying the virgin birth
Jesus as Son of God...	From the time of his birth or baptism	From the time that the universe was created
Description of Jesus	Jesus' humanity emphasized	Jesus' deity emphasized
Jesus baptism	Described	Not mentioned
Preaching style	Brief one-liners; parables	Essay format
Jesus teaches as:	A sage	A philosopher and mystic
Exorcism	A main function of his ministry	None performed
True parables	Many	None
Theme of his teaching:	Kingdom of God	Jesus himself. Kingdom of God is a background theme.
Jesus' theology	Deviated little from 1st century CE liberal Judaism. Similar to beliefs taught by Hillel.	Largely independent of Judaism and in opposition to much of its teaching.
Response expected from the reader	Respond to God's will as expressed in the Mosaic law	Respond to Jesus as the definitive expression of God's will or revelation
Exorcism of demons	Many	None
Involvement with the poor and suffering	Focus of his ministry	Rarely mentioned
Involvement with Scribes (Jewish teachers)	26 references to scribes, who are puzzled and angered by Jesus' teachings	No references at all.
Miracles performed by Jesus	Many "nature miracles," healings, and exorcisms	Few; all "nature miracles"
Jesus references to himself	Rare	Focus of the gospel, including the many "I am" sayings
Basis of personal salvation	Good works, helping the poor, sick, imprisoned, and needy	Belief in Jesus as the Son of God
Duration of ministry	1 year	3 years
Location of ministry	Mainly Galilee	Mainly Judea, near Jerusalem
Clearing of the money-changers from the Temple	Near the end of his ministry	Near the start of his ministry
Date of the Last Supper	Passover eve	Night before Passover eve
Ceremonial event at the Last Supper:	Communal meal	Foot washing
Who carried the cross?	Simon	Jesus
Visitors to the tomb on Sunday with Mary Magdalene?	One or more additional women	None; Mary Magdalene went alone
Who was present in the tomb?	One angel or two men	Two angels
Burial shroud	A single piece of cloth	Multiple pieces of cloth, as was the Jewish practice at the time. (John 20:5-7)
Jesus' first post-resurrection appearance to disciples	At Emmaus or Galilee	Jerusalem

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" and that Luke drew from both sources (see illustration).

This view went unchallenged until the late 18th century, when Anton Büsching posited that Luke came first, and Mark conflated Luke and Matthew.

In 1774 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).

The widely accepted modern scholastic understandings (the two-source and four-source hypotheses) agree that Mark's Gospel was the first written, and published in Rome in the early 60s AD. This Gospel was independently available, along with other verbal traditions, to Matthew and Luke, both of whom were writing in the 70's and 80's.

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 synoptics remains an open one, yet the name commonly given 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.

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. 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.

Similarities

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 using exactly the same wording and mentioning 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, displays dominion over nature, knows the secret thoughts and past of others, speaks "with authority," calls God his own Father and says that the Father had handed over to him "all things."

See also

• Omissions in the Gospel of John

References

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia: Synoptics