The Synoptic problem

Early theories about the Synoptic problem

Since the 1780s, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have been referred to as the Synoptic
Gospels (from synoptikos, “seen together”). The extensive parallels in structure, content, and
wording of Matthew, Mark, and Luke make it even possible to arrange them side by side so that
corresponding sections can be seen in parallel columns. John Calvin, the 16th-century Reformer,
wrote a commentary on these Gospels as a harmony. Such an arrangement is called a “synopsis,”
or Gospel harmony, and, by careful comparison of their construction, compilation, and actual
agreement or disagreement in wording or content, literary- or source-critical relationships can be
seen. Augustine, the great 4th–5th-century Western theologian, considered Mark to be an
abridged Matthew, and, until the 19th century, some variation of this solution to literary
dependency dominated the scene. It still recurs from time to time.
The Synoptic problem is one of literary or of source criticism and deals with the written sources
after compilation and redaction. Matthew was the Gospel most used for the selections read in the
liturgy of the church, and other Gospels were used to fill in the picture. One attempted solution
to the problem of priority was the proposed existence of an Aramaic primitive gospel, which is
now lost, as the first Gospel from which a later Mark in Greek was translated and arranged. The
Greek Mark would thus be first based on a prior Semitic Matthew, and later both Mark and
Matthew would be translations dependent on Matthew, and Luke dependent on both. The
preservation of an ecclesiastical priority of Matthew breaks down because of the literary word-
for-word agreement in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This agreement occurs to far too great an
extent to be accounted for in translations and revisions, not to mention the agreement in the order
of the various pericopes as they are viewed in a synoptic parallel arrangement.
For similar reasons, a fragment theory holding that the Gospels were constructed of small written
collections brought together in varying sequences cannot stand the test of actual structure—but it
has the merit of stressing compilation of sources.
In 1789 J.J. Griesbach, a German biblical scholar, hypothesized that the Synoptics had not
developed independently, but in his “usage-hypothesis” he recognized that there must be literary
dependency. He thought that Mark used Matthew as well as Luke, but this could not account for
the close relationship of Matthew and Luke. His basic concept of literary dependency, however,
paved the way for K. Lachmann, who observed in 1835 that Matthew and Luke agree only when
they also agree with Mark and that, where material is introduced that is not in Mark, it is inserted
in different places. This, it is held, can only be explained on the basis of the priority of Mark and
its use as the patterning form of Matthew and Luke. This insight led to a so-called two-
source hypothesis (by two German biblical scholars, Heinrich Holtzmann in 1863, and Bernhard
Weiss in 1887–88), which, with various modifications and refinements of other scholars, is the
generally accepted solution to the Synoptic problem.
The two- and four-source hypotheses
The two-source hypothesis is predicated upon the following observations: Matthew and Luke
used Mark, both for its narrative material as well as for the basic structural outline of chronology
of Jesus’ life. Matthew and Luke use a second source, which is called Q (from
German Quelle, “source”), not extant, for the sayings (logia) found in common in both of them.
Thus, Mark and Q are the main components of Matthew and Luke. In both Matthew and Luke
there is material that is peculiar to each of their Gospels; this material is probably drawn from
some other sources, which may be designated M (material found only in Matthew’s special
source) and L (material found only in Luke’s special source). This is known as the four-
document hypothesis, which was elaborated in 1925 by B.H. Streeter, an English biblical
scholar. The placement of Q material in Luke and Matthew disagrees at certain points according
to the needs and theologies of the addressees of the gospels, but in Matthew the Marcan
chronology is the basic scheme into which Q is put. Mark’s order is kept, on the whole, by
Matthew and Luke, but, where it differs, at least one agrees with Mark. After chapter 4 in
Matthew and Luke, not a single passage from Q is in the same place. Q was a source written in
Greek as was Mark, which can be demonstrated by word agreement (not possible, for example,
with a translation from Aramaic, although perhaps the Greek has vestiges of Semitic structure
form). A diagram might thus be:
In approximate figures, Mark’s text has 661 verses, more than 600 of which appear in Matthew
and 350 in Luke. Only c. 31 verses of Mark are found nowhere in Matthew or Luke. In the
material common to all three Synoptics, there is very seldom verbatim agreement of Matthew
and Luke against Mark, though such agreement is common between Matthew and Mark or Luke
and Mark or where all three concur.
The postulated common saying source of Matthew and Luke, Q, would account for much
verbatim agreement of Matthew and Luke when they include sayings absent from Mark. The fact
that the sayings are used in different ways or different contexts in Matthew and Luke is an
indication of a somewhat free way in which the editors could take material and mold it to their
given situations and needs. An example of this is the parable in Matthew and Luke about the lost
sheep (Matt. 18:10–14, Luke 15:3–7). The basic material has been used in different ways. In
Matthew, the context is church discipline—how a brother in Christ who has lapsed or who is in
danger of doing so is to be gently and graciously dealt with—and Matthew shapes it accordingly
(the sheep has “gone astray”). In Luke, the parable exemplifies Jesus’ attitude toward sinners and
is directed against the critical Pharisees and scribes who object to Jesus’ contact with sinners and
outsiders (the sheep is “lost”).
Another example of two passages used verbatim in Luke and Matthew is Jesus’ lament over
Jerusalem. In Luke (13:34–35; the lament over Jerusalem) Jesus refers to how they will cry
“Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord” when he enters Jerusalem (Lk. 19:38).
In Luke, the passage is structured into the life of Jesus and refers to his triumphal entry into
Jerusalem, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”). In Matthew (23:37–39) this
same lament is placed after the entry into the city (21:9) and thus refers to the fall of Jerusalem
and the Last Judgment. Apparently, Luke has historicized a primarily eschatological saying.
Since the 1930s, scholars have increasingly refined sources, postulated sources behind sources,
and many stages of their formation. The premise of the two- (or four-) source hypothesis is basic
and provides information as to literary sources; further refinement is of interest only to the
specialist. Another movement in synoptic research—and also research including John—is that
which concentrates rather on the treatment of gospels as a whole, formally and theologically,
with patterns or cycles to be investigated. It may be significant that the latest and best regarded
Greek synopsis is that of the German scholar Kurt Aland, Synopsis Quattuor
Evangeliorum (1964; Synopsis of the Four Gospels, 1972), which includes the Gospel According
to John and, as an appendix, the Gospel of Thomas, as well as ample quotations from
noncanonical gospels and Jesus’ sayings preserved in the Church Fathers.
The Synoptic Gospels
The Gospel According to Mark: background and overview
St. Mark the Evangelist
The Gospel According to Mark is the second in canonical order of the Gospels and is both the
earliest gospel that survived and the shortest. Probably contemporaneous with Q, it has no direct
connection with it. The Passion narrative comprises 40 percent of Mark, and, from chapter 8,
verse 27, onward, there is heavy reference forward to the Passion.
Though the author of Mark is probably unknown, authority is traditionally derived from a
supposed connection with the Apostle Peter, who had transmitted the traditions before
his martyr death under Nero’s persecution (c. 64–65). Papias, a 2nd-century bishop in Asia
Minor, is quoted as saying that Mark had been Peter’s amanuensis (secretary) who wrote as he
remembered (after Peter’s death), though not in the right order. Because Papias was from the
East, perhaps the Johannine order would have priority, as is the case in the structure of the Syrian
scholar Tatian’s Diatesseron (harmony of the Gospels).
Attempts have been made to identify Mark as the John Mark mentioned in Acts 12 or as
the disciple who fled naked in the garden (Mark 14). A reference to “my son, Mark,” in I Peter is
part of the same tradition by which Mark was related to Peter; thus the Evangelist’s apostolic
guarantor was Peter.
The setting is a Gentile church. There is no special interest in problems with Jews and little
precision in stating Jewish views, arguments, or terminology. Full validity is given the worship
of the Gentiles. In further support of a Gentile setting and Roman provenance is the argument
that Mark uses a high percentage of so-called Latinisms—i.e., Latin loanwords in Greek for
military officers, money, and other such terms. Similar translations and transliterations, however,
have been found in the Jerusalem Talmud, a compendium of Jewish law, lore, and commentary,
which certainly was not of Roman provenance. The argument from Latinisms must be weighed
against the fact that Latin could be used anywhere in the widespread Roman Empire. In addition,
for the first three centuries the language of the church of Rome was Greek—so the Gentile
addressees might just as well have been Syrian as Roman. The Latinisms—as well as the
Aramaisms—are rather an indication of the vernacular style of Mark, which was “improved” by
the other Evangelists.
Mark is written in rather crude and plain Greek, with great realism. Jesus’ healing of a blind man
is done in two stages: first the blind man sees men, but they look like trees walking, and only
after further healing activity on Jesus’ part is he restored to see everything clearly. This concrete
element was lost in the rest of the tradition. It is also perhaps possible that this two-stage healing
is a good analogy for understanding Mark theologically: first, through enigmatic miracles and
parables in secret, and only later, after recognition of Jesus as the Christ, is there a gradual
clarification leading to the empty tomb. In chapter 3, verse 21, those closest to Jesus call him
insane (“he is beside himself”), a statement without parallel in the other Gospels.
In Mark, some Aramaic is retained, transliterated into Greek, and then translated—e.g., in the
raising of Jairus’ daughter (5:41) and in the healing of the deaf man with an impediment in his
speech (7:34). The well-known abba, Father, is retained in Mark’s account of Jesus’ prayer in
Gethsemane. In the two miracle stories, the Aramaic may have been retained to enhance the
miracle by the technique of preserving Jesus’ actual words. And a cry of Jesus on the Cross is
given in Aramaized Hebrew.
The stories in Mark are woven together with simple stereotyped connectives, such as the use
of kai euthus (“and immediately,” “straightway”), which may be thought of as a Semitic style (as
a typical simple connective in the Old Testament narrative style). More likely, however, this
abruptness indicated that the compiler-redactor of Mark has used geography and people simply
as props or scenes to be used as needed to connect the events in the service of the narrative.
Except for the Passion narrative, there is little chronological information. References in chapters
13 and 14 appear to presuppose that the Jerusalem Temple (destroyed in 70 CE) still stood (in
Matthew and Luke this is no longer the case); but the context of chapter 13, the “Little
Apocalypse,” is so interwoven with eschatological traditions of both the Jewish and Christian
expectations in the 1st century that it cannot serve with certainty as a historical reference. To
some extent, however, chapter 13 does help to date Mark—the priority of which has already
been established from literary criticism—because it is in good agreement with the traditions that
Mark was written after the martyrdom of Peter. Mark may thus be dated somewhere after 64 and
before 70, when the Jewish war ended.
The Gospel According to Mark: unique structure
The organization and schematizing of Mark reveals its special thrust. It may be roughly divided
into three parts: (1) 1:1–8:26—the Galilean ministry—an account of mighty deeds (an
aretalogy); (2) 8:27–10:52—discussions with his disciples centred on suffering; and (3) 11:1–
16:8—controversies, Passion, death, the empty tomb, and the expected Parousia in Galilee.
“The beginning of the Gospel” in the first words of Mark apparently refers to John the Baptist,
who is clearly described as a forerunner of the Messiah who calls the people to
repentance. Jesus never calls himself the Messiah (Christ). After Jesus’ Baptism by John, the
heavens open, the Spirit descends, and a heavenly voice proclaims Jesus as God’s beloved son
with whom He is well pleased. Already in this account there is a certain secrecy, because it is not
clear whether the onlookers or only Jesus witnessed or heard. Jesus was then driven by the Spirit
into the wilderness, the place of demons and struggle, to be tempted by Satan, surrounded by
wild beasts (the symbols of the power of evil and persecution) and ministered to by angels. Here
again he is in secret, alone. The opening of the struggle with Satan is depicted, and the
attendance by angels is a sign of Jesus’ success in the test.
Many references to persecution in Mark point toward Roman oppression and
a martyr church that was preoccupied with a confrontation with the Satanic power behind the
world’s hostility to Jesus and his message. There was stress on the underlying fact that the
church must witness before the authorities in a hostile world. Much of the martyrological aspect
of Mark’s account is grounded in his interpretation of the basic function of Jesus’ Passion and
death and its implication that the Christian life is a life of suffering witness.
What Jesus preached in Galilee at the beginning of his ministry was that the time is fulfilled and
the Kingdom of God is “at hand”; i.e., very very near—therefore repent! (1:15). In Matthew this
same message is that of both John the Baptist (3:2) and Jesus (4:17). This sets the stage; and the
miraculous ministry in Galilee about which the followers are enjoined to secrecy points not so
much to Jesus as the wonder-worker as to the great scheme of pushing back the frontier of Satan.
Toward the end of this first section, the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign, and he answers in no
uncertain terms that no sign will be given (8:12). In the Synoptic Gospels the miracles are never
called “signs” (as in John); and no sign is to be given prior to the cosmological, eschatological
signs from heaven that belong to the end: darkening of the Sun and Moon and
extreme tribulations that in postbiblical Jewish eschatology—the mood of the first Christian
century—is a sign of the coming of the heavenly Son of man to judge the world.
Parables are a revelatory mode of expression; they are not just illustrations of ideas or principles.
Jesus, the revealer, tells his disciples that the secret of the Kingdom of God is given to them but
that to the outsider everything is in parables (or riddles) in order that they may not hear and
understand lest they repent and be forgiven (4:10–12). This mystery and hiddenness is
particularly related to the parables about the coming of the kingdom. Yet, even Jesus’ disciples
did not recognize him as the Messiah, although his miracles were such that only a messianic
figure could perform them: forgiving sins on earth, casting out demons, raising the dead, making
the deaf hear and the stammerer (the dumb) speak, and the blind to see—all fulfillments of Old
Testament prophecy concerning the Messiah. Only the demons, supranatural beings, recognize
Jesus. There is a constant campaign against Satan from the temptation after Jesus’ Baptism until
his death on the Cross, and, in each act of healing or exorcism, there is anticipated the ultimate
defeat of Satan and the manifestation of the power of the new age. In all this Mark stresses the
need for secrecy and Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ (8:29) is told in Mark as the
opportunity to motivate an acceptance of the admonition “not to tell” by reference to the
necessity of suffering.
This strong emphasis on the necessity of suffering—in the life of Jesus and in the life of the
disciples—before the hour of victory gives the best explanation to what scholars have called the
secrecy motif in Mark—i.e., the constant stress on not telling the world about
Jesus’ messianic power.
 According to William Wrede, a German scholar, the messianic secret motif was a literary
and apologetic device by which the Christological faith of the early church could
be reconciled with the fact that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. According to Wrede,
Mark’s solution was: Jesus always knew it but kept it a secret for the inner group. After Peter’s
confession at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus began to speak of a suffering Son of man. The Son of man
in Jewish apocalyptic
was a glorious, transcendent, heavenly figure who would come victorious on clouds of glory to
judge the world at the end of time. Suffering was not part of this picture. E. Sjöberg (1955) has
interpreted the messianic secret not as a literary invention but as an understanding both that the
Messiah would appear without recognition except by those who are chosen and to whom he
reveals himself and that he must suffer. For outsiders, then, he remains a mystery until the age to
come. Even his disciples did not understand the necessity of suffering. Only in the light of
Resurrection faith—the hope of the Parousia and final victory over Satan—could they
understand that he had to suffer and die to fulfill his mission and how they, too, must suffer.
Martyrological aspects in Mark can be noted from the beginning. Already according to 2:20
Jesus’ disciples are not to fast until “when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then
they will fast….” In Mark 8 to 10, there is great concentration on discussions with the disciples.
The theme is suffering, and repeatedly they are reminded that there is no way of coming to glory
except through suffering. Three Passion predictions meet either with rejection, fear, or confusion.
In the Transfiguration (9:2–13; in which three disciples—Peter, James, and John—see Jesus
become brighter and Elijah and Moses, two Old Testament prophets, appear) there is the same
emphasis. The tension between future glory and prior suffering is the more striking when the
Transfiguration is recognized as a Resurrection appearance, placed here in an anticipatory
manner. The disciples are reminded of an association of Elijah with John the Baptist and his fate.
This is also a hidden epiphany (manifestation)—the triumphal enthroned king
closely juxtaposed with suffering and death.
After the third Passion prediction, in chapter 10, two of the disciples ask for places of honour
when Jesus is glorified. He reminds them that suffering must precede glory for “The Son of man
also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” It is worth
noting that this is the only reference to the death of Christ as a ransom or sacrifice but that Mark
does not dwell on the Christological implications, but uses the saying for ethical purposes. Even
so, the Marcan text gives one of the important building blocks for Christological growth and
reflection on the suffering Son of man.
Just as Jesus’ public ministry in Mark started with the calling of disciples, so the central part of
the Gospel calls them to participate through suffering in his own confrontation with the power of
Satan.
In the last section of the Gospel, the scene is shifted to Jerusalem, where Jesus is going to die.
His entry is described as triumphal and openly messianic and is accompanied by acted-
out parables in a judgment of a barren fig tree, casting money changers out of the Temple, and in
a parable of a vineyard in which the beloved son of the owner is killed. There is an increasing
conflict and alienation of the authorities. Chapter 13, the “Little Apocalypse,” made up of a
complex arrangement of apocalyptic traditions, serves as instruction to the disciples and thence
to the church that they must endure through tribulation and persecution until the end time. Thus,
although the setting is Jerusalem, the orientation is toward Galilee, the place where the Parousia
is expected. The Holy Spirit will come to those who must witness in the situation of trial before
governors and authorities (13:11); in the final eschatological trials only by God’s intervention
can anyone endure unless the time be shortened for the elect. Because this chapter is shaped as a
discourse that precedes the Passion narrative, it serves as a farewell address, a type of testament
including apocalyptic sayings and warnings to the messianic community at the end of the
“narrative” before the Passion—as do most testament forms (admonitions given before death to
those beloved who will remain behind).
The Cross is both the high point of the Gospel and its lowest level of abject humiliation and
suffering. A cry of dereliction and agony and the cosmic sign of the rending of the Temple veil
bring from a Gentile centurion acknowledgment of Jesus as Son of God. The disciples reacted to
the scandal of the Cross with discouragement, although already the scene is set for a meeting in
Galilee. There are no visions of the risen Lord, however, in the best manuscripts (verses 9–20 are
commonly held to be later additions), and Mark thus remains an open-ended Gospel. The
Resurrection is neither described nor interpreted. Not exultation but rather involvement in the
battle with Satan is the inheritance until the victorious coming in glory of the Lord—a continual
process with the empty tomb pointing to hope of the final victory and glory, the Parousia in
Galilee. The Gospel ends on the note of expectation. The mood from the last words of Jesus to
the disciples remains: What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!
The Gospel According to Matthew
St. Matthew, in the Ada Codex
Matthew is the first in order of the four canonical Gospels and is often called the
“ecclesiastical” Gospel, both because it was much used for selections for pericopes for
the church year and because it deals to a great extent with the life and conduct of the church and
its members. Matthew gave the frame, the basic shape and colour, to the early church’s picture
of Jesus. Matthew used almost all of Mark, upon which it is to a large extent structured, some
material peculiar only to Matthew, and sayings from Q as they serve the needs of the church.
This Gospel expands and enhances the stark description of Jesus from Mark. The fall of
Jerusalem (70 CE) had occurred, and this dates Matthew later than Mark, c. 70–80.
Although there is a Matthew named among the various lists of Jesus’ disciples, more telling is
the fact that the name of Levi, the tax collector who in Mark became a follower of Jesus, in
Matthew is changed to Matthew. It would appear from this that Matthew was claiming apostolic
authority for his Gospel through this device but that the writer of Matthew is probably
anonymous.
The Gospel grew out of a “school” led by a man with considerable knowledge of Jewish ways of
teaching and interpretation. This is suggested by the many ways in which Matthew is related to
Judaism. It is in some ways the most “Jewish” Gospel. Striking are 11 “formula quotations”
(“This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet…”) claiming the fulfillment of Old
Testament messianic prophecies.
The outstanding feature of Matthew is its division into five discourses, or sermons, following
narrative sections with episodes and vignettes that precede and feed into them: (1) chapters 5–7
—the Sermon on the Mount—a sharpened ethic for the Kingdom and a higher righteousness than
that of the Pharisees; (2) chapter 10—a discourse on mission, witness, and martyrological
potential for disciples with an eschatological context (including material from Mark 13); (3)
chapter 13—parables about the coming of the Kingdom; (4) chapter 18—on church discipline,
harshness toward leaders who lead their flock astray and more gentleness toward sinning
members; and (5) chapters 23–25—concerned with the end time (the Parousia) and watchful
waiting for it, and firmness in faith in God and his Holy Spirit. Each sermon is preceded by
a didactic use of narratives, events, and miracles leading up to them, many from the Marcan
outline. Each of the five sections of narrative and discourse ends with a similar formula: “now
when Jesus had finished these sayings….” The style suggests a catechism for Christian
behaviour based on the example of Jesus: a handbook for teaching and administration of the
church. This presupposes a teaching and acting community, a church, in which the Gospel
functions. The Greek word ekklēsia, (“church”) is used in the Gospels only in Matthew (16:18
and 18:17).
The discourses are preceded by etiological (sources or origins) material of chapters 1–2, in which
the birth narrative relates Jesus’ descent (by adoption according to the will of God) through
Joseph into the Davidic royal line. Though a virgin birth is mentioned, it is not capitalized upon
theologically in Matthew. The story includes a flight into Egypt (recalling a Mosaic tradition).
Some “Semitisms” add to the Jewish flavour, such as calling the Kingdom of God the Kingdom
of the Heaven(s). The name Jesus (Saviour) is theologically meaningful to Matthew (1:21).
Chapter 2 reflects on the geographical framework of the Messiah’s birth and tells how the
messianic baby born in Bethlehem came to dwell in Nazareth.
After the five narrative and discourse units, Matthew continues from chapter 26 on with the
Passion narrative, burial, a Resurrection account, and the appearance of the risen Lord in Galilee,
where he gives the final “great commission,” with which Matthew ends.
Matthew is not only an original Greek document, but its addressees are Greek-speaking Gentile
Christians. By the time of the Gospel According to Matthew, there had been a relatively smooth
and mild transition into a Gentile Christian milieu. The setting could be Syria, but hardly
Antioch, where the Pauline mission had sharpened the theological issues far beyond what seems
to be the case in Matthew. Matthew has no need to argue against the Law, or Torah,
as divisive for the church (as had been the case earlier with Paul in Romans and Galatians, in
which the Law was divisive among Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians), and, indeed, the
Law is upheld in Matthew (5:17–19). For Matthew, there had already been a separation
of Christianity from its Jewish matrix. When he speaks about the “scribes and the Pharisees,” he
thinks of the synagogue “across the street” from the now primarily Gentile church. Christianity is
presented as superior to Judaism even in regard to the Law and its ethical demands.
The Matthean church is conscious of its Jewish origins but also of a great difference in that it is
permeated with an eschatological perspective, seeing itself not only as participating in the
suffering of Christ (as in Mark) but also as functioning even in the face of persecution while
patiently—but eagerly—awaiting the Parousia. The questions of the mission of the church and
the degree of the “coming” of the Kingdom with the person and coming of Jesus are handled by
the Evangelist by a “timetable” device. The Gospel is arranged so that only after the Resurrection
is the power of the Lord fully manifest as universal and continuing. Before the Resurrection the
disciples are sent nowhere among the Gentiles but only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;
and the end time is expected before the mission will have gone through the towns of Israel. Even
in his earthly ministry, however, Jesus proleptically, with a sort of holy impatience, heals the son
of a believing Roman centurion and responds to the persistent faith of a Canaanite woman—
whose heathen background is stressed even more than her geographical designation, Syro-
Phoenician, given in the parallel in Mark—by healing her daughter. The Jewish origins of Jesus’
teaching and the way the Evangelist presents them do not deny but push beyond them. The
prophecies are fulfilled, the Law is kept, and the church’s mission is finally universal, partly
because the unbelief of the pious Jewish leaders left the gospel message to the poor, the sick, the
sinner, the outcast, and the Gentile.
In Matthew, because of the use of Q and Matthew’s theological organization, there is stress on
Jesus as teacher, his sharpening or radicalizing of the Law in an eschatological context; and Jesus
is presented not in secret but as an openly proclaimed Messiah, King, and Judge. In the
temptation narrative Jesus refuses Satan’s temptations because they are of the devil, but he
himself later in the Gospel does feed the multitude, and after the Resurrection he claims all
authority in heaven and on earth. By overcoming Satan, Jesus gave example to his church to
stand firm in persecution. Messianic titles are more used in Matthew than in Mark. In the
exorcism of demoniacs, the demons cry out, calling him Son of God and rebuking him for having
come “before the time” (8:29). Again, this shows that Jesus in his earthly ministry had power
over demons, power belonging only to the Messiah and the age to come; and he pushed this
timetable ahead. Yet, as in Mark, the miracles are not to be interpreted as signs. When asked for
a sign, the Matthean account gives only the sign of Jonah, an Old Testament prophet—i.e., the
preaching of the gospel—which in later tradition took on an added interpretation as presaging the
Son of man (Jesus) being three days and nights in the tomb (12:40, a later addition to Matthew).
Even the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount are not new but demonstrate a higher ethic—one
that is sharpened, strict, more immediate because the end time is perceived as coming soon.
People who took this intensification of the Law upon themselves dared to do it as an example of
“messianic license”—i.e., to use the ethics of the Kingdom in the present in a church still under
historical ambiguity and in constant struggle with Satan.
At such points the peculiar nature of Matthew comes into focus. The sharpening of the Law and
the messianic license for the disciples are clearly there. At the same time Matthew presents the
maxims of Jesus as attractive to a wider audience with Hellenistic tastes: Jesus is the teacher of a
superior ethic, beyond casuistry and particularism. Similarly, in chapter 15, he renders maxims
about food laws as an example of enlightened attitudes, not as rules for actual behaviour.
According to Matthew, the “professionally” pious were blind and unhearing, and these traits led
to their replacement by those who are called in Matthew the “little ones”; in Final Judgment the
King-Messiah will judge according to their response to him who is himself represented as one of
“the least of these.” The depiction of Jesus as Lord, King, Judge, Saviour, Messiah, Son of man,
and Son of God (all messianic titles) is made in a highly pitched eschatological tone. The Lord’s
Prayer is presented in this context, and, for example, the “temptation” (trial, test) of “Lead us not
into temptation” is no ordinary sin but the ordeal before the end time, the coming of the
Kingdom for which the Matthean church prays. Martyrdom, though not to be pursued, can be
endured through the help of the Spirit and the example of Jesus.
The Passion narrative is forceful and direct. Pilate’s part in sentencing Jesus to be crucified is
somewhat modified, and the guilt of the Jews increased in comparison with the Marcan account.
In Matthew the Resurrection is properly witnessed by more than one male witness so that there
can be no ambiguity as to the meaning of the empty tomb. The risen Lord directs his disciples to
go to Galilee, and the Gospel According to Matthew ends with a glorious epiphany there and
with Jesus’ commission to the disciples—the church—to go to the Gentiles, because the risen
Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth for all time.
The Gospel According to Luke
St. Luke the Evangelist
Luke is the third in order of the canonical gospels, which, together with Acts, its continuation, is
dedicated by Luke to the same patron, “most excellent” Theophilus. Theophilus may have been a
Roman called by a title of high degree because he is an official or out of respect; or he may have
been an exemplification of the Gentile Christian addressees of the Lucan Gospel. The account in
Luke–Acts is for the purpose of instruction and for establishing reliability by going back to the
apostolic age. The very style of this preface follows the pattern of Greek historiography, and thus
Luke is called the “historical” Gospel. Historically reliable information cannot be expected,
however, because Luke’s sources were not historical; they rather were embedded in tradition and
proclamation. Luke is, however, a historian in structuring his sources, especially in structuring
his chronology into periods to show how God’s plan of salvation was unfolded in world history.
That he uses events and names is secondary to his intention, and their historical accuracy is of
less importance than the schematization by which he shows Jesus to be the Saviour of the world
and the church in its mission (Acts) to be part of an orderly progress according to God’s plan.
The sources of the Gospel are arranged in the service of its theological thrust with definite
periodization of the narrative. Approximately one-third of Luke is from Mark (about 60 percent
of Mark); 20 percent of Luke is derived from Q (sometimes arranged with parts of L). Almost 50
percent is from Luke’s special source (L), especially the infancy narratives of John the Baptist
and Jesus, and parables peculiar to Luke (e.g., the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the rich
fool). L material is also interwoven into the Passion narrative. While Matthew structured similar
teaching materials in his five discourses, Luke places them in an extensive travel account that
takes Jesus from Galilee to Judaea via Jericho to Jerusalem. This is similar to the ways in which
Acts is structured on the principle of bringing the word from Jerusalem to Rome (see below).
The author has been identified with Luke, “the beloved physician,” Paul’s companion on his
journeys, presumably a Gentile (Col. 4:14 and 11; cf. II Tim. 4:11, Philem. 24). There is
no Papias fragment concerning Luke, and only late-2nd-century traditions claim (somewhat
ambiguously) that Paul was the guarantor of Luke’s Gospel traditions. The Muratorian
Canon refers to Luke, the physician, Paul’s companion; Irenaeus depicts Luke as a follower of
Paul’s gospel. Eusebius has Luke as an Antiochene physician who was with Paul in order to give
the Gospel apostolic authority. References are often made to Luke’s medical language, but there
is no evidence of such language beyond that to which any educated Greek might have been
exposed. Of more import is the fact that in the writings of Luke specifically Pauline ideas are
significantly missing; while Paul speaks of the death of Christ, Luke speaks rather of the
suffering, and there are other differing and discrepant ideas on Law and eschatology. In short, the
author of this gospel remains unknown.
Luke can be dated c. 80. There is no conjecture about its place of writing, except that it probably
was outside of Palestine because the writer had no accurate idea of its geography. Luke uses a
good literary style of the Hellenistic Age in terms of syntax. His language has a “biblical” ring
already in its own time because of his use of the Septuagint style; he is a Greek familiar with the
Septuagint, which was written for Greeks; he seldom uses loanwords and repeatedly improves
Mark’s wording. The hymns of chapters 1 and 2 (the Magnificat, beginning “My soul magnifies
the Lord”; the Benedictus, beginning “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel”; the Nunc Dimittis,
beginning “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace”) and the birth narratives of John the
Baptist and Jesus either came from some early oral tradition or were consciously modelled on the
basis of the language of the Septuagint. These sections provide insight into the early
Christian community, and the hymns in particular reflect the Old Testament psalms or
the Thanksgiving Psalms from Qumrān. Though on the whole Matthew is the Gospel most used
for the lectionaries, the Christmas story comes from Luke. The “old age” motif of the birth of
John to Elizabeth also recalls the Old Testament birth of Samuel, the judge. All the material
about John the Baptist, however, is deliberately placed prior to that of Jesus. When Mary, the
mother of Jesus, visits Elizabeth, Jesus’ superiority to John is already established. The Davidic
royal tradition is thus depicted as superior to the priestly tradition.
Writing out of the cultural tradition of Hellenism and that of Jewish ʿanawim piety—i.e., the
piety of the poor and the humble entertaining messianic expectations—Luke has “humanized”
the portrait of Jesus. Piety and prayer (his own and that of others) are stressed. Love and
compassion for the poor and despised and hatred of the rich are emphasized, as is Jesus’ attitude
toward women, children, and sinners. In the Crucifixion scene, the discussion between the
robbers and Jesus’ assurance that one of them would be with him in Paradise, as well as the
words, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!”—which are in contrast to the cry of
dereliction in Mark and Matthew—all point toward the paradigm of the truly pious man.
Parables peculiar to Luke—among which are those of the good Samaritan, the importunate
friend, the lost coin, and the prodigal son—have an element of warmth and tenderness. Thus,
Luke “civilizes” the more stark eschatological emphasis of Mark (and Matthew), leading the
way, perhaps, to a lessening of eschatological hopes in a time in which
the imminent Parousia was not expected but pushed into the distant future.
The interplay between Luke and Acts reveals Luke’s answer to the coming of the Kingdom.
Once the church has the Holy Spirit, the delay of the Parousia has been answered for a time.
Thus, Luke divides history into three periods: (1) the end of the prophetic era of Israel as a
preparation for revelation, with John the Baptist as the end of the old dispensation; (2) the
revelation of Jesus’ ministry as the centre of time—with Satan having departed after the
temptation and, until he once again appears, entering into Judas to betray Jesus; and (3) the
beginning of the period of the church after Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection.
Consistent with this schematization, John the Baptist’s arrest occurs before Jesus’ Baptism,
though it is placed later in Mark and Matthew. From the beginning, the rule of the Spirit is a
central theme, important in healing, the ministry, the message, and the promise of the continued
guidance of the Spirit in the age of the church, pointing toward part two of Luke’s work, the
book of Acts of the Apostles, in which Pentecost (the receiving of the Holy Spirit by
120 disciples gathered together the 50th day after Easter) is a decisive event.
Just as Luke arranges his Gospel to show the divine plan of salvation in historical periodization,
so he orders its structure in accordance with a geographical scheme. Chapter 1 (verse 8) of Acts
provides the framework: after the coming of the Spirit, the church will witness in Jerusalem, in
all Judaea and Samaria, and then to the end of the inhabited world. These places foreshadow the
church’s mission. The end of the old dispensation takes place in Jerusalem and its environs.
The Resurrection appearances in Luke are placed in Jerusalem (Mark, Matthew, and John point
toward Galilee). Jerusalem is also the place of the beginning of the church, and the old holy
place thus becomes the centre of the new holy community. The necessity of suffering was made
clear and interpreted as the fulfillment of prophecy. Rejection by people from his old home,
Nazareth, and by Jewish religious leaders corresponds to the beginning of the ministry to the
Gentiles—to the end of the earth.
Luke’s account of the Crucifixion heightens the guilt of the Jews, adding a trial and mockery
by Herod Antipas. The Crucifixion in Luke is interpreted as an anticipatory event: that the Christ
must suffer by means of death before entering into glory. Jesus’ death, therefore, is not
interpreted in terms of an expiatory redemptive act. The centurion who saw the event praised
God and called Jesus a righteous man, thus describing his fate as that of a martyr, but with no
special meaning for salvation. The link between past salvation history and the period of the
church is through the Spirit; salvation history continues in Acts.
The fourth Gospel: The Gospel According to John
Uniqueness of John
manuscript illumination
John is the last Gospel and, in many ways, different from the Synoptic Gospels. The question in
the Synoptic Gospels concerns the extent to which the divine reality broke into history
in Jesus’ coming, and the answers are given in terms of the closeness of the new age. John, from
the very beginning, presents Jesus in terms of glory: the Christ, the exalted Lord, mighty from
the beginning and throughout his ministry, pointing to the Cross as his glorification and a
revelation of the glory of the Father. The Resurrection, together with Jesus’ promise to send the
Paraclete (the Holy Spirit) as witness, spokesman, and helper for the church, is a continuation of
the glorious revelation and manifestation (Greek epiphaneia).
Irenaeus calls John the beloved disciple who wrote the Gospel in Ephesus. Papias mentions John
the son of Zebedee, the disciple, as well as another John, the presbyter, who might have been at
Ephesus. From internal evidence the Gospel was written by a beloved disciple whose name is
unknown. Because both external and internal evidence are doubtful, a working hypothesis is that
John and the Johannine letters were written and edited somewhere in the East (perhaps Ephesus)
as the product of a “school,” or Johannine circle, at the end of the 1st century. The addressees
were Gentile Christians, but there is accurate knowledge and much reference to Palestine, which
might be a reflection of early Gospel tradition. The Jews are equated with the opponents of Jesus,
and the separation of church and synagogue is complete, also pointing to a late-1st-century
dating. The author of John knows part of the tradition behind the Synoptic Gospels, but it is
unlikely that he knew them as literary sources. His use of common tradition is molded to his own
style and theology, differing markedly with the Synoptics in many ways. Yet, John is a
significant source of Jesus’ life and ministry, and it does not stand as a “foreign body” among the
Gospels. Confidence in some apostolic traditions behind John is an organic link with the
apostolic witness, and, from beginning to end, the confidence is anchored in Jesus’ words and the
disciples’ experience—although much has been changed in redaction. Traces of eyewitness
accounts occur in John’s unified Gospel narrative, but they are interpreted, as is also the case
with the other Gospels. Clement of Alexandria, a late-2nd-century theologian, calls John the
“spiritual gospel” that complements and supplements the Synoptics. Although the Greek of John
is relatively simple, the power behind it (and its “poetic” translation especially in the King James
Version) makes it a most beautiful writing. Various backgrounds for John have been suggested:
Greek philosophy (especially the Stoic concept of the logos, or “word,” as immanent reason); the
works of Philo of Alexandria, in which there is an impersonal logos concept that cannot be the
object of faith and love; Hermetic writings, comprising esoteric, magical works from Egypt
(2nd–3rd centuries AD) that contain both Greek and Oriental speculations on
monotheistic religion and the revelation of God; Gnosticism, a 2nd-century religious movement
that emphasized salvation through knowledge and a metaphysical dualism; Mandaeanism, a form
of Gnosticism based on Iranian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Jewish sources; and Palestinian
Judaism, from which both Hellenistic and Jewish ideas came. In the last source there is a
Wisdom component and some ideas that possibly come from Qumrān, such as a dualism of good
versus evil, truth versus falsehood, and light versus darkness. Of these backgrounds, perhaps, all
have played a part, but the last appears to fit John best. In the thought world of Jewish
Gnosticism, there is a mythological descending and ascending envoy of God. In the prologue of
John, there is embedded what is proclaimed as a historical fact: The Logos (Word) took on new
meaning in Christ. The Creator of the world entered anew with creative power. But history and
interpretation are always so inextricably bound together that one cannot be separated from the
other.
Solution to synoptic problems exegesis and hermeneutics