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Matched Categories Sacred Text. Alex US English. David US English. This is known as the Griesbach hypothesis named after an influential eighteenth-century scholar who supported it , or the two-gospel hypothesis, since it claims Matthew and Luke were the source for Mark. Early Christians were closest to the original sources, and until the nineteenth century the church largely assumed that Matthew came first.
Church tradition seems to support Matthean priority. The strongest argument for Matthean priority is that there are instances in which Matthew and Luke agree, and Mark does not. Proponents of Matthean priority argue that other views such as Markan priority, discussed below rely on additional sources, despite no physical evidence that such sources exist.
Both of these Matthean priority theories solve the synoptic problem without the need for additional sources. Most scholars find the Matthean priority argument less convincing than the evidence for Markan priority: the idea that Mark came first. There are several significant reasons to support this view:. So did Mark take material from both, or did Matthew and Luke take material from Mark?
While some have argued that Mark is an abridged version of the other Synoptics, comparing accounts from Mark to their parallel passages appears to suggest otherwise. For example:. If Mark is using Matthew as his main source for this story, why does he have significantly more detail? If anything, it seems more likely that Matthew and Luke are providing abbreviated versions of the accounts in Mark. If he were working from their material, why would he leave out the Sermon on the Mount?
As we said earlier, many of the major accounts in the Synoptics appear in the same order in all three gospels. Most scholars would suggest that the deviations occur when Matthew and Luke choose to follow another source besides Mark. If Mark was the only source, where did the other writers get important teachings of Jesus, like the Sermon on the Mount?
However, after analyzing the similarities and differences between the three texts, most scholars believe that there was at least one other major source that the gospel writers relied on.
This is why scholars have expanded on Markan priority with the two-source theory and the four-source theory. Since most of the material exclusive to Matthew and Luke is sayings of Jesus with a few narratives, the two-source theory suggests that one additional source is enough to account for the differences between the Synoptics.
If one of the most widely-accepted solutions to the synoptic problem hinges on a source that only exists in theory, how do scholars explain this source? The article linked shows other ways we see a common thread in all three of these books. Did these three writers have an issue with plagiarism? Or did divine intervention play a role in all of their texts? This is the crux of the Synoptic Problem. Some scholars have suggested that they all used material from something known as the Q Source.
The Q Source is a hypothetical document full of oral tradition, etc. First, we have no evidence of a Q source. What may have happened is Mark or Matthew depending on which scholar you asked wrote their gospel first, and the other two had access to it. We can point to the verse in Luke that mentions that others had written accounts of Jesus Luke Even if they did use some Q source, which we have no evidence to back up that theory, they were either eyewitnesses Matthew or spent a great deal of time compiling eyewitness accounts to provide an accurate gospel narrative Luke Even amidst the similarities, we do still find content that is unique to one or two books.
Do these similarities discredit the authors or challenge the authority of their writings? Can we trust the Synoptic Gospels? Consider these questions as we seek to understand the authority of the gospels.
The Gospel of Matthew, one of two gospels written by a disciple, tailored its account for a Jewish audience. Matthew wrote to identify Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies so that the Jews would recognize Jesus as the Messiah they had long awaited.
In contrast, the Gospel of Mark is written with a Gentile audience in mind. The shortest of the four gospels, early Church history tells us that Mark had a close connection to the apostle Peter.
Mark weaves a narrative that identifies Jesus as the Son of God Mark and demonstrates the veracity of the cross. The Gospel of Luke is written to a specific person, Theophilus, and mounts a defense of the gospel message as revealed in the life of Christ. Though not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus, Luke wrote as a historian who had access to multiple accounts and brought them together in one narrative. The Gospel of John, the second of the gospels written by a disciple, was transcribed later than the others and has a more universal audience in mind.
While each of the gospels are united in their purpose to record the life of Jesus and the corresponding gospel message, each author takes a slightly different tack. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each had a different audience in mind and customize their writing for that group. Each man had a different perspective and shares the gospel message from his vantage point.
Even in light of their differences, we do know that each considered their message to be of the utmost importance. They understood that they bore a great responsibility to accurately record historical events and impart to their audience corresponding theological truths.
They were not just writing to reform the lifestyle of their audience.
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