#6 The Synoptic Problem

Hello class welcome to video lecture number six in which we are going to discuss the synoptic problem before we do I do want to say it was a pleasure to meet some of you when we were together last week and I enjoy getting to know how God is working in your life wasn't it a beautiful thing to come together with students from around the country and professors and administrators uh wonderful time of worship of study and Of encouragement so I hope you were as blessed by it as I was and I think everyone was let's

go back and look at how the gospels interact with each other particularly Matthew Mark and Luke and we're going to see why they may have a unique relationship that John's a little bit outside of let's start off by talking about an interpretive development of the New Testament how it came to be the collection of the New Testament documents into groups led to The exclusion of other documents by that I mean what we have in the New Testament was a collection and over time the early fathers began to say yes or no of what should be

in the New Testament Christianity itself defined itself in part against the the various forms of Judaism and other religions of the first century first century Christians were converts out of the Gentile world uh who were hostile to Christianity and so their views of God As monotheistic uh imminent and personal was different than the world that they were all coming out of the rise of of different positions within Christianity itself required and an establishment of what comes to be called Orthodoxy or right thinking a right belief system uh there was no early distinction between Orthodoxy and

heresy for the early church at least we don't have records of it because uh most of the church was Persecuted by Rome so there was a lot of different views out there and as the church became bigger and had more people in involved and it began to grow they wanted to say what is true and what is uh what we would call biblical later on and so this exclusive Orthodoxy came into existence primarily from the time of Constantine and later on uh there are some groups that don't necessarily accept that these other christianities aren't legitimate

I Typically think that those heresies are that they are heresies if they don't hold to Orthodoxy theology a critical anal is has been perceived as recent thought but there was critical analysis taking place at the time of the New Testament being canonized in the late 4th Century New Testament interpretation places The Interpreter in a long line of historical persons Christians were a profoundly textual people we are people of the book and as such what books Mak It into our book were very important and has been since our very beginning the patristic fathers embraced different philosophies

in in studying the scriptures the alexandrian school embraced platonic philosophy and allegory in interpreting scriptures but that gave way to what comes to be known as the anti aim school that favored a literal rational and historical exeresis of the Bible scholars such as origin uh Justin Martyr uh later on uh araus or ath naus the Council of NAA with all the scholars that came to that and developing of the nying Creed John chrisam eus Augustine and Jerome were all fathers that followed this later approach that said we need to take a more historical approach to

the Bible Constantine the emperor functions as a hinge in history in the interpretation of New Testament and of Christian thought the rise of a monarchal bishops played an important Role in early Christianity and these Bishops began to come together and they were the ones that established the Orthodoxy they were the ones that said what is uh ancient what is reliable and what can we see as consistent with the teachings of the Bible and so councils began to decide doctrinal truths and also what books make it into the Bible it was at this time that the

New Testament was canonized and the books of the Bible were accepted as permanent and Fixed and no real question came about the authorship or relationship between these books for the next, 1300 years that began to change in due time and one of the first things that this change saw was What's called the historical critical method in the historical critical method uh there's a new approach on how to understand authorship and the relationship of the words in the New Testament the first 17 centuries of gospel studies assumed that the gospels Were written in the order they

are found in the New Testament but the enlightenment led to a different approach to the scriptures the Miracles were rejected sometimes as not possible or plausible in a rationalistic world and there were doubts that came about about the rest of the New Testament as well and so there are these layers of criticism that start to form according to this historical critical method the first of these layers was Source Criticism uh that's think about it this way it's it's the idea that that written sources that make up the Bible were written in different layers Source criticism

we want to get to the sources of those layers Source criticism is the search for the original sources behind the sources that exist today they would argue that we don't have the original sources of the New Testament we don't have the original sources of the Old Testament we have copies of copies of Copies so their goal is to try to determine what was in those sources without having them they have to piece it together through detective work if you will and so so they would take the canonical books and try to determine from them what

are the sources behind those books a tricky Thing by all means this would be the earliest documentation that would eventually come to make up the gospel material as it pertains to the historic Jesus movement that we Talked about last week Source criticism has led to a full discussion that evolved into the explanation for the synoptic problem that we're going to deal with today there were other types of criticisms however one of those was form critic ISM and that is a a discussion of the stage of oral Traditions so Source criticism says what were the earliest

documents of the New Testament form criticism criticism says well what were the oral Traditions Behind those sources so before say the gospel of Matthew was written down there had to have been some oral Traditions that were passed around before Matthew captures them writes them down Luke even talks about this in his writing of the Gospel of Luke doesn't he he says that he's gotten from reliable sources gotten eyewitness accounts of these oral Traditions form criticism therefore is very similar to Source criticism yet it goes deeper in that whereas Source Criticism strives to ascertain the earliest

forms or earliest documents of written sources for the biblical material the and in that context the gospel material form criticism goes to the earliest material that went into the composition of the source material itself this we could call oral material or oral collections is probably a better way to describe it of sayings or or or different stories narratives Parables about Jesus and about the early Apostles Form critics believe that the gospels could be reduced to individual paropy that means self-contained passages and that each of those passages were probably meant to be memorized and passed along

into a new audience and that's how they spread the gospel they did not have the new test at the time of Paul instead they had these paropy that they would go and tell and that's how you would remember stories and if you could get enough people in your Congregation to remember enough of the paropy then you sort of have a gospel don't you these could then be studied based on their form such as Parables or Miracle stories or pronouncement stories uh a Proverbs or wisdom sayings I sayings Etc to try to understand the meaning and

what the purpose of the meaning was form critics assign each form to a sitzen laan it's a German word that means a situation in life uh it's the history of the early church they Would say the reasons why Mark writes what he does is because he's dealing with certain issues in the church where he's writing certainly that's the case with Paul because Paul's letters are occasional they're writing about specific people that took place at a specific occasion they believe that the situation of the church dictated the form or sort of teaching that entered into the

gospel and that would make sense because whatever issues they're Dealing with they would want to have some sort of document to support or explain that laws were established regarding the transmission of tradition that permitted the conversion of these oral teachings into written ones they assumed that stories were lengthened names and details were added um and some aspects were added such as Miracles that they did not accept based on other evidences that are found and other stories that are heard and that uh these Events with these sayings reflect the later Church placing back into the stories

its understanding of Truth their view was that the goal was to remove these later additions to get to the pure truth of the original Christ centered event now I would say all the events in the gospels are legitimate and historically accurate but these form critics were trying to get behind the later stuff that was added to the earlier things in their opinion this Gives way to another form of criticism that comes to be known redaction criticism uh or understanding the final completion of the document a redactor is an editor and so some Scholars will say

well it's not so important if we have the original documents or the original oral Traditions the most important thing to have is the final the final book The Gospel of Mark was written a certain way for a certain reason for a certain audience and we should read it in its Entirety and so it actually makes more sense to read it in its wholeness than it does in its individual individual pericopes redaction criticism is the study of the earliest documents that are whole to determine where later editors or redactors edited the original Source material for various

reasons including improving grammar elucidating a difficulty to understand uh providing for historical clarification developing a theological point or making the work To go easier things like this the strengths and weaknesses of these criticisms are that they all share common strength of drawing in The Interpreter into the text we we weren't there when Jesus healed the blind person and so we're reading about that event through the stories of people that captured oral Traditions that met the needs of their day it does not make that event more or less true I believe these were true events but

by studying how the Written Source came to be helped these Scholars understand something about those earliest texts being part of a text based faith it is always better to Greater understand that text and anything underlying it a great deal of the work done in these fields has added to a fuller interpretation of these texts redaction criticism can be especially insightful as one is seeking to determine the purpose for which a work was written or collected but There's significant weaknesses as well a significant weakness in the field is the subjectivity that is inherent in the study

as one tries to determine what's the underlying texts or the editing of the later writing there's the possibility that we can look for and find what's not really there any aberration could be conceived as intentional purpose-filled redaction that imbus the text with a new meaning as a result we can import meaning to These texts that's not truly present another weakness is what Witnesses at the hand at the second Quest that I talked about in the seminar that we had which is the picking apart of the text until nothing of significant remains every detail can be

examined with a biased scrutiny that could cause dismissal or reinterpretation to an unacceptable degree there are some people that just want to pick apart the Bible they don't want to accept it as True and they will use something like this to do that it's a good weakness a bad weakness you know it's a strong weakness of of this particular movement understanding those criticism I want to now look specifically at the synoptic problem what is the synoptic problem and uh how does it relate to the gospel interpretation in brief uh the synoptic problem is this that

there are obvious similarities between the first three gospels Matthew Mark and Luke some Refer to this as a triple tradition the synoptic problem refers to the scholarly challenge of explaining the similarities and differences between gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke which are collectively called the synoptic gospels due to their shared content structure and wording the word synoptic comes from the Greek word synopsis meaning seeing together as these three gospels can be viewed side by side for Comparison let's talk about the nature of the problem while Matthew Mark and Luke often report the same events from

Jesus's life they do so with striking similarities in language order and narrative structure for for instance many sections are word for word identical across the gospels at the same time there are significant differences in wording theological emphasis and sequence of events that need to be Explained this raises important questions why are these gospels so similar in some respects and so different in others which gospel was written first and how did the others use or adapt it what sources if any to the gospel writers use in their compositions let's look at some literary in interdependence of

these gospels to try to understand what I'm talking about I say that some of these word these Phrases are word for word identical in these gospels and we want to see what that looks like so let's look at the literary interdependence of the synoptic gospels the first thing I want to talk about is word agreement why do they so closely resemble each other John doesn't if you read John compared to these three it's completely different stories and written in completely different ways but Matthew Mark and Luke has a lot of material we will see how

much later That's identical why are they so closely resembling of each other common word wording requires that conclusion that they must have had at least one common source either oral or written that's the only explanation for why they're so similar there's also number two the idea of a common Arrangement it's not just that they have word agreement but these pericopes are often set in the same order the stories take place in the identical order from one gospel to the Other when it doesn't matter in terms of the timing of it all uh they are simply

reversed occasionally or apparently arranged in different order to highlight a new principle historical chronology discounted because of occasional differences and difference with John uh does suggest that there were some intentionality in this Arrangement arrangement of material topically and not chronologically in similar fashion across the gospel points toward a common Source and the length of the material points points more likely to a written common source over an oral one so the fact that you have the same wording but also the same stories and these stories are often in the same order it would be very hard

for someone to remember all of that and so it's likely this was a written Source not an oral source Source or at least part of it was written down the third thing that shows interdependence of these gospels is a Shared parenthetical material parenthetical meaning that's stuff that takes place in the middle of the story but not important to the story there are times in the gospels when the author digresses from the main action or statements to insert a parenthetical expression which is often shared across two or three of the synoptic gospels so there an example

that if I was telling you a story and I stopped to say oh by the way there was a a blue truck parked In front of the house and then I go back and tell this very important story that blue truck may have nothing to do with the story but the fact that I would say that and then someone else will tell that same story and also include that suggests that they must have gotten that from me the fourth thing that shows interdependence of these gospels is a Lucan prologue Luke States in his gospel that

he used other written Sources and followed all these things closely this indicates that he kept close to the original narratives that were made available to him that he tells us about and so most scholars believe that Luke was not the First Gospel written for that reason so this leads us to the co question of which is the first one written down and the idea of Markin priority starts to develop it's the idea Markin priority is the idea that Mark Wrote first and Matthew and Luke independently used Mark as one of their sources let's look at

the key components of Mark and priority and it's called Mark and priority because it's primary it's it's prior in writing uh some of the reasons why scholars believe in Mark and priority is because one Mark is shorter than the other two and it's more likely that you would take a shorter document and write more from that than it would be to have a longer document Then you cut it to be shorter Mark uses inferior grammar so it's it's likely that the other two Matthew and Luke were more educated and they saw some grammar mistakes they

would have written it and made it better when they wrote their their gospels Mark possesses harder readings things that are more complicated and so it's more likely that Matthew and Luke would have smoothed those out to make it a little bit easier to understand Mark possesses more Negative descriptions of the disciples which would be surprising because who would want to talk bad about the disciples and so again from the idea that they would have probably made it a little bit softer especially in relationship to Peter Mark can be hard on Peter and I think that's

because Mark got his information directly from Peter he was Peter's pen if you will and so Peter was just telling his own story whereas Matthew and Luke would be a Little bit Kinder and they would not want to say harsh things about Peter there's also much less Matthew Luke agreements against Mark than between Mark and the other two gospels against one another so when you look compare all three of them together Matthew and Luke um have le much less agreement with each other when you take out the mark and material most of the literary modifications

and redactions make the most sense if one considers Matthew and Luke editing Mark than from the other direction the seventh reason why we look at Mark and priority is that Mark has more primitive theology it hasn't been developed fully yet and Mark was probably written the earliest quite a bit earlier than the other two and so a deeper thought goes into Matthew and Luke when they write their gospels and then the last reason reason number eight is that Matthew and Luke um have unique material that one might call M or L Respectively that's hard to

explain if they're quoting each other so there's a lot of material that is in Luke that is not in Matthew or it is in Matthew but not in Luke that it's hard to explain if they had access to each other so the fact is they probably have access to mark but not each other's gospels let's look at the different theories of the origins of the gospels several have been proposed to explain the relationship between the synoptic Gospels the most prominent are the two Source hypothesis the farer hypothesis and the grace hypothesis or greeb hypothesis um

let's look at each of those three the first one is the two Source hypothesis the two Source hypothesis is the most widely accepted solution to the synoptic problem it posits that Mark was the first gospel written as we saw with Mark in priority around 65 to 70 AD and that both Matthew and Luke used Mark as A source which explains substantial overlap in content so this overlap of content from Mark into the others is because Mark wrote and then they used Mark as an example and then the two Source hypothesis so there's two sources Mark

is one and there's this other source that we don't have any longer it's just disappeared and it's referred to often as Q This the letter Q in English and it actually comes from German it's a German word for uh Kella Or quella which means Source um it's a hypothetical idea no one has proof of this but they believe there's enough overlap material in Matthew and Luke to suggest there was this Second Source out there the Q Source material that is believed to be a collection of sayings of Jesus that Matthew and Luke both used independently

now it may not have been a source written down like Mark it may have just been a collection of sayings of Jesus But it's this extra source out there somewhere that we've lost over time and it explains the material shared by Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark such as the Lord's Prayer or the Beatitudes which you find in Matthew and Luke but it doesn't appear in Mark how do you explain them in those two well that's how these Scholars have come along they've said well there's this Q source that has the Lord's Prayer

in it and again it may have just been a Collection of sayings not not a gospel written down but just these easy to remember sayings the two Source hypothesis accounts for the Triple tradition that's material shared by all three synoptic gospels the double tradition that's the material that is shared by Matthew and Luke but absent from Mark and the unique material in each of the Gospels that we're going to see later on so when you go back and look at the Idea of the two Source hypothesis it kind of develops this way the first person

to start suggesting that Mark was the priority that Mark in priority Mark was the first gospel written was a guy named Holtzman and he began to look and say there's this earliest material and he called it her Marcus um but then he began to recognize this Q source as well and then a guy named streer suggested well it wasn't just her Marcus it was Mark so Mark and Q came together to Become the source for Matthew and Luke and this is sometimes referred to as the mark Q theory that claims that Matthew and Mark excuse

me Matthew and Luke used Mark as well as Q as their sources for writing their gospels the idea is that Matthew and Luke have the shared material the shared materials from Q Matthew organized Q better probably than Luke did that's why there's more sayings of Jesus in Matthew then in Luke uh the shared material Alternates in terms of primitive nature in the two gospels uh and the main argument for a written Q source is there's exact wording sometimes between Matthew and Luke um and there's also a general common order of the CU material in Matthew

and Luke uh so even though I feel like it may have been an oral Source some Scholars think it might have actually been a written Source the existence of Q is associated with the argument for Mark and priority only it Doesn't make sense in any other understanding of how the gospel has come to be the CU material begins at the baptism and temptation of Jesus it omits the birth narrative doesn't deal with Jesus's birth at all and consists mostly of Jesus's teachings and sayings it lacks a passion narrative so it's mostly about the teachings of

Jesus uh the Q Source May overlap Mark in some places which might explain why some of the material one might consider important is Missing in CU so this is the two Source hypothesis that there's these two sources out there mark and Q that come together Mark is obviously one of the gospels and then Matthew has uh access to Mark and Q and then some additional material and Luke has access to Mark and Q and some additional material he we know he did eyewitness reports from both Mary and philli because he went and visited them and

got their stories and he tells us he got eyewitness accounts So he has that uh that Matthew would not have so that's the the first hypothesis of how the order of the the gospels came to be the way they are not all Scholars accept this idea though there was a new hypothesis that de was developed by a guy named far uh far far the farer Theory also sometimes known as the farer goulder Theory rejects the idea that Q exists so that doesn't make sense we don't have it so why do we try to make invent

something that doesn't exist it Proposes that Mark would was written first just like the other theory has but that Matthew used Mark as a source and had just his own additional material and that Luke used Mark and Matthew as composing the gospel without the need for a separate Q source so look what farer did he says that Matthew used Mark and then Luke used Matthew and Mark and then for whatever reasons chooses to leave out some of the Matthew material but that would explain why there's Similarity between Matthew and Luke that's not similar to mark

and it would explain why both of them are similar to The Gospel of Mark this hypothesis argues that the agreements between Matthew and Luke can be explained by Luke's direct use of Matthew rather than relying on the hypothetical document like Q he writes his article farer in 1955 and he agrees with those who hold to the mark and priority of the synoptic gospels but does not recognize Q as a Source this Theory argues that Luke used Mark and Matthew for his sources and Matthew used Mark as his and this has become a somewhat popular Theory

going into the late 1990s the grbach or greeb hypothesis is sometimes referred to as the two gospel hypothesis it's the third H hypothesis for how the gospels came to be the synoptic gospels the gracebc hypothesis takes a different approach altogether that m Matthew was written first Followed by Luke and that Mark came last using both Matthew and Luke as sources and produced a condensed version of their material so he says Matthew was the first one written then Luke used Matthew and then Mark used Mark Matthew and Luke but for whatever reason Mark just wanted to

get the most important stuff and kind of ignored a bunch of other material this Theory challenges Mark in priority suggesting instead that Mark was an abbreviation of the earliest Gospels not their Source kind of looks at the opposite direction grbach wrote in the 1700s uh but it didn't really become that famous until the 1960s at least in the United States and this hypothesis does not follow the mark and priority obviously and it it rejects the concept of Q Source material as well sometimes this is referred to as meean priority instead of Markin priority let's look

at Mark in the two gospel Hypothesis that's the hypothesis I work with is the idea of the two gospel hypothesis and that being Mark and Q let's look at Mark in that hypothesis the gospel of Mark is recognized by the two gospel hypothesis hypothesis scholars in following ways number one it's representative of the spoken word that was captured and set down onto paper and number two it's representative of the genre of the short stories and heroic person The Caya or the cay depending how you pronounce that without formal beginning or ending in a non-literary style

the gospel of Mark is written in a style that was very popular at the time of the writing of the New Testament in which you would have these short stories about a hero that don't necessarily have a beginning or an ending that's formal this person just sort of shows up on the scene they don't have an origin story if you will instead they just jump right Into their whatever it is that they're supposed to be doing and of course if Mark is following that pattern his hero is Jesus is Christ The Suffering servant and so

he's not going to write about a birth narrative and he doesn't really spend much time on the cross either uh or the resurrection not like Matthew or or Luke or John will do and so if that's true if that's the genre he's choosing to write in he's doing it in a way that was Normative for the time that he wrote if we look at the idea that Matthew and Luke are in opposition to Mark the two Source Theory Mark and Q was more accepted 50 years ago than today this idea of the two Source theory

is not as popular as it was even 50 years ago even though it's the one that I'm sort of comfortable dealing with there is an argument against Mark and priority based on common source material that's left out of Matthew and Luke and That Matthew and Luke often agree in grammar and editing in comparison to Mark and that would be strange if they didn't have access to each other why would they agree on some of their own grammar and their own editing uh so there's some argumentation to suggest that the two Source theory has some some

more work to do the summary is that Mark is the shortest gospel has the poorest writing style has the most hardest readings and that Mark has many Agreements in wording against Matthew and Luke and Luke against Matthew in comparison with few agreement between Matthew and Luke that there are certain literary agreements that are best understood on the basis of the priority of Mark that Mark and redactional characteristics tend to be more frequent in these sections of Matthew that contain the triple tradition and that the M the Matthew additions to the triple tradition the Triple tradition

never appear in Luke and that the Q material never appears in the same context in Luke and Matthew for all of these reasons I hold to the idea of a mark in priority and you add to to it that at times the Q material appears to be more primitive in Matthew and and even often appears to be more primitive in Luke suggest that they have access to something other than uh each other uh and that they never agree in order against Mark I don't think that they Used each other's sources so I generally speaking hold

to a two Source hypothesis but I hold that Loosely okay and I don't know if we have enough Collective material to call it a q Source okay so how do we solve this idea of the synoptic problem if it's a problem there needs to be a solution right I would say this the most basic problem that the the the grabot hypothesis encounters is that it cannot be it cannot provide a credible explanation as to why Mark was Written in the first place if Mark was not written first it does not Advance the message of either

Matthew or Luke uh secondly it is better to refer to the CU material in my opinion as material material rather than a document I'm not convinced that there was a q Source I think there may have been Q material these collections of sayings or these collections of writings that existed kind of maybe loosely held together but not in a document not in a gospel so so To speak um the third thing I would say is there is likely a variety of sources written and oral that the gospels Ed to write their gospels they weren't just

writing off the top of their head they had Source material to help them write and then number four I would say Mark and priority along with this Q material is provable but it's unprovable we can't know for sure there is evidence both internal and external to help us to understand this to analyze the synoptic Gospels Scholars have used both internal and external evidence such as with the two Source hypothesis having placed more reliability on the internal evidence in the scriptures in the gospels um then they have found any outside source and so all of this

is done based on the scriptures we have they're not invalidating the scriptures they're using the scriptures to try to understand the scriptures there are several key issues In the synoptic problem that is good for you to know number one the idea of verbal agreement and order one of the most striking features of this soptic gospels is the high degree of verbal similarity or word order how things are so similar in some cases entire passages are nearly identical especially between Matthew and Mark or Luke and Mark for example 95% of Mark's content is found in the

gospel of Matthew and 65% of Mark's content is found in the Gospel of Luke this is a very high level of verbal agreement and it indicates a literary relationship must exist between these texts where where one or more of the authors relied on a common source or even the other source another thing there's material unique to each gospel that you need to understand in the context of that gospel while the synoptic gospels share much in common they also contain unique material for instance Matthew includes the Parable of the workers in the vineyard and the story

of the visit of the Magi which are absent in the other gospels Luke indicates unique stories like the parable of the Good Samaritan and the prodal son these differences raise questions about the sources each writer had access to and their own theological intentions when writing the third thing I would say be important to understand is the theological emphasis although the Synoptics share common narratives each gospel writer emphasizes different aspects of Jesus's Ministry for example Matthew stresses Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and a teacher of righteousness Luke highlights Jesus's concern for the

marginalized while Mark focuses on Jesus suffering and the Mystery of the kingdom of God these differences suggest that each author adapted their sources to Suit the theological needs of their intended audiences so in conclusion about this the majority of New Testament Scholars accept the two Source hypothesis although this is found to be questioned among biblical Scholars primarily from th those from the great Great Britain and the United States I want to look real briefly at the material that's unique to Matthew and unique to Luke the gospel of Matthew is in its own Context uh Matthew's

gospel is traditionally considered to have been written for a Jewish audience Matthew often refers back to Hebrew scriptures shows how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy this strong Jewish orientation can help explain some of the unique material in the gospel where Matthew is primarily concerned with showing Jesus as the long awaited Messiah there's unique material in the gospel of Matthew about 42% of Matthew's gospel contains Material not found in Mark or Luke this includes narratives discourses Parables and specific teachings we can divide m Matthew's unique content into a few major sections the first is the infancy

narratives Matthews 1 and 2 one of the most well-known portions unique to Matthew is this infancy narrative unlike Luke's account which focuses on Mary and includes the Angelic announcements to her Matthew gives a unique account of Joseph's role and includes several key Elements the genealogy of Matthew 1 traces Jesus's lineage through David and Abraham emphasizing Jesus's legal right to be on the throne of Israel Matthew also records the visit of the Magi in Matthew Chapter 2 who are Gentile figures from the East following a star to worship the newborn king this story not only highlights

Jesus's Royal identity but also foreshadows the inclusion of the Gentiles in God's plan the flight to Egypt and return also Found in Matthew Chapter 2 emphasizes Jesus as a new Moses figure fulfilling the prophecy of Hosea 11:1 where he says out of Egypt I called my son there are also discourses on discipleship and the kingdom of heaven in Matthew that is particularly rich in this material that is unique to Matthew for example in The Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5-7 contains some material shared with Luke but it also includes many unique teachings the Beatitudes in

Matthew differ from Luke's version both in content and scope for example Matthew's list includes the poor in spirit and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness broadening the ethical Vision Jesus's antithesis you have heard it said but I say to you in Matthew 52-48 are entirely unique to Matthew and showcase Jesus's Authority as the new lawgiver interpreting the Mosaic law with greater demands for inner Righteousness The Parables of the Kingdom found in Matthew 13 is another area that's unique to Matthew some of these parables are like The Parables of the weeds or the parable of

the pearl of Great Value are unique and illustrate the value and growth of the kingdom of God in distinct ways the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 is about forgiveness only found in Matthew it highlights the call to forgive others as a reflection of God's immense Forgiveness for us the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20 also emphasizes God's grace in a way unique to Matthew's teaching on the Kingdom's economy Matthew alone provides material on the church explicitly using the word Ecclesia Peter's confession and the Keys of the Kingdom in

Matthew 161 13-20 reflect is the passage not only narrates Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah But it includes the unique statement by Jesus you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church the image of Peter being giv keys to the kingdom is exclusive to Matthew and has widely been interpreted in church history in various ways in Matthew 181 15-20 we see a community discipline Matthew unique uh uniquely gives Specific Instructions about how to resolve conflict within the church and includes the promise that We're two or three are gathered in my name

I am there among them and in addition to this Matthew has some unique passion and Resurrection narratives as well while the passion narrative is shared among the synoptics Matthew includes some significant elements not found in Mark the death of Judas the dream of pilate's wife the resurrection of the Saints and and most specifically the Great Commission Matthew's gospel closes with Jesus's command to his disciples to make disciples of all Nations baptizing and teaching them the commissioning is uniquely structured in Matthew and emphasizes the global mission of the church maybe John does something similar but we

don't see Luke do this way pronouncedly uh at least not until we get to the book of Acts the theological themes in Matthew's unique material are that Jesus is the Fulfillment of the law and Prophets he wrestles with how Jesus fulfills Old Testament hopes and expectations Matthew deals with the Kingdom of Heaven he prefers the term Kingdom of Heaven rather than the kingdom of God which is more common in Mark and Luke his Parables and discourses consistently reveal the nature of this Kingdom its values and the necessity of righteousness on the part of those who

want to be in the Kingdom Matthew gives a very specific View of the church Matthew's attention to church life and discipline particularly in chapters 16 and 18 indicates a concern for the post-resurrection Christian Community this shows that Matthew's gospel addresses not only the ministry of Jesus but also the life of his followers in the ongoing mission of the church we don't see that quite as pronounced in Mark or Luke Matthew deals a great deal with the Theology of judgment and Grace While Matthew speaks much of judgment like in the parable of the weeds or the

unforgiving servant he also stresses God's graciousness particularly in the offer of forgiveness and in the invitation to enter into God's Kingdom in summary the unique material in Matthew's gospel provides us with a distinct portrait of Jesus as the Messiah as an authoritative teacher and as the Fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy Matthew's gospel is deeply Concerned with the righteousness required of disciples the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven and the life of the early Christian Community his gospel invites readers to recognize Jesus as the Fulfillment of God's promises and to live in the light of the

Kingdom's present and future Reality by examining this material we see that the gospel's Matthew that Matthew's gospel is not just a compilation of historical facts but a theological work that calls for a Response to the authority of Jesus and the righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven let's look now at the material that's unique to Luke the Gospel of Luke contains a significant amount of material that is unique compared to the other synoptic gospels Matthew or mark this unique content highlights Luke's special focus on themes like Universal salvation the marginalized and the role of women here

are some key sections and elements That are found only in Luke number one the infancy narrative and early life of Jesus in The Narrative of Jesus's birth the Annunciation to Mary in Luke chapter 1 where the angel Gabriel announces to Mary about the birth of Jesus is unique so is Mary's visit to Elizabeth the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth both pregnant under miraculous circumstances uh precede Mary's magnific K or her song of praise and the birth of John the Baptist a detailed account of his birth and zechariah's prophecy also associated with the birth narrative are

the Shepherds and angels and then Jesus attending the temple when he's 12 years old number two there are Parables that are unique to the Gospel of Luke Luke is known for including several Parables not found in Matthew or Mark many of which emphasize themes of compassion forgiveness and the reversal of social roles compared to what people would have Expected this include the parable of the Good Samaritan the rich fool the Lost coin the prodical son the rich man and Lazarus and the persistent Widow all are stories that indicate changes in the balance of power and

people being accepted you would not expect to be accepted number three there are Miracles that are unique to Luke some of Jesus's Miracles that only appear in Luke are the raising of the Widow's son at name uh and the healing of the 10 lepers one Of which was a Samaritan and he's the one that came back to give thanks number four the teachings and sayings that are unique to Luke include Jesus's resurrection excuse me Jesus's rejection in Nazareth which is a detailed account of Jesus reading from The Scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth

and being rejected by the town's people this is unique in Luke Jesus weeping over Jerusalem uh is a place where Luke records Jesus lamenting its failure to Recognize his own coming that's not found in other gospels there's also the uniqueness of the Pharisee and the tax collector a contrast between a self-righteous Pharisee and a humble tax collector number five another uniqueness in Luke is the role of women Luke often emphasizes women in a way that is unique among the gospels women support Jesus's Ministry in Luke chapter 8 Luke uniquely records that women include Mary including

Mary Magdalene Joanna and Susanna provide for Jesus and the disciples from their own resources we also see the story of Mary and Martha in Luke chapter 10 where Luke tells of Jesus's visit to the home of these two women emphasizing the importance of choosing to listen to Jesus's teachings the sixth thing we see in Luke this unique as the pen of thief Jesus is on the cross and this repentant Thief calls out to him and says please Remember me and Jesus responds saying today you will be with me in Paradise showcasing Jesus's Mercy at the

worst hour even for this marginalized criminal in his final moments Luke number seven has the emus Road appearance of Jesus that you don't find in the other gospels on the road to emus after his resurrection Jesus appears to two disciples explaining how the scriptures pointed to him this post-resurrection story is Found only in Luke these unique elements in Luke's gospel contribute to his distinctive portrayal of Jesus as the compassionate savior of all with special attention given to outcasts and marginalized Luke's interest in the Holy Spirit prayer and the role of women also makes his account

a rich addition to the synoptic tradition I want to say one last thing about the Gospel of John because I talked about it in a previous lecture when we looked at the Gospel of John how does it fit into the synoptic gospels most Scholars throughout history have said it doesn't it's very different than the others in fact if you put them side by side it doesn't fit in very well at all there might be a reason for that however I alluded to this before but I want to give more details about the idea that John

was written for readers of Mark so John the gospel was written for those who understood and knew the gospel of Mark Richard Bachman's U article John for readers of Mark offers a unique exploration of how the Gospel of John complement and contrasts with the gospel of Mark particularly for readers familiar with the latter bmann argues that John's gospel rather than being in competition with Mark assumes familiarity with Mark's narrative and offers a reflective theological perspective that enhances understanding of Jesus's identity here's a summary of The key themes from Bachman's word number one there's a different

narrative style Mark's gospel is fast-paced focusing on Jesus's actions Miracles and the urgency of his mission it portrays Jesus as the suffering servant and moves quickly through events without extensive theological explanation John is more meditative and reflective slowing down to focus on the significance of key moments in Jesus's Ministries John's narrative emphasizes theological depth with long discourses by Jesus that explore his divine nature a second area is Jesus's identity Mark uh in Mark Jesus's identity as the Messiah is often hidden or revealed only gradually as we saw with the Messianic secret even the disciples misunderstand

who Jesus is until his death and Resurrection John's open declaration about Jesus presents Jesus as the Eternal Word of God Messiah and Son of God from the very beginning in John 1 verse one John's Jesus speaks explicitly about his Divine Mission and the relationship with the father leaving no ambig ambiguity about his identity let's look at how the two handle signs and miracles we're going to study those in another video soon in Mark uh the miracle the focus on the miracles of Jesus are as demonstrations of his authority and compassion but often come without Explicit

theological explanation John frames Jesus's Miracles as signs that reveal his glory and invite belief for example the raising of Lazarus of John 11 not only shows Jesus's power over death but also foreshadows his own resurrection and the promise of eternal life now let's look at the narrative compliments Bamm argues that John's gospel complement marks by filling in the gaps or providing theological Reflections on events that Mark's fast-paced narrative leaves underexplored for example John includes the extended farewell discourse from John 13 through John 17 where Jesus teaches about his relationship with the Father the coming of

the Holy Spirit and the nature of discipleship topics that are only hinted at in the gospel of Mark let's look at the relationship between the cross and the resurrection in Mark the focus is on Jesus's suffering and servanthood climaxing in His death on the cross the resurrection though crucial is mentioned briefly at the end with a note of mystery John's emphasis uh emphasizes Jesus's glorification through the cross seeing it not only as a moment of suffering but as the ultimate revelation of God's love and Jesus is Victory the resurrection is more fully explored with multiple

appearances of the Risen Jesus and his commissioning of his disciples let's see how they both deal With the gosp with the Holy Spirit Mark has limited references mentioning the Holy Spirit briefly at Jesus's baptism in Mark 1:1 but does not focus extensively on the role of the holy spirit in John's teachings he presents a fuller picture of the holy spirit's role especially in in the farewell discourses of John 14-16 where Jesus promises the spirit will come to guide teach and empower the disciples after his Departure now let's look at how they both deal with eschatology

and eternal life Mark has a future orientation Mark tends to focus on future events particularly the coming of the kingdom of God at the End of Time John has a realized eschatology he emphasizes that eternal life begins now for those who believe in Jesus eternal life is not just a future promise but something that can be experienced in relationship with Jesus in the Present in conclusion bcams John for readers of Mark highlights the compliment compliment compliment nature of the two gospels while Mark emphasizes the urgency and actions of Jesus's Ministries John invites readers to reflect

more deeply on Jesus's Divine identity Mission and the significance of his words and actions for readers familiar with Mark John provides a rich theological lens through which to view the same events and person of Jesus Deepening their understanding of the Gospel message I hope you've enjoyed this video looking at how to understand the synoptic problem we've tried to understand you know what is the problem in the first place of how do these two these three gospels Matthew Mark and Luke relate to each other other why do they have so much material that's so similar and

why do they have material that's so different are there one source Mark that Matthew and Luke borrowed from or is there a second Source q that helped them to write their gospels how do they interact with each other and what is the relationship of John with them putting this together helps us to understand what is the emphasis for each of these gospels we can see that Matthew is built on the Fulfillment of old Testament prophecy Mark is built on the idea of the suffering servant and Luke is built on Jesus coming to save all who

Seek him those who are marginalized and cut off from society as a whole they each have their place they are each like a different perspective a different testimony if you will of the same events so that we could understand Jesus better in deeper and richer ways may you be blessed in the reading of these gospels especially when you compare them one to the other God bless you guys