This is an abbreviated and imperfect introduction to a problem that sends learned Biblical scholars into heated exchanges. Consider this a place to begin, but not to finish, the study of the synoptic problem.
From the earliest times, Christian scholars realized that the Gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark and Luke had a lot in common especially when compared with the Gospel of John (which was in a class of its own). Not only did the three share many of the same stories, they duplicated the general sequence and even had many sections that agreed almost verbatim (again, in marked contrast to John). Furthermore, about 90% of the content of Mark is found in Matthew and Luke.
- Example of similarities: Cleansing of the leper in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The similarities between Matthew, Mark and Luke earned them the monicker, “The Synoptic Gospels,” and the need to explain the complex nature of their similarities and differences is the “Synoptic Problem.”
Biblical scholars turned a critical eye to the Synoptic Gospels and eventually reached a consensus of sorts. The only viable explanation was that someone copied the structure and borrowed sections from the earliest gospel source (appeals to inspired verbiage ran into problems because of the disagreements between the texts). To demonstrate why scholars are (for the most part) convinced that copying occurred, I am including links to three reports of Barack Obama’s announcement of his presidential candidacy. Compare the two AP reports to the independent Chicago Tribune report. Keep in mind that they’re all reporting the same incident on the same day, with the benefit of recording devices and instantaneous communication.
- Obama: I’m Running for President (Chicago Tribune)
- Obama announces US presidential campaign (AP, Jerusalem Post)
- Obama launches bid to ‘transform’ U.S. (AP, San Jose Mercury News)
So, which Gospel was the first? Traditionally, Matthew was given this honor, but as the nineteenth century progressed, the argument for Markan priority began to gain ascendancy among scholars of the New Testament. Some of the primary arguments for Markan priority include:
- Matthew and Luke’s language, grammar and narrative style are cleaner than Mark’s. For example, it is more likely for an author to clean up sentence structure than it is for them to add awkward constructions.
- It is likely that Matthew and Luke added their birth narratives to Mark’s structure; it is unlikely that if Mark were copying from Matthew or Luke that he would have removed a biographic event as important as the birth of Christ.
- Where all three Gospels share material, the narrative sequence is essentially the same. Where Matthew and Luke share something that is not also in Mark, the order is different. More about this later.
- Depictions of Jesus and the Apostles are cruder and more human in Mark but are cleaned up in Matthew and Luke. For example, only in Mark does Jesus spit in the process of healing a blind man and a deaf man. In Mark, the Zebedee brothers, James and John, ask Jesus for places of glory next to him, but in Matthew, Mother Zebedee boldly advocates for the future of her sons.
The strong case for Markan priority creates new problems, however. How do we explain all that material found in Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark? Well, it turns out that much of this material represents sayings of Jesus (for example, the Beatitudes and the golden rule are in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark). Some historians suggested that in addition to the Gospel of Mark, Matthew and Luke also had a list of Jesus’ teachings or a “sayings gospel.” They called this hypothetical gospel “Q” (from quelle, the German word for “source”). Although the existence of Q is still hotly debated, the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas boosted Q advocates. Thomas is the first sayings gospel ever found and it appears to have much in common with the theorized Q.
If we put this all together, we have the most widely accepted theory of the development of the Gospels today: the Two Source Hypothesis. The idea is that when the authors of Matthew and Luke sat down to write their narratives, they had a copy of the Gospel of Mark and of the sayings gospel Q. They borrowed Mark’s basic storyline and liberally copied its text, improving and editing it as they saw fit, and inserting the teachings of Jesus in the best places. Finally, they each had access to and inserted their own unique material (such as the very different birth stories), perhaps from oral tradition (they were writing about half a century after the crucifixion). They each had different audiences, purposes, and circumstances to write for, and this likely affected how they edited and presented their respective narratives.
I should note that even though this is the most widely accepted answer to the synoptic problem by Christian and non-Christian biblical scholars, there are plenty who disagree, and there are many sophisticated (detractors would say convoluted) counterarguments and alternate explanations.
Here are some additional online resources regarding the synoptic problem:
- The Synoptic Problem Homepage. This is a fairly comprehensive resource. It’s fun to look at the long list of diagrams representing the dozens of variations on the Two Source Hypothesis and its detractors.
- A Synoptic Gospels Primer is another comprehensive resource for studying the Synoptic Problem.
- Wikipedia’s entry is a good starting point.
- A good gospel parallel is essential for this sort of study, and this five gospel parallel is a wonderful tool. It includes the Gospel of Thomas. Clicking on the little colored book icons in any gospel gives you the parallel passages in the others.
- Early Christian Writings is an extensive resource on canonical (i.e. New Testament) and extra-canonical Christian writings from the first 200 years of the Church’s existence. Clicking on any of the links takes you to online variations and translations of that text and lists both online and offline resources for studying that particular text.
I also relied heavily on the three following books in preparing this post:
8 responses so far ↓
1 John // Feb 13, 2007 at 12:04 am
Feedback request: who is hearing this for the first time? If so, is this post too technical? Who has heard of the Synoptic Problem before? Does knowledge of the SP affect how you interact with the gospels?
2 Miko // Feb 13, 2007 at 8:56 am
I’ve not heard it called that. Most of the Bible study I’ve done has been self-directed and mainly of a feminist bent. The feminist sources have different things to say about why the Gospel of John is different (so I’m waiting for you to get to that one ;)) and because of that focus, never went into great depth with the others in terms of form. They were more interested in content, as was I.
3 John White // Feb 13, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I’m hearing it for the first time. I didn’t leave feedback originally, but I read the whole post with a lot of interest. Great stuff!
4 John // Feb 13, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Still seeking feedback on this one. These Bible Study posts take a lot of time to prepare, and if Miko and John are the only two reading them (the three of us live close enough that we can put together a meatspace Bible Study), I may go ahead and retire them.
5 Jonathan // Feb 15, 2007 at 7:44 am
This is great stuff John! Sorry I haven’t commented yet - been busy. Some of this is beyond my own personal study in the area, so I’m learning stuff here!
One of the most important things I get out of this is the concept of writing for an audience. It seems to me that everyone writes with a specific audience in mind, and when a reader understands this important aspect, the message and its methodology makes more sense. Is this writing meant to be orally delivered to an audience? Who is the audience? Illiterate? Scholarly? Philosophical? Religious? Depending on this audience, the writer may want to bring certain details to the reader’s attention, while not giving a lot of time to other things, even chronological order of events in some cases. An understanding of the audience is one fundamental key in the process of good Bible interpretation (exegesis).
Although this is outside the scope of the “Synoptic problem,” another area of study that is fascinating to me would be a literary cultural analysis. What similar works can be found in the literary culture of the day? Are their similarities? Are their differences? For those of us who write today, there is no way to escape the writing culture around us, and it affects us greatly - the same is true of the gospel writers. The old testament was probably a big influence, but where their other works? The reason I bring this up is because it appears to be linked closely with an audience focus for writing.
But I think my entire comment is a digression from your original post - the source of the gospels. My comments are all about how to interpret them.
sorry. I guess I have nothing intelligent to add regarding the source 
Great study though! Please post more on this subject if you have the time - I hope I’m not the only one getting a lot out of it. I appreciate the source quotes too - I can further my study by referring to them later.
This actually brings up something I have been dreaming up to do on my site - to create a gigantic topical bibliography. However, bibliographies are boring, so I would like to have some small paragraph or two describing more detail about the topic before I list a bunch of books that link to Amazon. Within that bibliography, as part of the topic descriptions, I would like to link to other people’s post discussions on the subject as well, such as your article here. This way I have a topical bibliography with notes from myself and other interested researchers. It’s almost like a scholarly mini-wikipedia on philosophy and religion subjects interconnected with other religion and philosophy blogs. Just an idea right now - but I think this would help me go a long way in solving my problem - how to capture all these good discussions, book references, and research work in one page or site area.
6 John Remy // Feb 15, 2007 at 10:41 am
Thank you, Jonathan, and please don’t feel guilty about not commenting! I don’t expect a lot of discussion on these reading heavy posts, so I’m not sure why I’m so concerned about readership on these posts. I appreciate your encouragement, though. Maybe I’ll shoot for publishing these once a month (I was aiming for once a week, but it took too long to write).
I agree that so much can be learned about the authors of the gospels when the potential audience is considered. Scholars tend to speak in terms of early Christian communities: a Matthean Jewish-Christian community outside of Palestine (perhaps in Antioch), the Johannine community that was engaged in a culture war with Jewish leaders, etc.
I love the bibliography idea. I’ve thought about doing something similar on various topics–like a highly specialized, mini-Wikipedia.
7 Bored in Vernal // Feb 15, 2007 at 1:04 pm
John,
I’m familiar with the Synoptic Gospel problem (it’s growing up with a liberal Protestant minister as a dad) but I thought this was a good, clear summary with just about the right length and depth for a blog post.
I read these and hope you continue to do them. I think as you go along you will probably get into the more controversial aspects of Biblical studies and that might generate some more discussion.
8 Miko // Feb 15, 2007 at 9:32 pm
John: I think BiV is right. At the moment, we’re not sure what background others have on this subject. Your Bible Studies are a good way to assure a particular level of discussion, so that we can start more controversial topics.
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