The texts of the three synoptic gospels often agree very closely in wording and order, both in quotations and in narration. Most scholars ascribe this to
documentary dependence: the agreements among synoptic gospels are due to one gospel drawing from the text of another, or from some written source that another gospel also drew from. Recent scholarship tends to explain the gospels' relationship in terms of ancient compositional practices and comparisons with other ancient historical biographers over the traditional emphasis on theological agendas.
Controversies The synoptic problem hinges on several interrelated points of controversy: •
Priority: Which gospel was written first? (If one text draws from another, the source must have been composed first.) •
Successive dependence: Did each of the synoptic gospels draw from each of its predecessors? (If not, the frequent agreements between the two independent gospels against the third must originate elsewhere.) •
Lost written sources: Did any of the gospels draw from some earlier document which has not been preserved (e.g., the hypothetical
"Q", or from earlier editions of other gospels)? •
Oral sources: To what extent did each evangelist or literary collaborator draw from personal knowledge, eyewitness accounts, liturgy, or other
oral traditions to produce an original written account? •
Translation: Jesus and others quoted in the gospels spoke primarily in
Aramaic, but the gospels themselves in their oldest available form are each written in Koine Greek. Who performed the translations, and at what point? •
Redaction: How and why did those who put the gospels into their final form expand, abridge, alter, or rearrange their sources? Some theories try to explain the relation of the synoptic gospels to
John; to non-canonical gospels such as
Thomas,
Peter, and
Egerton; to the
Didache; and to lost documents such as the
Jewish–Christian gospels and the
Gospel of Marcion.
History Ancient sources virtually unanimously ascribe the synoptic gospels to the apostle
Matthew, to
Mark, and to
Luke—hence their respective canonical names. The ancient authors, however, did not agree on which order the Gospels had been written. For example,
Clement of Alexandria held that Matthew wrote first, Luke wrote second and Mark wrote third; on the other hand,
Origen argued that Matthew wrote first, Mark wrote second and Luke wrote third;
Tertullian states that John and Matthew were published first and that Mark and Luke came later; and Irenaeus precedes all these and orders his famous 'four pillar story' by John, Luke, Matthew, and Mark. A remark by
Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth century presents the gospels as composed in their canonical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), with each evangelist thoughtfully building upon and supplementing the work of his predecessors—the
Augustinian hypothesis (Matthew–Mark). This view (when any model of dependence was considered at all) seldom came into question until the late eighteenth century, when
Johann Jakob Griesbach published in 1776 a
synopsis of the synoptic gospels. Instead of
harmonizing them, he displayed their texts side by side, making both similarities and divergences apparent. Griesbach, noticing the special place of Mark in the synopsis, hypothesized Marcan posteriority and advanced (as
Henry Owen had a few years earlier) the
two-gospel hypothesis (Matthew–Luke). In the nineteenth century, researchers applied the tools of
literary criticism to the synoptic problem in earnest, especially in German scholarship. Early work revolved around a hypothetical
proto-gospel (
Ur-Gospel), possibly in
Aramaic, underlying the synoptics. From this line of inquiry, however, a consensus emerged that Mark itself served as the principal source for the other two gospels—
Marcan priority. In a theory first proposed by
Christian Hermann Weisse in 1838, the double tradition was explained by Matthew and Luke independently using two sources—thus, the
two-source (Mark–Q) theory—which supplemented Mark with another hypothetical source consisting mostly of sayings. This additional source was at first seen as the
logia (sayings) spoken of by
Papias and thus called "Λ", but later it became more generally known as
"Q", from the German
Quelle, meaning
source. This two-source theory eventually won wide acceptance and was seldom questioned until the late twentieth century; most scholars simply took this new orthodoxy for granted and directed their efforts toward Q itself, and this is largely the case. The theory is also well known in a more elaborate form set forth by
Burnett Hillman Streeter in 1924, which additionally hypothesized written sources
"M" and
"L" (for "Special Matthew" and "Special Luke" respectively)—hence the influential
four-document hypothesis. This exemplifies the prevailing scholarship of the time, which saw the canonical gospels as late products, dating from well into the second century, composed by unsophisticated cut-and-paste redactors out of a progression of written sources, and derived in turn from oral traditions and from
folklore that had
evolved in various communities. In recent decades, weaknesses of the two-source theory have been more widely recognized, and debate has reignited. Many have independently argued that Luke did make some use of Matthew after all. British scholars went further and dispensed with Q entirely, ascribing the double tradition to Luke's direct use of Matthew—the
Farrer hypothesis of 1955-which is enjoying growing popularity within scholarship today. The rise of the Matthaean posteriority hypothesis, which dispenses with Q but ascribes the double tradition to Matthew's direct use of Luke, has been one of the defining trends of Synoptic studies during the 2010s, and the theory has entered the mainstream of scholarship. Meanwhile, the Augustinian hypothesis has also made a comeback, especially in American scholarship. The
Jerusalem school hypothesis has also attracted fresh advocates, as has the
Independence hypothesis, which denies documentary relationships altogether. On this collapse of consensus, Wenham observed: "I found myself in the Synoptic Problem Seminar of the Society for New Testament Studies, whose members were in disagreement over every aspect of the subject. When this international group disbanded in 1982 they had sadly to confess that after twelve years' work they had not reached a common mind on a single issue." More recently, Andris Abakuks applied a
statistical time series approach to the Greek texts to determine the relative likelihood of these proposals. Models without Q fit reasonably well. Matthew and Luke were statistically dependent on their borrowings from Mark. This suggests at least one of Matthew and Luke had access to the other's work. The most likely synoptic gospel to be the last was Luke. The least likely was Mark. While this weighs against the Griesbach proposal and favors the Farrer, he does not claim any proposals are ruled out.
Conclusions No definitive solution to the Synoptic Problem has been found yet. The
two-source hypothesis, which was dominant throughout the 20th century, still enjoys the support of most New Testament scholars; however, it has come under substantial attack in recent years by a number of biblical scholars, who have attempted to relaunch the
Augustinian hypothesis, the
Griesbach hypothesis and the
Farrer hypothesis. In particular, the existence of the
Q source has received strong criticism in the first two decades of the 21st century: scholars such as
Mark Goodacre and
Brant Pitre have pointed out that no manuscript of Q has ever been found, nor is any reference to Q ever made in the writings of the
Church Fathers (or any ancient writings, in fact). This has prompted
E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies to write that the Two-sources hypothesis, while still dominant, "is least satisfactory" and Fr.
Joseph Fitzmyer to state that the Synoptic Problem is "practically insoluble".
Theories Nearly every conceivable theory has been advanced as a solution to the synoptic problem. The most notable theories include: == See also ==