What is the Synoptic Problem?

The Gospel of Luke is the third of the so-called Synoptics. The word synoptic means "seeing the whole together or at a glance." Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic Gospels, because they present a common narrative, relate the same incidents of our Lord, with much the same words, though characteristic differences, omissions, and additions are equally apparent. Various theories have been advanced to explain the similarity and differences, so often called discrepancies, of these three Gospels. One is the theory that originally there existed a primitive Gospel, which has been lost. Out of this primitive Gospel, it is claimed, the three Gospels were constructed. Another theory is that they grew out of one another; that one wrote first and the others followed to add to it and omit what they thought best to omit. It is beyond the scope of our Bible study work to take up these attempted explanations of how the Gospels came into existence. Nor can we follow in detail the intensely interesting historical evidences, which so wonderfully demonstrate their authenticity. However, we desire to say that the last word in the controversy of the Gospels and their genuineness has been spoken. The attacks upon the historicity of the narrative, the denials which have been made, have been silenced, though infidelity cannot completely be silenced, at least not in the present age.

4 The Gospels called "Synoptic," i.e. as together representing the same general view (cf. note 3 on Mark), can have been composed under one or other of the following conditions. I. To each Evangelist was separately revealed that which he had to write, independently of the rest (cf. note 10 on Mark). Very few Biblical scholars since Greswell have committed themselves to this theory, but it was that of the Expositor himself, and very much the view of Dr. Harvey Goodwin, when writing contemporaneously as Dean of Ely, before becoming Bishop of Carlisle. II. Each Evangelist reduced oral tradition to a written form in the light of his special purpose and in his own way. Such has been the view of English scholars who followed Gieseler: since the early sixties it has been represented by Westcott, in particular, and by Abbott, Wright and Salmon; in Germany by Zahn, etc. III. Some written record long defunct lies behind all the Gospels in their existing form — the view of Eichhorn and his followers. IV. One of the Gospels is a main source of the rest; the second and the third used one or more additional sources no longer separately extant. During the last preceding generation this has been the view most accepted. The first, the ecclesiastical or "traditional" view, which satisfied most minds from the fifth to the eighteenth century, means that "all the differences between the Gospels were taken as individual variations of a divine type, each variation perfect in its kind" (Nash, pp. 61, 155). The second will be considered here in sections A., B. Whatever is true in the third is generally deemed to be included in the last of the views above stated: these together rely on the notion of dependence as governing the development of the Gospel records (sections C. — F.).

We have already glanced at the unity of the "synoptic" Gospels, ― the name generally given to them since Griesbach employed it: but long before seen in some measure, though in a different way from that in which we have considered them. Ordinarily it is apprehended more as arising from there being in them essentially a common narrative, which has been sought to be accounted for, either by their all being fashioned out of some still more primitive, and perhaps unwritten Gospel, or by their growing out of one another by abridgement or addition.

D. Analytical comparison of Luke's Gospel with that attributed to Mark has revealed, especially in chapters 4 - 9 of the third Gospel, a similarity so close in order and wording in both Matthew and Luke to the parallel record in our second Gospel, as to lead many scholars to the conclusion that Mark's Gospel was used by each, with the necessary corollary, in keeping with the now prevalent opinion recorded in section C., that the shortest of the Synoptic Gospels was the one first written. This is a complete reversal of the view taken by Griesbach, Schleiermacher, Baur, Strauss, and Davidson, for whom the order was 1 Matthew, 2 Luke, 3 Mark (cf. note 2 in volume on Mark). Such are the vagaries of criticism previously illustrated by the paraded late date, as was supposed, of Deuteronomy, which has given place to the priority, maintained with no less dogmatism, of that book to the so-called "Priestly Code." The now supposed priority of Mark to Matthew underlies the book entitled "The Synoptic Question (Problem)," by Wernle, and the more recent works of Harnack, which may be consulted in English translations, as also in the latest writings of Professor Bernhard Weiss, which have been reviewed in the German "Journal of Theological Literature" by Dr. Harnack.

The principal, more or less common, results worked out by these three scholars, in particular by Weiss in his "Sources of Luke's Gospel," will be set out in the present section, which is concerned with so much of the hypothesis now most in favour respecting the composition of the first and the third Gospel as pertains to the supposed relation between Luke's record and that of Mark.

10 The natural solution — from the literary standpoint — is doubtless that the Synoptists either copy one from another, or make use of a common source (Burkitt, p. 34; cf. Westcott, pp. 184-186).

As common source, Lessing (1785) supposed (it is all a question of hypothesis, note 6) an Aramaic Gospel of the Nazarenes; and so Eichhorn (1794), whose work was translated into English by Bishop Marsh. Eichhorn held that no Synoptist had used either of the two others. Greswell makes the natural remark (p. 36) that "a primary common source might account for verbal agreements, but not for supplemental arrangement of facts"; and, the more helpful observation (p. 39 f.), that "if you believe in the inspiration of the Gospels, the supposed existence of sources from which the Evangelists derived their materials is not more precarious than unnecessary" (cf. note 13 below). Such is precisely the standpoint of these Lectures.

The hypothesis that now holds the field is that our canonical Mark is the common source of Matthew and Luke, so far as regards the matter which these Gospels have in common. In his "Manual Commentary" on the Gospels, H. J. Holtzmann already, seventeen years ago, wrote of it as proven (p. 3). This professorial writer is possessed by the idea that "Christianity is a book religion"; so that for him it does not so far, rise above the level of Islam. Not so, happily, his fellow-critic Bernhard Weiss, for whom it is "a life."

God having been pleased to give in His word four Gospels, it is manifest that He had a design and purpose in doing so, which it is well to endeavour to discover. If it is accepted that God is really the author of them all, it at once sweeps away all questions of anterior documents, from which one evangelist selected certain events, and another chose events somewhat different; and also the unworthy hypothesis that after the first, each writer had before him the gospel or gospels that had been previously written, and then sought to supply their deficiencies. Surely in all such thoughts God is forgotten.

Now, till the gospels were written, that seems to me a matter of fact, not "a probable solution," whatever use we may make of the fact. Only we have to remember that Christ told the apostles they should be witnesses, because they had been with Him from the beginning. That they were kept, according to the promise, to bring all things to their remembrance, as Jesus had said, I believe; and that they were graciously secured in their memory and use of facts; still they spoke of what they had seen. But this, while very simple, does not at all account for the phenomena, because one evangelist, even an apostle, recounts facts where he was not present, and another who was present does not recount them — as Matthew and John as to what passed in the garden of Gethsemane. The motive of the histories, and these had had their source in some motive, is not in the casualty of memory, nor in the documents possessed. The theory is, the writers had the same tradition to use. Now if there were no governing motive, which gave a form to the gospels, writers would have put the facts together according to the document men have imagined, or the current tradition. But they do not. The order is distinct. The allegation that they are not distinct witnesses is unfounded. They may, in particular parts, have used what all knew; but they are wholly in their accounts independent of one another. But I attach no importance to independent witnesses, because I believe all was inspired. But I find clear proof of distinct objects in the gospels, objects pursued in each, from one end to the other; which rationalists, who always rest. on the surface, have never found a trace of, and which gives the clearest proof of the absurdity of their theories of the structure of the gospels.

309 But as to the question raised, the facts of the case prove the contrary to what is pretended. If all the evangelists simply used a common tradition, how comes it that the connection, order, and development of facts are so different, if there was not in each (as inspired, I believe) independent design? Men have a common tradition (it is only true of a part), and yet produce very different books. They are not memoranda thrown together unconnected, but a set of facts used in a definite, but diverse connection, so as to produce a different picture altogether of the Saviour's life, and large portions wholly omitted, and large portions introduced, all in connection with this design. Yet, all together, they make up the full character of the Saviour seen on earth. It is declared, moreover, that there was a mass of other facts which they do not record, because these suit the purposes.

The Gospel of Mark is the briefest of the four Gospels. The traditional view, which holds that the Apostle Peter dictated this record into the pen of Mark, so that he was only an amanuensis, has been proven erroneous. Equally incorrect are other theories, that the Gospel of Mark was written first and served Matthew and Luke in giving their account, copying from it and making additions, or, the hypothesis that there was an original record, a common source, which the Evangelists used. All these opinions are mostly the inventions of men who disbelieve the inspiration of the chosen instruments of God in giving a fourfold picture of His blessed Son on earth. An unswerving faith in the inspiration of the four Evangelists solves all the supposed difficulties and discrepancies of which we hear so much in our days. Inspiration makes error impossible.

"The writer seems to have had three sources of information: (1) the oral teaching, as we see it in those parts which occur also, word for word, in Matthew or Mark, or both; (2) those living eye-witnesses whom he had personally known, and from whose lips he had taken down the various particulars related by him; (3) written records which he transcribed or otherwise used in the composition of his own narrative" (p. 99 f.). The subject, with special reference to Luke's Prologue (Luke 1:1-4), which is unique in the whole Bible, will be taken in the same order as the bishop's statement, in successive sections.

A. The word for "delivered" (παρέδοσαν) in Luke 1:2 is etymologically connected with that for "tradition" (παράδοσις), which in the plural comes before us in 2 Thess. 2:15. Such tradition might be either oral or written (ibid.); it is with the first that we are concerned at present. It originated with "the Apostle's teaching" (Acts 2:42), and seems to have continued for about 100 years, as there are words about it attributed to Papias, who lived, it is believed, as late as at least 130 if not 140 A.D. He tells us that Christians of his time preferred "the living voice" to written statements, one reason perhaps for delay in production of our Gospels. "There appears," wrote Thirlwall, "to be no reason for supposing that written documents of any kind entered into the general plan of the Apostles for the diffusion of Christianity" (p. 121), and, as says Bunsen in his "Hippolytus" (i., p. 28), "Nobody was anxious to have a written biography of Him whose return was daily expected." To tradition we owe the names of the respective writers of the Gospels. One saying of our Lord outside their records has been rescued for us by Paul (Acts 20:35), yet recorded by Luke himself. That this was in currency before the Apostle quoted it, may be seen by his word "remember." Other such sayings, which are credited, are found in Clement (of Rome), chapters 2, xiii., xlvi., and Polycarp, chapter 2 (see Harnack, "Sayings of Jesus," pp. 187-190). Fragmentary notes may indeed have been taken by individual hearers of the Apostles' instruction.

Nearly all scholars are agreed that these three Gospels rest ultimately on oral tradition. "The written word marks a time when the first generation of Christians was passing away and the Lord still delayed His coming" (Green's Angus, p. 632). For a considerable time the Apostles laboured together in Jerusalem. But that which here is of chief importance is the Evangelist's reference to catechizing in verse 4; this has been turned to account by Wright (cf. Carr in Expositor, October, 1907). It must have been very much the instruction that now is given in Bible classes for adults and in Sunday schools or children's services. Timothy would engage in this (1 Tim. 5:17). See further, notes 9 and 16 below.

As preceding continuous written records, the primitive believers, then, had at their command a fund of material which, through constant repetition of the same things by the same speakers, would "stereotype the words" (Bennett, p. 136). The Synoptic Gospels represent "written records of forms taken by tradition at the end of three diverging lines of development" (ibid.); or as Salmon, in his posthumous work (p. 27), says, "The most probable explanation of … three histories, so like one another yet so independent, is that we have preserved for us the oral gospel as delivered at three different centres" (Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch). But this explanation of variations from "lapse of memory" (p. 67, etc.) will not do. As another puts it, "The Evangelists were editors, not authors: they reduced the oral apostolic tradition to writing; and therefore it is that their books are entitled, not the Gospel of, but the Gospel according to Matthew," etc. (D. Smith, p. xiv). Cf. Godet, i. pp. 36-41. That which Hahn held as to Luke, Zahn maintains for Matthew — the belief that none but oral sources were used.

This floating tradition in the Aramaic vernacular Westcott and others have conceived was put into Greek before being committed to writing. Orr thinks that it was closely followed by Mark, and that the two other Evangelists "borrowed parts of the same tradition which they combined with material drawn from other sources."