ROUGHLY EDITED COPY
NEW TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION
NTQ17
AUGUST 2004
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This test is being provided in a rough-draft format.
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in
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>> DAVID: I've been reading up on the gospels, and I wonder
if you can tell me about the synoptic problem.
>> DR. PETER SCAER: David that is a large issue, even today,
in Biblical scholarship. As we know, there are four Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But the first three in
particular, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called the synoptic
gospels. The term synoptic comes from the Greek for "with one
eye." That is to say that the gospels tell essentially the same
story. They follow the same format. They tell the story of
Jesus beginning his ministry with his baptism all wait through
to his death and resurrection.
Now, even though there are three stories, there are both
differences and similarities. The orderings of time shifts and
changes, and the particular words in any given *parigopy are
different. So the synoptic problem, if we want to call it that,
is the question of how are these three gospels, Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, related to one another? Which Gospel came first? And
does it matter? What were the sources upon which the Gospel
writers drew?
As we see in many of the textbooks in contemporary
scholarship, probably in both liberal and conservative alike,
Mark is considered to be the first Gospel. Mainly because it
has no birth story and no resurrection. According to early form
critics, this was because the birth was -- the birth story was,
in fact, a legend, and the story of the resurrection was made up
by the church to express their belief in the fact that Christ
was no longer in the tomb.
Conservatives, though, who believe in the accounts in both
Matthew and Luke concerning the birth of Jesus still put Mark
often as the first Gospel because it is the first -- because it
is the shortest Gospel.
Conservatives and liberals alike will ask if you already have
the Gospel, for instance of Matthew and Luke, what would be the
purpose of writing Mark?
It's also often noted that Mark seems to be written in a
rougher style of Greek, and for this reason perhaps the Gospel
of Mark was not used very often in the early church. And also,
yet again, the Gospel of Mark is said at times to have a more
primitive theology. For instance, it is only in the Gospel of
Mark that we're told that Jesus could not perform miracles at a
given time because of the people -- because of the fact that the
people had faith.
Now, as I would argue elsewhere, I don't believe that this
means that Mark was, in fact, the first Gospel, but I do believe
that he is close to the source. That is to say he is recording
the words of Peter.
Now, be that as it may, Mark is generally considered to be
first Gospel. There is another document also that many scholars
hold to as being part of the original corigma, the primitive
teaching of Jesus, and this is the "Q" source, or *quella, which
means source. So scholars posit that there was a "Q" document,
a source document, which consisted largely of the sayings of
Jesus. Now, it was only recently in the past couple of years
that Fortress Press published the "Q" documents, a critical
addition, and I believe in two volumes, very thick volumes, in
which they tried to recreate this "Q" document of the sayings of
Jesus.
Now, there is a problem, of course, with the "Q" document.
There are reasons for thinking that perhaps the "Q" document
never did exist. And one reason, of course, for thinking of
that is that we have no "Q" document. No such document has ever
been found. It's posited by the scholars as a necessary source
for the teachings of Jesus, but there is no such document that
has ever been found.
The closest parallel that we have to the "Q" document is the
Gospel of Thomas. That is largely a saying source. At the same
time, the Gospel of Thomas also includes stories about Jesus and
the life that he lead and the miracles that he did.
Now, where did the idea for this "Q" document come from?
Well, I think that it was back -- you'll have to go back to bolt
man and Debelius early form critics, who held that the most
primitive and important things about the Christian faith were
the teachings of Jesus. So it is assumed that early Christians
gathered these things into one document.
Mark, on the other hand, is essentially a document tells
about what Jesus did. Although Jesus is called in the Gospel of
mark, ironically enough "teacher" more than he is in any other
Gospel, at the same time, in the Gospel of Mark you have
remarkably very little teaching. The Gospel of Mark, for
instance, does not have a sermon on the mount, or any of the
parables like you would find in Matthew 13, the discourses are
largely lost. Instead you have -- instead you have the miracles
of Jesus and, of course, eschatological sayings which are
prominent in the Book of Mark.
This is the dominant theory that you have on the one hand
queue, which is the document that concludes the sayings of
Jesus. You have the most primitive Gospel, Mark, Which doesn't
have at the beginning the birth, or at the end the resurrection,
or the sayings of Jesus. And then you have, possibly, Matthew.
Matthew is said to have taken "Q," the sayings of Jesus, which
would include I suppose the Sermon on the Mount and the parables
and all of that, and combined that with the action of mark, the
story of Jesus' life and his miracles and all of that, combined
it to make the Gospel of Matthew.
So "Q" plus mark equals Matthew. And then what do you do
with Luke? Well, at least many scholars would hold that Luke
uses "Q", or some of the teachings of "Q." He does not include,
for instance, the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety. But he
includes some of that material.
He also includes much of the market material. And scholars
think he must have had another source which they conveniently
label "L."
so Luke would according to this mathematical equation would
consist of "Q," plus I suppose Mark and the "L" source.
Now, it gets to be pretty complicated, and you won't find a
lot of scholars in agreement over this, although some the
textbooks might make it seem more simple than it is. Or might
make it seem as if there is more unanimity about these matters
than there actually is.
There have been those who have challenged the "Q" document,
and the necessity for that. Among the most prominent was Berger
Gerhardson who's famous book "Memory And Manuscript" challenged
Boltman's theory.
In that book he compares Jesus to a rabbi who is running a
rabbinic school. And in this rabbinic school that Jesus was
running, and, indeed, Jesus is often called a rabbi, he would
encourage his disciples to remember and to memorize actually his
words, his sayings, his teachings, and his sermons.
Now, for many of us living today in the world that we live
in, such a task might seem daunting. But in the largely oral
culture of the 1st Century, such memorization was quite common.
It also should be remembered that Jesus' teachings, although
recorded perhaps once, in the Gospels, might have actually been
said by him any number of times.
For instance, we don't have to think about the Sermon on the
Mount the only time the one time where Jesus said blessed are
the peacemakers. He might well have had a set of sermons, or
stock sermons which he would have altered as he went from town
to town.
That would have aided in the memorization of these documents.
Now, according to Gerhardson, therefore, you have a school of
disciples memorizing the words of Jesus, and then each of the
disciples, we can think of Matthew and John in this instance,
the Apostles, go to their own place and they write in their own
memoirs the sayings of Jesus. And I think that this book has
much to commend itself for.
I do think, though, that the scholars are on to something
when they see that there is actually a literary relationship
between the Gospels. That is to say, at least when I read the
Gospels, I have to think that they had read one another, that
they actually knew one another, and they were writing over and
against one another. And here we should not think in terms of
contradiction. Is Matthew right? Is Luke right?
I kind of think of it as a couple, perhaps a married couple
who has been married for 20 years, and a man is telling the
story of something that he did the other day, or something that
he saw, and every once in awhile his wife chimes in and says,
oh, yes, but you forgot this, and you want to emphasize that.
I think that sort of thing is going on in the Gospels.
Now, from the earliest times, the early church fathers almost
unanimously thought that Matthew was first Gospel, the most
complete Gospel. According to Augustin, he thought that the
order was Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
More recently among the early critical scholars was
*Gersbach, and he posited the *Gersbach theory, Matthew is
first, Luke is second, and Mark is third. Matthew is the most
complete Gospel written specifically for the Jews. Luke is the
one that adds on and makes the Gospel more beautiful, adds songs
and adds stories that Jesus had told that Matthew did not
record, it makes the Gospel palatable and expands on Matthew's
teachings.
Then comes Mark. There is a question why Mark? We'll
address that at another time. Now, you might finally say in the
end does all of this matter? Can we simply not just take each
Gospel on its own and ax knowledge that each one is true ** and
they have different points of view? And I think that there is a
lot to be said for that. That is to say, there is a sense in
which we have four Gospels, and yet there is only one Gospel.
At the same time, I think it's good to see the Gospel writers in
conversation with one another. For most of how will be
preaching soon or are preaching, you'll be preaching from what
we call the 3-year series. And that is a series of *parigopy
and Gospel readings which largely follows Matthew for one year,
Mark for another, Luke for a third, with John interspersed in
all three years.
And as you are preaching, you will no doubt want to bring out
the particular emphases of each Gospel.
The other thing to note is that although there's nothing
wrong with having a difference of opinion which Gospel came
first, in fact it can be kind of an enjoyable conversation as
you put the *parigopies beside one another. And if you don't
own a synopsis, that is to say a book of the Gospels in which
Matthew, Mark, and Luke are placed beside one another, you
should purchase one and use that for your Bible study, and your
preaching. And that way you will better be able to understand
the particular emphases of each gospel.
We're going back to what you said about does it matter?
Well, the critical scholars whole to a Mark in priority not
simply because it's simply the most logical, but because it
actually supports their world view. A world view which states
that what matters most about Jesus were his moral teachings.
Hence, "Q."
they believe that he was a eschatological Prophet that spoke of
the times. By doing that, they privilege the teachings of Jesus
over and against his actions and his miracles, and they relegate
the birth story to myth and -- or to legend, and they relegate
the resurrection to myth.
So whatever decisions that you come, or whatever position you
come as to which the first Gospel is, know that the
presuppositions for many of the liberal scholars are there, and
you will want to recognize that you are reading New Testament
commentaries on the Gospels.
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This test is being provided in a rough-draft format.
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in
Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a
totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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