The Synoptic Problem
The Puzzle of Similarity and Difference in the Synoptics Gospels
What Problem?
If you’re a regular reader of the Bible or an informed intellectual who knows something about the Bible, then you’re likely already privy to what I’m about to share. If you’ve read more than one of the Gospels, then you’ve probably noticed how the Gospels share a lot of the same stories, particularly Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Maybe you’ve even shared a story from the Gospels with someone but found yourself having a hard time recalling some of the details because you might be jumbling up similar stories but can’t recall which detail goes with which story. This can happen all too easily precisely because the Gospels share many of the same stories but each writer took some liberties with their telling.
So, why do scholars think there’s a “problem” with the Synoptic Gospels? Also, do you mean by synoptic? Well, to say that something is “syntopic” is to mean that it provides a synopsis or summary. If you want to get the gist of a movie that you haven’t seen and aren’t sure if you want to see it, you might ask your friend to give you a synopsis. We can take the word as an adjective and see that it etymologically means “seen together” (syn (with or together) + optos (seen)).1 The Synoptic Gospels, then, refer to the accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry that are “seen together,” which means Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are seen together because of their likeness. John is typically treated differently, and we’ll cover that later in a separate post.
Because they are synopses of the same person, Jesus of Nazareth, we’d expect a lot of similarities in stories, teachings, etc. And we do! But they also have their differences. The low-hanging fruit for seeing these differences, for example, are the differences in how the writers of the Synoptic Gospels begin their synopses, respectively. Mark goes straight into an introduction to the ministry and proclamation of John the Baptizer. Matthew begins with a genealogy that goes back through the generations of the exiles to David and then finally to Abraham. Matthew doesn’t talk about John’s ministry and proclamation until what we call the third chapter. Luke begins by providing a dedication of his gospel to someone named Theophilus, and goes into Jesus’ genealogy in the third chapter also (but going back to Adam and the God of Israel). In other words, while the first three gospel accounts have much in common, there are still major differences. The question is: why?
New Testament scholars address this problem broadly, being concerned particularly about the similarities and differences with each of the Gospel writer’s language, content arrangement, and selection — that is, what content they included and excluded.
The ‘Literary-Dependence’ View
The most common, and prevailing, theory or solution is called the “literary-dependence perspective.”2 This view acknowledges that while there are major differences among the Synoptics, what is significant is the fact that there are so many similarities, even verbatim similarities. This suggests that they were in some way dependent upon each other for their accounts. The main concern of this perspective is about which Gospel has priority. In other words, who depended on whom? Alternatively, who wrote their Gospel account first (or the earliest)? The idea is that if we can know which account was composed first, then we’ll know which one the others depended upon.
Around the fourth-century A.D., Augustine popularized a Matthean priority.3 However, Markan priority is currently the dominant view among scholars.4 Many scholars also argue that Matthew and Luke have Markan material but also have their own unique material as well as the same material between them that is independent of Mark. This suggests Matthew and Luke depended on a non-Markan, hypothetical source that is commonly called ‘Q’.5
Major Views About Resolving the Problem
Nijay lays out four major solutions to the Synoptic Problem. As already mentioned, Augustine believed in Matthean priority but he also argued Mark wrote after Matthew and that Luke depended on Matthew and Mark.
A second view, put forth by eighteenth-century German textual critic J. J. Griesbach (1789), also argued for Matthean priority but claimed that Luke wrote after and Mark depended upon Matthew and Luke. He also argued that Mark abbreviated Luke and Matthew.
A third view involves arguing for Q. This view argues for Markan priority, with Matthew having written afterward followed by Luke. All three Synoptics used Q source, plus Mark’s unique material, hence two sources. But we can extend this to four sources when we consider that Matthew and Luke have their own unique material. In short, all three gospels have their unique material plus Q material - four total sources.
The fourth view, put forth by the Anglican biblical scholar Austin Farrer in the 1950s, also argued for Markan priority but posited no need for a Q source. Farrer thought that Luke could have depended on Mark and Matthew.
Oral Tradition in Recent Considerations
In more recent discussions, we see the role of oral tradition playing a significant in addressing the problem. What we know about the first-century cultural context is that stories and teachings of Jesus were probably transmitted orally rather than textually in the early Christian movement (several decades before textually transmitted through the Gospels). So, the question is then raised: What if the issue at the heart of the Synoptic Problem is not necessarily literary dependence but about considering the dynamics of oral tradition?
On this question, Kenneth Bailey has written about “informal controlled oral tradition.”6 The idea is that an oral-based community and culture can reliably control and communicate core narratives or teachings through informal ways (for example, outside formal teaching environments by communally approved authorities like elders or teachers). Naturally, there is some flexibility and differences over time and when communicated in different groups within the community. On the whole, an oral-based community has stability and control over the content being transmitted. Bailey applies this to the Synoptic Problem.
Similarly, James D. G. Dunn has talked about the ‘stability of a core tradition’7 as explaining variances but also the core similarities and overlap in the Synoptic Gospels (and even in John). Nijay summarizes this well:
The coherence and overlap between the Synoptics stem from the way traditions maintain the heart or core of the tradition. But probably some of the variance results from the passing on of traditions orally from one community to another.8
Another recent consideration is Dale C. Allison Jr.’s argument from cognitive science, particularly with personal and social memory.9 For Allison, Jesus was remembered by his followers, and cognitive science shows that human memories are great at recollecting events as a whole, even if details are unclear or inaccurate. This is also a way to explain the Synoptic Problem without unduly prioritizing a ‘literary-dependence’ approach.
Thinking about this all together, Nijay uses the Lord’s Prayer as an example. Matthew and Luke both have versions that are similar and yet different. A likely explanation could be literary dependence, that one or both depended on each other or some other textual source. But it could also be that depended on an oral source or tradition, resulting from the ‘stability’ of a core tradition and yet evidencing some ‘flexibility’ in its retelling as we might expect to happen in a first-century oral culture.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, approaching the Synoptic Problem dichotomously by exclusively claiming literary dependence or oral tradition seems unnecessary nor particularly helpful if one’s approach excludes the other. As Nijay suggests, it’s a both/and:
[S]cholars who press for oral-tradition perspective do not discount or reject source-comparison questions or the impact of literary dependence. Instead, they urge that the dynamics of oral tradition should be taken into consideration from the start and should factor into solutions to the so-called Synoptic Problem.10
This isn’t the end of the discussion, however. While these approaches might be the most prominent, one of the main points of scholarship is to further our understanding of this issue and the aforementioned approaches. Nijay sees scholarship progressing and expanding upon them, particularly regarding psychological and sociological perspectives.
Nijay talks about some of the major impulses that have led scholars to investigate this issue. For one, this idea of getting at ‘true history’ behind the historical Jesus. For some scholars, it’s imperative to explore ‘what really happened’ via the historical-critical method. There’s a certain apologetic appeal that might come with this impulse. Scholars are also interested in and curious about Christian origins, which might go hand-in-hand with the previous impulse.11
As a seasoned and acclaimed scholar in New Testament studies, what’s clear to Nijay about the Synoptic Problem is this:
Virtually all scholars who study the Gospels agree that what we find in the Synoptics is not myth or legend, but neither is it modern journalistic reporting. Instead, we have testimony and proclamation about a real person (Jesus), and that witness is based on how Jesus was remembered by his followers.12
In the next one, we’ll explore the Historical Jesus. I’ve refrained from critically engaging with Nijay’s presentation mostly given that he’s not making a core argument but acting as a quick reference for the issues. I simply want to engage with the knowledge and understand these issues, per the aim of the book. If you want to dive deeper, Nijay’s book provides some suggested readings on various topics at the end of each of his chapters.
“synoptic (adj.),” Online Etymology Dictionary, November 28, 2023, https://www.etymonline.com/word/synoptic#etymonline_v_38901.
Nijay Gupta, A Beginners’ Guide to New Testament Studies: Understanding Key Debates (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2020), 3-7.
Augustine, The Harmony of the Gospels 1.3 (The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 6/6:78).
One of the common reasons given for Mark being written first, as Nijay notes, is that Mark uses certain Aramaic words. However, Matthew and Luke provide the Greek translation of those same Aramaic words. Another reason among textual scholars is that it’s more likely that Matthew and Luke expanded and supplemented Mark than Mark abbreviating Matthew (Gupta, 4).
Q is short for the German word Quelle, which means “source.” We have no extent or actual evidence of Q, meaning it’s a working hypothesis. It’s also important to note that others are not convinced of Q and have proposed other theories. Mark Goodacre, for example, argues that the problem of Matthew and Luke having the same non-Markan material is best explained if we consider that Luke depended on and redacted Matthew’s material (see Mark Goodacre, The Case Against Q [Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002]).
Kenneth E. Bailey, “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels,” Themelios 20, no. 2 (1995): 4–11.
Gupta, 8-7.
Ibid., 9.
See Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, MI Baker Academic, 2010).
Ibid., 10; emphasis original.
Others might want to investigate this problem with an open mind, using the wealth of current knowledge, methods, and techniques, to see where it goes, allowing the wisdom, science, and art of research to be their guide (however naive this might sound to some).
Ibid., 11.