4:59 AM
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I'd like to try an experiment.
In my answer to Did Luke use Josephus as a source? I rely on certain assumptions about when Luke-Acts was written. These assumptions, in turn, are based on my understanding of the relationship between Luke and Matthew and Mark, and on clues from all three gospels t...
When were the gospels written? In what order were they written? Our answers to these questions may influence our interpretation of the gospels, so it's important to be able to answer them.
But, although there was something of a consensus among ancient commentators that Matthew was first, Mark second, Luke third, and John fourth, and that each gospel writer drew on the information in earlier gospels, few modern scholars accept this view.
The common view today is that Mark's gospel is the earliest, then Matthew and Luke each independently used Mark along with a now-lost gospel, commonly referred to as "Q", as well as additional material from written or oral traditions.
Finally John wrote a very different gospel that does not rely on the previous three but is derived from an independent tradition.
The first three gospels are known as the "synoptic" gospels, and the relationship among them is known as the "synoptic problem".
And though, as I said, the view above is the most common, it is not universally accepted.
Here are some of the competing hypotheses:
The two-gospel hypothesis (formerly known as the Griesbach hypothesis) states that Matthew was written first, and was addressed to the Jerusalem church; Luke was written second, for the gentiles, and Mark was written third, based on Peter's eyewitness testimony, to confirm the validity of Luke's gospel, which was not written by an eyewitness.
The Farrer hypothesis keeps Mark as the earliest gospel, but eliminates Q by claiming Matthew and Luke were not independent, but rather that Luke used both Matthew and Mark as sources.
Complicating all of this is the possibility that the gospels may have been written in stages, with a core of material used in worship by the local church, and an expanded form written later for wider circulation. If this is true, it is possible that one of the evangelists visited the church where another gospel was in use, and copied an early version of it, which he used as a source for his gospel. Meanwhile the earlier gospel was updated with more complete information.
This could result in a later gospel keeping the earlier form of the story.
So where does the synoptic problem make a difference?
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Here's a story Jesus told about David according to Mark 2:23-28 (ESV):
One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”...
In this question, if the name Abiathar does not come from Jesus (and according to the parallel passage in Matthew 12:3-4 it does not) then our answer to the synoptic problem might yield the answer.
According to the Griesbach hypothesis, Mark wrote his gospel quickly, based on Peter's testimony which was given to validate Luke's gospel which had been written but not yet published. If Peter was in a hurry to give this testimony and Mark was in a hurry to write it and get it published, Peter may have spoken the wrong name and no one had time to check it.
On the other hand, if Mark was based on the preaching of Peter's entire career—and given that preachers often return to the same material after a time—it is more likely that someone would have corrected Peter somewhere along the line, or he would have corrected himself after reading the passage from Samuel for the umpteenth time.
In this case, Peter is the least likely source of that name.
Does anyone have any thoughts?
The Synoptic Problem and Dating the G…
The Synoptic Problem and Dating the G…