07 — The Synoptic Question

The literary relationship among Matthew, Mark, and Luke — their large agreements in wording and order alongside their differences — and the question of who used whom, which bears directly on how the third Gospel was composed and when. This section lays out the data of the “synoptic problem,” presents the three principal modern solutions as named [Disputed: ...] positions with their proponents, and surveys the contested dating of Luke–Acts; throughout, it distinguishes a literary-historical question of composition from the dogmatic confession of the four Gospels as inspired Scripture.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)

The first three Gospels can be set side by side in parallel columns — they can be “seen together,” which is what the word synoptic means — and when they are, both their kinship and their divergences become unmistakable. Explaining that kinship is the synoptic problem, and the solution one adopts shapes how one reads Luke’s prologue (Luke 1:1–4), how one weighs his sources, and how one dates his work. The Orthodox Church receives all four Gospels as the one fourfold Gospel of the one Christ (so already Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.8, ANF 1) and is not bound to any source-critical hypothesis; the questions treated here are real, but they belong to the order of literary history, not of dogma (see Holy Scripture). This section first states the phenomena and the three modern solutions, then turns to the date of Luke–Acts, where the same literary judgments reappear as chronological ones.

Files in This Section

File Description
The Synoptic Problem The data — triple tradition, double tradition (Matthew + Luke against Mark), and special material; the patristic ordering testimony (Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum); and the three principal modern solutions as named [Disputed: ...] positions: the Two-Source / Two-Document Theory (Weisse, Holtzmann, Streeter 1924), the Farrer Hypothesis (Farrer 1955, Goulder, Goodacre 2002), and the Griesbach / Two-Gospel Hypothesis (Griesbach 1789, Farmer 1964); with the case for and against Q and the Orthodox stance.
The Dating of Luke–Acts The contested date of the two-volume work, presented as three named [Disputed: ...] positions with their arguments: an early date (c. AD 62 — Harnack, Robinson 1976, Hemer), a middle/majority date (c. AD 80–90s — Fitzmyer, Conzelmann), and a late, second-century date (c. 110–120s — Pervo 2006, Tyson 2006); the abrupt ending of Acts, the Olivet discourse, the Josephus and Marcion questions, and how the traditional setting coheres with the earlier range.

See Also

  • The Third Gospel — the prologue (Luke 1:1–4) and the Gospel whose composition is in question
  • Luke the Historian — the historiographical question that the dating debate touches
  • Authorship and History — the authorship of Luke–Acts, on which the dating partly turns
  • Holy Scripture — the inspired fourfold Gospel and the limits of historical-critical method in the Church
  • The Church Fathers — the patristic ordering testimony (Papias via Eusebius; Augustine)
  • St. Irenaeus of Lyons — the four-Gospel canon against which the synoptic solutions are measured

References

  • Streeter, B. H. The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins. London: Macmillan, 1924.
  • Farrer, Austin M. “On Dispensing with Q.” In Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot, ed. D. E. Nineham. Oxford: Blackwell, 1955.
  • Goodacre, Mark. The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2002.
  • Farmer, William R. The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
  • Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel According to Luke I–IX. Anchor Bible 28. New York: Doubleday, 1981.
  • Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament. London: SCM Press, 1976.
  • Pervo, Richard I. Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists. Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 2006.
  • Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History (3.39, on Papias). Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1.
  • Augustine of Hippo. De consensu evangelistarum (The Harmony of the Gospels). Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 6.