Gospel (4) Synoptic Theories

This post will deal with the synoptic issues. As always my main text for this came from Scot McKnight’s book  “The Story of the Christ”. The synoptic gospels comprise of Matthew, Mark and Luke. These gospels are quite similar on most parts but they are also many dissimilarities between them. Because of the issue at hand scholars have tried to dealt with which gospel was the the first one and who borrowed from whom. There are three theories on this which i will present to us.

1. Q Hypothesis

According to the Q Hypothesis there were the oral tradition which were thus ‘frozen’ into a written tradition. This tradition was compiled and what is now termed Q. Mark wrote his gospel independent of Q. Others were also writing their own perspective on Jesus’ story hence Matthew and Luke. Matthew used Q, Mark and another source termed M as his source material. Luke on the other hand used Q, Mark and yet another source termed L. This is how it looks like as I tried to draw them.

Q

2. Griesbach Hypothesis

This next theory on the other hand depicts Matthew as the first gospel written and that Luke used Matthew as his source and rearranged, added his own bits and traditions for his own gospel account. Mark on the other hand used both Matthew and Luke as his sources and set to condense them to to offer a condensed account of his gospel.

Griesbach hypothesis

Pros and Cons of 1 & 2

Here are the pros and cons of both these theories. According to McKnight the strength of the Griesbach hypothesis is it does not resort to any ‘hypothetical’ sources (9) compared to Q hypothesis. But now for the weakness of this theory; (i) what justifies Mark if it is only a condensed version of Matthew and Luke, (ii) A question arises that asks, ‘Which reading of the gospels was the original (who added what)? McKnight probes this question with some explanations, “following normal rules of evidence” Matthew appears to be secondary and not the most original (due to its length comared to Luke). With this it is largely concluded that Mark is the most original because it is short and Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source and expanded their gospel account.This weakness enhances the probability of Q.

3. Another theory

This third theory says that all three gospel accounts Matthew, Mark and Luke were written independently of each other. But all were built on a similar oral tradition. The advantage of this view is that “the early Christians lived and breathed an oral culture” (10).

Amidst all this McKnight reminds us that “If scholars can one day find a solution to the ‘synoptic problem’ it may well help in clarifying the developement of earliest Christianity.” (10).

Gospels(3)…Language

After determining that the Gospels we have are shaped by an oral culture, another determining issue at hand that determins the shape of our gospels is the language that was used.

There is no consensus on this, but the majority of scholars agree that the language that Jesus spoke during that time was in Aramiac. There is a possibility in Hebrew although this is “less likely”(5) and rarely in “Greek or Latin”(5).

Since the gospels we have were written originally in Greek it must be understood that the translation process also shaped the sayings of Jesus. McKnight explains “as anyone who knows a foreign language will admit, it is rare for one language to be translated into another without alterations and adjustments needed to make the most sense”(6).

The gospels we have now is the product shaped by an oral culture and the language used in that culture (Aramiac) which was ‘frozen’ into ‘written form’(Greek) that became a ‘fixed’ form.(6)

Gospels(2) Oral Culture

I got through explaining what the types of Gospels we have in the bible. Stuff like how three of the Gospels we have are somewhat similar in their content (Matthew, Mark and Luke) which are called the Synoptic Gospels and that John stands alone namely because his gospel has a different slant to it. Let move furture to what McKnight states “how we got from Jesus to the Gospels…”(4). I will be reffering to Scot McKnight’s little introduction book on Jesus, “The Story of the Christ”, most of the time, as our main text book to derive information.

One of the things that we have to understand of the Galilean culture then was that they were “predominantly an oral culture and not a written culture like ours.”(4) To explain a little about an oral culture, they simply store information via memory and passing it on orally. Some may not understand this, but those who are tribal people would have some information about this. For example; my grandfather can remember my native tribal stories, legends if you wish. And these stories are in poetic form and in our ancient Kelabit (Kelabit; my race, a small native tribe in Malaysia living on the island called borneo) dialect which the younger generation has no access to. I am fascinated at my granddad’s memory and which is why I do see a good basis for oral cultures able to remember with persicion what is passed on.

These oral cultures as Scot explains “…see and they hear and they remember, and what they focus on are the ‘big facts’ and the ‘major sayings’ and the ‘big picture’.” (4) Another thing to be brought to our attention on when people in these cultures communicate their oral facts McKnight explains

“…when they come to reciting whatever they choose to recite, their given performance will ‘colour the situation’ or ‘set the context’ and these colourings and shadings will either be typical or specific, but no one would worry about whether or not the contextual shadings are precisely what was done on the specific situation.” (4-5)

In other words, the explanation of facts are fitted to a given situation. With this, this is basically what shaped the content on which we find in the gospels we have.

What needs to be understood about our gospels and the oral culture that shaped them is that though what we have in the gospels are not what Jesus said word-for-word, “but instead a reliable oral tradition about what Jesus said and to whom he said such things and where he said such things.” (5)

The next post will wedge the oral transmission process of the Gospel (what we were doing in this post) with the question of the language Jesus spoke.

The Gospels

There have been much debate about the Gospels that we are supposed to have. The church has deemed 4 that are ‘authoritative’ against the rest (gnostic gospels e.g. Gospel of Thomas, Judas to name a few). With that let’s focus on the gospels that we deem authoritative and let’s see stuff on what we can learn.

We have two sorts of gospels in the bibles we have. I know some might be freaking out but allow me an explanation.

The first gospel type that we have is called the ‘synoptic’ gospels. They are called ‘synoptic’ because they have distinctive similarities among them. When I say them I mean Matthew, Mark and Luke. Synoptic basically means that “the three can be set out in columns and easily compared because each records much of what the other records” (3)

The second gospel type that we have is John’s gospel. John is singled out because this particular gospel is distinct in style and content.

The synoptic gospels tells us about the kingdom of God, parables and shows us a Jesus that does miracles. John tells us about eternal life, “Jesus speaking in long winding discourse that revolve around specific terms, and this Jesus does ‘signs’ ” (3)

Just some short commentary, I hope this may shed ‘some insight’ like we might have wondered why Matthew, Mark and Luke looks so similar and John somewhat kinda different. I also hope we see some of the stuff that these two gospel types tell us about (what themes or distinctive feature each gospel type shows us).

I have taken the bulk of my information above from the book “The Story of Christ” by Scot McKnight, a helpful and concise introduction to the story of Christ and things pertaining the title. Easy to read, understand as well as informative.

If you have questions pop them up in the comment box.

a/Shout/Out

aShoutOut

Greetings to everyone (anyone???),

Welcome to my blog, a new addition that is. I have another blog which you can access here called Deconstructing The Monkey. That blog has been a catalyst in some sorts on expressing my small ideas, posts that have been merely about musings and thoughts on certain issues (Christianity and Church life with some bits here and there on theology, although slightly on a light basis).

I must say that the experience that I have gained from that blog will be a substantial addition or rather a platform of what I want to address here on this blog. I would like to state that this blog will be on a different terrain as opposed to my other blog. This blog will be focused strictly on the a basis for building my ideas on theology and the bible in particular.

So the focus will be limited on that perspective. So this will be my ‘boring’ blog or if all things biblical and theological pertains to your interest, please read on and if you can post a comment.