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The Synoptic Problem of the NT

When the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are compared, it is clear that they have large amounts of material that is very similar, and often excatly the same. Yet they also have large amounts that are significantly different, often contradictory. The question we call "the Synoptic Problem"1 is this: What is the relationship among the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke?

The predominant scholarly view today is that the gospels of Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark as one of their major sources, adding pieces from other sources and perhaps their own material as well. But they did not simply reproduce Mark--they made changes in Mark's material to suit their own perspectives.

Most now believe Mark was written sometime between 65 and 75 C.E., and Matthew and Luke sometime around 85-90 A.D. (John was close to the turn of the century). Since the order of Mark's events was artificial (it would be highly likely that a storyteller would tell any given story--especially the exceptionally good one like the Good Samaritan or Prodigal Son--many more times than once, given the variety of settings and audiences presented in Mark's narrative). The selection of narrative places for any particular story, then, is up to the author, and the likelihood that Matthew and Luke each independently selected the same order as Mark is nearly zero.

But they have material that Mark does not. Some of that material (the beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer, for instance) is remarkably close in the two. But some material is found only in Matthew and some only in Luke. A now standard way of explaining all these facts is that Matthew had at least three "sources": Mark, a collection of sayings by Jesus we call "Q" (the first letter of quelle--German for "source"), and his own material. Luke also had at least three sources: Mark, "Q", and his own material.

Placing the stories the gospels share side by side can show the relationships. The links below lead to three examples.

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1 The word "synoptic" means "seeing together."