Lecture #3: Synoptic Gospels (Part 1)

COURSE: New Testament

Lecture #3: Synoptic Gospels (Part 1)

• The principal ground for the earliest Christian communities claims regarding Jesus was the belief that God had raised him from the dead.
• In this resurrection of Jesus, God had authenticated him as Messiah and inaugurated the New Age.
  
  
• Whatever varying interpretations were applied to this resurrection, it was the focal point of the gospel, which means good news, and they saw Jesus as the living Lord of the community.
  
  
• There are two important implications of this.

Since the community saw Jesus as its living Lord, it was not concerned with him primarily as a figure in past history

Since it also believed in the imminent return of the resurrected Lord, its interests and expectations were drawn to the future of Jesus, not his past.

• Thus the first Christians were not preoccupied with researching the details of his life.
  
  
• Thus from the beginning, the traditions regarding Jesus, transmitted by the community, already bore the stamp of the communities interpretation and in this form were revered and communicated as the gospel
• The sources for the life and words of Jesus are principally the four anonymous writings in the N. T. known as gospels.
• Each of the writers was dependent on the traditions which had been preserved and which already were interpretations by their respective community.
  
  
• The first thing to note is that there are three gospels (Matt.. Mark and Luke) which are similar. The word synoptic is used, meaning "with one eye". there is a dependence there that I will discuss later.
• The gospel of John, on the other hand, is not at all like these three but comes from a very different community. that will be discussed in a lecture of its own.
  
  
• The gospels were written down for two reasons: first, the original eyewitnesses were dying off and it was felt that there better be some things written down.
• Second: the expected coming of Jesus (the Parousia) had not happened as expected so it was felt that things should be written down.
  
  
• The most widely accepted conclusion about the synoptics is that Mark is the oldest of the written gospels and that Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark in front of them when they wrote their gospels.
• The most obvious argument for this fact is that most of Mark is found in both Matthew and Luke almost with changes which provide a framework for each author's own theological viewpoint.
• Also, in many passages, Mark is longer and the other two writers have abridged Mark to eliminate redundancies.
• The arrangement and sequence of materials also shows this dependence on Mark
• No one argument is sufficient to support this theory but all the things taken together it seems quite obvious to scholars that this was the case.
  
  
• Thus, Mark was the originator of the genre called "gospel" he wrote before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE (probably about 68) from Rome when he saw that it was inevitable that Jerusalem would fall. Mark believed when Jerusalem fell, Jesus would return as the vindicating "Son of Man"

The Four source hypothesis

• Another problem with the synoptics is that not only is there a large body of material common to all three; a little more than 1/3 of Matthew and 1/4 of Luke consists of material common to these two but missing in Mark.
• How can that be accounted for? Each gospel handles the material differently.
• In Luke, the common material is incorporated in two insertions (Lk 6:20-8:3) and Lk 9:51-18:14.
• Matthew includes most of it in five major discourses by Jesus in chapters 5-7; 10; 13; 18; and 23-25, working his material into the narrative.
  
  
• Thus, it seems, there is another source besides Mark available to both Luke and Matthew since they did not know each other.
• It is commonly acknowledged today that Matthew and Luke did have access to a separate source, besides Mark, which they each employed in their own way.
• This source has been called Q for “quelle”, which simply means source in German
• This two-source hypothesis maintains that both Matthew and Luke used two sources, Mark and Q.
• Reconstructing the Q source is not a unanimous project,
  
  
• Basically, Q seems to have been a source of sayings of Jesus, but also contained some traditions about John the Baptist, several parables, an account of the Temptation of Jesus, controversy stories and miracles
• Q was not in gospel form, there was little or no connective narrative and it probably first was written and circulated in Aramaic (not the Greek of the New Testament) in written form quite early, perhaps as early as 50 CE.
• There are even some scholars who think Mark may have had Q.
• One possible source for Q was as instruction for newly baptized Christians but it is not known.
  
  
• There is still a great deal of material that cannot be accounted for from either Mark or Q in both Luke and Matthew.
• For example, both Matthew and Luke have birth stories but nothing alike.
• Parables are found in Luke but not Matthew, etc.
• Maybe they composed parts, for example, the genealogy in Matthew may have been such a composition.
  
  
• The four-document hypothesis was proposed to explain these.
• This is simply that Matthew and Luke each had Mark and Q but each also had his own unique source, for convenience, L for Luke and M for Matthew.
• The diagram looks like this:

• All these conclusions come from a century and a half of source criticism
• Many scholars in fact believe there could have been as many as nine sources feeding into the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
• perhaps a passion account, source of pronouncement stories, etc.

Forms of Tradition

• There are five classes of material found in the gospels.

• Pronouncement Stories

• Are brief narratives purporting to describe an encounter between Jesus and one or more persons.
• The setting is vague, and it ends in a culminating statement or pronouncement of Jesus which occurs in the end.
• These stories were remembered and transmitted basically because of the pronouncements which the Christian community valued as an authoritative guide for their own lives.
• Mark 12:13-17 (read) is a good example in which the story leads to the pronouncement "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar" and to God the things that are God'

• Miracle Stories

• Have as Jesus their main point the narration of a miraculous act of they have three parts:

1. a description of the situation or person to be healed.

2. the miracle

3. the consequences of the act

• like the pronouncement stories, the miracle stories originally circulated independently at first
  
  
• Mark 1:40-45 is a good example. (Read)

a leper comes to Jesus for healing

Jesus heals him and says to tell no one (the messianic secret of Mark)

He tells everyone so Jesus is mobbed wherever he goes.

• Sayings

• Tradition contained a large number of sayings of Jesus which circulated independently originally without narrative framework
• There was a tendency for them to be put into clusters which were retained in the written gospels.
• Luke's shorter version of the Beatitudes may reflect such an original cluster (Luke 6:20-22)
• In general, the collections were made by the community in the course of oral transmission.
  
  
• Mark 8:34-9:1 is a cluster (Review)

beginning with him calling his disciples to him he delivers a string of sayings.

• Parables

• This is one of the main characteristic forms of Jesus' words preserved in the oral tradition.
• A parable is a narrative which vividly describes a commonplace incident or experience and has some truth contained within which was independent of the parable itself.

For example, to say what the Kingdom of God is like.

• Parables circulated as independent units but were together with two or more.
• For example, it is likely that Mark found in oral tradition a group of three parables he presents in 4:26-32 (Read) all dealing with what the kingdom of God is like.

• Stories about Jesus

• This category designates a large number of stories of wide ranging subject matter which fail to fall clearly under other classifications
• Such stories as the birth of Jesus (Mt 1:18-25; Lk 2:1-20) the temptations of Jesus (Mt 4:1-11; Lk 4:1-13)
• Stories about others are among these as, for ex, the birth of John the Baptist (Lk 1:57-80)
• These stories generally circulated as independent units of the oral tradition.
• The two birth stories were obviously independent of each other
  
  
• Form critics try to see what it was in the church at the time of the writing down of these oral traditions which determined what was remembered and why.
  
  
• Redaction critics deal with the bridge sentences, additions to materials which have to do with the distinctive theological viewpoint of each writer.
• We will see some good examples of this in the Gospel of John.
  
  
• The Eschaton or the end of the age was the prevalent idea at the time Jesus was preaching and for many years after his death/resurrection.
• Thus Jesus' ministry of healing and exorcisms was seen in the earliest tradition as the first round in the battle that would end in the defeat of God's enemies and the actualization of his rule.
• Birth Pangs is the obvious metaphor in Jewish apocalyptic thought for the struggles which must take place before the end.
  
  
• the Q tradition makes reference to the disciples fidelity to Jesus as "those who continued with me in my trials (Luke 22:28-30)
• Unlike Mark, the Q tradition has not gone beyond the general reference to suffering or to have developed a theory to explain why Jesus had to die.
• Q only gives hints of the sufferings confident that God would intervene and vindicate the followers and bring the end of the age.
  
  
• Mark on the other hand, (9:1) states that the vindication of the Son of Man will take place within the lifetime of the first generation of Jesus' disciples.
• Mark knows that Rome will defeat Israel and his theology is that when that happens the end will come.
• Mark was written before the first generation was gone (about 68 CE) and was concerned both with the reason for Jesus crucifixion and with providing a terminal point for the coming of the Son of Man
• unlike Paul who reports resurrection appearances to himself and "more than 500 others" (I Cor 15:4-8) neither Mark nor Q describes a post resurrection appearance of Jesus
• Mark predicts that the disciples will see Jesus after his crucifixion, but none are described.
• belief in the resurrection of Jesus are presupposed by both Mark and Q but it is not described since they are convinced that soon vindicate him publicly as king of the new age.
  
  
• Matthew was written after the fall of Jerusalem (around 80-90) and it had become evident that the vindication of the Lord was not going to happen immediately.
• However, Matthew still believes that the end will come very soon.
  
  
• Luke writing about the same time (we really don't know which was first--Matt. or Luke) lives through the fall and his view is that the church better plan for the long haul for it is evident that things are not going to end very soon.
• Luke, along with the book of Acts, his second volume, saw the "age of the church" and of the gentiles before the end would come.

Tradition of Jesus Death and Resurrection

• There is fairly high agreement between the synoptic gospels and John about what happened.
• It is possible that a passion account was in written form before any of the gospels were written.
• Paul studied this passion from which he developed his interpretation so there was something.
• Some scholars have called the gospels passion accounts with long introductions.
• The church very early looked back to the Hebrew scriptures to see Jesus' death and resurrection foretold.
  
  
• theology is something we reflect upon and intellectualize about when we go through something.
  
  
• Hosea 6:1-3 is a very weak scripture the church used as referring to Jesus' resurrection, and it is the only one.
  
  
• Isaiah 53 as well as the other servant psalms in Deutero-Isaiah were seen as referring to Jesus death
  
  
• There was far more tradition of Jesus' resurrection found in the various cults to the Great mother than anything within Judaism, which is why, I believe, the non-Jews were so much more able to accept Christianity than the Jews were.
  
  
• Mark says Jesus will raise, while Matt and Luke say he will be raised.
  
  
• There are two traditions concerning the resurrection.

First, is the empty tomb tradition which is from the earliest levels. Both Mark and Q have this.

Second is the tradition of the resurrection appearances in Galilee which are found in Matt, Luke and the addition to John (21). These are also found in a later addition to Mark which originally ended with the women finding the empty tomb.

• Matthew is written from Antioch of Syria and is basically for the Jewish community so he relies heavily on prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures to show that Jesus was the Messiah expected by the Jew that is why in Matt there are so many "this was to fulfill. "type passages.

Son of Man

• This term was used for Jesus in the earliest traditions and was based on a passage in Dan 7 which speaks of God's kingdom coming with one "like a son of Man", ie, like a human being.
• Enoch 37-71 depicts a redemptive figure through whom the present age will end and new age begin as happening through the coming Son of Man.
• the oldest form of the Son of Man sayings is found in Mark 8:38

whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels.

• The interpretation is that Jesus was associating himself with the coming Son of Man expressed in the Similitudes of Enoch.
• It was with Jesus' resurrection that the church began to assert that Jesus himself was the Son of Man whose coming they awaited.
  
  
• Q lays stress on the coming Son of Man but has no mention of Jesus as suffering son of man, which is Mark's contribution.
• By the second century, the church had pretty well dropped this title and called Jesus Son of God or Jesus as Lord.

Jesus as Teacher

• Matt. sees Jesus, in keeping with his emphasis on Judaism, as the “new Moses" giving the church, "the true Israel" covenant.
• This is why Matt. has the "Sermon on the Mount". Just as Moses brought the old law from the Mountain, Jesus brings the new law from the mountain.
• although the explicit setting of his interpretation of the divine will over against the Law of Moses ("you have heard it has been said… but I say to you") seems to have originated with Matthew, the implied setting aside of the demands of Jewish LAW is readily apparent in the older layers of the tradition.
• There are five divisions in Matthew after the birth narrative, just as there are five books of Moses.
• Matthew sees Jesus as coming to fulfill, not abolish the law.

for example: “don't hate your neighbor or it could lead to murder”

The idea is that Jesus is trying to have people see the inner meaning of the law, not see it as a legal code, but something of the heart and spirit.

• Matt. has Jesus teaching as the sages did, using wisdom type sayings.
  
  
• Law of the Talon (Ex 21:24) what you give out you will get back, therefore love when you receive hate.
• "be perfect as God is perfect" means don't be partial but impartial as God is.

This is pointing to the nature of God, which is love.

• The golden rule is not a new idea. It is found in Ben Sirach and in Tobit 4:15 (2 apocryphal books).
• Confucius used it in about 500 BCE in a reverse sense: "don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you."
  
  
• taking a yoke or yoga--same word, means you enroll as a student of a rabbi, or guru in India.

Jesus as Prophet

• Nabi in Hebrew => the prophet is one who is a mouthpiece of God.

pro means on behalf of

phet before someone.

• Most prophets did not want this job as it meant they had to speak the truth and the people did not want to hear.
• They spoke what people needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear.
• Jesus pronounced judgment on the pharisees and hypocrites as well as on cities
  
  
• the people asked for a sign to show that he was speaking for God (Matt. 12:48)
• He said the only sign was the sign of Jonah, i.e., he would be in the belly of the whale for three days (dead) and then return.
• This was, of course, hindsight by the church.

Jesus as divine man

• in the Greek idea this was a man who came from the gods and was authenticated by miracles he performed
• Jesus doesn't perform miracles to point to his divine status, but the gospel writers see them as pointing to him as divine.
• Jesus' miracles point to God's care for people now and in the new age.
• Jesus sees himself as a channel through which power is operative and gives glory to God.
• He sees himself as a catalyst to faith--forgiveness of sin and faith in God are a prerequisite of healing so when people are healed they are repenting.
• At the time Jesus did miracles he was not known as messiah, son of God, etc. these titles were later applied to him.
  
  
• Mark in particular has the "messianic secret". He tells those whom he heals to not tell anyone (but they always do)
• Demons knew he was the messiah but again he commands their silence.
• The only exception was the Gerasene demoniac who lived in the Decapolis area.

Four Classes of Miracles

• Mighty works of healing of physical affliction.
• Demon exorcism
• Nature miracles (walking on water, feeding 5000, calming
• Raising people from the dead (daughter of Jarius, the widow of Nain’s son)

Form of Miracle stories

• Introduction – i.e. tells circumstances of miracle, setting.
• Effecting the miracle – i.e., the phrase, action whatever that Jesus did.
• the effect of the witness – i.e., were they amazed, angry.
  
  
• The miracles in the gospels pointed to Jesus' messianic identity
  
  
• The Hebrews didn't conceive of a divine man as equal with God, so the miracles didn't authenticate him as such to them.
• The attitude of scholars seems to be to accept the miracles as stated rather than argue about them happening, as pointing to the way in which Jesus was remembered and pointed to him as messiah.
  
  
• Mark's narrative is the origin of the genre "gospel." The other two synoptics are basically expanding upon Mark's views, though adding a different theological slant.
• For this reason, I will deal with Mark first and then deal with Matt, and Luke as to where they differ next week.

End of Lecture – Synoptic Gospel Part 2 in separate lecture notes