Don McIntosh wrote:

The Synoptic Problem:

Introduction:

The issue here is whether the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark
to formulate their gospels. I am proposing that they did. This is
by no means a new proposal. Gospel interdependence is well known in
theological circles. One very significant thing is that there was a
Matthew who was allegedly one of the Twelve Apostles. We don't hear
of any Mark in the gospels.

From what I understand we're not supposed to hear of any Mark in the
Gospels in the first place. We do hear plenty of one "John Mark"
from the book of Acts - traditionally thought to be the compiler and
author of the Gospel of Mark - and referred to elsewhere in the NT
simply as "Mark."

The point is that there was no Mark listed among the apostles. This
must make matthean (and lukan) dependence on Mark awkward, given the
popular view that Matthew was written by the apostle of that name.

Apologists who claim that Matthew was written by an apostle of that
name will generally object to the proposal of Matthew being copied
from Mark.

For this apologist, what is generally objectionable is the operating
assumption that early church tradition (which almost uniformly
describes Matthew as written by an apostle of that name and written
*before* Mark chronologically) somehow has inherently less
historical value than the rather constantly shifting opinions of
modern-day textual critics.

I demonstrated dependence on Mark and hence markan priority from the
evidence. No assumption was required or used. Markan priority is
fairly well established - outside evangelical Christianity, that is.

The evidence simply doesn't support matthean priority; it consistently
supports markan priority.

Below I have provided a brief sample from the index from the book
that will be used for the illustration. This sample is not
presented as argument, but is intended to allow the reader to
understand how the index works and understand the points being
submitted.

This is a sample of the index from "Gospel Parallels" by Burton H.
Throckmorton Jr. (pages xxxiii-xl):

============================================================
Mat Mar Luk
============================================================
1 John the Baptist 3:1-6 1:1-6 3:1-6
2 John's Preaching of Repentance 7-10 - 7-9
3 John's Preaching to Special Groups - - 10-14
4 John's Preaching [of] the Coming One 11-12 7-8 15-18
5 John's Imprisonment - - 19-20
6 The Baptism of Jesus 13-17 9-11 21-22
7 The Genealogy of Jesus - - 23-38
8 The Temptation 4:1-11 1 2-13 4:1-13
9 The First Preaching in Galilee 12-17 14-15 14-15
10 The Rejection at Nazareth - - 16-30
11 The Call of the first Disciples 18-22 16-20 -
12 Jesus in the Synagogue at Capernaum - 21-28 31-37
13 The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law - 29-31 38-39
14 The Sick Healed at Evening - 32-34 40-41
15 Jesus Departs from Capernaum - 35-38 42-43
... .... .... .... .... .... ... ... ...
... .... .... .... .... .... ... ... ...
253 The Empty Tomb 28:1-10 16:1-8 24:1-12
============================================================

The primary purpose of the book is to set put the events in
chronological order with parallel events set beside each other. The
index reflects this. There are 253 events (or items) in the full
index. Though the index has six columns of verses, only the three
main ones (left-hand) columns have been shown here. The verses in
the three left hand verse columns are those where the items occur
sequentially in the New Testament. Within the columns no verses are
omitted. Though it didn't seem to be the purpose of the authors to
show dependence on Mark, the index can be used to demonstrate it.
Though there are several points that support this view, the main
point presented here is Mark's commonality to the parallels and to
the order in which they occur. Except where otherwise indicated,
all my index references are to the three main columns.

The book's index does include another set of parallels to the right
of those that I have presented, but of them it says they, ". . may
be regarded as parallels apart from context considerations". An
example of this is one for heading 7, "The Genealogy of Jesus",
which cites Mat 1:1-16. Apart from Matthew's list of ancestors
being very different, it does not appear in the same order, ie. it
does not appear between 3:17 and 4:1 and therefore can't appear
there as a sequential parallel. Another one is given for item 10,
which cites Mat 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6a. Again these are not
sequential parallels with Luke 4:16-30 and therefore can't appear
in the main columns beside the relevant verses in Mark and Matthew.
The lukan event occurs at the beginning of Jesus' ministry while
the markan and matthean episodes are presented as occurring much
later. Matthew 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6a actually occur together as
the event under heading 108. The main thing to note, however, is
that the allocation of verses in the three left hand verse columns
is NOT arbitrary. The sequence can't be changed.

That would be the basis for a powerful argument if the data from the
three left hand columns represented the sum total of Gospel
material, but as the author indicates, there is also material to the
right that "may be regarded as parallels apart from context
considerations."

Then by your own decree it forms the "basis for a powerful argument".
The three left hand columns _do_ represent "the sum total of the
gospel material" between 1 John the Baptist and 253 The Empty Tomb. I
stressed that point. You don't seem to have appreciated this fact and
it's crucial to my whole argument.

The fact that there are no
parallels before John the Baptist and no parallels after The Empty
Tomb, actually provides further evidence for dependence on Mark.

Mark
starts with John the Baptist and ends with The Empty Tomb* (see note).
Actually, saying that there are no parallels at the extremities is
really an understatement. These are the two areas where Matthew and
Luke diverge horribly not only in story but even in geography.

(*) The verses Mark 16:9-20 are considered to be a later addition and
this opinion can be found in the footnotes of New Testament editions.
Juxtaposing the divergence of Matthew and Luke after Mark's account of
the empty tomb (16:8) provides mutual corroboration for the
interpolation of (16:9-20) and for the dependence of Matthew and Luke
on Mark.

The allocation of verses in the three *left hand* verse columns is
admittedly NOT arbitrary, but on the other hand, the selection of
just those verses apart from consideration of the others IS
arbitrary - or at least it has a distinct *ad hoc* ring to it.

No it does not! You clearly haven't understood what it represents. The
columns _do_not_ contain a "selection" of verses. There are NO verses
missing between the start and end of the three left-hand columns.

There are also none out of order in those columns.

So far, all your
objections have been due to not understanding what has been presented.
Furthermore, your charge of "ad hoc" would also suggest that
Throckmorton has an agendum of showing markan dependence.

I see
absolutely no evidence for that being his purpose and I put it to you,
that even if he wanted to change the order of things in the three
left-hand columns, he couldn't - not without abandoning the NT order
for the verses therein.

I suggest you purchase the book and confirm that for yourself.

Referring back to the sample, items 7 and 10 can be regarded as not
having a chronological parallel in Matthew and Mark. Event 2 can be
regarded as a parallel that excludes Mark. Event 7 can be seen as a
parallel that excludes Luke and events 12-15 can be regarded as
direct parallels that exclude Matthew.

Proposals:

Now keep in mind that in the above, my purpose was to explain the
implications of the index rather than to present argument. What
follows now is argument for the dependence on Mark and how Matthew
and Luke need Mark to be there for them to have a parallel. It also
further demonstrates how Matthew and Luke will always (there is one
exception) return to the place where they departed from Mark.

As this is a distribution that occurs over 253 headings, I am
limited in the degree I can present it in this article. However,
here are some examples:

After "16. A Preaching Journey in Galilee", which is contained in
Mat 4:23-25; Mar 1:39; Luk 4:44, Matthew includes his long report
on the "Sermon on the Mount" that goes over three chapters. When he
joins Mark again, it is at "45. The Healing of the Leper" (Mat
8:1-4; Mar 1:40-45; 5:12-16). Note that that markan verse is the
next verse after heading 16, where Matthew left Mark. Straight
after that, he again departs and provides seven separate items or
events (items 46-51). He then rejoins Mark at "52. The Healing of
the Paralytic" (Mat 9:1-8; Mar 2:1-12; Luk 5:17-26), joining in at
the point he left Mark and Luke. All this time, Luke has also
omitted every matthean item that Mark has not included. Matthew
then continues with Mark and Luke, and provides "53. "The Call of
Levi" and "54. The Question about fasting" There again Matthew
leaves and provides a block of items (13) which are again omitted
by Mark and Luke. He joins in at item 69, which is "Plucking Heads
of Grain on the Sabbath" (Mat 12:1-8; Mar 2:23-28; Luk 6:1-5). He
then continues with Mark for the next two items. Now between items
16 and 70, Matthew has an extra 47 items that are omitted by Mark.
Luke omits those same items. Over that span Luke provides the same
7 items that Mark does and only adds one extra. One may be able to
explain away the "Sermon on the Mount" as a block, without
necessarily invoking dependence but one could not do that credibly
with the remainder.

After that, it is Luke's turn. After "72. The call of the Twelve",
Luke departs. He replaces the next three markan items with 12 of
his own. Another big departure of Luke's occurs at "131. On
Temptations" (Mark 9:42-48; Mat 18:6-9) where he replaces 3 markan
items with 50 separate items before returning. This occupies
several chapters. Of those 3 markan items, Matthew uses 2 and
includes 4 of his own. Recall, that except for one item (2),
Matthew and Luke never match without Mark.

Here is the distribution of the sequential parallels. Note that
this table does not appear in the book:

===========================================
Participants Parallels
==========================================
Mark with Matthew and Luke 59
Mark with Matthew (no Luke) 27
Mark with Luke (no Matthew) 13
Matthew with Luke (no Mark) 1
---
Total 100
==========================================

Note that that table immediately above is sufficient to show that
the parallels depend on the presence of Mark.

If you are trying to *objectively* depict literary relationships, I
don't see why you would focus on "sequential parallels" between Mark
and one or more of the other Synoptics at the expense of the
so-called "minor agreements" exclusive to Matthew and Luke and of
which there are said to be literally a thousand. At the very least
your hypothesis should throw in some attempt at an explanation for
them.

I have already answered that. I will quote the relevant paragraph with
some capitalisation added for emphasis:

~~ The book's index does include another set of parallels to the right
~~ of those that I have presented, but of them it says they, ". . may
~~ be regarded as parallels apart from context considerations". An
~~ example of this is one for heading 7, "The Genealogy of Jesus",
~~ which cites Mat 1:1-16. Apart from Matthew's list of ancestors
~~ being very different, it does not appear in the same order, ie. it
~~ does not appear between 3:17 and 4:1 and therefore CAN'T appear
~~ there as a SEQUENTIAL PARALLEL. Another one is given for item 10,
~~ which cites Mat 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6a. Again these are NOT
~~ SEQUENTIAL PARALLELS with Luke 4:16-30 and therefore CAN'T APPEAR
~~ in the main columns beside the relevant verses in Mark and Matthew.
~~ The lukan event occurs at the beginning of Jesus' ministry while
~~ the markan and matthean episodes are presented as occurring much
~~ later. Matthew 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6a actually occur together as
~~ the event under heading 108. The main thing to note, however, is
~~ that the allocation of verses in the three left hand verse columns
~~ is NOT arbitrary. THE SEQUENCE CAN'T BE CHANGED.

I will add that stuff can't be added or removed within the confines of
the three left-hand columns.

The table above, like the lengthy discourse preceding it, basically
restates one aspect of the Synoptic Problem. And like most
treatments of the Synoptic Problem it demonstrates a definite
association among certain textual variables (along with some glaring
anomalies), but no equally definite empirical conclusions. The
fallacy here is arriving at a generalized literary *dependence* on
the basis of a correlation between selected lumps of data. As any
disciplined researcher will affirm, correlation is not causation.
Nor, similarly, does an evident literary relationship directly imply
source dependency.

Then please offer an alternative that could favourably explain it.

The odds against this distribution being by chance are
astronomical.

Agreed. Now granting for a moment the implication that any
explanation other than the Marcan priority hypothesis must invoke
"chance," what adjective would you use to describe the odds against
Matthew and Luke's strikingly similar accounts of John the Baptist's
chosen message and metaphor ("the axe is laid to the root of the
trees") - which clearly do *not* rely on Mark - appearing in their
respective Gospels in the same form and sequence by chance?

There is another tradition, that of a "Sayings Gospel". I am sure you
have heard of "Q".

Its content would seem to be from a mainly oral
tradition, a loose collection of sayings. Unlike the markan harmonics
in Matthew and Luke, they do not appear in order. However, the law of
averages would allow a coincidence or two. The example you have
selected happens to be the only one where a non-markan harmony is
chronologically aligned.

Please let me remind you of the table:

~~ ===========================================
~~ Participants Parallels
~~ ==========================================
~~ Mark with Matthew and Luke 59
~~ Mark with Matthew (no Luke) 27
~~ Mark with Luke (no Matthew) 13
~~ Matthew with Luke (no Mark) 1
~~ ---
~~ Total 100
~~ ==========================================

Note that I have already included your example in the tally of "1".

It works out that Matthew uses about 90% of Mark and Luke uses
about half that.

It also works out that Mark is just over half the total length of
Matthew and Luke, so it isn't all that shocking to discover that
more of Mark's treatment of events appears to be subsumed into
either or both of the other two than vice-versa. Likewise, the
priority of Mark as a proposed solution to the Synoptic Problem is
really two-edged: It only "explains" the considerable textual
material common to Mark and at least one of the other two Synoptics,
which of course still leaves reams of material *unexplained* by it.

It _has_ been explained. Matthew mainly comprises of material from
Mark, loose traditional material "Q" and original matthean material.
Luke comprises of Mark, "Q" and original lukan material.

The inerrantist fails to realise that the very fact there is a
synopsis is already a problem. his is especially so for
inerrantists who appeal to the Church Father Papias, who said that
Mark wrote everything correctly, but not in order:

| It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or
| deeds of Christ.

The apologist needs to explain how Matthew and Luke could duplicate
the non-chronological order if copying didn't take place.

Some copying, or at least some use of identical sources by the
Evangelists, most likely *did* take place. The question however is
whether Matthew and Luke were copied directly from Mark. That
conclusion only follows if the premise of Marcan priority is true,
which of course is the very question before us.

That is wishful thinking and misrepresents my entire post. Please show
me what I presented in that last post that was based on the _premise_
of markan priority. Markan priority was the obvious conclusion.

One thing is certain; whether it was Mark or not, there was a common
text.

It is possible that the common text was some unknown document
but this is not very parsimonious.

One problem is that it wouldn't
explain why Mark appears as the common denominator in the sequential
parallels.

Mark should have no privilege over the others in this
regard if all three synoptics worked from some other document. One
could argue that perhaps Mark was very close to this other document
whereas the others weren't but to talk of another document that's just
like Mark seems rather redundant. We can simply call that other
document, "Mark".

I take it meanwhile that church fathers such as Papias are now
viable sources of historical information?

I place very little stock in what Papias said. I was showing that what
Papias said was, "a problem . . . especially so for INERRANTISTS WHO
APPEAL to the Church Father . ". It's a problem for the apologist, not
for the sceptic.

It seems to me that if I am inconsistent in my appeals to the
patristic writings, then so are you: You arguably more so, because
Papias' caveat that Mark's narrative is "not...in exact order" lends
itself to degrees of interpretation besides "non-chronological
order", such as "generally in order" or "more or less in order"
whereas the comparatively consistent and straightforward declaration
of church fathers such as Irenaeus, Clement and Origen is that
Matthew wrote his Gospel before Mark. Furthermore I can't see any
first-century *apologetic* purpose in their making such an
affirmation, as serious treatments of the Synoptic Problem do not
surface until centuries later.

I am not appealing to Papias' authority. I am showing that there are
incongruities with regard the claims made with regard the gospels'
origins.

Papias also said this of Mark: "For of one thing he took especial
care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything
fictitious into the statements." From an apologetic standpoint,
that's pretty much all that needs to be said. ;-)

I don't see your point. How do those claims get the apologist out of
textual trouble?

The fact is that the synoptics DO follow the same order, else they
wouldn't be 'synoptic'. It is the reason that Mark, Matthew and
Luke are in the book called "Parallel Gospels" and John isn't.

I would question the common usage of descriptives such as "synoptic"
or "Parallel Gospels" as supporting evidence of your particular
hypothesis. Otherwise you've raised some interesting points here. I
haven't studied this stuff in years (though your posts have renewed
my interest), but here in distilled form is my problem with the
"Synoptic Problem": Critics generally present striking verbal and
chronological similarities among the Synoptics as evidence of the
authors' collusion, or plagiarism, or copyright infringement -
whatever you want to call it - often in the context of charging that
there is little or no independent ("extrabiblical") evidence for an
historical interpretation of the gospel narrative that is not
utterly naive. These same critics typically will then turn around
and present virtually any verbal, chronological or even stylistic
*variations* among the Synoptics (and between the Synoptics and
John's Gospel, failing to mention unmistakable parallels between
*them*) as evidence of contradiction or inconsistency, in asserting
that the Gospels for that reason are collectively errant or
untrustworthy.

Though apologists like to allude to there being mutual exclusiveness
between charges of copying and charges of contradiction, there is no
mutual exclusiveness between the two!

There is sufficient material in
the gospels to show vast amounts of copying and elsewhere show several
contradictions, some of them profound. The contradictions mainly occur
in the instances where Matthew or Luke depart from Mark. I have
already given the example of the beginning and end of Matthew and
Luke, where Mark is not present. The fact that the harmony ceases and
profound contradictions appear, not only shows that the charges are
not mutually exclusive but shows the charges as being mutually
confirmed.

The person who charges that there has been copying is not saying that
the three synoptic gospels are identical. If they were, then they
wouldn't be three. 'They' would only be one and there would be no
evidence of copying.

Also keep in mind, that when there is a claim of inerrancy, scepticism
is justified and pointing out any copying or any contradictions, minor
or otherwise, is also justified. In fact, it's invited.

At least in principle, there ought to be some room in the mind of
the critic for the theoretical possibility of a fuzzy but
nonetheless conceptually legitimate middle ground between collusion
and contradiction - such as four *ultimately*
independently-constructed Gospels relying *ultimately* (via various
unidentified documents, oral traditions and/or strands of personal
eyewitness testimony) upon a single common "source" (the life and
sayings of Christ). This would explain in fairly parsimonious
fashion the tension of verbal agreement and variance abounding in
the Gospels, as well as the near-uniform testimony of the early
church fathers on the related issue of authorship. For me it would
also mean that the Gospel writers actually understood the basic
methods of historiography and hermeneutics better than most of
today's source critics and form critics.

Perhaps the latter are used to identifying their sources.

The moment copying is realised, the gospels become further removed
from the alleged events to which they testify. They also become
another fallible human away from being divinely inspired.

<snip more instances of parallels>

Best Regards,



Sean McHugh