Radical Proposal: Abandonment of the Harmonistic Approach Prior to the seventeenth the Christian scholar's task had been to 'harmonize' the Gospel accounts so as to remove the notion of discrepencies among the Gospels. Luther was not at all interested in the problem differences posed, and thought that people should just ignore such inconsistencies: If one account in Holy Writ is at variance with another, and it is impossible to solve the difficulty, just dismiss it from your mind. The Gospels increasingly were no longer read by all scholars with the primary purpose to reconcile ('harmonize') differences. Certain scholars began considering the kind of history lying behind the Gospels which actually differed to that indicated by each of the four Gospels--thereby prioritizing history above the traditional theological approach. In other words certain scholars within the church began doubting that the Gospels could be perfectly reconciled in all their details. Admitting to the synoptic problem was, at first, akin to a heresy. The earliest proponents of literary dependence were considered quite radical in their time, and so the works of Hugo Grotius, John Mill, and J. J. Wettstein were rather controversial. It was not until the late eighteenth century that the textual critic Griesbach could safely admit to believing the 'heresy' that different Gospel details could not all be 'harmonized.' Just prior to Griesbach (in Germany), Henry Owen (in England) published his theory of Gospel composition in 1764 which accepted the notion that Grotius, Mill and Wettstein had earlier advocated, namely that: ...the Evangelists not only perused, but also transcribed, each others Writings. In the same vein in 1774-1776 the textual critic Griesbach published the first real 'synopsis' for 'looking-together' at the Gospels with the intention to help discover the 'history' of their composition. Griesbach held the same 'source theory' as Owen, i.e. that the Gospel of Luke utilized Matthew whilst Mark had utilized both Matthew and Luke. Griesbach presumed that 'Matthew' could not have depended on Mark or Luke because the author of Matthew was the disciple Matthew who would not have needed to use as sources the Gospels written by non-apostles ('Mark' and 'Luke' who were naturally considered less 'inspired'). |