The Synoptic Problem

Topics: Stylometrics And The Synoptic Problem, What Exactly is Q, Evidence of Q?, The Making of the Double Tradition, Introduction to Doublets, Synoptic Hypotheses and Authors, Negative Minor Agreements, MwEL: A New Synoptic Hypothesis, Marcion's Gospel and the Synoptic Problem

What is the synoptic problem? Much of the text of the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke is very similar to, and in some places identical to, text in either one or both of the other two gospels, and for this reason they are collectively referred to as the Synoptic (or ‘seeing together’) Gospels, or just the ‘synoptics.’ The existence of these synoptic parallels raises the issue of how they came to exist, and a very good general statement of the problem (usually referred to as the synoptic problem), with suggested solutions, is given by Stephen C. Carlson on the Synoptic Problem Website:

The synoptic problem is an investigation into the existence and nature of the literary interrelationship among the first three "synoptic" gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels, in contrast with John, because they can readily be arranged in a three-column harmony called a "synopsis." Unlike John, the synoptic gospels share a great number of parallel accounts and parables, arranged in mostly the same order, and told with many of the same words. Any proposed solution to the synoptic problem, therefore, must account for these literary similarities among the synoptics, not so much in terms of their factual content, but in the selection of that content, the arrangement of the material, and wording of the parallels.

Carlson continues:

It is rare for two independent reporters of the same event to share more than a few words in common, but the synoptic gospels often feature a substantial number of agreements in their exact words. For example, in one passage about John the Baptist, Matthew and Luke agree for 61 out of 63 Greek words of a presumably Aramaic speech. Generally, the verbatim agreement between Matthew, Mark, and Luke runs about 50% of the words, but, by contrast, their agreement with John in parallel episodes falls to about 10%.

Because of these agreements, a number of questions come to mind: How did the agreements arise? Were the words in one gospel copied from another, or did the common words come from other (unknown) sources? Where words are the same in two or all three gospels, can we tell the directionality, i.e. which was written first? The various synoptic hypotheses that try to answer these and other questions generally suggest copying and/or editing between Mark, Matthew, and Luke, possibly supplemented by additional hypothetical source material, typically either earlier material from which one or more of the synoptics was derived, or a document containing material common to two of them.

Although the synoptic problem is not completely ‘solved,’ the current majority opinion is that Mark was the first of the synoptics to be written (this is known as Markan Priority), with Matthew and Luke following, probably in that order, and there is a group of several hypotheses that fit this general pattern. Note that this conflicts with what was written by the early Christian fathers, which is that Matthew was the first gospel to be written. In the early 5th century Augustine wrote:

Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four, …are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John.

Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done.

Here we see why the Christian Church believes that Matthew wrote the first gospel, while from a textual point of view the majority point of view is that Mark was the first of the four Greek gospels that we know today from The Bible. Although there is some dispute it does seem likely that there was an early form of what we know as Matthew written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and this is discussed in The Gospel of the Ebionites.

In synoptic hypotheses the existence of the parallel material in Matthew and Luke is usually accounted for by aMatthew (the author of Matthew) knowing Luke, aLuke (the author of Luke) knowing Matthew, or through the use of a hypothetical document known to both aMatthew and aLuke, generally known as Q (see What Exactly is Q), and being the source at least of some of their common material (The details of these and other hypotheses can all be found on the Synoptic Problem Website). The use of Q as a source solves an otherwise difficult part of the problem, which is that in the places where Matthew and Luke have parallel material Matthew sometimes appears to be earlier (more primitive) than Luke, but in other places Luke appears to be more primitive than Matthew. This is often referred to as ‘alternating primitivity,’ and is described in Fallacies at the Heart of Q by Mark Goodacre.

Because it is impossible for both Matthew and Luke to be earlier than each other, an additional document on which both depend is usually posited, either something like Q (although it should be noted that Q is a very slippery beast, with it’s content varying considerably depending on who is defining it, as indicated in Has Goulder Sunk Q? by Allan J. McNicol), or sometimes an earlier version of either Matthew or Luke that was also known to the author of the other gospel. If such an earlier version did exist, and it could be shown that it accounted for the alternating primitivity, then the need for a document like Q would disappear. However, to date (Sep 2023) it has not been decisively determined whether Q or some other document is actually required to 'solve' the synoptic problem.

One way of looking at the problem is to look at the style of text used in different parts of the gospels, to see (for example) whether the style of the text in an agreement matches that in other sections of the gospels in which the agreements occur. This is termed stylometic analysis, of which this stylometric analysis is an example. The Conclusions of this stylometric analysis show strong support for Markan Priority, but also support for the view that some words common to Matthew and Luke (but not Mark) came from another source, although this source does not appear to be what is commonly referred to as 'Q.' Instead, this source can possibly be viewed as an early version of Luke, as described in MwEL: A New Synoptic Hypothesis.

See also Marcion's Gospel and the Synoptic Problem for information regarding another possible source, and how it relates to Luke and the other synoptic gospels.