The Synoptic Problem

For those of you who like their theology on the academic side, and perhaps like getting into Greek and grappling with texts, I have posted my paper on the Synoptic Problem to my website. You can find it by clicking the “Theology” tab above and clicking on “Academic Papers,” or you can use this direct link:

http://www.colindsmith.com/papers/The%20Synoptic%20Problem.pdf

The paper gives an overview of what the Synoptic Problem is, the historical development of the various views, and an assessment of those views. It then uses the incident of Jesus cursing the fig tree as a case study to show how the different solutions to the Synoptic Problem operate. Finally, the paper gives a concluding evaluation of these different solutions having now seen them at work.

Here’s a brief snippet (I’ve removed footnotes–see the original paper for those):

It would be profitable at this point to note some underlying assumptions that need to be stated if they are not clear already with regard to the Markan Priority view.  First, there appears to be a reluctance to consider Matthew and Luke as more than redactors—editors of sources, or compilers of stories, as opposed to authoritative sources in their own right.  The traditional ascriptions of the Gospels were to two eyewitnesses (Matthew and John), and two who were close to eyewitnesses and could draw from first-hand accounts (Mark from Peter, and Luke from Paul).  Non-Christian scholars are far more ready to dispense with such views and regard the Gospels as products of later Christian communities.  Evangelical scholars are less willing to take that view, and try to balance the evidence for Markan Priority with a high view of the integrity of the Gospel accounts.  However, as this author will argue below, those that originally formulated this viewpoint did not do so from evangelical presuppositions, so one is fighting against the natural thrust of the argument to maintain an evangelical spin on the evidence this view sets forth.

            This view also assumes the presence of redaction activity within the Gospels, sees doctrinal development between the Gospels, and assumes the background to the Gospels has more to do with the “life situation” (sitz im leben) of the later church than the actual historical circumstances at the time of Christ.  These assumptions tend to lead Two- and Four-Source theorists to date the Gospels as late as possible.  Keener, for example, can do no better than to say that the Apostle was “at least associated with the some stage of the production of this Gospel or the tradition on which it depends.”  Since he cannot place the writing of the Gospel in the hands of the Apostle himself, he is able to propose a late 70’s date based on perceived church situations reflected in the Gospel narrative (e.g., the engagement with Pharisaism and rabbinic Judaism which only came to prominence after 70 A.D.).

            The majority of New Testament scholars today favor one of these views (or a variation of them), all of which are based on the premise of dependency between one or more of the Gospel writers.  There is another perspective, however, that rejects the notion of dependency: the Independence View.