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As one reads the Gospel, discrepancies and sometimes even contradictions between the texts may be noticed. On the contrary, the descriptions of some of the stories in the Gospels are the same word for word, as if they were copied by one author from another. This phenomenon is called the synoptic problem in scientific biblical scholarship and has been studied for centuries. From the four Gospels, the works of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Chris are called synoptic (Bakker & Jong, 2021). There are many literary overlaps between these four texts, the study of which will be presented in this paper.
To begin with, it is worth discussing the commonalities of the three authors – Matthew, Mark and Luke. In general terms, the pattern of similarities and differences between the Synoptics can be described as follows. Some of Christ’s actions and teachings are described by all three evangelists, while others are described by only two or one. From this, scholars have concluded that each author of the Gospels has the same content with the other two Synoptics or with any one of them and exclusively their own content not found in any other (Bakker & Jong, 2021). For example, Mark’s Gospel’s original content is 30 verses out of more than 650. Hence, 600-plus verses from Mark are found in Matthew and Luke’s works. Conventionally, the total content in Matthew and Luke is approximately 240 verses. The original content in Matthew is about 1/6 of the total, in Luke about 1/4 (Farrugia, 2020). Interestingly, both the original content of Matthew and Luke and the total content of both deal primarily with the Savior’s words, not His actions. The discrepancies in the texts of the Evangelists are also due to following different traditions of retelling events.
For example, Matthew and Luke follow one tradition of retelling the parable of the workers in the vineyard, while Mark follows a different tradition. As for John Chris, many of the events and teachings of Christ in the Fourth Gospel are a particular text peculiar only to John. This is not to say that there is no connection between Synoptics and John, but it is not apparent. Christ’s conversations with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, the conversation about the bread that came down from heaven, the raising of Lazarus are not only theologically significant passages mentioned exclusively in John (Gathercole, 2020). They are unique and vital even in terms of the text structure – extensive and detailed as compared to the way the Synoptics present the material. Along with this, there is a discrepancy with the other evangelists about the day of Passover and the absence of the moment of the apostles’ communion in the description of the Last Supper. All of the above forces biblical scholars to put the question of the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Synoptics beyond the synoptic problem.
One can conclude that the texts of the three authors, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are, for the most part, similar. Their main differences lie in their use of various traditions of interpretation and retelling (Norouzi & Jalali, 2020). The texts of John Chris are significantly different from the others because they have fragments that are peculiar only to this author’s writing. Nevertheless, there are commonalities, such as retelling significant events, which is similar in all four authors.
References
Dinkler, M. B. (2021). The Gospels. In Bakker, M., & Jong, I. J. F. (Eds.), Speech in Ancient Greek literature (pp. 609-631). Brill. Web.
Farrugia, A. The pericopes of the miraculous catch of fish in Luke 5 and John 21: Contrast and functions [Bachelor’s dissertation, University of Malta]. Dissertations-FacThe-2020. Web.
Gathercole, S. (2020). Resemblance and relation: Comparing the Gospels of Mark, John, and Thomas. Comparing Traditions. Web.
Norouzi, M., & Jalali, M. (2020). A metatextual approach in the transformation of narratives on Christ’s birth and death. Comparative Theology, 11(23), 19-34.
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