The Books of the New Testament | Page 9

was it right
to omit the words relating to His Divinity." For the Synoptic Gospels
relate the outward events connected with our Lord's ministry, while St.
John records the discourses and works which reveal our Lord's
heavenly origin and divine authority. Again, the Synoptic Gospels
report Christ's addresses to simple Galilean people, addresses
consisting largely of parables; while St. John reports discourses,
frequently expressed in the language of allegory, and uttered to the
Jews of Jerusalem or to His own intimate disciples.
[Sidenote: The Synoptic problem.]
The Synoptic problem consists in the difficulties raised by the fact that
the Synoptic Gospels show both a remarkable similarity and a
remarkable dissimilarity. It is just because the similarity is often so
astonishing that we find it all the more difficult to explain the
dissimilarity when it exists. A study of the Synoptic problem is
valuable for the Christian student, inasmuch as it directs our attention
to the sources employed by the evangelists, and thus leads us nearer to
the actual events connected with the rise of Christianity.
The RESEMBLANCES between the Synoptic Gospels may be
observed in the following points:--
(a) A common plan.--The general view of the course of events is almost
identical. St. Matthew and St. Luke give separate accounts of the
infancy of our Lord, but they then join with St. Mark in their account of
St. John the Baptist, the baptism and temptation of Christ, and the
beginning of His ministry. Later all three direct their attention mainly
to Christ's work in Galilee, while St. John describes much that took
place in Judaea and Samaria. They pass rapidly over some considerable
space of time until they come to the last week of His life, where all
three give a detailed account.
(b) A common selection of facts.--By far the larger number of both
events and discourses are found in all three Gospels. If anything is

recorded in Mark it is generally to be found in {17} Matt. and Luke,
and almost always in either Matt. or Luke. If the whole number of
incidents in the Synoptic Gospels be reckoned as eighty-eight, the
distribution of the incidents shared by at least two Gospels is as
follows:--
In all three Gospels . . . . . . . 42 In Mark and Matt. . . . . . . . . 12 In
Mark and Luke . . . . . . . . . 5 In Matt. and Luke . . . . . . . . 12
If we add the above together, we realize that seventy-one incidents out
of a total of eighty-eight are to be found in more than one Gospel. Of
the remaining seventeen incidents, three are peculiar to Mark, five to
Matt., and nine to Luke.
(c) Similar groups of incidents.--Not only is there a common selection
of facts, but detached events which happened at different times are
sometimes grouped together in the same way in all of the Synoptic
Gospels or in two of the three. Thus in all three we find together the
cure of the paralytic, the call of Levi, and the question of fasting (Matt.
ix. 1-17; Mark ii. 1-22; Luke v. 17-39); so also the plucking of the ears
of corn and the cure of the withered hand--events separated by at least a
week (Matt. xii. 1-21; Mark ii. 23-iii. 6; Luke vi. 1-11). Thus also the
death of John the Baptist is introduced both in Matt. xiv. 3 and in Mark
vi. 17 to explain the fear felt by Herod Antipas that he had risen from
the dead. In fact, when a parallel passage is found in all three Synoptic
Gospels, it is never immediately followed in both Matt. and Luke by a
whole separate incident which is not in Mark.[2] There is a general
tendency in Matt. and Luke to narrate the same facts as Mark in the
order of Mark. And therefore it is difficult to think that the original
basis of the Synoptic Gospels, whether written or unwritten, did not
coincide closely with Mark in the order of events.
{18}
(d) Similarity of language.--The Synoptic Gospels often agree verbally.
And this agreement is not merely found in the reports of the sayings of
our Lord, but even in the narrative of events. It extends even to rare
Greek words and phrases. The clauses are often remarkably similar.

Sometimes quotations from the Old Testament are found in two or
three Gospels with the same variations from the original. Matt. iii. 3,
Mark i. 3, and Luke iii. 4 have the same quotation from Isa. xl. 3, in
which they agree in every word, although at the end they depart in the
same way from both the Hebrew and the Greek version of the Old
Testament, for they put