Preamble to Synoptic Gospels and Acts
We ought to slow down a little here, to understand what is going on, as it is very relevant to our times.
Christianity was born from Judaism. It was born out of Old-Testament prophesies, hope and faith; it was born out of the expectation of a Messiah. The great question of that time was, ‘Is Jesus that Messiah’? In the early years, the Sadducees, who were very liberal in their thinking and also in charge of the Temple, were prepared to tolerate this new movement of ‘Messianic-Jews’45 under the umbrella of Judaism within the overall structure of the temple46. There were many modern ideas arising at the time. With the temple fixed in Jerusalem, synagogues were growing rapidly as homogenous groups all around the continent, each formed its own slight variation on this new doctrine. Some were fashioned on narrow doctrines, rejecting everything outside a written constitution, some welcomed any or every new doctrine to its pulpit. Sound familiar in modern day terms?
By seventy AD, the Temple was gone, Jesus had not returned and Sadducees, who had been willing to tolerate the ‘Messianic-Jews, were now intolerant because their control had gone along with the focal point of their faith, the temple. Surely Messiah would not allow the focus of their faith to be destroyed; would he?47 In consequence, those ‘Messianic-Jews’ worshipping at the Temple, were spreading out to influence Synagogues all over Judea and Samaria. What we see as the hand of God moving to spread the Gospel fast and furious, was a thorn in the side to the Pharisees, They saw Synagogues as their power base and main influence in society while Sadducees had control of a Sanhedrin. So a battle began for control of these assemblies. Pharisees and Messianic-Jews, (who were now newly nicknamed ‘Christians’),48 were both looking to influence these small groups. Alongside this, the disciples who had witnessed the events of Jesus were getting fewer while the Church was getting bigger. There was a need to write things down.
Today when we read a book, we look for the purpose and authors strategy at the beginning. The custom then was to declare it at the end. The material chosen by each writer of these four gospels clearly indicate for whom it is written.
Nobody knows which gospel was written first. Modern styled criticism by scholars, love to point out Mark has six-hundred-and-sixty verses. Six-hundred of these appear in Matthew, and three-hundred-and fifty in Luke. Two of these gospels also take the same non-chronological progression of story-line. The story line starts with thirty-months in Galilee then moves to Jerusalem for the final six-months.
John, who takes a more chronological line, shows Jesus going up to Jerusalem several times in between. Thus, clever thinking critics have deduced three writers copied verbatim from a single source. If you are old enough, (and clever enough49), to have taken GCE in religious studies, you would have been treated to the required reading of what I call, ‘Enid Blyton and the case of the vanishing Q’50. According to this plot, Matthew, Mark and Luke copied a mysterious document called ‘Q’. This theory was started by an agnostic Bishop51 and expanded by an agnostic theologian52. The latest version of this theory has three ‘Q’ documents to make it fit properly. However, by the time Matthew came to write the final draft of his Gospel in about seventy-five AD, the document, (or perhaps all three documents), had vanished without trace. (No doubt the lemon juice ink had faded by then). You will forgive me if I take my ‘cue’ from Augustine of Hippo to form a different opinion, preferring his writings as my base source53.
Matthew, (the man with pen and paper and a habit of documenting everything from his tax collecting days), organized his notes, not for a diary (sequentially), but for another purpose.54 Matthew categorized them in groups as the modern Greek thinking tax collector would have done55. When Luke, (who was not an eyewitness of the events of Jesus), researched his material, to write his evidenced for Theophilus, he used three-hundred of Matthew’s verses and cross-checked with other witnesses like Mary, Peter, and others. Matthew used his own notes collected over the years, to write up his gospel in about seventy AD. Mark, (who was a second generation disciple) used Matthew's Gospel as the basis of his writings, changing the emphasis to make it more suitable for a Greco-Roman audience. His readers were not interested in genealogy or scripture references. This will become clearer as we examine the gospels. But for now, I have outlined the approach.56
One other unwarranted criticism is, the gospels do not always agree as to the venue or time of gatherings. Jesus was an itinerant preacher and used his sermons material several times over, sometimes on the hillside, sometimes in the plain. The same content was adapted for different audiences. (How many times have you heard the same old jokes from the pulpit)?
The Gospels are not biography or a documentary, they are more an apologetic. They demonstrate Jesus is who he said He is. The word Gospel comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘a good story’. It lost the secular side of its meaning when the Church got hold of it, preferring ‘Good News’. The disciples formulated how they told that news, first, to suit their character, and then to suit their audience. The four gospels inadvertently give us a three dimension view of Jesus. Basically:
Matthew pictures him through the eyes of a strict Jewish upbringing, as King of Jews. He emphasizes what Jesus said and how it ties into the Old-Testament Scriptures; The most important word in his gospel is the word ‘Fulfil’, He emphasizes what Jesus said and probably transcribed his notes in his free time after the sermon was finished, (like all good Christians do after Church)?
Mark writes to a Roman audience. He portrays Jesus as the obedient servant of the Lord, he shows Jesus as ‘the son of man’, and is interested in what Jesus did; the word to watch here is ‘immediately’. We will see why later, but his book reads like a film that edits the bits in between the essential story line.
Luke writes both Luke and Acts with a wider objective. He portrays Jesus as the perfect man qualified to be Saviour of world. He has two reasons for this. First, he is writing to Theophilus who is in an official in the Roman hierarchy, But also, (if not directly then indirectly), having Paul’s trial in mind, he presents his writings as factual evidence, suitable as character witness testimony. As such he brings out the stainless and innocent character of both Paul and Jesus. He also clearly shows the non-threatening side of Christian beliefs toward Rome. The phrase to watch in this book is ‘The son of man’. Luke emphasizes what Jesus felt.
John writes with the whole world in mind. He knew his time was short. Ephesus, from where he wrote it, had become a centre for the next staging post of evangelism. He declares Jesus as the son of God. He is more chronological and shows who Jesus was by his actions and His mysticism57. The word to watch for is ‘Believe’. John had that ‘kindred-spirit’ with Jesus, bringing out who Jesus was.
There are only Two events that the synoptic-gospels and John share, when Jesus walked on Water and when Jesus fed the five-thousand. There are only two-chapters in all the gospels that speak of Jesus’ younger days. There are eighty-five that focus on the last three-years of his life. Twenty-nine of these focus on the last week and thirteen focus on the last hours. A clear indication of the purpose of these records put together.
If I asked, ‘who wrote the most of the New-Testament’, I suspect the answer would come back, ‘Paul’. But for the geek, Luke has the fullest account of Jesus and beats Paul on a word count.58
45 Later called Christ-ones
46 This does not mean they were happy but as administrators the accommodated the movement.
47Remember, without the Temple there could be no sacrifices and therefore no Judaism
48Paul later got caught up in this battle, most of his letters urge his readers to disregard bad teachers. ‘become imitators of me’-1 Cor 4: 16. .
49I wasn’t.
50Enid Blyton was a popular writer of children’s adventure books .
51Herbert Marsh,
52Friedrich Schleiermacher
53 Augustine cites Matthew as the source. More traditional churches also cite Matthew as the source.
54 Who knows? Sermons perhaps?.
55 Tax collectors also took census information and categorised it.
56There are other arguments placing each of the three gospels as the original but I will leave you to research and decide.
57John 1: 1
58For those interested twenty-seven-percent of the New-Testament was written by Luke the gentile doctor. Paul comes close second. The word-count of is Luke equals 37,923 words, Paul 32,407 words (23%) Third is John with four books at 20%