Many Christians believe in divine inspiration of the Bible where God not only influenced biblical authors creatively, but supernaturally spoke to them. However, academic scholars view authorship as more complex and contend writers used both oral traditions and early written material as a basis for their work. With these shared sources comes similar accounts, but periodically with discrepancies. This is the case in the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. They are called “Synoptic Gospels” because they share a multiplicity of common stories and sayings with much of this material being similar in structure and perspective (Powell p. 93).
The material in common in Mark, Matthew, and Luke is called the “triple tradition” (CD 9/18/17). Seeking to understand the triple tradition raises questions about how these commonalities occurred. How did the authors write such similar and often verbatim accounts? Did the author’s borrow from each other? If so, which book was written first? Trying to historically account for the connection between these three books is called the “synoptic problem” (Powell p. 93).
Oral traditions are one explanation for the synoptic problem. In 1 Corinthians 7:10 and in 1 Corinthians 9:14 we see evidence that traditions are being circulated among the early church. We also know new testament writers were
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Both Matthew and Luke share much more in common with Mark than with each other. Matthew shares 80% with Mark, while Luke shares 65%. Mark is the shortest of the gospels and it is also more probable that the authors of Matthew and Luke improved the text by expanded it instead of shortening it. Scholars also believe it is more plausible that the writers of Matthew and Luke corrected Mark’s inferior Greek and took wordy and wandering accounts and turned it into a concise and organized narratives. In addition, Mark’s negative comments about the disciples have been smoothed over in the other two
The Bible, for many centuries, has impacted society, culture, and religion in innumerable ways. Included in the Bible’s impact, is fictional literature (Erickson, 2015). Biblical allusion, defined as an ancillary reference to Scripture ("Definition," 2015), can be a useful tool for fiction writers to draw the attention of the reader to certain biblical truths. Mixed in with the writer’s style and language, biblical allusion, assists in building plot lines, themes, and influence over the reader’s beliefs (Erickson, 2015). Nevertheless, the real magic of biblical allusion lies within the author’s creative genius and ability to infuse biblical themes, metaphors, images, and characters in with the story to allow the audience to reach certain
This work is also said to be anonymous, and believed to have been produced in Syria within a large Jewish and Jewish-Christian community. It is apparent from a number of shared accounts, and overlapping stories of Jesus that the author of Matthew’s Gospel used Mark as a source. Although many of the stories are expanded upon, and carry different connotations, the same basic stories are found in all of the synoptic gospels, and because Mark was the first written, scholars assume it was a source used by both Matthew and Luke. It should also be noted that many of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew were not found in Mark. This led scholars to search for a second source, which resulted in the Q document. Although not available as a feasible document, Q designates a compilation of Jesus’ parables and sayings from about 50 to 70 CE, which are present in Matthew (Harris p.156). Throughout the gospel, Matthew uses formula quotations, meaning he quotes from the Old Testament. This strong relationship with the Hebrew Bible helps scholars determine that Matthew wanted to emphasize his Jewish position. This is important because his interpretations of Jesus throughout the gospel are not agreed upon by all Jews, in fact only a small fraction. Although it is obvious to the readers than John and Matthew carry very different stories of Jesus’ life, it is interesting to
One of the main characteristics of the gospel of Mark is it’s length. Mark is much shorter than Matthew and Luke, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. The author of Mark does not slow down the gospel story and makes sure that only important and relevant details are included. When Mark is compared with Matthew and Luke, it becomes obvious to see what Mark has eliminated. The author’s omission of Jesus’ birth, lineage, resurrection, and ascension denote careful planning and purpose in the gospel of Mark.
Compare and contrast the birth narratives in the Gospel of Matthew and that of the Gospel of Luke.
The Old Testament and the Bible itself has been studied extensively for centuries. Archeologists and Scholars have labored and pondered over texts trying to decipher its clues. It does not matter how many times the Old Testament has been studied there will always be something new to learn about it or the history surrounding it. In the book Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, the author Lawrence Boadt presents us with a few different authors of the Old Testament that used different names for God and had a unique insight into the texts. These four sources are titled P for priests, E for Elohim, J for Jehovah, and Y for Yahweh (95). These four unique sources help us realize that there is more than one author of the Pentateuch. These authors took the text and adapted for their culture. This independent source is used by scholars to help gain insight into what was behind the texts of the bible so we are not left with an incomplete picture of what went into the creation of the bible. Julius Wellhausen used these four sources to publish a book to able us to better understand the sources and to give it credibility with the Protestant scholars at the time (Boadt 94). These sources that is independent of the bible as in the DVD Who Wrote the Bible? and the Nova website aide in shedding light on the history that surrounded the writers who wrote the text and what inspired them to write it in the first place. The DVD shows the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the extensive history of the texts and all its sources in an effort to try to find exactly who wrote the bible (Who Wrote). These scrolls have aided scholars immensely by giving us some of the oldest known manuscripts of the bible in the world today. It shows that the bible w...
Since Matthew and Luke are not modern day biographies, they do not follow the standard that we imagine. I think the explanation for the combination of similarities and differences comes from the fact that the Matthew and Luke are styled differently and also have different audiences. Since Matthew and Luke are interpreting history for a specific audience, this would explain why Matthew and Luke contains differing details. For example, Matthew tells of the Wise Men that came to visit Jesus in Matt.2:1-12 while Luke tells of shepherds that came to visit Jesus in Luke 2:8-20. Since Matthew is styled for a Jewish audience, perhaps it is considered more impactful and stunning that wise philosophers came to worship a child. On the other hand,
Arguments for such a creative rewriting of Matthew and Mark makes sense of the order of Luke but does not in itself provide a firmly sound basis for the theory. It is worth noting that proponents of the Farrer theory often have to argue against earlier theories refusing the dependence of Matthew and Luke, which often makes the arguments have a character of defense. The next argument is thus also a defense against the accusation that Luke is ignorant of Matthew’s additions to Mark. Such ignorance would promptly dismiss the theory, since, as Farrer pointed out, there has to be proof of a good deal of common material, somewhat verbatim, to assert a dependence between the two evangelists. Goodacre refuse this argument by pointing to the fact that Luke often prefers Matthew’s version to Mark’s in the triple tradition.
Mark was Peter's son (I Peter 5:13, possibly spiritual son), who wrote down what Peter said about who Jesus was, what He did, where He went and what happened; Mark's gospel is therefore Peter's account, an eye-witness account, written down by Mark.
How We Got the Bible, Maxie Boren, 200pp How We Got The Bible by Maxie Boren seeks to provide the readers with a more intermediate knowledge of historical data concerning the translation, transcription, and various versions of the Bible, their origins, transcribers, publishers, and content therein. There are three major section of the book. The introduction lays them out in order of appearance. First is Basic Information and contains “The ‘mechanics’ of how we got the Bible - a look at the materials used and the manuscripts extant” (pp 3-12). Second is “The formation of the canon - a look at how the books of the Bible came to be accepted” (pp 13-26).
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
The only double tradition that exists with Luke, however, is using the phrase “kingdom of God” instead of Matthew using “kingdom of my Father.” The phrases exemplifying triple tradition, which both Matthew and Luke kept the same when using Mark, include “Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying,“This is my body,” and, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for
Mark’s gospel and John’s gospel contain many differences from the beginning, but both end with Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The gospels of John and Mark represent Jesus as two different people. The disparity is that Mark represents Jesus as a servant while John portrays Jesus as a divine being. However, one must realize the two texts are meant to read by different audiences during different time periods. Each description presents a particular aspect of the life of Historical Jesus.
(Mark 6:48-49). Identical to the two synoptic Gospels, the canonical Gospel of John
Mark as Servant, Luke as Man, and John as God. Although featuring Christ as King,
Therefore as they are all about the same person there will be similarities between their writings if they are historically accurate. iii. They all share a common oral tradition Looking at the content of the gospels in turn it is obvious that there are links between the gospels. If you have faith then it is quite easy to believe that these accounts are supposed to be the word or god and through him they would write similar accounts.