The Synoptic Gospels Of Mark, Luke And Matthew

The Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew are three of the most important books in the New Testament and bear a direct relationship to each other. It is believed by most scholars that Mark was the first to be written and directly influenced the writings of Luke and Matthew. The authors of Luke and Matthew appear to have drawn some of their information from Mark’s Gospel and mixed it with their own individual sources, referred to as the M and L sources. Many scholars also believe that there is also a yet undiscovered book of sayings referred to as the Quelle, or simply the Q source which was used as a reference by the authors of Mathew and Luke, but not by Mark’s writer. In the story of the plucking of grain on the Sabbath, found in Mark

These changes reflect the different styles of the writers, sources used, the different audiences they were written to and the various aspects of the Jesus story that the authors wished to present. First, as Mark was written the earliest and provided inspiration to the other authors, it deserves the most attention. Mark was written as a short and relatively simple account of Jesus’s ministry and the sources that the author uses don’t appear to come from any outside works and are unique to Mark. In the story of plucking the grain on the Sabbath, it is the main cornerstone upon which the other authors draw from. In Mark’s portrayal, the story takes place at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry in Chapter 2, in-between a story about Jesus teaching about fasting and a story of him preforming miracles on the Sabbath. Additionally it takes place prior to the calling of the twelve apostles, so the

Luke’s version of the event is found in Luke chapter 6 and closely mirrors that of Mark. Just like in Mark, it takes place early in Jesus’s ministry and is in-between the stories of Jesus teaching about fasting and the healing of the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. Also it follows Mark’s composition in that it takes place before the twelve disciples where chosen, therefore the disciples in the story are not just the twelve apostles. The placing of this story in Luke’s Gospel reflects how closely the two narratives are connected and with several of the passages appearing in the same order shows how the author of Luke directly took inspiration from Mark. In the passage itself, Luke’s version is takin almost verbatim from Mark with no new additions, only minor changes to the wording and small redactions of one or two sentences. Throughout the account there no clear evidence for the Q source being used, or even a unique L source that was used only by the author. The minor changes are likely only altered to reflect the different audience, literally style, and additional information that the author had available to