The Synoptic Problem

One of the problems with choosing to work with the Gospel of Luke as the central topic of my phd is that I have to come to terms with the Synoptic Problem. For those who have not done any theological training or have just simply never heard of this before, this the area of scholarly debate which seeks to address the large quantities of material shared by Matthew, Mark and Luke. And it can be a minefield, especially when first encountered. As a result, I have been avoiding it as much as possible. However, now this is no longer possible. 

There are three main ways of solving the problem (although there are also many other ideas that have been argued for over the years): 

1) The independence theory - all the Gospels were written independently of each other. The similarities between them are often due to divine inspiration.

2) The two-Gospel hypothesis - Luke used Matthew (or sometimes Matthew used Luke) and Mark then used both Matthew and Luke.

3) The two-source hypothesis - Matthew and Luke both used Mark and another written source referred to as Q. This becomes the four-source hypothesis when the material unique to Matthew and Luke are considered separate sources (called M and L respectively). 

But why is this important? Well, if I was studying a passage in Luke which was only found in Luke then it probably wouldn’t be very important (interesting, but not important). However, the central focus of my thesis are the beatitudes and woes in Luke 6:20-26, and as anyone who reads all the Gospels will notice, they do share a certain amount in common with the beatitude list at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-12. All four beatitudes in Luke are present in some form among the nine beatitudes in Matthew. So as a result I have to deal with these similarities in some way. 

As I have already mentioned, I have three main options. 

First, I can claim that neither Gospel writer is dependent in any way on the other. They both had different sources which included different beatitude lists and included them in their telling of the Gospel story. While this solution may seem appealing with regards to the beatitudes, it doesn’t really work with the rest of the Gospel of Luke. So many other parts of the Gospel are almost word for word identical to passages in Matthew and Mark, that the chances of all three coming up with them separately are extremely remote.

Secondly, I could argue that Matthew wrote his Gospel first, which Luke then used as the basis for his Gospel. Both were then taken by Mark and combined and shortened. According to this theory, Luke has taken the nine beatitudes in Matthew, picked out the ones he likes and discarded the others as not suitable to his purposes. Then he has created (or found in a different source) a list of woes which are parallel but polar opposites of those four beatitudes and added them on to the end. Also, Mark has looked at the lists in both Matthew and Luke and decided not to bother with either of them. Even with just the beatitudes this seems unlikely.

My final option is that both Luke and Matthew used Mark as a source for their Gospels. But there are no beatitude lists in Mark and a lot of stories in Matthew and Luke which are not in Mark. So both Matthew and Luke must have also had another written document which contained a collection of some of Jesus’ sayings, referred to by scholars as Q (from Quelle meaning ‘source’). However, then we must ask, if the beatitudes (and woes?) were in Q, what form were they in? Did Matthew expand them or did Luke abridge them? Also, were the woes there and Matthew left them out or did Luke add them in from somewhere else? This really does raise more questions than it answers.

The complexities of the Synoptic Problem have been sent to plague me at this point in my research. The worst part of this is that there isn’t really a right answer as it is almost impossible to know for certain how each Gospel was composed and what sources each evangelist used. There is only the answer which fits best with all the evidence we have.

The main problem for me is that none of these three solutions seem to shine much light on the beatitudes and woes in Luke’s Gospel and their relationship to Matthew’s beatitudes. They raise more questions about why they are in the form they are than they answer. This frustration is a regular part of the scholarly experience (at least as I have found it). Every so often an area of debate will come up to which there is no obvious solution (and sometimes no obvious benefit to be gained from engaging with it). But it has to be understood and grappled with before it can be set aside as useless or adopted in the most coherent or reasonable form. 

I am not sure how to handle to Synoptic Problem at this point. It does have a bearing on how the overall argument in my thesis will play out, so I can’t completely ignore it. But at the same time, it is not a central issue so one I can’t spend weeks trying to figure out. 

So, wish me luck.