Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics1
Robert M. Bowman Jr.
Issues in Synoptic criticism play a significant role in evangelical Christian
apologetics. This is because such apologetics commonly focuses on defending the central
Christian claims about Jesus Christ’s life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection. Yet
evangelicals have widely differing views on how to handle such matters as the Synoptic
problem, redaction criticism, and harmonization of the Gospels. This paper briefly reviews
aspects of the debate over Synoptic Gospel criticism as it relates to evangelical Christian
apologetics. For the sake of clarity and focus I will present this review in the form of a series
of ten theses.
1. One’s solution to the Synoptic Problem should not be chosen for its apologetic
utility but for its fidelity to the facts, realizing that in the end the better we
understand the facts the stronger our apologetic will be.
The task of Christian apologetics is to defend the truth of the Christian faith, which
means that one must first recognize and accept the truth prior to defending it. There is no
value in adopting a position on the Synoptic problem, or anything else, because it seems more
useful for defending our views on something else. We must be prepared to abandon or revise
certain apologetic arguments if the evidence calls those arguments into question. For
example, the theory that the Synoptic Gospels give us three completely independent
testimonies to the events they report in common may have to be reconsidered if we find that
there is some literary relationship among them. For example, according to the “two-source”
theory, Matthew and Luke both made use of Mark as well as of another source that is no
longer extant (conventionally known as Q). Other theories propose different literary
relationships, such as that Mark used Matthew while Luke used both Mark and Matthew (the
“Mark without Q” view), that Luke used Matthew and then Mark used both Matthew and
Luke (the Griesbach or “two-Gospel” theory), or that Luke used Matthew while Mark used
both Matthew and Luke (the “Augustinian” hypothesis). If any of these views is correct, two
of the Gospels are dependent on one or two of the others.2
Abandoning one line of apologetic argument does not mean forfeiting the case for the
truth of the Gospels but rather exchanging a weaker apologetic for a stronger one. For
example, standard views in Synoptic criticism identify not just three, but as many as five
independent sources for Jesus’ actions and sayings. These sources include Mark’s main
source (traditionally identified as Peter3), a pre-Markan “passion narrative” or passion
1
A shortened version of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the Evangelical
Theological Society in Baltimore, MD, on November 21, 2013.
2
A good overview of these theories may be found in Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical
Reliability of the Gospels, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007), 37-47.
3
For a defense of this tradition, see especially Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the
Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), esp.
155-81.
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 2
narrative sources,4 the source dubbed Q, and the sources of Matthew’s special material (M)
and Luke’s special material (L). Furthermore, at least three of these five commonly identified
sources would probably have predated all of the Synoptic Gospels. This stronger argument is
not warrant for accepting the two-source theory—only an analysis of the texts can provide
such warrant—but it exemplifies the point that the apologist should not be afraid to follow
the evidence where it leads.
2. Evangelicals who advocate an evidentialist approach to apologetics are generally
more likely to favor the two-source theory or other literary-dependence theory of
Synoptic origins, while evangelicals who advocate a presuppositional approach
to apologetics are generally more inclined to question such literary-dependence
theories or at least to regard them as of little value.
In The Jesus Crisis, Robert Thomas took Craig Blomberg to task for his advocacy of
an “evidentialist” approach to the Gospels in contrast to a “presuppositional” approach that
assumes that the Bible is inspired. Thomas commented that Blomberg’s approach “includes
an embracing of the same methodology as those of radical persuasions.”5 The comment,
though meant as a criticism, gets at a significant divide among evangelicals with regard to
apologetics. Evidentialists do in fact seek to defend the Christian faith utilizing methods that
are also used by non-Christians. According to evidentialist John Warwick Montgomery,
“Christianity…declares that the truth of its absolute claims rests squarely on certain historical
facts, open to ordinary investigation.”6 It follows that one may use “ordinary” methods of
investigation to show that those historical facts are indeed facts. Such methods may conclude,
however, at best that the historical claims of Christianity are factual with some high degree of
probability or confidence, not that they are apodictically or absolutely certain.
By contrast with evidentialists, presuppositional apologists maintain that methods of
science and history inevitably reflect the presuppositions or typically unstated assumptions of
those who employ those methods. Thus Cornelius Van Til, the architect of the most
influential version of presuppositionalism, regarded any apologetic argument that ends in a
probable conclusion as a compromise of the gospel. “A really fruitful historical apologetic
argues that every fact is and must be such as proves the truth of the Christian position.”7
Obviously, an apologetic stance of this type precludes historical methods of critical
inquiry into the Gospel sources, since such historical methods do not presuppose the
historical truth of the Gospel narratives. As a result, scholars who explicitly advocate Van
4
A cautious, non-evangelical treatment of the issue of pre-Markan passion narrative(s) is
found in the moderate Roman Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown’s book The Death of the
Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the
Four Gospels, Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 1:36-93.
5
Robert L. Thomas, “Introduction: The ‘Jesus Crisis’: What Is It?” in The Jesus Crisis: The
Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship, ed. Robert L. Thomas and F.
David Farnell (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998), 29-30 n. 13.
6
John Warwick Montgomery, “The Jury Returns: A Juridical Defense of Christianity,” in
Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question, ed. Montgomery, Cornell Symposium on
Evidential Apologetics 1986 (Dallas: Probe Books, 1991), 319.
7
Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, 3rd ed. (Nutley, NJ, and Philadelphia:
Presbyterian & Reformed, 1967), 199. For a discussion of this statement, perhaps the most
often quoted statement in Van Til’s writings, see Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr.,
Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith, 2nd ed.
(Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2005), 277-80.
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 3
Til’s apologetic methodology rarely even discuss Synoptic criticism. An interesting exception
is Vern Poythress, whose recent book Inerrancy and the Gospels devotes a chapter to the
Synoptic problem. Poythress suspects that as many as hundreds of pieces of written materials
of varying length and subject matter pertaining to the life of Jesus were generated even before
his crucifixion. The Gospels may have drawn on any of these sources as well as oral sources
(from apostles and others). He concludes that the situation is simply too complex to permit
any definite conclusions regarding the literary origins of the Gospels, pronouncing the
Synoptic problem “unsolvable.”8 What is noteworthy about Poythress’s treatment is that he
neither dismisses the question by critiquing the methods scholars use to investigate such
matters nor denies a priori the possibility of any of the specific theories of Synoptic origins.
He leaves open the possibility that Matthew used Mark, and he agrees that Luke probably
used some earlier sources. Indeed, his conclusion is that Matthew and Luke may have used
many more sources than scholars commonly acknowledge.
It should be noted that the landscape of apologetic methodology is far more complex
than just the two types known as evidentialism and presuppositionalism. There are other
schools of thought in apologetic theory such as classical apologetics, Reformed
epistemology, and even rational fideism, though the last of these often strikes other apologists
as a contradiction in terms. There are also integrative approaches that seek in various ways to
combine elements of more than one apologetic methodology. Many evangelical thinkers do
not fit neatly into any typology category of apologetic methodology. Moreover, evangelical
scholars, being individuals, hold varying opinions that sometimes cut across the lines of such
distinctions between differing apologetic methodologies.9 Thus some evangelicals who
eschew the customary Synoptic literary critical methods are not self-avowed proponents of
presuppositionalism; and evidentialists, though all of them are open to those methods, do not
all reach the same conclusions as to the literary relationships among the Synoptics.
In the second edition of his book The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, Blomberg
discusses both evidentialist and presuppositionalist approaches to the Gospels and suggests,
“Surely there is a place for both approaches.” He argues that “it is possible to defend the
accuracy of much of Scripture on purely historical grounds” using “widely accepted historical
criteria to demonstrate the general trustworthiness of the Scriptures.” However, Blomberg
suggests that presuppositionalists can and should seek to offer considered responses to
skeptics beyond simply rejecting their presuppositions.10
3. Broadly speaking, evangelicals who work from such literary-dependence theories
as the two-source theory are focused on defending the substantial historicity of
the Gospels against extreme skepticism, while evangelicals who advocate
literary-independence theories are focused on defending the inerrancy of the
Gospels against what they consider compromises by other evangelicals. The
former argue based on what can be shown using historical methods of inquiry;
8
Vern Sheridan Poythress, Inerrancy and the Gospels: A God-Centered Approach to the
Challenges of Harmonization (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 123.
9
See further Boa and Bowman, Faith Has Its Reasons, which proposes ways of integrating
valuable elements of other apologetic systems into one’s own preferred approach (see
especially 483-93).
10
Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 35, citing C. Stephen Evans, The
Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 231-301. For an
analysis of the approach to apologetics advanced by Evans in this and other books, see Boa
and Bowman, Faith Has Its Reasons, 459-72.
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 4
the latter argue based on what the doctrine of inerrancy is understood to require
with regard to the harmony of the Gospels.
This point is obviously related to the preceding point about apologetic methodologies.
In some respects evangelicals who take opposing positions on Synoptic origins often have
different agendas. The difference is one of emphasis or focus or orientation to the task, not an
absolute disparity: both groups of evangelicals care about both biblical historicity and
inerrancy.
4. The inspiration of the Gospels as Scripture implies no particular conclusions
regarding the literary origins of the Synoptic Gospels. None of the Synoptic
Gospels claims to have been written or composed by an eyewitness. The only
canonical Gospel that makes that claim is the Fourth Gospel. Dogmatism on such
matters not actually addressed in Scripture is not warranted for evangelicals.
The only canonical Gospel that actually claims to have been written by an eyewitness
is the Gospel of John (19:34-35; 21:24-25). Tradition credits the apostle Matthew, another
eyewitness, as the author of the First Gospel, and that tradition may be correct. If tradition is
correct, Mark, the author of the Second Gospel, may have been an eyewitness of some of the
events narrated in that writing, but probably not of most of those events. However, neither the
First Gospel nor the Second Gospel actually states that it was composed utilizing eyewitness
testimony. And everyone agrees that Luke was not an eyewitness at all of any of the events
reported in his Gospel.
One reason why many evangelicals specifically oppose the two-source theory is that it
seems to undermine the apostolic origin of Matthew since, it is commonly argued, the apostle
Matthew would not have used Mark, a Gospel written by a non-apostle, as the basis for his
own work. However, since the NT nowhere attributes the First Gospel to Matthew, it is not
necessary theologically to defend Matthean authorship to uphold biblical inerrancy. Nor is it
necessary that the tradition of Matthean authorship be correct in order for the Gospel to be the
product of apostolic eyewitness testimony. The author might have drawn much of his unique
material from Matthew, for example, without Matthew himself authoring the text.
In the very first issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Ned
Stonehouse offered the following observation:
I personally am strongly persuaded of the apostolic authorship of Matthew.
Nevertheless, in keeping with the main point that I have been making, it appears to
me to be essential to distinguish qualitatively in this matter also between the
testimony of tradition and that of Scripture itself. Matthew is an anonymous work in
that it does not make any claim to Matthaean authorship. One may therefore be
influenced by the strength of the tradition and by the complete congruity of the
contents of Matthew therewith firmly to maintain the traditional position concerning
its authorship. Nevertheless we should not elevate such a conclusion to the status of
an article of the Christian faith. Such articles of faith should be based securely upon
the teaching of Scripture.11
Ned B. Stonehouse, “1957 Presidential Address: ‘The Infallibility of Scripture and
Evangelical Progress,’” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 1/1 (Winter 1958):
11.
11
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 5
5. Evangelicals should feel free to continue exploring any and all solutions to the
Synoptic Problem, including literary independence theories, oral tradition
theories, and literary interdependence theories.
Literary-dependence theories of Synoptic origins have a long history. The early fifthcentury church father Augustine proposed that Matthew was written first, that Mark produced
a digest of Matthew, and that Luke drew on both Matthew and Mark. In the Reformation era,
Martin Chemnitz, the father of Lutheran orthodoxy, endorsed Augustine’s view. This
“Augustinian Hypothesis” has few defenders in the past few decades, John Wenham being by
far the most notable. Augustine was also the first Christian theologian to espouse the view
that the Gospels did not follow a strict chronological order in their accounts. Virtually all
Gospel scholars today concur with Augustine on this point.
Despite the venerable history of discerning literary relationships among the Synoptic
Gospels, in modern times many evangelicals have regarded some or even all such theories
with deep suspicion if not hostility. Some evangelicals, while not eschewing all Synoptic
literary criticism, sharply denounce the two-source theory. John Niemelä, for example,
considers those who accept that particular theory as compromisers who have “bowed the
knee to Baal.”12 Similarly, Norman Geisler and William Roach claim that “total inerrantists,
such as the framers of the ETS and ICBI statements, have difficulty” with the view that
“Mark was the first Gospel written.”13 Other evangelicals regard all theories of literary
relationships among the Gospels as anathema. David Farnell asserts that “it is impossible to
assume literary dependence without denigrating the accuracy of the Synoptic Gospels.”14
According to Robert Thomas, “since its founding in 1948 the Evangelical Theological
Society has been favorably inclined toward the independence position regarding the Synoptic
Gospels.”15
The evidence suggests that these claims are far from the case. Michael Strickland’s
2011 dissertation reviewed every article in the first half-century of the Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society (JETS) that even mentioned the Synoptic problem. He found
that 27 articles and book reviews expressed preference for the two-source theory, five
expressed support for Markan priority without addressing other issues of Synoptic origins,
one argued for the two-Gospel theory, one argued for the Farrer theory, and four (three by
Thomas and one by Geisler) argued for independence. Some 93 other articles and reviews
commented in some way on the Synoptic Problem without expressing clear support for any
particular view of the matter.16 In the issue of JETS that included Norman Geisler’s
presidential address at the 1998 ETS convention in which he warned against all historical
criticism of the Gospels,17 Andreas Köstenberger made the following remark in an editorial
introduction to the March 1999 issue of JETS: “For clarification purposes, it should be noted
John H. Niemelä, “Two-Gospel Response,” in Three Views on the Origins of Gospel
Origins, ed. Thomas, 110.
13
Norman L. Geisler and William C. Roach, Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of
Scripture for a New Generation (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011), 195.
14
F. David Farnell, “Independence Response to Chapter One,” in Three Views on the Origins
of the Synoptic Gospels, ed. Robert L. Thomas (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2002), 124.
15
Robert L. Thomas, “Historical Criticism and the Evangelical: Another View,” Journal of
the Evangelical Theological Society 43 (2000): 99.
16
Michael Strickland, “Evangelicals and the Synoptic Problem” (Ph.D. diss., University of
Birmingham, 2011), 374.
17
Norman L. Geisler, “Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars,” JETS 42/1
(March 1999): 3-19 (esp. 14-15).
12
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 6
that ETS has no policy on the orthodoxy of certain positions on Gospel criticism or theories
of Synoptic interrelationships and that members in good standing hold to a variety of
views.”18
Thus, the reality is that there is no historic Christian position on the Synoptic problem
and no historic evangelical position. Advocacy of the two-source theory is not a recent
intrusion into evangelical Christian scholarship on the Gospels but a position that was
maintained by some evangelicals and criticized by others throughout the twentieth century, a
situation that simply continues to this day.
6. Theories proposing that the Gospels made use of oral traditions, written sources,
or both are not necessarily incompatible with acceptance of eyewitness testimony
as the ultimate source of the Gospels’ contents.
Geisler and Roach construe Robert Webb as presenting a schema of four successive
stages leading to the composition of the canonical Gospels, (1) eyewitness testimony, (2) oral
tradition, (3) early collections, and (4) composition of the Gospels. They object to this view,
pointing out that eyewitnesses were alive when the Gospels were composed.19 However,
Webb specifically denies that these four stages were chronologically “separate and discrete.”
He points out that “these stages overlapped one another” and agrees with Richard Bauckham
that “eyewitnesses were still alive during the oral traditioning process.”20 The criticism also
overlooks the possibility that while some of the eyewitnesses were still alive, others had
passed away by the time some or all of the Synoptic Gospels were written. Geisler and Roach
assert that “the views of evangelical redactionists” are wrong if the NT claim to be based on
eyewitness testimony is true.21 This statement is patently false since evangelicals who employ
literary-critical methods agree that the NT Gospels were based on eyewitness testimony. The
statement also glosses over the possibility that a text might be based on eyewitness testimony
but present that testimony in a distinctive, literary way.
7. Any dates for the Gospels prior to the end of the first century are consistent with
their being based in eyewitness testimony and with their being inerrant, inspired
Scripture.
Most evangelicals accept a date for the Gospel of John in the 90s, without regarding
such a date as compromising its apostolic origin. In principle, then, there can be nothing a
priori unacceptable theologically about dating some or all of the Synoptic Gospels to the 70s
or 80s, as some evangelical scholars now do. For example, one may agree with Geisler and
Roach that Luke was written before AD 62, as I do, but they give no evidence or reason for
their claim that holding a different opinion is inconsistent with belief in the inerrancy of
Scripture. Their main point here seems to be that a date before AD 70 for Luke or the other
Synoptic Gospels means there was not enough time for Gospel material to have undergone
Andreas J. Köstenberger, “Editorial,” JETS 42/1 (March 1999): 1.
Geisler and Roach, Defending Inerrancy, 196. Similarly, Eta Linnemann has asserted,
“There was no period of oral tradition that preceded the formation of the Gospels.” Is There a
Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels, trans.
Robert W. Yarbrough (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 181.
20
Robert L. Webb, “The Historical Enterprise and Historical Jesus Research,” in Key Events
in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence,
ed. Darrell L. Bock and Robert L. Webb (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 56 n. 123.
21
Geisler and Roach, Defending Inerrancy, 197.
18
19
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 7
any kind of change or redaction.22 It is difficult to see why this would follow. If sayings of
Jesus might have been redacted in some way around, say, AD 75, why would this be
impossible around AD 65 or even 55? In any case, a later date for Luke would not necessarily
entail its being edited in a way incompatible with its inerrancy, just as most evangelicals
agree it would not if the traditional date of John in the 90s is correct.
8. Literary independence theories are not immune from being construed as
implying error on the part of the Gospel authors.
Ironically, in his zeal to refute theories of literary dependence among the Synoptic
Gospels, Robert Thomas cites what he calls “places of disagreement” among the Synoptics:
“Matthew and Mark against Luke, Matthew and Luke against Mark, and Mark and Luke
against Matthew.”23 The irony of this argument in a work professing to defend biblical
inerrancy against misguided evangelicals seems lost on Thomas. Nor was the statement an
isolated instance or verbal slip: in a journal article Thomas also presses “the agreements of
two Gospels against a third Gospel” as evidence against literary dependence theories of
Synoptic origins.24 Of course, Thomas does not intend to charge the Synoptic Gospels with
contradicting one another. Neither do evangelicals who reject literary independence.
9. The dogmatic stance that the Gospels must be interpreted consistently as
presenting the ipsissima verba of Jesus Christ is hermeneutically unsound,
textually indefensible, and theologically unnecessary.
Darrell Bock has given several arguments against the theory that the Gospels record
the ipsissima verba or exact words of Jesus.25 (1) Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic most of
the time, but the Gospels report his words mostly in Greek. (2) The Gospel accounts of Jesus’
discourses are summaries or digests. Bock points out that even the longest speeches of Jesus
can be read aloud in just a few minutes in the form in which they are reported in the Gospels.
(3) The Gospels and the other NT writings quote the OT profusely but rarely give the exact
words of the OT text or an exact word-for-word translation of those words. (4) It was
conventional in genres of ancient Greco-Roman historical writing for the authors to compose
speeches that gave the substance of what the speakers historically had said as accurately as
possible. (5) A comparison of some of the parallel statements by other speakers in the
Gospels, such as the statement of the Father from heaven at Jesus’ baptism or the confession
by Simon Peter, make it clear that the Gospels are not recording precise transcripts of
speeches.
Insistence on viewing the Gospels as giving exact transcripts of everything they report
was said leads to all sorts of difficulties if not outright absurdities. For example, Harold
Lindsell in his 1976 book The Battle for the Bible, following the lead of Johnston Cheney’s
popular 1969 Gospel harmony The Life of Christ in Stereo, argued that Peter had denied
22
Ibid., 196-97.
Thomas, “Introduction,” in Jesus Crisis, ed. Thomas and Farnell, 17.
24
Robert L. Thomas, “Discerning Synoptic Gospel Origins: An Inductive Approach (Part
One of Two Parts),” The Master’s Seminary Journal 15/1 (Spring 2004): 12.
25
See especially Darrell L. Bock, “The Words of Jesus in the Gospels: Live, Jive, or
Memorex?” in Jesus under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, ed.
Michael Wilkens and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 73-99.
23
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 8
Christ six times rather than just three times.26 Robert Thomas took essentially the same
approach two years after Lindsell in his 1978 Harmony of the Gospels, concluding that “Peter
apparently denied Jesus at least four times.”27 Bart Ehrman has some fun in his book Jesus,
Interrupted with these harmonizations, asking what is really a good question: “And isn’t it a
bit absurd to say that, in effect, only ‘my’ Gospel—the one I create from parts of the four in
the New Testament—is the right one, and that the others are only partially right?”28
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy specifically denies “that inerrancy is
negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision…the topical
arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free
citations” (Art. 13). In the exposition of this denial, the Chicago Statement observes that
“non-chronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and
violated no expectations in those days.” This means that the dogmatic claim that the Gospels
must be interpreted as reporting the ipsissima verba of Jesus is actually contrary to the
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.
Robert Thomas claims that John 14:26 refers to a “supernatural boost to the memories
of eyewitnesses and writers…. The Spirit’s work in reminding and inspiring is a supernatural
work, guaranteeing a degree of accuracy and precision that is without parallel in the annals of
human historiography.”29 Elsewhere Thomas makes the even stronger claim that John 14:26
means that the Synoptic Gospels “were accounts of eyewitnesses whose sharp memories,
aided by the Holy Spirit, reproduced the exact wording of dialogues and sermons.”30 It is far
from self-evident, however, that what John 14:26 means is that the Gospels would provide an
exact transcript of what Jesus said. Does it follow from the fact that the apostles were
reminded by the Holy Spirit of all that Jesus said to them that the apostles always quoted
Jesus’ exact words? Supposing for the sake of argument that this is what John 14:26 means,
does it then follow that when the apostles or their associates penned the Gospels they
introduced no variation in how Jesus’ sayings were worded? If the Holy Spirit supernaturally
inspired the Gospel writers to produce the ipsissima verba of Christ, why do parallel passages
nearly always quote Jesus using at least somewhat different wording?
To their credit, Geisler and Roach rightly point out in their critique of Bart Ehrman
that biblical inerrancy does not entail “that we have the exact words (ipsissima verba) of
Jesus in the Greek New Testament but only the same voice or sense (ipsissima vox).” They
observe that Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic, not Greek, and agree that in the Gospels Jesus’
words may sometimes “be abbreviated or paraphrased.”31 Unfortunately, on the other hand,
in their critique of Darrell Bock and Robert Webb they agree with Thomas in claiming that
John 14:26 is incompatible with acknowledging any “redacting, editing, and processing the
words of Jesus” in the canonical Gospels. To accept “evangelical redactionism” is supposedly
26
Johnston M. Cheney, The Life of Christ in Stereo (Portland: Western Conservative Baptist
Seminary, 1969), 190-92, 258; Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1976), 174-76. The theory apparently goes back at least to Bullinger.
27
Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, A Harmony of the Gospels: New American
Standard Bible (New York: HarperCollins, 1978), 229 n.
28
Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and
Why We Don’t Know about Them) (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 7-8.
29
Robert L. Thomas, “Impact of Historical Criticism on Theology and Apologetics,” in Jesus
Crisis, ed. Thomas and Farnell, 372.
30
Robert L. Thomas, “Conclusion: The Evidence Summarized,” in Three Views on the
Origins of the Synoptic Gospels, ed. Thomas, 378.
31
Geisler and Roach, Defending Inerrancy, 96.
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 9
to deny that the Holy Spirit “did his job.”32 But if the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the Gospels
is compatible with the view that the Gospel writers abbreviate and paraphrase Jesus’ teaching
and do not always give us the exact words of Jesus, then there can be nothing wrong in a
measured use of “redaction criticism” to learn as much as one can about the exact words of
Jesus. Nor is it amiss to use such critical tools to seek to understand how the Gospels’
rewording of Jesus’ sayings reflects the perspective, purpose, context, and emphasis of each
individual Gospel.
An obvious objection, made as has been noted by Bock as well as Geisler and Roach,
against the claim that the Gospels uniformly give Jesus’ exact words is that Jesus’ mother
tongue was Aramaic but the Gospels were written in Greek. Against the near-consensus of
scholarship on the question,33 Thomas claims that “the case that Jesus spoke Greek is quite
strong.”34 While Jesus probably was able to understand Greek and to speak in Greek as the
occasion arose (especially in urban settings), it is almost certain that his usual speech when
addressing his disciples and the Galilean crowds was in Aramaic. Unless it can be shown that
Jesus always spoke in Greek except in those rare places where the Gospels happen to quote
him in Aramaic, Thomas cannot overcome this objection to a strict ipsissima verba view of
the Gospel sayings of Jesus. Thomas does not even attempt to make this claim, let alone to
defend it.
The claim that the Gospels always give us the ipsissima verba of Jesus even with
regard to quoting him in the same language in which he spoke is easily shown to be false. In
one notable instance Mark quotes Jesus in Aramaic while Luke quotes the same saying on the
same occasion but in Greek. Whereas Mark reports Jesus raising the little girl from the dead
by saying to her in Aramaic, Talitha koum (Mark 5:41), Luke reports the same saying on that
occasion in Greek, Hē pais egeire (“Child, arise,” Luke 8:54). It might be tempting to
hypothesize that Jesus issued the same imperative to the girl in both Aramaic and Greek—an
ad hoc hypothesis if ever there was one—but in this case Mark all but rules out this idea.
After quoting Jesus in Aramaic, Mark adds, “which is translated, ‘Little girl, I say to you,
arise’” (to korasion soi legō egeire). Clearly, Mark presents his Greek version of the saying
as a translation of what Jesus said in Aramaic, not as a repetition by Jesus of the saying in
Greek. If it were, it would pose another problem for the ipsissima verba position, since
Mark’s interpretation of Jesus’ sentence in Greek is different from that in Luke. Mark
consistently provides a Greek translation of the Aramaic sayings of Jesus that he quotes
(Mark 5:42; 7:34; 15:34; see also abba ho patēr, “Abba, Father,” Mark 14:36, cf. Matt.
26:39, 42; Luke 22:42).
Another example involves a single word—the saying in Mark using the Aramaic word
corban. “But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have
gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do
anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that
32
Ibid., 202. [Note: The published version of this article contains a typographical error here,
changing “redactionism” to “reductionism.”]
33
On this issue, see Moisés Silva, “Bilingualism and the Character of Palestinian Greek,”
Biblica 61 (1980): 198-219; G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early
Christianity, Volume 5: Linguistic Essays (Sydney: Ancient History Documentation Centre,
Macquarie University, 1989), 19-21; Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 158-59.
34
Thomas, “Impact of Historical Criticism on Theology and Apologetics,” in Jesus Crisis,
ed. Thomas and Farnell, 368; see also F. David Farnell, “The Case for the Independence
View of Gospel Origins,” in Three Views on the Origins of Gospel Origins, ed. Thomas, 28889.
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 10
you have handed down” (Mark 7:11 ESV). Here Mark quotes Jesus as using the Aramaic
word corban, and then Mark adds parenthetically, ho estin dōron (literally, “that is, ‘a gift’”).
Matthew, in what is definitely a parallel account of the same incident, reports Jesus
attributing to the Pharisees the claim that the man can free himself of his obligation to his
parents by telling them, “What you would have gained from me is given to God [dōron]”
(Matt. 15:5 ESV). There is no plausible way to add the words of these two different versions
of the saying together into one saying; Jesus would not have used the familiar Aramaic term
corban when speaking to the Pharisees and then explained it to them by saying, “that is, ‘a
gift’”!
These examples prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Gospels do not intend to
present in every instance the exact words of Jesus in the language in which he actually spoke.
Indeed, no Gospel writer ever claims that he is intending to give Jesus’ exact words at all,
even in translation. Such an idea does not arise from the text, but is an assumption brought to
the text deriving from expectations regarding what an inerrant report of Jesus’ teaching
would need to look like.
The assumption that the Gospels report the ipsissima verba of Jesus requires
interpreters to engage in what Robert Thomas calls an “additive-harmonization approach,” in
which each Gospel reports only part of what Jesus said and all of the parts are to be fitted
together somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle. This approach may be illustrated by the first
Beatitude. Apparently on the same occasion that Luke reports Jesus beginning his sermon
with the words “Blessed are the poor, because yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20),
Matthew reports Jesus beginning his sermon with the words “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). If one assumes that the Gospels intend to
report the exact words of Jesus, the different wordings of the saying constitute a problem.
Has Matthew added words or has Luke omitted words from this saying? Did Jesus speak of
the blessed in the second or third person? Did Jesus say “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of
heaven”? It is not possible to add elements of the two versions of the saying together to
harmonize them into a single saying with both Gospels reporting exact words (but not all of
the words) of Jesus’ saying. Or were Matthew and Luke reporting sermons delivered on two
different occasions? Although interpreters who assume that the Gospels present Jesus’ exact
words have usually drawn that conclusion, Thomas’s solution is that Jesus probably made
both statements in the same sermon one right after the other: “Most probably Jesus repeated
this beatitude in at least two different forms when he preached His Sermon on the
Mount/Plain…. Each writer selected the wording that best suited his purpose.”35 What
Thomas does not seem to recognize is that even this theory results in the sermon expressing
the Evangelist’s purpose and not merely reporting what Jesus said.
Thomas asserts, “It is important to a sound view of biblical inspiration that readers
have the precise intended sense of Jesus’ teaching, not an altered sense that a writer conveyed
because of a particular theological theme he wanted to emphasize.”36 But how is this not the
result if, for example, Jesus frequently used the expression “the kingdom of heaven” and
Mark, Luke, and John chose for whatever reason to omit all of the sayings of Jesus that used
that expression? Thomas does not seem to understand that omission is a redactional change.
Thus, when Thomas worries that “even the slightest redactional change of Jesus’ words by a
gospel writer would have altered the meaning of Jesus’ utterances on a given historical
occasion,” he does not seem to recognize that verbal omissions are redactional changes, even
if “slight,” just as much as slight verbal rewordings or additions.
Robert L. Thomas, “Impact of Historical Criticism on Theology and Apologetics,” in Jesus
Crisis, ed. Thomas and Farnell, 370.
36
Ibid., 372.
35
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 11
Poythress suggests that where the three Synoptic Gospels report Jesus’ speech with
some variations, it may be that he said all three things. For example, Jesus’ words to the
disciples in the boat during the storm (Matt. 8:26; Mark 4:40; Luke 8:25) might have been
something like, “Why are you so afraid, O you of little faith? What is the matter with you?
Where is your faith? You have been with me for some time. You have seen the things that
God has done. Have you still no faith?”37 He rightly argues that people do often repeat
themselves in the same context, for emphasis or reinforcement or to make a point from
several different angles.38 While this is (of course) possible and even realistic in many
situations, the question is whether this is the most plausible explanation for the variations
among the Synoptics in their report of Jesus’ speech here. Poythress himself seems to
acknowledge that this “additive” approach to harmonizing the texts may not be a complete
answer, as he notes that the Matthean version uses the word oligopistoi, “ones of little faith,”
which reflects a distinctive theme in his Gospel (Matt. 6:30; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20).39 That word
does not occur at all in Mark and occurs in Luke only once, in a saying parallel to Matthew
6:30 (Luke 12:28).
There is nothing wrong with considering whether parallel versions of Jesus’ sayings
or movements can be harmonized in an “additive” fashion. We should avoid two extremes
here, regarding only traditional harmonization or only redaction-critical explanations for
differences among the Synoptics. Both additive harmonizations and redaction-critical
explanations of differences among the Synoptic Gospels may be considered; whether one or
the other is to be accepted should be determined on a case-by-case basis by evaluating the
evidence for each explanation.
10. The Synoptic problem is significant not only for the light it may shed only on the
Synoptic Gospels but also for the light it may shed on noncanonical gospels.
Although the Synoptic problem is of course about the three Synoptic Gospels in the
NT canon, it turns out to have some relevance in exposing the unhistorical and fraudulent
nature of several noncanonical gospels composed centuries later. Such an application of
Synoptic criticism thus has important if surprising apologetic value in defending the orthodox
claim that the four Gospels in the NT canon are the only authoritative accounts of the life,
teachings, and passion of Jesus Christ.
In order to show how such application is possible, it will be helpful to look at a
specific issue in Synoptic studies. It is now widely though not universally recognized among
both evangelical and non-evangelical Gospel scholars that the Sermon on the Mount in
Matthew 5-7 is Matthew’s expansion of an earlier form of Jesus’ sermon to which Matthew
added supplemental discourse units and sayings of Jesus that were thematically related but
originally spoken at various other occasions. Jesus’ historical sermon in Galilee was probably
more like the so-called Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:20-49 (though not necessarily identical
to it, either). Careful analysis of the Matthean and Lukan settings as well as the content and
structure of the discourses shows that the Matthean and Lukan passages are in fact two
versions of the same historical sermon, not two different sermons that Jesus delivered on
separate occasions.40
37
Poythress, Inerrancy and the Gospels, 158-59.
Ibid., 159.
39
Ibid., 160.
40
See Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1994), 935-36; D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible
Commentary, rev. ed., edited by Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland (Grand Rapids:
38
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 12
Robert Thomas takes issue with those evangelicals who accept such a conclusion. In
his view, suggesting that either Matthew’s or Luke’s text arranges Jesus’ teaching
thematically or in any other way impugns “the integrity of the gospel accounts,” questions
their “historicity,” and “devastates the historical accuracy of the Gospels.”41 He argues that
Matthew’s narrative introduction and conclusion (Matt. 5:1-2; 7:28-29) are inexplicable if
they do not mean that everything presented within that frame as sayings of Jesus was spoken
on that occasion. “If Jesus did not preach such a sermon on a single occasion, why would the
gospel writer mislead his readers to think that Christ did? This question has no plain
answer.”42 This question makes the same type of mistake as the following questions:
“If Jesus did not preach his sermon in Greek, why would the Gospel writer mislead
his readers to think that Christ did?”
“If Jesus said things in his Galilean sermon other than what is found in Luke 6:20-49,
why would Luke mislead his readers to think he said only what is found there?”
“If Jesus gave the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples as part of the sermon he preached that
day, why would Luke mislead his readers to think that Christ did not present the
Lord’s Prayer to them until much later in his ministry?”
These questions beg the question by assuming that the Gospel authors’ presentation intends
to convey something that the text does not actually assert.
The conclusion that the Sermon on the Mount includes sayings of Jesus originally
spoken on other occasions is not dependent on one specific solution to the Synoptic problem.
For example, John Calvin, who held to the literary independence of the Synoptics, accepted
that Matthew and Luke both constructed compilations of Jesus’ sayings around Jesus’
original sermon.
For the design of both Evangelists was, to collect into one place the leading points of
the doctrine of Christ, which related to a devout and holy life. Although Luke had
previously mentioned a plain, he does not observe the immediate succession of events
in the history, but passes from miracles to doctrine, without pointing out either time or
place: just as Matthew takes no notice of the time, but only mentions the place. It is
probable, that this discourse was not delivered until Christ had chosen the twelve: but
in attending to the order of time, which I saw that the Spirit of God had disregarded, I
did not wish to be too precise. Pious and modest readers ought to be satisfied with
having a brief summary of the doctrine of Christ placed before their eyes, collected
out of his many and various discourses, the first of which was that in which he spoke
to his disciples about true happiness.43
If one accepts the conclusion that Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is a compilation of
Jesus’ sayings that Matthew has arranged using Jesus’ historical sermon in Galilee as a
starting point and frame, this conclusion has important implications for later noncanonical
gospels that incorporated parts of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount.
Zondervan, 2010), 154-55; Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary
on the NT, gen. ed. Clinton E. Arnold (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 160.
41
Thomas, “Introduction,” in Jesus Crisis, ed. Thomas and Farnell, 16.
42
Ibid., 20; see also Robert L. Thomas, “Redaction Criticism,” in Jesus Crisis, 257.
43
John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.; Eng. trans.
orig. 1845), 230 (on Matt. 5:1).
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 13
Consider, for example, the Gospel of Barnabas, written no earlier than about the
fourteenth century and notorious for its Islamicized theology and portrayal of Jesus.44 The
Gospel of Barnabas replaces the Sermon on the Mount (SM) with several discourses it
attributes to Jesus at separate times. This material consistently evidences dependence on the
Matthean Sermon on the Mount rather than the Sermon on the Plain, as when it concludes a
section on returning good for evil with the statement, “be ye perfect, for I am perfect” (G.
Barn. 18), a wording that reflects Matthew 5:48 rather than the parallel in Luke 6:36.
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, published in Ohio in 1908, is a favorite
“gospel” in the New Age movement.45 It loosely paraphrases and expands on the entire SM,
but in a way that again consistently reflects dependence on Matthew, not on Luke. So, for
instance, the Aquarian Gospel quotes Jesus as saying, “Worthy are the strong in spirit; theirs
the kingdom is…. Worthy they who hunger and thirst for right; they shall be satisfied”
(Aquarian Gospel 95.7, 9), sayings clearly dependent on Matthew’s form of these two
beatitudes (Matt. 5:3, 6) rather than the form of the Lukan parallels (Luke 6:20b-21).
The most blatant and arguably the most important use of the SM in a noncanonical
“gospel” is that found in 3 Nephi, one of the fifteen “books” in the Book of Mormon and one
that Mormons have often dubbed a “Fifth Gospel.”46 The Book of Mormon, of course, is the
foundational new scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Third Nephi
12-14 reports Jesus, sometime shortly after his ascension, appearing to the “Nephites”
somewhere in the Western Hemisphere and preaching to them the SM almost exactly as it
reads in Matthew. The Book of Mormon version omits about eight and a half verses of the
107 verses in the SM, and it replaces them with about an equal number of new verses. Where
the sayings included in the Book of Mormon sermon have parallels in both Matthew and
Luke, the Book of Mormon reflects the order and wording of the sayings as they appear in
Matthew 100 percent of the time. This is simply not historically credible if one acknowledges
that Matthew’s version of the sermon was in any significant respect shaped and worded by
the author. If Matthew sometime between AD 50 and 80 took discourse units and sayings of
Jesus originally spoken on various occasions and integrated them into Jesus’ historical
sermon in Galilee, rewording and structuring the material as an expression of his literary art,
this finding poses an insuperable problem for the Book of Mormon. It simply defies all
plausibility to claim that Jesus in AD 34 had preached a sermon to the Nephites in the
Americas that closely followed the contents, order, and wording of Matthew’s composition.
This issue was explored briefly in a 1982 article by liberal Reorganized LDS writer
William Russell and more substantively in a 1997 article by evangelical scholar Ron
44
The standard English edition is still Lonsdale and Laura Ragg, trans., The Gospel of
Barnabas: Edited and Translated from the Italian Ms. in the Imperial Library at Vienna:
With a Facsimile (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907). The text of this translation is easily
accessible in several places online. For an evangelical critique, see F. P. Cotterell, “The
Gospel of Barnabas,” Vox Evangelica 10 (1977): 43-47.
45
The full title gives some flavor of the book: Levi H. Dowling, The Aquarian Gospel of
Jesus the Christ: The philosophic and practical basis of the religion of the Aquarian age of
the world and of the church universal: Transcribed from the book of God’s remembrances,
known as the Akashic records, with introduction by Eva S. Dowling (Los Angeles: Leo W.
Dowling; London: L. N. Fowler, 1908 [©1907]). The book was famously critiqued in Edgar
J. Goodspeed, Famous Biblical Hoaxes or, Modern Apocrypha (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956
[orig. 1931]), 15-19.
46
Andrew C. Skinner, Third Nephi: The Fifth Gospel (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2012).
Bowman/Synoptic Criticism and Evangelical Christian Apologetics—page 14
Huggins.47 Mormon scholar John W. Welch in a book published in 1990 and revised in 1999
attempted to defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon in relation to the Synoptic
Problem as well as other issues.48 The evidence in this regard, however, is simply
overwhelming. To circumvent the problem, one would need to argue that Luke’s Sermon on
the Plain has no relation at all to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount; Matthew and Luke must
be viewed as reporting two entirely separate sermons. Moreover, one would need to argue
that Matthew gives the exact words of Jesus except where the Book of Mormon version of
the Sermon happens to vary from Matthew. We can continue to debate whether Matthew was
dependent on the hypothetical source known as Q; it is really beyond reasonable doubt that
the Sermon to the Nephites in the Book of Mormon is dependent on Matthew!49
The investigation of Synoptic critical questions by evangelicals can thus pay
apologetic dividends in unexpected places. Apologetics is not all about “playing defense”; it
is also about vindicating the truth of Christianity against false gospels. It would be a shame to
miss such opportunities because evangelicals were afraid to ask tough questions about the
human origins of the divinely inspired Gospels of the New Testament.
Robert M. Bowman Jr. is the executive director at the Institute for Religious Research
(irr.org) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This version of the article has been slightly edited from
the printed edition that appeared in Midwestern Journal of Theology 13, 1 (Spring 2014):
97-117.
William D. Russell, “A Further Inquiry into the Historicity of the Book of Mormon.”
Sunstone 7 (Sept. 1982): 20-27; Ronald V. Huggins, “Did the Author of 3 Nephi Know the
Gospel of Matthew?” Dialogue 30 (1997): 137-48.
48
John W. Welch, Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple & Sermon on the Mount: An
Approach to 3 Nephi 11-18 and Matthew 5-7 (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999 [rev. ed. of a book
originally publ. in 1990). I address the issue of the historicity of the Sermon in its Book of
Mormon setting comprehensively in “The Sermon at the Temple in the Book of Mormon,”
Ph.D. diss. (South African Theological Seminary, 2014).
49
The problem runs even deeper, since the evidence shows that the Book of Mormon version
of the Sermon is not merely dependent on the Gospel of Matthew but specifically on the
Gospel of Matthew in the King James Version. For example, the Book of Mormon sermon
quotes Jesus ending the Lord’s Prayer with the same doxology, in the same wording, as in
Matthew 6:13 KJV—a doxology that is not in the Lukan version of the prayer (Luke 11:2-3)
and was almost certainly added to the text of Matthew by a later scribe.
47