{"id":9403,"date":"2023-09-15T02:31:54","date_gmt":"2023-09-15T02:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/?p=9403"},"modified":"2025-07-04T03:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:28:24","slug":"synoptic-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/synoptic-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Synoptic Problem: Investigating the Relationship Between Matthew, Mark, and Luke"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Synoptic Problem: Investigating the Relationship Between Matthew, Mark, and Luke<\/h2>\n

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Written by <\/a>Joshua Schachterle, Ph.D<\/a><\/p>\n

Author |  Professor | Scholar<\/p>\n

Author |  Professor | BE Contributor<\/p>\n

Verified!  See our editorial guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n

Verified!  See our guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n

Edited by Laura Robinson, Ph.D.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\nDate written: September 15th, 2023\n

\nDate written: September 15th, 2023<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. – Dr. Bart D. Ehrman<\/p>\n

In examining the Gospels, biblical scholars refer to something called the synoptic problem<\/strong>. This is the question of the relation between Matthew<\/a>, Mark, and Luke, the three synoptic Gospels<\/a>. What is the synoptic problem? Let\u2019s start by defining it.<\/p>\n

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The Synoptic Problem Defined<\/h2>\n

First let\u2019s define synoptic. The word synoptic is derived from a Greek word meaning \u201cseen together.\u201d In many instances, you can put passages from Matthew, Mark, and Luke side by side and they are virtually identical<\/strong>. That is, they can be \u201cseen together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Matthew 3:16-17<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/th>\n

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Mark 1:10-11<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/th>\n

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Luke 3:21-22<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n

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16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God\u2019s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, \u201cThis is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. 11 And a voice came from the heavens, \u201cYou are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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21 Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, \u201cYou are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

How much material do the three share? Brent Nongbri<\/a> writes that Matthew and Luke both contain about 90% of the material in Mark.<\/p>\n

The synoptic problem, then, is the question of how these three Gospels relate to each other<\/strong>. Did one of them depend on the other two as sources? Did two of them depend on one? Did they somehow all depend on each other?<\/p>\n

The beginning of the Gospel of Luke says \u201cmany have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us\u2026 .\u201d The author\u2019s point is that his version of Jesus\u2019 life is not the first. In fact, he probably made use of the other accounts he mentions.<\/p>\n

One of the first questions we need to answer, then, is which of the synoptic Gospels was written first. This will tell us which one could not have used the other two as a source.<\/p>\n

Clues: Which Came First?<\/h2>\n

Brent Nongbri said that Matthew<\/a> and Luke<\/a> contain about 90% of Mark<\/a>. This of course means that they lack about 10% of Mark.<\/p>\n

One thing you notice when you look at this 10% is that many Marcan stories – not in Matthew and Luke – are rather strange<\/strong>. Look at this story from Mark 8:22-26, for example:<\/p>\n

They came to Bethsaida<\/a>. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, \u201cCan you see anything?\u201d And the man looked up and said, \u201cI can see people, but they look like trees, walking.\u201d Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to his home, saying, \u201cDo not even go into the village.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s an odd story, to say the least. Jesus rubs the blind man\u2019s eyes with saliva, then has to try twice before successfully healing him. It makes Jesus look both odd and not entirely in control. Might this be a good reason to omit this story from later writings?<\/p>\n

There is another example in Mark in which Jesus is being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. All three gospels contain this incident, but in Mark there is an extra event left out of Matthew and Luke:<\/p>\n

A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth.They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Scholars asked themselves whether it was likely that Mark added these incidents to the accounts in Matthew and Luke. Or is it more likely that Matthew and Luke left them out?<\/p>\n

Scholarly consensus says that the second option is more likely. On this basis (among others) most scholars believe that Mark was the first written Gospel<\/a> (this is called Marcan Priority). This means that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, Matthew and Luke also share a lot of material that isn\u2019t in Mark. How do scholars account for the material used by Matthew and Luke but not Mark?<\/p>\n

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__CONFIG_colors_palette__{“active_palette”:0,”config”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“name”:”Main Accent”,”parent”:-1}},”gradients”:[]},”palettes”:[{“name”:”Default”,”value”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(255, 133, 34)”}},”gradients”:[]},”original”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(19, 114, 211)”,”hsl”:{“h”:210,”s”:0.83,”l”:0.45,”a”:1}}},”gradients”:[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__ <\/span> sTART QUIZ<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n

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Introducing \u201cQ\u201d: A Lost Source?<\/h2>\n

Scholars have long assumed that in addition to Mark, Matthew and Luke relied on a second source for their Gospels. Scholars have called this the Q source<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q is named for the German word Quelle meaning \u201csource.\u201d It was conceived of as an explanation for the material shared by Matthew and Luke but not Mark<\/strong>. Richard Valantasis<\/a> notes that Q likely began as a set of oral traditions that were later written down. This is still only a hypothesis, of course, since no actual copies of Q survive.<\/p>\n

Q consists mostly of sayings attributed to Jesus<\/strong>. If its dates are as early as scholars believe, the earliest level of Jesus traditions are aphorisms rather than stories. Q contains a host of well-known Jesus proverbs, including the following:<\/p>\n