The Evolution Of The Synoptic Gospels 23
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
How did the Synoptic Gospels come to be written? A simple and in some ways adequate answer would be to identify the people who, under inspiration of God’s Spirit, wrote these books and to note the circumstances in which they were written. These issues are addressed in the introductions devoted to each of the four gospels. But simply identifying the authors of the Synoptic Gospels leaves some questions unanswered. How did the authors get the material about Jesus that they have used? Why are the three accounts so similar at so many places and so different at others? What was the role of the evangelists themselves—recorders of tradition? Authors with a viewpoint of their own? And, to raise the larger question that lurks behind all of these, why four gospels? These and similar questions have occupied thoughtful Christians since the beginning of the church. A second-century Christian, Tatian, combined all four gospels together in his Diatessaron. Augustine wrote a treatise entitled The Harmony of the Gospels. 1But scholars have pursued these questions especially vigorously since the rise of modern biblical criticism at the end of the eighteenth century.
While we may dismiss as inconsequential some of the questions raised during this time, and even more of the answers as simply wrong, the issue of synoptic origins and relations is one that cannot be avoided. The number and nature of the Gospels raise such literary and historical questions. Moreover, one of the evangelists refers to the process by which the gospel material has come to him.
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)
In this introduction to his two-volume "history of Christian origins,” Luke acknowledges three stages in the genesis of his work: the "eyewitnesses and servants of the word” who "handed down” the truth of Jesus; those "many” who have already written drawn up accounts of Jesus and the early church; and Luke himself, who, having "carefully investigated” these sources, now composes his own "orderly” account. Investigation of the process to which Luke refers appears to be quite in order. We look first, then, at the earliest stage of transmission, during which eyewitnesses and others handed down the tradition about Jesus, much of it orally; then at the stage when written sources began to grow and become more important; and last, at the stage of final authorship. 2