Structured Stories with Eyewitness Control
By: Erick Nelson
Last Updated: Friday July 24, 2009Abstract
The issue of how the gospels were written is an important one, and goes to the heart of the understanding and even the truth of Christianity.
Scholars long ago noticed that the first three gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - are very alike in their accounts, but different, too. The "Synoptic Problem" tries to account for their similarities and differences. The prevailing answer has been Literary Dependence - postulating that Matthew copied from Mark, and Luke from Matthew and/or Mark. Most of the discussion has focused on which gospel was first; most scholars have adopted the view that Mark was first ("Marcan Priority").
This article questions the traditional solution - not concerning which gospel was first, but whether there is evidence of direct literary dependence at all. This article contends that there is NO priority, NO literary dependence between them.
When one actually look at the parallel passages, side-by-side, I can’t help but think that his impression would necessarily be, "If these copied from each other, why do they deviate as they do"" (only about 50% verbal differences in common passages, with puzzling differences). It seems, purely from the literary form, that they may have some dependence on one or more common sources, but we are NOT driven by the evidence to assume direct dependence.
But there are arguments given for the traditional solution, and we must examine them: (1) verbal agreement, (2) agreement in order, (3) agreement in parenthetic materials, (4) Luke's prologue. I judge that the last two arguments are unconvincing (in fact, Luke’s prologue hurts their case). Agreement in order requires at most a common outline. At the end of the day, I conclude that it's argument about verbal agreement which will prove or disprove the theory.
Therefore, I look at specific examples, to determine whether the degree and kind of verbal agreement found in the synoptics really does imply direct dependence. I decide that it does not.
But if direct literary dependence is not the answer, then what is? Why are the synoptic gospels so similar and yet so different? I offer an explanation which fits both the internal and external evidence: “Structured Stories with Eyewitness Control.” (a) Structured Stories grew out of the teaching of Jesus' disciples, and (b) the authors of the gospels presented these stories under eyewitness control. I believe that this explanation best fits the data, and removes a major obstacle to accepting the truth of Christianity.
Introduction
I used to think that the Greatest Scholarly Argument Against Christianity was the “Metaphorical Gospel Theory.” But there is a deeper argument, one that both underpins the MG Theory and atheistic critiques of Christianity, and that is a widely held but incorrect view that the gospel writers copied from each other, embellishing along the way.
I have just finished listening to several debates about Jesus’ resurrection between a Christian apologist on one side and a non-Christian or liberal scholar on the other: Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan.
What was striking about the liberal or non-Christian positions was that each scholar specifically said at length that the gospels do not represent multiple independent attestation, but rather a development of the story from Mark, to Matthew, to Luke, culminating in John. And each supported this with the “assured results” of the Synoptic Problem – that Matthew copied Mark, and that Luke copied Mark and probably Matthew – as the foundation of their view.
The quite obvious point was made each time that if the four gospels differ from one another, and each one was written as an “update” over each previous version, then their statements should either be construed as (a) “corrections” (discrepancies) or (b) metaphorical, symbolic stories.
In William Lane Craig's debate with J.D. Crossan, for instance, Crossan was careful to say that his scholarship is not simply based upon philosophic presuppositions, but that his conclusions are based upon a specific line of research.
I spent the 60s in excruciatingly detailed comparison of the Gospels in parallel columns, word by word and unit by unit, day by day and year by year. I was in a monastery, by the way, and alternative diversions were rather limited. I was testing and establishing for myself that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one major source, that the Q Gospel was their other documentary source, and that John was dependent on those earlier Gospels at least for the narrative frames at start and finish. Those genetic relationships were thereafter my historical presuppositions and, if wrong today or disproved tomorrow, everything I have done on the historical Jesus would need review. . .
It is, in fact, primarily from studying Matthew’s and Luke’s work on Mark, not to speak of John’s possible work on all of them, that I concluded what a Gospel is, how it works, and how creative an Evangelist can be. Matthew, for example, does not simply “select” from some unspecified general tradition. He omits from, adds to, and changes his Markan source, including the very words and deeds of Jesus.” (Paul Copan, Paul, ed. Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? – A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan. (p 151-2))
And thus, the literary dependence of the Synoptics upon each other undergirds the leading arguments against the truth of traditional Christianity.
But is this really true? Has it been proven? Years ago, when I first read Crossan’s view, I was challenged to take a look at the synoptics side-by-side (in English). I did this with the assumption that Mark really did write the earliest gospel, and that Matthew extended/interpreted this in a Jewish direction, and that Luke did so in a Gentile direction - and I was interested to trace these developments myself.