Structured Stories with Eyewitness Control
The SSEC Theory

By:  Erick Nelson
Last Updated:  Monday May 24, 2004

Recap and Introduction

So far my treatment of the Synoptic Problem has been entirely negative:  critiquing the traditional solution.  I first explained how I was forced, by comparing parallel passages, to conclude that whatever the answer was, it was NOT direct literary dependence.  Not content to go by first impressions, I next looked at the major arguments used to present and defend the traditional view.  I found that they all boiled down, at the end of the day, to the issue of Verbal Agreement.

Starting from the agreed statistic that about 50% of the words in the synoptics are the same, I looked at specific examples and developed several principles that should be applied to such statistics.  I concluded that the incidence of real identity (that is, verbal identity that points to literary dependence) is much, much less than 50%, although I don't know what that figure is.  And, finally, I looked at the three best examples that one defender of Marcan Priority (Stein) presents, and found them to be less than compelling.

It's one thing to criticize someone else's view (as my son Christopher, six, says "Everybody's a critic."), but do I have anything of substance to offer in its place?

External Evidence

Most of the work in this area, as we have seen, deals with the internal evidence within the synoptics themselves, comparing text to text.  But is there any external evidence that can tell us more about the composition of the gospels?

The earliest and best external evidence we have is that given by Papias and Irenaeus.  They  attest to the traditional authorship of the Synoptics and suggest relative independence of gospel composition.  While we should not uncritically accept everything they have to say, their testimony should bear considerable weight.

Papias was bishop of Hierapolis around 115-130 A.D., and claims to have personally interviewed many of the living eyewitnesses of the disciples' ministries in order to ascertain the truth about these matters. [3]  Here's what he learned.  (Recorded in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, iii.39)

"And the Elder said this also:  Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered, without however recording in order what was either said or done by Christ.  For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow Him; but afterwards, as I said, (attended) Peter, who adapted his instructions to the need (of his hearers) but had no design of giving a connected account of the Lord's oracles.  So then Mark made no mistake, while he thus wrote down some things as he remembered them; for he made it his one care not to omit anything that he heard, or to set down any false statements therein."  

"So then Matthew composed the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he could."  

Irenaeus was bishop of Lyons circa 180 A.D.  There is excellent reason to believe that he was a disciple of Polycarp, as he claims, who was in turn a disciple of the apostle John. [4]  (Against Heresies, iii.1)  

"... after the departure of these (Peter and Paul), Mark the disciple and interpreter (hermeneutos) of Peter, also handed down to us in writing the things preached by Peter." 

"Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him."  

"Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church."  

External evidence of this sort is typically called "tradition" by scholars.  I have always thought that this term is severely misleading.  "Tradition" in everyday vocabulary carries the connotation of vagueness, lack of definite warrant, sort of a general trend or flow that can change over time.  

But Papias was a real person, and appears to have been in a good position to know about the authorship of the gospels.  His testimony can be probed and questioned (and it has), but we must remember that he claims to report things that knows.  Perhaps he is lying or mistaken, but if so it is not because this is a vague tradition.

Irenaeus, similarly, was a real person who spent a good portion of his adult lifetime trying to clarify the gospel as he saw it, and was put to death by the gospel.  He makes the explicit claim that he was a pupil of Polycarp and that Polycarp was a pupil of John the disciple.  Maybe he's lying through his teeth, or maybe he's telling the truth (or maybe he was in fact the pupil of Polycarp, but was confused or deluded about Polycarp's connection with John).  At any rate, his statements must be taken seriously and if rejected, we must present cogent reasons for doing so. 

Phase 1 - Jesus' Stories

I will try to create a scenario that explains all the evidence.  I call this "Structured Stories with Eyewitness Control."

We begin with the stories as Jesus told them.  Jesus traveled from town to town, throughout the countryside, into Jerusalem, many places.  We are told that he preached the kingdom of God, and that he told parables and stories.  

Repetition

It seems to me probable beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus must have told many of the same parables and stories, and full speeches (such as the Sermon on the Mount), over and over again, sometimes using exactly the same words, sometimes using different words and phrases to make similar points.  N.T. Wright puts this so well that I quote him at length:

    "First, unless we are to operate with a highly unlikely understanding of Jesus and his ministry, we must assume some such picture as we find in Gerd Theissen's brilliant work, The Shadow of the Galilean.  Jesus was constantly moving from place to place, working without the benefit of mass media.  It is not just likely, it is in the highest degree probable, that he told the same stories again and again in slightly different words, that he ran into similar questions and problems and said similar things about them, that he came up with a slightly different set of beatitudes every few villages, that he not only told but retold and adapted parables and similar sayings in different settings, and that he repeated aphorisms with different emphases in different contexts.  Scholars of an older conservative stamp used to try to explain varieties in the synoptic tradition by saying cautiously that 'maybe Jesus said it twice.'  This always sounded like special pleading.  Today, once a politician has made a major speech, he or she does not usually repeat it.  But the analogy is thoroughly misleading.  If we come to the ministry of Jesus as first-century historians, and forget our twentieth-century assumptions about mass media, the overwhelming probability is that most of what Jesus said, he said not twice but two hundred times, with (of course) a myriad of local variations.
    Second, those who heard Jesus even on a few of these occasions would soon find that they remembered what was said.  We do not even have to postulate a special sort of oral culture to make this highly likely; even in modern Western society those who hear a teacher or preacher say the same thing a few times can repeat much of it without difficulty, often imitating tones of voice, dramatic pauses, and facial and physical mannerisms.  Moreover, when there is an urgent or exciting reason for wanting to tell someone else what the teacher has said and done, a hearer will often be able to do so, in summary form, after only one hearing; then, once the story has been told two or three times, the effect will be just as strong if not stronger as if it had been heard that often.  This is a common-sense point, which would not need spelling out, were it not so often ignored.  When we add to this the high probability that Palestinian culture was, to put it at its weakest, more used to hearing and repeating teachings than we are today, and the observation that much of Jesus' teaching is intrinsically highly memorable, I submit that the only thing standing in the way of a strong case for Jesus' teaching being passed on effectively in dozens of streams of oral tradition is prejudice.  The surprise, then, is not that we have on occasion so many (two, three, or even four) slightly different versions of the same saying.  The surprise is that we have so few.  It seems to me that the evangelists may well have faced, as a major task, the problem not so much of how to cobble together enough tradition to make a worthwhile book, but of how to work out what to include from the welter of available material.  The old idea that the evangelists must have included everything that they had to hand was always, at best, a large anachronism."  (p 422-423)  

The New Testament and the People of God (Vol 1 of "Christian Origins and the Question of God"), Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1992

His disciples heard something like the Sermon on the Mount many, many times.  They heard the parables, sometimes re-phrased, over and over.  Jesus often expressed his teaching in relatively short, vivid, easy-to-memorize sound-bytes, but his speech - whether teaching, debate, or explanation - was not limited to these forms.

Writing

Another point has been made by several commentators, who point out that first-century scribes used short-hand techniques in their daily work.  It's therefore possible that Jesus' sermons were actually written down as he spoke them. 

"Obviously, early writers had no tape recorders, but shorthand techniques were widely used in the first century.  Matthew, a tax collector accustomed to keeping records, may have acquired this skill.  It has even been suggested he may have kept records of Christ's words and deeds, thus creating a core of written tradition upon which early Christians, including the gospel writers, could draw."  (p 304)  Robert Thomas and Standley Gundry, A Harmony of the Gospels.

Hearing Jesus' sermons many times, possibly taking notes, and having the luxury of spending personal time with him - asking questions and being taught - all make it reasonable to assume that the first disciples could repeat Jesus' sayings, stories, pronouncements, parables, and teachings much as they were originally spoken.

Phase 2 - Creation of Structured Stories


The First Christian Community

It is clear that the earliest Christian communities existed in and around Jerusalem.  The disciples were the heads of the church.  Peter, James (the brother of Jesus), and John were prominent enough to be described by Paul as "pillars of the church."

While they did reach out in missionary activity (especially with Paul), the followers of Jesus regularly gathered in Jerusalem to pray, study scripture, and learn about Jesus.  

The disciples, especially the leading disciples, did three things:

Peter was perhaps the most prominent disciple, certainly one of the Three.  It's fair to assume he did a lot of the speaking and teaching.  As he, and others, told their favorite stories over and over, certain patterns naturally emerged - patterns that even involved specific wording.

The Language of the Jerusalem Community

Did the first Christian community speak and teach primarily in Aramaic?  Exclusively?  While it might seem natural for Peter and the other disciples to teach Jesus' story in Aramaic, there are good reasons for thinking that they taught in Greek. 

It is not known for sure whether Jesus spoke only Aramaic, or spoke Greek (and Hebrew) as well, but it was not uncommon for the people of that time and place to be tri-lingual.  There is much to be said for the contention that Jesus spoke both Aramaic and Greek in his daily discourse.  According to an email by Mark Allan Powell:

"There is now a strong tradition among scholars that Greek was a primary language in the earliest church, indeed, that Jesus and his twelve disciples would have known Greek." (email 3/17/03) 

John A.T. Robinson also concurs that Greek would have been more natural to the disciples that is often assumed.  [6]

It has been pointed out, for instance, that Jesus himself would have almost certainly spoken Greek to the Syro-Phoenician woman, to the Greeks who sought him out, the Roman Centurian, and to Pilate.  It seems most probable, then, that Jesus spoke primarily in Aramaic to the "multitudes" and in disputes with the Jewish leaders, but also spoke Greek in several situations.  

There are four reasons why it's likely that the earliest disciples in Jerusalem told their stories, and related Jesus' sayings in Greek - at least some of the time, and possibly as the predominant language.

1.  According to Acts, many of the first Christian converts at Pentecost were from other lands, who spoke several languages.  Greek was the lingua franca of the day, and thus would have been the natural choice for ministry and teaching to these new believers.

2.  If Acts 6 is any guide, we see explicitly confirmed that there were both "Greek-speaking Jews" and "those who spoke Hebrew" (presumably Aramaic).  A dispute between these groups, causing the disciples to appoint deacons (such as Stephen and Philip) to take care of such administrative matters.  If there were Greek-speaking Christians, and if they abounded in a proportion large enough to cause such a decision, then it stands to reason that the disciples preached - at least to this segment - in Greek.

3.  Paul certainly spoke both Aramaic and Greek fluently.  In Jerusalem (Acts 21:37), Paul specifically speaks Greek to the Roman commander (the commander actually comments on it), and then turns around and addresses the crowd in Aramaic.  He speaks Greek to the Gentiles.  

4.  It is likely that the disciples spoke Greek.  Two (Philip and Thomas) had Greek names.  Peter and spoke Greek as he preached the gospel to the Gentiles.  There would be no difficulty on their end using Greek as the common language.  It is understood that even the "Aramaic-speakers" would understand Greek.

So, did they teach in Greek to the Greek speakers, and Aramaic to the native Jews?  It's hard to say.  However, it does seem likely that they would standardize, more-or-less, on one set of Structured Stories, and since Greek was the common language, Greek would be the choice.

See these articles, supporting the contention that Jesus and the disciples spoke Greek.

A. W. Argyle, "Greek among the Jews of Palestine in New Testament Times."  NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES 20 (1973/74) 87-89.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "The Languages of Palestine in the First Century A.D."  CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY 32 (1970) 501-31.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "Did Jesus Speak Greek?"  BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW (September/October 1992) 58-63.


Oral Teaching and Memorization

So picture Peter and the disciples meeting every day with the new followers of Christ.  They would give their first-hand reminiscences of the things that took place, and the teachings that Jesus gave them.  They did this over and over again.  It is certainly plausible, even likely, that after several re-tellings, each story would assume a certain form, a certain structure.  

Memorization.  In a predominantly oral culture, it was much more common to commit phrases to memory.  It was common for disciples to diligently memorize the teachings of the Torah and of their rabbis.  Birger Gerhardsoon in 1961 did a well-known study of this phenomenon in Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity.  

But, it would have been easy and natural to learn both the essence of the teachings and much of the exact wording, even without a concerted effort to memorize the material.

Repetition.  To give an example in my own life:  I used to play Christian music and travel all over.  At concerts, I would tell stories between the songs.  One story was about The Misfit.  Michele's husband Steve and her friend Renee' traveled with us on tour, and they had the ... ahem ... opportunity to hear me tell the misfit story night after night.  After many weeks of this story, it had definitely taken on a specific (some would say petrified) form.  

At the end of the story, I would be describing a guy I went to school with, who was kind of a "misfit" and couldn't play sports very well.  Once we were playing softball and he was somehow playing way out, beyond the outfielders, kind of standing around.  Well, the ball went past the outfielders right to him, and this was his big chance to do something.  "Throw the ball, throw the ball!" we cried, as the runners circled the bases.  And ... "he threw the ball up and over the fence - behind him!"  

Well, I found out later that Steve and Renee', during various parts of the story and especially at this part, would entertain themselves by lip-synching my exact words with me, knowing exactly what I was going to say.  They'd mouth to each other "Up and over the fence - behind him!"  They thought this was hysterical, and continued to amuse themselves in this way throughout the later part of the tour.  However, at the end of the tour, many of the phrases were stuck indelibly in their minds - thus, I had my revenge.

Writing  

As these stories became structured, here's no reason why diligent Christians or the apostles themselves wouldn't have ever written them down.  It's more likely that they created lists of sayings, evangelism tract-notes, and possibly even outlines.

I especially mention this because one of the early misunderstandings of this "SSEC" theory was that this was a theory of oral transmission.  It is not.  It is a combination of oral teaching/memorization plus an assortment of written documents, notes, and even mini- or proto-gospels.

John A.T. Robinson contends at the end of Redating the New Testament that positing a discrete period of oral transmission followed by a period of written documents, culminating in straight literary dependence of the synoptics is too simplistic.  He concludes:

"On the contrary there is every reason to think that both oral and literary processes went on concurrently for most of the first hundred years of the Christian church.  The writing was earlier and the reign of the 'living voice' longer than we have tended to suppose."  [7]

Worship

The first Christians in Jerusalem met not only to hear the stories told and re-told, but also to worship.  It is accepted that their worship patterns were largely based upon the synagogue worship forms, which would include responsive readings and memorized liturgy.  They also participated in some form of "communion", with the bread and wine.

We see traces of these fixed forms as early creeds (Phil 2:6, 1 Cor 15) and phrases ("This is my body").

Summary - Structured Stories

For the first ten years or more, the disciples in Jerusalem told and re-told the stories and sayings of Jesus, and with repetition, memorization, writing, and worship they attained certain more or less fixed structures.  Those parables, stories, and sayings that were most vivid and easy-to-memorize would naturally be preserved, fairly intact.  Longer discourses would have been summarized to some degree, over time. 

Phase 3 - Propagation of Structured Stories


Out from Jerusalem

As time went on, the disciples and their followers went out beyond Jerusalem to preach the gospel and tell these Structured Stories to the world.  Peter himself traveled to Antioch and other communities, and eventually went to Rome to preach the gospel there.  He was martyred in Rome in the 60's A.D.  

As the disciples traveled through the gentile world, they founded churches, and were themselves (at first) the heads of the church.  They told the Structured Stories in those churches.  

Writing.  As I mentioned earlier, they may have been equipped with evangelistic tracts or notes or mini-gospels.  It would be odd if they had nothing written down.  Yet even without manuscripts, they knew these stories forward and backward, and would tell them in their established forms - even when they themselves were eyewitnesses.

The Telephone Game

The transmission of oral teaching has sometimes - unfairly in my view - been compared with the "telephone game."  In this game, you sit around in a circle.  Someone whispers a phrase to the first person, who whispers it to the second, then around the circle until it comes back to the original person.  People are often amazed to see how the message has become garbled in this chain of transmission.  

What are the characteristics that cause the message quality to degenerate with this method?  Note that this involves communication issues, not memorization ones:

  1. Isolation and privacy of message transmission.  There is no public check at each node to verify accuracy.  It is strictly person-to-person.
  2. Single Expression.  The message is only told once at each node.
  3. Lack of clarity.  Many times, the misunderstanding of a word or phrase happens simply because it was whispered.
  4. Linear Model.  The message passes from the originator to one person - and then from person-to-person.  There is therefore no correction:  the message is only as good (at best) as its weakest link.  Once an error has been introduced, it can only be corrected by a conscious effort to change the message.   

It is sometimes contended that this kind of transmission is a good model of the oral transmission of the gospel stories and sayings.  But is this fair?  As the first disciples introduced the stories to the churches they founded, they told the structured stories, with their own comments thrown in, over and over.

  1. This was done in a public forum.  Disciples would travel with companions who knew the stories, and once told, the stories entered the public domain.
  2. Repetition.  Any errors introduced because of a single expression of the messasge would often be corrected through repetition by the original tellers.
  3. Clarity.  Whispering doesn't come into play here.  More like shouting from the mountain-tops.
  4. Hub Model.  The first message is broadcast publicly.  Later, when the disciple has moved on, there is indeed communication from person to person, but the message has been established by that point.

Personal Memory 

Over time, the issue of memory arises, even for the original disciples themselves.  I was talking to a friend recently about all the vagaries of long-term memory.  He had a great example from his days as an Olympic fencer in the 40's.  He was injured by one opponent in a mishap, and many years later a different friend actually thought that he had been the one who did it to him.

The time difference between the events of the gospels (around 27-30 A.D.) and the earliest of the Gospels (let's say 60-70) is about thirty to forty years.  This made me think about my own memories of almost 40 years ago (1966).  That's when I saw a band called The Mandala.  They were the best band I've ever seen.  My memories of that time are at: 

Mandalla Recollections

I remember a lot of details, but not perfectly.  I had gotten in touch with George Olliver, the lead singer of that band, about a year ago when I found him on the internet.  This prompted me to compose (for the first time) my own reminiscences.  

After I had this written up, I was talking to him on the phone about the 7 Steps to Soul, and he laughed and said there were only FIVE!  I also had the drummer's last name wrong.  But my memories of many of the vivid details were very accurate - and this was confirmed (as is shown on the web site) by other people who saw them perform during that time.  I was actually afraid that I had over-romanticized the whole thing, being an impressionable 17-yr old at the time, but it turns out that my memories have held up quite well.

A second example from twenty years ago.  I can remember Harold Brinkley's actual words "We certainly are glad to be here with you tonight (or today)" with which he began each sermon.  And, at one concert, I distinctly remember him saying "You are making fun of me, and you are making fun of my God" to a rowdy audience, silencing them immediately.  On the other hand, I don't remember many phases from his talks, partly because he varies them almost daily.

And so, even though memory is obviously fallible, especially over long periods of time, it is not so faulty as one might think.  Memory seems to be connected to emotion and the perceived importance of the item remembered.  It is still possible to remember not only the basic idea, but also vivid details, and even, sometimes, the exact words.

Over Time, Less Control

As the disciples left each community, they appointed elders to be leaders.  As the Structured Stories were told and re-told, it was inevitable that some would change, new stories would creep in, and others would be forgotten.  

Even if we assume that the stories survived in written form, it's always possible to write down new, fake stories that were just made up.  This should be freely granted.

Now we are faced with a graduated wheat-and-chaff situation.  Of the stories and sayings available by, saying 50 or 60 A.D., we have:

Phase 4 - Gospels:  Eyewitness Control


Oral Tradition and Writing

Now we are at the point where the true story is in danger of being lost or confused.  Even if the telephone game exaggerates the tendency to error, it is certainly possible for all of the above stories to exist.  And this is not necessarily just a product of oral transmission as such.  People could have written down spurious stories and sayings at any stage in the transmission.  And so, trying to find written sources will not solve the problem. 

Papias and Irenaeus tell us that the four gospels were written by two disciples (Matthew and John) and two companions of disciples (Mark and Luke).  If this is right, then we have two forms of Eyewitness Control.

This is not the place to present the arguments about authorship and dating of the four gospels.  What I will present here is simply the position the SSEC theory holds about the "Eyewitness Control" portion.  I want to say here that IF Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were indeed the authors of their respective gospels, then they provide the component necessary to bring together the Structured Stories to maximize fidelity to the original:  Eyewitness Control.

Mark

John Mark, the disciple of Peter and Paul, sometime in the early or mid-60s, wrote down the substance of Peter’s sermons.  Papias makes it clear that he was careful not to throw in material he made up.  

Is it surprising that Marks teaching should be similar to Matthew's in content, order, and even wording?  Certainly not, since Peter’s sermons were based on the Structured Stories hammered out in the early Jerusalem environment.  In fact, Peter (in this view) more than any other disciple, is responsible to the form and content of the Structured Stories.  All this requires, then, is that Peter stay true to his own message.

I will reiterate that the idea that Peter was the main originator of the stories accounts for the fact that Mark appears to be the "middle term" between Matthew and Luke.  In my view, though, it is not Mark that is the middle term, but Peter, the source of Mark.

Confining his account to what he had heard and learned directly from Peter provides eyewitness control, because Mark can effectively ignore spurious stories and sayings.

Luke

Luke says that several people had undertaken to write accounts of what had happened.  He explicitly claims to have gone back "to the beginning" - to the eyewitnesses - to sort through the existing (oral and written) accounts to discover the truth.  If he was Luke the physician, then he was a close and dear companion of Paul, and had the opportunity to meet several of the disciples, Philip the evangelist, and possibly Mary Jesus' mother, as well.

Luke would have gathered his material over some period of time, and tested the stories and sayings by asking the eyewitnesses.  Again, eyewitness control.

Matthew

As I mentioned above, this is not the place to analyze arguments regarding authorship and dating of the gospels.  There are at least two possible scenarios, though, for Matthew:  either (1) Matthew the disciple himself wrote the gospel attributed to him, or else (2) a compiler (like Mark and Luke) did so.

Note that Papias and Irenaeus seem to say that Matthew wrote his gospel in Aramaic or Hebrew, not in Greek.  But that is problematic, primarily because the gospel of Matthew that we have is in Greek, and linguists have concluded that it is not based upon an Aramaic source.  So there are at least two alternatives.

Points to Ponder.  Ignatius, Justin, and Irenaeus apparently quote Matthew.  Do they quote the Greek version we have, word for word, or does they appear to translate an Aramaic version?  If Irenaeus, especially, quotes the Greek version, why wouldn't he mention the origin of the gospel he actually uses? 

1.  Matthew the Disciple.  In this scenario, Matthew the tax collector and disciple had himself been telling the Structured Stories from the beginning, along with his own personal recollections and possibly written sayings, for many years.  

At some point he wrote down the stories of his own preaching.  In so doing, he used something very close to the original, official wording and rhythm of the Structured Stories.  He also supplemented the narrative with sayings (a form of shorthand apparently existed among the scribes, and some scholars have said that it's perfectly possible Matthew copied down the Sermon on the Mount verbatim).  And, most importantly, because he was an eyewitness, he was able exercise eyewitness control:  to sort through the wheat and the chaff, ignoring invented stories and embellishments. 

This introduces the question, "Why would Matthew follow Mark if he was an eyewitness and a disciple?  The answer is that Matthew is following the Petrine version, the official version, and so follows Peter rather than Mark. 

2.  A Later Compiler.  In this scenario, an anonymous compiler utilized the same general official version as Mark and Luke.  He integrated Matthew's "logia" (possibly the true "Q"?) with the Structured Stories.  The eyewitness control, in this scenario is lessened.  While Luke claims to have consulted eyewitnesses, and Mark is said to have recorded Peter's sermons, there is little internal or external claim about Matthew.  We'll have to ponder this!

John

Last, John, the beloved disciple, wrote down his own reminiscences, according to Irenaeus.  Since we are dealing with the Synoptic Problem (which doesn't directly involve John), I won't say much about this.  However, it is clear that John's account (whether the source is the disciple or some other person) is not directly dependent upon any of the synoptics.  The issue is generally whether it is truly independent, or is intended as complementary material.

Conclusion

Synoptic Problem

We have seen that the Synoptic Problem has not been definitively solved to everyone's satisfaction by positing a direct literary dependence relationship between the gospels.  Every solution is always faced with the brute fact of the type, quality, pervasiveness, and detail of the differences between the synoptics.

In fact, in order to rigorously account for the differences and be true to all the data, some scholars have been forced to abandon a straight literary dependency in favor of complicated "proto-" source theories.

Isn't it clear that they have gone wrong somewhere?  Austin Farrer [5] explains that (in questioning Q) he is not questioning the reasoning of prestigious scholars, but rather their assumptions.  That's what we must do. 

The root assumption is that the commonalities of the Synoptics can only be explained by literary dependence.  And then the problem becomes the description of this literary dependence.  But what if this root assumption is simply wrong?

Structured Stories with Eyewitness Control

I have presented a plausible scenario regarding the origination of "Structured Stories", in Greek, when Jerusalem was the center and home church of Christianity.  I then followed this with a description of the propagation of such stories and sayings, and emphasized the need to eyewitness control in final composition.

Taking our cue from Papias' and Irenaeus' testimony about the formation of the Synoptics, and sidestepping the complicated question of authorship and dating of the gospels (not because I think the evidence is lacking, but because it is outside the scope of this paper), I contend that IF Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the gospels attributed to them, then we would indeed have the eyewitness control to separate the true from the false.

And so, I believe that I have answered the points mentioned above about the rationale behind the traditional solution.  I will recount them and elaborate.

1.  "Three completely independent writers will not report the same events in exactly the same way and using the same words."  The writers are independent, the material is not.  They all rely on Structured Stories.

2.  "Oral tradition cannot account for the high degree of agreement in wording."  It can account for much of it, if the stories and sayings are memorable and short.  In my thesis, they are supplemented with many written sources.

3.  "A disciple would be more likely to tell his own version of the story than to "slavishly copy" an existing account by a non-disciple."  This criticism applies only to Matthew's gospel, of course; and that's only if we assume apostolic authorship.  I answer by saying that (a) he is following Peter, not a non-disciple; and (b) he is telling the official structured version of the stories that he has always told; they are also his in a real sense.    

4.  "We should first try to fit the explanation to the evidence at hand, before appealing to hypothetical documents."  (a) This approach has proven to be problematic, and so it's time to move on; (b) this relies upon a combination of oral tradition and written documents; (c) it would be extremely improbable if NO written documents existed!  We don't have to know exactly what they are to assume that something like that existed.  

 

 

References

Notes

[3] Papias' knowledge of gospel authorship:

"But I will not scruple also to give a place for you along with my interpretations to everything that I learnt carefully and remembered carefully in time past from the elders, guaranteeing its truth.  For unlike the many, I did not take pleasure in those who have so very much to say, but in those who teach the truth; nor in those who relate foreign commandments, but in those (who record) such as were given from the Lord to the Faith, and are derived from the Truth itself.  And again, on any occasion when a person come (in my way) who had been a follower of the Elders, I would inquire abut the discourses of the elders - what was said by Andrew, or by Peter, or by Philip, or by Thomas or James, or by John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and what Aristion and the Elder John, the disciples of the Lord say.  For I did not think that I could get so much profit from the contents of books as from the utterances of a living and abiding voice."  (Recorded in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, iii.39)

[4] Irenaeus' knowledge of gospel authorship:

"For, while I was yet a boy, I saw thee in Lower Asia with Polycarp, distinguishing thyself in the royal court, and endeavoring to gain his approbation. For I have a more vivid recollection of what occurred at that time than of recent events (inasumuch as the experiences of childhood, keeping pace with the growth of the soul, become incorporated with it); so that I can even describe the place where the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse - his going out, too, and his coming in - his general mode of life and personal appearance, together with the discourses which he delivered to the people; also how he would speak of his familiar intercourse with John, and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord; and how he would call their words to remembrance.

Whatsoever things he had heard from them respecting the Lord, both with regard to His miracles and His teaching, Polycarp having thus received [information] from the eye-witnesses of the Word of life, would recount them all in harmony with the Scriptures."  (Irenaeus, Letter to Florinus, preserved in Eusebius, Ecclestical History V.20, who took it from the work De Ogdoade (not extant))

[5] Challenging Assumptions.  Austin Farrer explains (On Dispensing with Q):

"It would certainly be impertinence to suggest that the scholars who established the Q hypothesis reasoned falsely or misunderstood their own business; no less an impertinence than to talk of the great "Scholastics so.  St. Thomas understood the business of being an Aristotelizing "Augustinian, and if I am not his disciple, it is not because I find him to have reasoned falsely.  It is because I do not concede the premisses from which he reasoned.  And if we are not to be Streeterians, it will not be because Dr. Street reasoned falsely, but because the premisses from which he reasoned are no longer ours." (i)

[6] Greek and Aramaic Language of the Early Church - John A.T. Robinson

"The testimony of the New Testament itself, not to mention the growing weight of contemporary evidence from outside it, suggests that the assumption that Hellenistic Christianity, with the use of the Septuagint, was a secondary phenomenon confined to the Gentile churces is far too facile.  Certainly the assumption that Peter would have needed Greek only in addressing Gentiles, or James would not have been able to write it at all, or that the Johannine tradition must have passed through the medium of translation, demands challenge and scrutiny." 

[7] Oral and Written Sources - John A.T. Robinson

"Yet this has not prevented the fixing and the indeed freezing of a number of powerful assumptions.  We may instance three.
    One has been that the period of oral tradition preceded, and was in turn succeeded by, the period of written tradition.  In a broad sense this is obviously true.  Where it becomes dangerous is when it hardens into two presuptions.  (a) The first is that the writing down of traditions did not begin until after a considerable stretch of oral transmission - the transition being marked, it is also often assumed, by the passing of the first apostolic generation or by the fading of the hope of an early parousia. . . Indeed he [E.E. Ellis] argues for 'a considerable degree of probability for some written transmission of Gospel traditions from the time of Jesus' earthly ministry'.  (b)  The second presumption is that once the period of writing did begin the traditions were transmitted, and mutually influenced, almost exclusively by the processes of literary dependence, as one writer 'used', 'copied' or altered' another.  On the contrary there is every reason to think that both oral and literary processes went on concurrently for most of the first hundred years of the Christian church.  The writing was earlier and the reign of the 'living voice' longer than we have tended to suppose."  (Redating the New Testament, p 356)