Category Archives: Church History

Books of the Bible, Church History, New Testament Reliability

Why Should We Think That Mark, Luke, and Acts Were Written Before AD 62? Part 4

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In part 4, we continue with J. Warner Wallace’s case for the early dating of Mark, Luke, and Acts, as written in his book Cold-Case Christianity.

The ninth piece of evidence is that Luke quoted Mark (and Matthew) repeatedly. Wallace explains:

Luke, when writing his own gospel, readily admitted that he was not an eyewitness to the life and ministry of Jesus. Instead, Luke described himself as a historian, collecting the statements from the eyewitnesses who were present at the time:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1: 1– 4)

As a result, Luke often repeated or quoted entire passages that were offered previously by either Mark (350 verses from Mark appear in Luke’s gospel) or Matthew (250 verses from Matthew appear in Luke’s account).  These passages were inserted into Luke’s gospel as though they were simply copied over from the other accounts. It’s reasonable, therefore, to conclude that Mark’s account was already recognized, accepted, and available to Luke prior to his authorship of the gospel.

The tenth piece of evidence is that Mark’s Gospel appears to be an early “crime broadcast.”

Mark’s gospel bears a striking resemblance to a “crime broadcast.” When first-responding officers arrive at the scene of a crime, they quickly gather the details related to the crime and the description of the suspect, then “clear the air” with the radio dispatchers so they can broadcast these details to other officers who may be in the area.

This first crime broadcast is brief and focused on the essential elements. There will be time later to add additional details, sort out the order of events, and write lengthy reports. This first broadcast is driven by the immediacy of the moment; we’ve got to get the essentials out to our partners because the suspects in this case may still be trying to flee the area. . . .

Although Mark’s gospel contains the important details of Jesus’s life and ministry, it is brief, less ordered than the other gospels, and filled with “action” verbs and adjectives. There is a sense of urgency about it. This is what we might expect, if it was, in fact, an early account of Jesus’s ministry, written with a sense of urgency. It is clear that the eyewitnesses felt this urgency and believed that Jesus would return very soon.

Paul wrote that “salvation is nearer to us than when we believed” (Rom. 13: 11), and James said, “The coming of the Lord is near” (James 5: 8). Peter, Mark’s mentor and companion, agreed that “the end of all things is near” (1 Pet. 4: 7). Surely Mark wrote with this same sense of urgency as he penned Peter’s experiences in his own gospel.

Mark’s account takes on the role of “crime broadcast,” delivering the essential details without regard for composition or stylistic prose. Papias confirmed this in his statement about Mark’s efforts:

“Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.”

In part 5, we will present Wallace’s 11th and final piece of evidence for the early dating of Mark, Luke, and Acts.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Historical Christ, New Testament Reliability

Why Should We Think That Mark, Luke, and Acts Were Written Before AD 62? Part 3

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In part 3, we continue with J. Warner Wallace’s case for the early dating of Mark, Luke, and Acts, as elucidated in his book Cold-Case Christianity.

The seventh piece of evidence is that Paul reinforced the claims of the Gospel writers. Wallace explains:

While some modern critics challenge the authorship of Paul’s pastoral letters, even the most skeptical scholars agree that Paul is the author of the letters written to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. These letters are dated between AD 48 and AD 60. The letter to the Romans (typically dated at AD 50) reveals something important. Paul began the letter by proclaiming that Jesus is the resurrected “Son of God.” Throughout the letter, Paul accepted the view of Jesus that the gospel eyewitnesses described in their own accounts.

Just seventeen years after the resurrection, Jesus was described as divine. He is God incarnate, just as the gospel eyewitnesses described in their own accounts. In fact, Paul’s outline of Jesus’s life matches that of the Gospels. In [1 Corinthians 15:3-8] (written from AD 53 to 57), Paul summarized the gospel message and reinforced the fact that the apostles described the eyewitness accounts to him. . . .

In his letter to the Galatians (also written in the mid-50s), Paul described his interaction with these apostles (Peter and James) and said that their meeting occurred at least fourteen years prior to the writing of his letter. [See Gal 1:15-19 and Gal 2:1]

This means that Paul saw the risen Christ and learned about the gospel accounts from the eyewitnesses (Peter and James) within five years of the crucifixion (most scholars place Paul’s conversion from AD 33 to 36, and he visited Peter and James within three years of his conversion, according to Gal. 1: 19). This is why Paul was able to tell the Corinthians that there were still “more than five hundred brethren” who could confirm the resurrection accounts (1 Cor. 15: 6). That’s a gutsy claim to make in AD 53– 57, when his readers could easily have accepted his challenge and called him out as a liar if the claim was untrue.

The eighth piece of evidence is that Paul quoted Luke’s Gospel in his letter to the Corinthians.

Paul also seems to have been familiar with the gospel of Luke when he wrote to the Corinthian church (nearly ten years earlier than his letter to Timothy). Notice the similarity between Paul’s description of the Lord’s Supper and Luke’s gospel:

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood.'” (1 Cor. 11: 23– 25)

“And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.'” (Luke 22: 19– 20)

Paul appears to be quoting Luke’s gospel— the only gospel that has Jesus saying that the disciples are to ‘do this in remembrance of Me.’ If Paul is trying to use a description of the meal that was already well known at the time, this account must have been circulating for a period of time prior to Paul’s letter.

Stay tuned for part 4 of this important series, where J. Warner Wallace continues to build his case for the early dating of Mark, Luke, and Acts.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Historical Christ, New Testament Reliability

Why Should We Think That Mark, Luke, and Acts Were Written Before AD 62? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In part 1 we looked at three reasons that Mark, Luke, and Acts were probably written before AD 62. However, J. Warner Wallace, in his book Cold-Case Christianity, provides several more pieces of evidence.

The fourth piece of evidence is that Luke said nothing about the death of James.

Luke featured another important figure from Christian history in the book of Acts. James (the brother of Jesus) became the leader of the Jerusalem church and was described in a position of prominence in Acts 15. James was martyred in the city of Jerusalem in AD 62, but like the deaths of Paul and Peter, the execution of James is absent from the biblical account, even though Luke described the deaths of Stephen (Acts 7: 54– 60) and James the brother of John (Acts 12: 1– 2).

The fifth piece of evidence is that the Gospel of Luke predates the Book of Acts. It is clear from the introductions of these two books that Acts is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke.

The sixth point is that Paul quotes from the Gospel of Luke in his letter to Timothy.

Paul appeared to be aware of Luke’s gospel and wrote as though it was common knowledge in about AD 63– 64, when Paul penned his first letter to Timothy. Note the following passage:

“The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,’ and ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’ (1 Tim. 5: 17– 18)

Paul quoted two passages as “scripture” here— one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing” refers to Deuteronomy 25: 4, and “The laborer is worthy of his wages” refers to Luke 10: 7. It’s clear that Luke’s gospel was already common knowledge and accepted as scripture by the time this letter was written. To be fair, a number of critics (like Bart Ehrman) have argued that Paul was not actually the author of 1 Timothy and maintain that this letter was written much later in history. The majority of scholars, however, recognize the fact that the earliest leaders of the church were familiar with 1 Timothy at a very early date.

We will pick up the seventh piece of evidence in the next part of this series.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Historical Christ, New Testament Reliability

Why Should We Think That Mark, Luke, and Acts Were Written Before AD 62? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Some New Testament critics claim that all of the Gospels (plus Acts) were written after AD 70, some 40 years after Jesus’s death. While this is possible, it seems very unlikely. There are good reasons to believe that at least Mark, Luke, and Acts were written before AD 62. J. Warner Wallace, in his book Cold-Case Christianity, provides several pieces of evidence that lead to this conclusion.

Wallace starts with the failure of the NT writers to mention

perhaps the most significant Jewish historical event of the first century, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. Rome dispatched an army to Jerusalem in response to the Jewish rebellion of AD 66. The Roman army (under the leadership of Titus) ultimately destroyed the temple in AD 70, just as Jesus had predicted in the Gospels (in Matt. 24: 1– 3). You might think this important detail would be included in the New Testament record, especially since this fact would corroborate Jesus’s prediction. But no gospel account records the destruction of the temple. In fact, no New Testament document mentions it at all, even though there are many occasions when a description of the temple’s destruction might have assisted in establishing a theological or historical point.

Second, Wallace points out that even before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple,

the city of Jerusalem was under assault. Titus surrounded the city with four large groups of soldiers and eventually broke through the city’s “Third Wall” with a battering ram. After lengthy battles and skirmishes, the Roman soldiers eventually set fire to the city’s walls, and the temple was destroyed as a result. No aspect of this three-year siege is described in any New Testament document, in spite of the fact that the gospel writers could certainly have pointed to the anguish that resulted from the siege as a powerful point of reference for the many passages of Scripture that extensively address the issue of suffering.

Third, Luke failed to mention the deaths of Peter or Paul in the book of Acts.

Years before the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, another pair of events occurred that were significant to the Christian community. The apostle Paul was martyred in the city of Rome in AD 64, and Peter was martyred shortly afterward in AD 65. While Luke wrote extensively about Paul and Peter in the book of Acts and featured them prominently, he said nothing about their deaths. In fact, Paul was still alive (under house arrest in Rome) at the end of the book of Acts.

We will continue with Wallace’s analysis in the next post.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Historical Christ

Is Mark’s Gospel Peter’s Eyewitness Account? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1, we looked at evidence for Mark’s use of Peter’s eyewitness accounts for his Gospel. There are 6 pieces of evidence that have been assembled by J. Warner Wallace in his book Cold-Case Christianity. We will look at the final two pieces of evidence below.

Fifth, Mark included details that can be best attributed to Peter. Wallace explains:

Mark alone included a number of seemingly unimportant details that point to Peter’s involvement in the shaping of the text. Mark alone told us that “Simon and his companions” were the ones who went looking for Jesus when He was praying in a solitary place (Mark 1: 35– 37). Mark is also the only gospel to tell us that it was Peter who first drew Jesus’s attention to the withered fig tree (compare Matt. 21: 18– 19 with Mark 11: 20– 21). Mark alone seemed to be able to identify the specific disciples (including Peter) who asked Jesus about the timing of the destruction of the temple (compare Matt. 24: 1– 3 with Mark 13: 1– 4).

While Matthew told us (in Matt. 4: 13– 16) that Jesus returned to Galilee and “came and settled in Capernaum,” Mark said that Jesus entered Capernaum and that the people heard that He had “come home” (see Mark 2: 1). Mark said this in spite of the fact that Jesus wasn’t born or raised there. Why would Mark call it “home,” given that Jesus appears to have stayed there for a very short time and traveled throughout the region far more than He ever stayed in Capernaum? Mark alone told us that Capernaum was actually Peter’s hometown (Mark 1: 21, 29– 31) and that Peter’s mother lived there. Peter could most reasonably refer to Capernaum as “home.”

Sixth and finally, Mark used Peter’s outline of the events of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

Many scholars have also noticed that Peter’s preaching style (Acts 1: 21– 22 and Acts 10: 37– 41, for example) consistently seems to omit details of Jesus’s private life. When Peter talked about Jesus, he limited his descriptions to Jesus’s public life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Mark also followed this rough outline, omitting the birth narrative and other details of Jesus’s private life that are found in Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels.

Taken altogether, the six pieces of evidence paint a good circumstantial case that Mark recorded the eyewitness accounts of Peter, the apostle of Jesus. I think we have persuasive reasons to believe that the traditional view on the Gospel of Mark stands up to scrutiny.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Historical Christ

Is Mark’s Gospel Peter’s Eyewitness Account? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

This has certainly been the traditional understanding since the beginning of Christianity. What evidence is there that Mark was recording events from Peter’s eyewitness perspective? In his book Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace gives us 6 pieces of evidence to consider.

First, Wallace notes that Mark mentions Peter frequently. As an example, Wallace observes that “Mark referred to Peter twenty-six times in his short account, compared to Matthew, who mentioned Peter only three additional times in his much longer gospel.”

Second, Mark uses familiar terms to identify Peter. Wallace states:

Mark is the only writer who refused to use the term “Simon Peter” when describing Peter (he used either “Simon” or “Peter”). This may seem trivial, but it is important. Simon was the most popular male name in Palestine at the time of Mark’s writing, yet Mark made no attempt to distinguish the apostle Simon from the hundreds of other Simons known to his readers (John, by comparison, referred to Peter more formally as “Simon Peter” seventeen times). Mark consistently used the briefest, most familiar versions of Peter’s name.

Third, Mark uses Peter as a “set of bookends.” Wallace explains why this is significant:

Unlike in other gospel accounts, Peter is the first disciple identified in the text (Mark 1: 16) and the last disciple mentioned in the text (Mark 16: 7). Scholars describe this type of “bookending” as “inclusio” and have noticed it in other ancient texts where a piece of history is attributed to a particular eyewitness. In any case, Peter is prominent in Mark’s gospel as the first and last named disciple.

Fourth, Mark paid Peter the most respect of the Gospel writers. Wallace offers several pieces of evidence to prove the point.

[Mark] repeatedly painted Peter in the kindest possible way, even when Peter made a fool of himself. Matthew’s gospel, for example, describes Jesus walking on water and Peter’s failed attempt to do the same (Matt. 14: 22– 33). In Matthew’s account, Peter began to sink into the sea; Jesus described him as a doubter and a man “of little faith.” Interestingly, Mark respectfully omitted Peter’s involvement altogether (Mark 6: 45– 52). In a similar way, Luke’s gospel includes a description of the “miraculous catch” of fish in which Peter was heard to doubt Jesus’s wisdom in trying to catch fish when Peter had been unsuccessful all day. After catching more fish than his nets could hold, Peter said, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5: 1– 11). Mark’s parallel account omits this episode completely (Mark 1: 16– 20).

While other gospels mention Peter directly as the source of some embarrassing statement or question, Mark’s gospel omits Peter’s name specifically and attributes the question or statement to “the disciples” or some other similarly unnamed member of the group. When Peter made a rash statement (like saying that Jesus’s death would never occur in Matthew 16: 21– 23), the most edited and least embarrassing version can be found in Mark’s account (Mark 8: 31– 33). Over and over again, Mark offered a version of the story that is kinder to Peter.

In part 2, we will look at the final two pieces of evidence that Wallace offers.

Church History, Resurrection

What Explains the Massive Changes in Jewish Social Structures Among Early Christians?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Lest anyone forget, Christianity was born out of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew and his disciples were Jews. Immediately after Jesus died, and his teachings were carried forward by his disciples, they continued to attract mostly Jewish followers. The Book of Acts even reports Jewish priests and Pharisees joining the movement in the early years (see Acts 6:7; 15:5). The Christian movement would eventually become dominated by Gentiles, but only years later.

Something that is usually forgotten is that these early Jewish believers left behind several foundational social structures of Judaism. Philosopher J. P. Moreland explains how important these key structures were in his book Scaling the Secular City:

In New Testament times and earlier, at least five religious and social beliefs formed the very core of Jewish corporate and individual identity. Centuries of dispersion and captivity by Gentile nations reinforced the social importance of these beliefs which were already valued for their religious content. These structures defined the Jews as a people and kept them from falling apart as a nation.

They were major elements in education of the young, and the early converts to Christianity, including the disciples (most of the early church was composed of Jews for the first few years of its existence), would have been taught to cherish these structures from their youth.

What are these social structures?

First, there was the importance of the sacrifices. While obedience to the law was slowly eroding the centrality of the sacrificial system, nevertheless the importance of sacrificing animals for various sins was a major value in first-century Judaism.

Second, emphasis was placed on keeping the law. Regardless of whether one was a Sadducee or a Pharisee, respect for the law of Moses and its role in keeping people in right standing with God was a major value.

Third, keeping the Sabbath was important; several laws were formulated to help define Sabbath-keeping and to maintain its prominence.

Fourth, clear-cut non-Trinitarian monotheism was a defining trait of the Jew. The Shema asserts that God is one, and this doctrine was nonnegotiable. Specifically, there was no belief that God could ever become a man.

Fifth, the Messiah was pictured as a human figure (perhaps super-human, but not God himself), a political king who would liberate the Jews from Gentile oppression and establish the Davidic kingdom.  No conception of a crucified messiah who established a church by raising from the dead was known.

Moreland reminds us that “the early church was a community of Jews who had significantly altered or given up these five major structures” and he asks, “What could possibly cause this to happen in so short a time?”

Keep in mind that

society did not change rapidly in those days. Jews would risk becoming social outcasts if they tampered with these five major beliefs, not to mention that they would risk the damnation of their own souls to hell. Why was such a change made in so short a time after the death of a carpenter from Nazareth – of all places – who had suffered the death of a criminal on the cross, a death expressly detested among the Jews in their belief that “cursed is he who dies on a tree”?  How could such a thing ever take place? The resurrection offers the only rational explanation. (emphasis added)

What could cause these Jews to abandon their beliefs, their social institutions that had survived for centuries? Something dramatic, something never before seen, something amazing – Jesus rising from the dead. That is what the New Testament historical documents report, and there has never been a better explanation offered.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Top Ten Posts of 2012

How Did the Early Church Recognize the Canonicity of a Book? #6 Post of 2012

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

There is a misconception, popularized by books like The Da Vinci Code, that the way the books of the Bible were chosen consisted of politically infused church councils voting on the books they liked, and voting out the books they didn’t like.  However, a careful reading of church history totally disproves this misconception.

As noted in a previous post, the church understood its role as recognizing what books God, himself, had inspired.  This job of recognition was something the early church took very seriously, but how did they go about doing it?  What were the criteria they used?

We know that propheticity was a necessary condition for canonicity, but sometimes church fathers who were trying to assess propheticity of a book were removed by decades, or even centuries, from the original composition of the books.  So what did they do?

Norman Geisler and William Nix, in their book A General Introduction to the Bible, describe the criteria that were actually employed by the early church in this process.

  1. Was the book written by a prophet of God?  This was the most fundamental criteria.  Once this was established, the book’s inspiration was recognized.
  2. Was the writer confirmed by acts of God?  If there were doubts about the author’s being a true prophet of God, miracles served as divine confirmation.
  3. Did the message tell the truth about God?  According to Geisler and Nix, “Any teaching about God contrary to what His people already knew to be true was to be rejected. Furthermore, any predictions made about the world which failed to come true indicated that a prophet’s words should be rejected.”
  4. Does it come with the power of God?  Geisler and Nix explain, “Another test for canonicity was the edifying effect of a book. Does it have the power of God? The Fathers believed the Word of God is “living and active” (Heb. 4:12), and consequently ought to have a transforming force for edification (2 Tim. 3:17) and evangelization (1 Peter 1:23).”
  5. Was it accepted by the people of God? Geisler and Nix point out that “the initial acceptance of a book by the people to whom it was addressed is crucial. Paul said of the Thessalonians, “We also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13). For whatever subsequent debate there may have been about a book’s place in the canon, the people in the best position to know its prophetic credentials were those who knew the prophet who wrote it. Hence, despite all later debate about the canonicity of some books, the definitive evidence is that which attests to its original acceptance by the contemporary believers.”

Geisler and Nix summarize:

The most important distinction to be made at this point is between the determination and the discovery of canonicity. God is solely responsible for the first, and man is responsible merely for the last. That a book is canonical is due to divine inspiration. How that is known to be true is the process of human recognition. How men discovered what God had determined was by looking for the “earmarks of inspiration.”

It was asked whether the book (1) was written by a man of God, (2) who was confirmed by an act of God, (3) told the truth about God, man, and so on, (4) came with the power of God, and (5) was accepted by the people of God. If a book clearly had the first earmark, the remainder were often assumed. Of course the contemporaries of the prophet (apostle) knew his credentials and accepted his book immediately. But later church Fathers sorted out the profusion of religious literature, discovered, and gave official recognition to the books that, by virtue of their divine inspiration, had been determined by God as canonical and originally recognized by the contemporary believing community to which they were presented.

Books of the Bible, Church History

How Did Canonization of the New Testament Happen?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Canonization of the New Testament did not happen overnight.  The books of the New Testament were written over several decades, with the final books probably being completed just before A.D. 100.  However, documents traveled slowly 2,000 years ago, and it took many years for the books, later to be recognized as the New Testament, to circulate throughout the Roman Empire.  It was a long and gradual process.

The early church, using several criteria, worked through the process of recognizing the inspired books of the New Testament during the first few centuries after Christ’s death.  For a brief summary of the process, I quote church historian J. N. D. Kelly from his book Early Christian Doctrines:

The main point to be observed is that the fixation of the finally agreed list of books, and of the order in which they were to be arranged, was the result of a very gradual process. . . . Three features of this process should be noted.

First, the criterion which ultimately came to prevail was apostolicity. Unless a book could be shown to come from the pen of an apostle, or at least to have the authority of an apostle behind it, it was peremptorily rejected, however edifying or popular with the faithful it might be.

Secondly, there were certain books which hovered for long time on the fringe of the canon, but in the end failed to secure admission to it, usually because they lacked this indisputable stamp. . . .

Thirdly, some of the books which were later included had to wait a considerable time before achieving universal recognition. . . . By gradual stages, however, the Church both in East and West arrived at a common mind as to its sacred books. The first official document which prescribes the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as alone canonical is Athanasius’s Easter letter for the year 367, but the process was not everywhere complete until at least a century and a half later.

Not only did the process take a while due to practical communication obstacles, the early church was trying to be extremely careful about recognizing the canon.  Their desire was to get it right, and for that reason alone, we should be thankful for their approach to this process.

One final comment about the canon.  For some of you, this information may seem dry and even boring.  After all, you might be thinking, how does this impact my Christian walk today?  Aside from the fact that you should just want to know about the origins of the Bible, there is another more practical reason.  If you don’t know what really happened, then you won’t be able to recognize revisionist historians who grossly distort or outright lie about Christian origins.

When The Da Vinci Code was published, one of the biggest misrepresentations of Dan Brown was the claim that the church Council of Nicaea voted on which gospels (he claims there were 80 or so to choose from) to include in the New Testament, based on the council’s desire to make Jesus a god.  First of all, this never happened, and secondly, it completely fails to accurately portray the actual process of canonization.  Brown got it completely wrong, but the Christian ignorant of church history would never know that.

C. S. Lewis once said that good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, to counter bad philosophy.  Likewise, true church history must exist, if for no other reason, to counter false church history.

Books of the Bible, Church History

Are the Synoptic Gospels Interdependent? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 we looked at Professor of New Testament Daniel Wallace’s first two arguments for the interdependence of the synoptic gospels (the first three gospels).  Now we pick up with his third and fourth arguments.

The third argument is the agreement in parenthetical material.  Wallace quotes Robert H. Stein, who wrote, “One of the most persuasive arguments for the literary interdependence of the synoptic Gospels is the presence of identical parenthetical material, for it is highly unlikely that two or three writers would by coincidence insert into their accounts exactly the same editorial comment at exactly the same place.”

Wallace gives examples of these parenthetical statements:

One of the most striking of these demonstrates, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the use of written documents: “When you see the desolating sacrilege . . . (let the reader understand) . . . ” (Matt 24:15/Mark 13:14).  It is obvious that this editorial comment could not be due to a common oral heritage, for it does not say, “let the hearer understand.” Compare also Matt 9:6/Mark 2:10/Luke 5:24; Matt 27:18/Mark 15:10.

The fourth argument is Luke’s preface:

Luke begins his gospel in a manner similar to ancient historians: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative . . . it seemed good to me also . . . to write an orderly account for you . . . .”  In the least this implies two things: (1) Luke was aware of written (and oral) sources based on eyewitness accounts; (2) Luke used some of these sources in the composition of his gospel.

Wallace again quotes Robert Stein to summarize what conclusions come from these four arguments:

We shall see later that before the Gospels were written there did exist a period in which the gospel materials were passed on orally, and it is clear that this oral tradition influenced not only the first of our synoptic Gospels but the subsequent ones as well.  As an explanation for the general agreement between Matthew-Mark-Luke, however, such an explanation is quite inadequate. There are several reasons for this.

For one the exactness of the wording between the synoptic Gospels is better explained by the use of written sources than oral ones.  Second, the parenthetical comments that these Gospels have in common are hardly explainable by means of oral tradition.  This is especially true of Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14, which addresses the readers of these works! Third and most important, the extensive agreement in the memorization of the gospel traditions by both missionary preachers and laypeople is conceded by all, it is most doubtful that this involved the memorization of a whole gospel account in a specific order.  Memorizing individual pericopes, parables, and sayings, and even small collections of such material, is one thing, but memorizing a whole Gospel of such material is something else. The large extensive agreement in order between the synoptic Gospels is best explained by the use of a common literary source.  Finally, as has already been pointed out, whereas Luke 1:2 does refer to an oral period in which the gospel materials were transmitted, Luke explicitly mentions his own investigation of written sources.