Thursday, October 12, 2017

Comparison Facts on the Synoptic Gospels


I’ve been reading Stanley E. Porter and Bryan R. Dyer, eds., The Synoptic Gospels: Four Views (Baker Academic, 2016). The four views and their proponents in this book: Two Source Theory (Craig A Evans); Farrer Hypothesis (Mark Goodacre); Two Gospel Hypothesis (David Barrett Peabody); Orality and Memory Hypothesis (Rainer Reisner). I’ll hopefully write a fuller review when I finish.

I am less inclined to see any direct literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels (independent development view).

Here, however, are some Synoptic Gospel comparison facts from the introductory chapter by the editors (from pp. 6-8):

90 percent of Mark is shared with either Matthew or Luke or both.

Nearly all of that 90 percent of Mark is found in Matthew.

About 50 percent of Mark is found in Luke.

Of c. 665 verses found in Mark, 600 appear in some form in Matthew or Luke.

Matthew and Luke share 230 verses not in Mark.

Mark can be divided into 88 pericopes. Of those, only 5 do not appear in either Matthew or Luke.

As for that final point, on there being only five pericopes, in Craig A. Evans' chapter in this work, he lists eleven distinct passages in Mark (p. 35). Here is my summary of those:

Introduction: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”
Mark 1:1
Jesus saying: “the sabbath was not made for man, but man for the sabbath”
Mark 2:27
Jesus accused of being “beside himself”
Mark 3:20-21
Parable of the secretly growing seed
Mark 4:26-29
Jesus’ disciples accused of eating with “unwashen” hands
Mark 7:2-4
Jesus heals a deaf and dumb man
Mark 7:32-37
Jesus heals a blind man at Bethsaida
Mark 8:22-26
Jesus’ saying, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting”
Mark 9:29
Jesus’ saying on being “salted with fire”
Mark 9:48-49
Jesus’ call to watch
Mark 13:33-37
The naked young man flees at Jesus’ arrest
Mark 14:51-52


JTR

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