Two-gospel hypothesis
Encyclopedia
The Two-Gospel Hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Synoptic Problem. The hypothesis, (once called the Griesbach hypothesis), was introduced in its current form by William Farmer in 1964. The synoptic problem concerns the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew
, Mark
, and Luke
. The hypothesis states that Matthew was written first, while Christianity was still centered in Jerusalem, to calm the hostility between Jews and Christians. After Matthew, as the church expanded beyond the Holy Land
, Luke was written as a gospel to the Gentiles. But since neither Luke
(nor his patron Paul) were eyewitnesses of Jesus
, Peter
gave public testimonies that validated Luke’s gospel. These public speeches were transcribed into Mark’s
gospel and distributed immediately thereafter, as recorded by the early church father Irenaeus
. Paul then allowed Luke’s gospel to be published. This hypothesis is the most serious alternative to the two-source hypothesis
. Its main advantages over the two-source hypothesis include the fact that it relies not just on internal evidence, that it doesn’t require lost sources or other “plugs” (like the Q document) and that it reconciles the view of the early church with the evidence. Unlike the two-source hypothesis, the two-gospel hypothesis concludes that the traditional accounts of the gospels (order and date of publication, as well as authorship) are accurate. A further development of the Augustinian and Griesbach hypotheses is found in the hypothesis of Eta Linnemann
, followed by F. David Farnell, that the "two Gospels" were required by the "two witnesses" rule of Deuteronomy.
When Stephen
was martyred, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the disciple
s scattered beyond Jerusalem into Gentile (mostly Greek
) towns. There they began preaching, and a large number of Pagans in Antioch quickly became Christians. By the mid 50s, Paul, who converted
and claimed the title of "Apostle to the Gentiles" began to realize the need for a gospel to the Gentiles. This gospel would have to deemphasize the Mosaic Law
and Jewish history in order to appeal to Greeks and Romans
. Paul commissioned his associate, Luke, who used Matthew, as well as other sources. The first verses of Luke’s gospel reference the fact that “many have undertaken to draw up an account” of the testimony of the actual eyewitnesses, and, as such, he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” in order to “write an orderly account”. Once the gospel had been written, Paul delayed its publication. He decided that he needed Peter’s public testimony as to its accuracy, since neither Paul nor Luke had known Jesus before his death
.
Paul asked Peter, who was the leader of the apostles, to testify that Luke's account was accurate. According to early church sources, Peter gave a series of speeches to senior Roman army officers. Due to the commonality between Mark and Luke, these speeches would have constituted Peter’s public “seal of approval” upon Luke’s gospel. These church sources suggest that Peter was ambivalent when Mark asked him if he could write down the words of the speeches. However, since the Roman officers
who heard the speeches liked them, they asked for copies, and so Mark made fifty copies of Peter’s speeches. These copies began circulating, and became Mark’s gospel. Only after the speeches by Peter were made (and Mark’s transcriptions began circulating) did Paul feel confident enough to publish Luke’s gospel.
The two-gospel hypothesis assumes that Peter made sure that his speeches agreed with both Matthew and (the still unpublished) Luke. Since Matthew was the primary source for Luke, and Matthew’s gospel (the only published gospel at the time) would have been well known to Peter, he mostly would have preached on the contents of Matthew. Knowing Matthew better than Luke, Peter was more likely to mention details found in Matthew and not Luke than vice versa. This would explain why there are more details found in Mark and Matthew but not Luke than there are details found in Mark and Luke but not Matthew. It also explains why Mark is so much shorter than Matthew and Luke, is more anecdotal and emotional, is less polished, and why only it begins immediately with Jesus’ public ministry. Peter was giving public speeches as to what he saw, and never intended his speeches to become a full gospel. This was directly asserted by the early church historians, and explains why there are so few commentaries on Mark (as opposed to Matthew, Luke and John) until a relatively late date. It appears to have been considered the least important gospel in the early church.
By the 1960s, scholars considered the two-source hypothesis to be the unquestioned solution to the synoptic problem. By the 1990s, however, the consensus had ended, and some scholars claimed that the two-source hypothesis had even been disproven. Subsequently, the two-gospel hypothesis has emerged as the most serious challenger to the two-source hypothesis.
The two-gospel theory is less of a conjecture than the two-source hypothesis because, unlike that theory, it doesn't assume a priori that the accounts of the early church are unreliable. Since the two-source hypothesis rejects the evidence of the early church, it relies mostly on internal evidence (such as the shortness of Mark) and conjecture (e.g. ‘why would Mark write a shorter version of a gospel in existence?’)
hypothesis. What came to be labeled the Griesbach Hypothesis was already anticipated by the British scholar, Henry Owen (1716–1795), in a piece he published in 1764 and by Friedrich Andreas Stroth (1750–1785) in an article he published anonymously in 1781. Johann Jakob Griesbach (January 4, 1745 - March 24, 1812), to whom this source hypothesis was first accredited, alluded to his conclusion that Matthew wrote the first of the canonical gospels and that Luke, not Mark, made first use of Matthew in composing the second of the canonical gospels in an address celebrating the Easter season at the University of Jena in 1783. Later, for similar Whitsun programs at Jena (1789–1790), Griesbach published a much more detailed "Demonstration that the Whole Gospel of Mark is Excerpted from the Narratives of Matthew & Luke."
Griesbach's theory was, therefore, one of direct literary dependence between and among the gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark, or what German scholars came to call a "utilization hypothesis." According to Griesbach, the historical order of the gospels was, first, Matthew; second Luke, making use of Matthew and other non-Matthean tradition; and third, Mark, making use of both Matthew and Luke. In proposing this hypothesis, Griesbach maintained Matthean priority, as had Augustine before him, along with every other scholar in the church prior to the late eighteenth century. Griesbach's main support for his thesis lies in passages where Matthew and Luke agree over and against Mark (e.g. Matthew 26:68; Luke 22:64; Mark 14:65), the so-called Minor Agreements.
and/or Two-source hypothesis
also work as arguments against the two-gospel hypothesis. While it is impossible to list all arguments in favor and against the theory, some notable arguments are as follows.
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
, Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
, and Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
. The hypothesis states that Matthew was written first, while Christianity was still centered in Jerusalem, to calm the hostility between Jews and Christians. After Matthew, as the church expanded beyond the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
, Luke was written as a gospel to the Gentiles. But since neither Luke
Luke the Evangelist
Luke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles...
(nor his patron Paul) were eyewitnesses of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
gave public testimonies that validated Luke’s gospel. These public speeches were transcribed into Mark’s
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....
gospel and distributed immediately thereafter, as recorded by the early church father Irenaeus
Irenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
. Paul then allowed Luke’s gospel to be published. This hypothesis is the most serious alternative to the two-source hypothesis
Two-source hypothesis
The Two-Source Hypothesis is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a lost, hypothetical sayings...
. Its main advantages over the two-source hypothesis include the fact that it relies not just on internal evidence, that it doesn’t require lost sources or other “plugs” (like the Q document) and that it reconciles the view of the early church with the evidence. Unlike the two-source hypothesis, the two-gospel hypothesis concludes that the traditional accounts of the gospels (order and date of publication, as well as authorship) are accurate. A further development of the Augustinian and Griesbach hypotheses is found in the hypothesis of Eta Linnemann
Eta Linnemann
Eta Linnemann was a German Protestant theologian. In her last years, she broke completely with the theology of her teacher Rudolf Bultmann.-Life:...
, followed by F. David Farnell, that the "two Gospels" were required by the "two witnesses" rule of Deuteronomy.
Overview
The proposal suggests that Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew, probably in the 40s AD. At the time, the church had yet to extend outside of Jerusalem. The primary political problem within the church community was caused by the fact that Jewish authorities were outright hostile to Jesus and his followers. Matthew wrote his account in order to show that Jesus was actually the fulfillment of what Jewish scripture had prophesized. It has been long recognized that Matthew is the most “Jewish” of the gospels. It, for example, heavily references Jewish scripture and Jewish history.Saint Stephen
Saint Stephen The Protomartyr , the protomartyr of Christianity, is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches....
was martyred, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the disciple
Disciple (Christianity)
In Christianity, the disciples were the students of Jesus during his ministry. While Jesus attracted a large following, the term disciple is commonly used to refer specifically to "the Twelve", an inner circle of men whose number perhaps represented the twelve tribes of Israel...
s scattered beyond Jerusalem into Gentile (mostly Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
) towns. There they began preaching, and a large number of Pagans in Antioch quickly became Christians. By the mid 50s, Paul, who converted
Conversion of Paul
The Conversion of Paul the Apostle, as depicted in the Christian Bible, refers to an event reported to have taken place in the life of Paul of Tarsus which led him to cease persecuting early Christians and to himself become a follower of Jesus; it is normally dated by researchers to AD 33–36...
and claimed the title of "Apostle to the Gentiles" began to realize the need for a gospel to the Gentiles. This gospel would have to deemphasize the Mosaic Law
Supersessionism
Supersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...
and Jewish history in order to appeal to Greeks and Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
. Paul commissioned his associate, Luke, who used Matthew, as well as other sources. The first verses of Luke’s gospel reference the fact that “many have undertaken to draw up an account” of the testimony of the actual eyewitnesses, and, as such, he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning” in order to “write an orderly account”. Once the gospel had been written, Paul delayed its publication. He decided that he needed Peter’s public testimony as to its accuracy, since neither Paul nor Luke had known Jesus before his death
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
.
Paul asked Peter, who was the leader of the apostles, to testify that Luke's account was accurate. According to early church sources, Peter gave a series of speeches to senior Roman army officers. Due to the commonality between Mark and Luke, these speeches would have constituted Peter’s public “seal of approval” upon Luke’s gospel. These church sources suggest that Peter was ambivalent when Mark asked him if he could write down the words of the speeches. However, since the Roman officers
Roman army
The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...
who heard the speeches liked them, they asked for copies, and so Mark made fifty copies of Peter’s speeches. These copies began circulating, and became Mark’s gospel. Only after the speeches by Peter were made (and Mark’s transcriptions began circulating) did Paul feel confident enough to publish Luke’s gospel.
The two-gospel hypothesis assumes that Peter made sure that his speeches agreed with both Matthew and (the still unpublished) Luke. Since Matthew was the primary source for Luke, and Matthew’s gospel (the only published gospel at the time) would have been well known to Peter, he mostly would have preached on the contents of Matthew. Knowing Matthew better than Luke, Peter was more likely to mention details found in Matthew and not Luke than vice versa. This would explain why there are more details found in Mark and Matthew but not Luke than there are details found in Mark and Luke but not Matthew. It also explains why Mark is so much shorter than Matthew and Luke, is more anecdotal and emotional, is less polished, and why only it begins immediately with Jesus’ public ministry. Peter was giving public speeches as to what he saw, and never intended his speeches to become a full gospel. This was directly asserted by the early church historians, and explains why there are so few commentaries on Mark (as opposed to Matthew, Luke and John) until a relatively late date. It appears to have been considered the least important gospel in the early church.
Internal and external evidence
Much of the evidence for the two-gospel hypothesis comes from the gospels themselves ("internal evidence"), while some of the evidence is found in the testimony of the early church ("external evidence"). The early church didn't just testify as to who wrote the gospels, in what order, and when they wrote them, it also testified on the specific circumstances surrounding the creation of each gospel. For example, early church documents claim that Mark's Gospel was created after Mark made fifty copies of a series of speeches that Peter had given in Rome. The external evidence (mainly the testimony of the early church) is the main difference between the two hypotheses. The two-gospel hypothesis does not dismiss the views of the early church, and makes assumptions based on both the internal and external evidence. The two-source hypothesis, in contrast, assumes that evidence still in existence (mostly internal evidence such as sentence structure or length) should be used, and makes assumptions using mostly that.Contrasted with the Two-Source Hypothesis
Approximately 25% of Matthew and 25% of Luke are identical, but are not found in Mark. This has been explained in the two-source hypothesis as coming from the hypothetical Q document, although by the two-gospel hypothesis, this material was copied by Luke from Matthew, but not testified to by Mark because Peter had not seen it. The two-source hypothesis also assumes that the information unique to Matthew (“M”) and Luke (“L”) came from unknown sources. The two-gospel hypothesis, in contrast, assumes “M” to be mostly Matthew’s testimony and “L” to be the eyewitness accounts mentioned in the first verses of Luke’s gospel. In addition, it gives a specific reason for the fact that Mark has more in common with Matthew than it does with Luke.By the 1960s, scholars considered the two-source hypothesis to be the unquestioned solution to the synoptic problem. By the 1990s, however, the consensus had ended, and some scholars claimed that the two-source hypothesis had even been disproven. Subsequently, the two-gospel hypothesis has emerged as the most serious challenger to the two-source hypothesis.
The two-gospel theory is less of a conjecture than the two-source hypothesis because, unlike that theory, it doesn't assume a priori that the accounts of the early church are unreliable. Since the two-source hypothesis rejects the evidence of the early church, it relies mostly on internal evidence (such as the shortness of Mark) and conjecture (e.g. ‘why would Mark write a shorter version of a gospel in existence?’)
Compared to the Griesbach hypothesis
The Griesbach hypothesis is similar to the two-gospel hypothesis. However, unlike the two-gospel hypothesis, the Griesbach hypothesis is principally a literaryLiterary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
hypothesis. What came to be labeled the Griesbach Hypothesis was already anticipated by the British scholar, Henry Owen (1716–1795), in a piece he published in 1764 and by Friedrich Andreas Stroth (1750–1785) in an article he published anonymously in 1781. Johann Jakob Griesbach (January 4, 1745 - March 24, 1812), to whom this source hypothesis was first accredited, alluded to his conclusion that Matthew wrote the first of the canonical gospels and that Luke, not Mark, made first use of Matthew in composing the second of the canonical gospels in an address celebrating the Easter season at the University of Jena in 1783. Later, for similar Whitsun programs at Jena (1789–1790), Griesbach published a much more detailed "Demonstration that the Whole Gospel of Mark is Excerpted from the Narratives of Matthew & Luke."
Griesbach's theory was, therefore, one of direct literary dependence between and among the gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark, or what German scholars came to call a "utilization hypothesis." According to Griesbach, the historical order of the gospels was, first, Matthew; second Luke, making use of Matthew and other non-Matthean tradition; and third, Mark, making use of both Matthew and Luke. In proposing this hypothesis, Griesbach maintained Matthean priority, as had Augustine before him, along with every other scholar in the church prior to the late eighteenth century. Griesbach's main support for his thesis lies in passages where Matthew and Luke agree over and against Mark (e.g. Matthew 26:68; Luke 22:64; Mark 14:65), the so-called Minor Agreements.
Criticism
Many generic arguments in favor of Markan PriorityMarkan priority
Markan priority is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was the first written of the three Synoptic Gospels, and that the two other synoptic evangelists, Matthew and Luke, used Mark's Gospel as one of their sources. The theory of Markan priority is today accepted by the majority of New Testament...
and/or Two-source hypothesis
Two-source hypothesis
The Two-Source Hypothesis is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a lost, hypothetical sayings...
also work as arguments against the two-gospel hypothesis. While it is impossible to list all arguments in favor and against the theory, some notable arguments are as follows.
- If Luke had access to the final version of Matthew (as opposed to both drawing independently on other sources), why are there so many significant differences between Luke and Matthew on issues such as Jesus' genealogy, circumstances of birth, and events following resurrection? While Luke and Matthew do share a lot of text which is not present in Mark, almost all of it is confined to teachings and parables. Construction of the gospels in accordance with the two-gospel hypothesis would require Luke to rewrite major parts of Matthew's narrative - even though Matthew was presumably an eyewitness who lived in Jerusalem and was surrounded by other eyewitnesses, and Luke was neither.
- "The argument from omission": why would Mark and Peter omit such remarkable and miraculous events as virgin birth of Jesus and particularly his appearance to apostles following resurrection? Both Matthew and Luke explicitly attest that Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples, including Peter, after his resurrection, and it seems incredible that Peter would not testify to that fact in his public speeches. And why is Sermon on the MountSermon on the MountThe Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings and teachings of Jesus, which emphasizes his moral teaching found in the Gospel of Matthew...
completely omitted?
- By design of the two-gospel hypothesis, the Gospel of Matthew had to be written originally in Hebrew. No such copies of the Gospel of Matthew exist. (The majority view is, in fact, that Matthew was written in Greek to begin with.) This fact eliminates a major potential advantage of the theory, because it eliminates the need for a hypothetical extinct source (Q) but introduces a different hypothetical extinct source (Hebrew Matthew).
- Many scholars (and particularly most Jewish scholars) hold that the concept of virgin birth in Christianity originated with mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14Isaiah 7:14Isaiah 7:14 is a verse of the Book of Isaiah in which the prophet Isaiah, addressing king Ahaz of Judah , promises the king a sign that his oracle is a true one...
into Greek, and therefore that authors of Matthew and Luke were GentileGentileThe term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
s. This can be reconciled with the traditional Biblical chronology that dates both gospels no earlier than 75 AD and attributes "the Gospel of Matthew" to an unknown author, but it's in clear contradiction with the position of the two-gospel hypothesis that Matthew was the Saint Matthew, and, therefore, a Jew.
See also
- Gospel harmonyGospel harmonyA Gospel harmony is an attempt to merge or harmonize the canonical gospels of the Four Evangelists into a single gospel account, the earliest known example being the Diatesseron by Tatian in the 2nd century. A gospel harmony may also establish a chronology for the events of the life of Jesus...
- Synoptic GospelsSynoptic GospelsThe gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
- Farrer hypothesisFarrer hypothesisThe Farrer theory is a possible solution to the synoptic problem. The theory is that the Gospel of Mark was written first, followed by the Gospel of Matthew and then by the Gospel of Luke.It has mainly been advocated by English biblical scholars...
- Four Document HypothesisFour Document Hypothesis (Synoptic problem)A Four Document Hypothesis is an explanation for the relationship between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that there were at least four sources to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke: the Gospel of Mark, and three lost sources: Q, M-Source, and L source...