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redemption – the financial and the physical. It says that God brought them out with silver and gold, with great wealth. And then it says, there was not one who stumbled, not one who was weak, not one who was sick, not one who could not manage that lengthy march across the deserts of Egypt. That's a picture of redemption.
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Sunday, September 10, 2023
Devotional: The Miracle of Redemption
Zondervan Academic: 7 tips for understanding Revelation
 7 tips for understanding Revelation The Book of Revelation is notoriously difficult to understand. Over the centuries, the church has presented countless interpretations and theories about the meaning and significance of this enigmatic work. Even modern scholars approach Revelation in several different ways. Whether you find that intimidating or enticing, we need some guardrails to keep us from getting lost in Revelation's prophecies, metaphors, and apocalyptic imagery. Here are some tips for reading Revelation from Scott Duvall, co-author of Grasping God's Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible: 
 Grasping God's Word A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible This book will equip you with a five-step Interpretive Journey that will help you make sense of any passage in the Bible. It will also guide you through all the different genres found in the Bible to help you learn the specifics of how to best approach each one. "A wonderfully user-friendly book for serious readers who desire to journey into the world of the Bible." "A clear, accurate, engaging, and balanced introduction to interpreting and applying God's Word." "Excellent, practical, and accurate…" You received this email because you elected to receive online courses emails from Zondervan Academic. You can unsubscribe from the list at any time.
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The first page of a set of books with the option to continue reading later
Expositor's Greek Testament
THE EXPOSITOR’S
GREEK TESTAMENT
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
EDITOR OF “THE EXPOSITOR,” “THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE,” ETC.
VOLUME I-V.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE
THE Expositor’s Greek Testament is intended to do for the present generation the work accomplished by Dean Alford’s in the past. Of the influence of Dean Alford’s book there is no need to speak. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the success and usefulness of Dean Alford’s commentary in putting English-speaking students into possession of the accumulated results of the labours of scholars up to the time it was published. He made the best critical and exegetical helps, previously accessible only to a few readers, the common privilege of all educated Englishmen. Dean Alford himself would have been the first to say that he undertook a task too great for one man. Though he laboured with indefatigable diligence, twenty years together, from 1841 to 1861, were occupied in his undertaking. Since his time the wealth of material on the New Testament has been steadily accumulating, and no one has as yet attempted to make it accessible in a full and comprehensive way.
In the present commentary the works have been committed to various scholars, and it is hoped that the completion will be reached within five years from the present date, if not sooner. As the plan of Alford’s book has been tested by time and experience, it has been adopted here with certain modifications, and it is hoped that as the result English-speaking students will have a work at once up to date and practically useful in all its parts.
It remains to add that the commentators have been selected from various churches, and that they have in every case been left full liberty to express their own views. The part of the editor has been to choose them, and to assign the limits of space allowed to each book. In this assignment the judgment of Dean Alford has appeared to be sound in the main, and it has been generally followed.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL.
PREFACE
IN this Commentary on the Synoptical Gospels I give to the public the fruit of studies carried on for many years. These Gospels have taken a more powerful and abiding hold of me than any other part of the Scriptures. I have learnt much from them concerning Christ in the course of these years; not a little since I began to prepare this work for the press. I have done my best to communicate what I have learned to others. I have also laid under contribution previous commentators, ancient and modern, while avoiding the pedantic habit of crowding the page with long lists of learned names. I have not hesitated to introduce quotations, in Latin and Greek, which seemed fitted to throw light on the meaning. These, while possessing interest for scholars, may be passed over by English readers without much loss, as their sense is usually indicated.
In the critical notes beneath the Greek Text I have aimed at making easily accessible to the reader the results of the labours of scholars who have made the text the subject of special study; especially those contained in the monumental works of Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort. Readers are requested to peruse what has been stated on that subject in the Introduction, and, in using the commentary, to keep in mind that I have always made what I regard as the most probable reading the basis of comment, whether I have expressly indicated my opinion in the critical notes or not.
In these days one who aims at a competent treatment of the Evangelic narratives must keep in view critical methods of handling the story. I have tried to unite some measure of critical freedom and candour with the reverence of faith. If, in spite of honest endeavour, I have not succeeded always in realising this ideal, let it be imputed to the lack of skill rather than of good intention.
I rise from this task with a deepened sense of the wisdom and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. If what I have written help others to a better understanding of His mind and heart, I shall feel that my labour has not been in vain.
I enjoyed the benefit of Mr. MacFadyen’s (of the Free Church College, Glasgow) assistance in reading the proofs of the second half of the work, and owe him earnest thanks, not only for increased accuracy in the printed text, but for many valuable suggestions.
The works of Dr. Gould on Mark and Dr. Plummer on Luke, in the International Critical Commentary, appeared too late to be taken advantage of in this commentary.
A. B. BRUCE.
GLASGOW.
THE GOSPELS
ACCORDING TO
MATTHEW, MARK AND LUKE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING THE THREE GOSPELS
SECTION I. THE CONNECTION
1. The three first Gospels, bearing the names of Matthew, Mark and Luke, have, during the present century, been distinguished by critics from the fourth by the epithet synoptical. The term implies that these Gospels are so like one another in contents that they can be, and for profitable study ought to be, viewed together. That such is the fact is obvious to every reader. A single perusal suffices to shew that they have much in common in contents, arrangement and phraseology; and a comparison with the fourth Gospel only deepens the impression. There everything appears different—the incidents related, the thoughts ascribed to Jesus, the terms in which they are expressed, the localities in which the Great Personage who is the common subject of all the four narratives exercised His remarkable teaching and healing ministries.
2. Yet while these three Gospels present obtrusive resemblances, they also exhibit hardly less obtrusive differences. The differences are marked just because the books are on the whole so like one another. One cannot help asking: Seeing they are so like, why are they not more like? Why do they differ at all? Or the question may be put the other way: Seeing there are so many idiosyncrasies in each Gospel, how does it come about that notwithstanding these they all bear an easily recognisable family likeness? The idiosyncrasies, though not always so obvious as the resemblances, are unmistakable, and some of them stare one in the face. Each Gospel, e.g., has some matter peculiar to itself; the first and the third a great deal. Then, while in certain parts of their narratives they follow the same order, in other places they diverge widely. Again, one cannot but be struck with the difference between the three records in regard to reporting the words of Jesus. Mark gives comparatively few: Matthew and Luke very many, and these for the most part very weighty and remarkable, insomuch that one wonders how any one undertaking to write a history of Christ’s life could overlook them. Matthew and Luke again, while both giving much prominence to the words of Jesus, differ very widely in their manner of reporting them. The one collects the sayings into masses, apparently out of regard to affinity of thought; the other disperses them over his pages, and assigns to them distinct historical occasions.
3. These resemblances and differences, with many others not referred to, inevitably raise a question as to their cause. This is the synoptical problem, towards the solution of which a countless number of contributions have been made within the last hundred years. Many of these have now only a historical or antiquarian interest, and it would serve no useful purpose to attempt here an exhaustive account of the literature connected with this inquiry. While not insensible to the fascination of the subject, even on its curious side, as an interesting problem in literary criticism, yet I must respect the fact that we in this work are directly concerned with the matter only in so far as it affects exegesis. The statement therefore now to be made must be broad and brief.
4. All attempts at solution admit of being classified under four heads. First may be mentioned the hypothesis of oral tradition. This hypothesis implies that before our Gospels there were no written records of the ministry of Jesus, or at least none of which they made use. Their only source was the unwritten tradition of the memorabilia of that ministry, having its ultimate origin in the public preaching and teaching of the Apostles, the men who had been with Jesus. The statements made by the Apostles from time to time, repeated and added to as occasion required, caught up by willing ears, and treasured up in faithful memories: behold all that is necessary, according to the patrons of this hypothesis, to account for all the evangelic phenomena of resemblance and difference. The resemblances are explained by the tendency of oral tradition, especially in non-literary epochs and peoples, to become stereotyped in contents and even in phraseology, a tendency much helped by the practice of catechetical instruction, in which the teacher dictates sentences which his pupils are expected to commit to memory.1[1] The differences are accounted for by the original diversity in the memorabilia communicated by different Apostles, by the measure of fluidity inseparable from oral tradition due to defective memory, and of course in part also by the peculiar tastes, aims and individualities of the respective evangelists. This hypothesis has been chiefly in favour among English scholars, though it can likewise boast of influential supporters among continental critics, such as Gieseler and Godet. It points to a vera causa, and cannot be wholly left out of account in an endeavour to explain how written records of the evangelic tradition arose. There was a time doubtless when what was known of Jesus was on the lip only. How long that primitive phase lasted is matter of conjecture; some say from 30 to 60 A.D. It seems probable that the process of transferring from the lip to the page began considerably sooner than the later of these dates. When Luke wrote, many attempts had been made to embody the tradition in a written form (Luke 1:1). This points to a literary habit which would naturally exert its power without delay in reference to any matter in which men took an absorbing interest. And when this habit prevails writers are not usually content to remain in ignorance of what others have done in the same line. They want to see each other’s notes. The presumption therefore is that while oral tradition in all probability was a source for our evangelists, it was not the only source, probably not even the chief source. There were other writings about the acts, and words, and sufferings of Jesus in existence before they wrote; they were likely to know these, and if they knew them they would not despise them, but rather use them so far as serviceable. In Luke’s case the existence of such earlier writings, and his acquaintance with them, are not mere presumptions but facts; the only point on which there is room for difference of opinion is how far he took advantage of the labours of his predecessors. That he deemed them unsatisfactory, at least defective, may be inferred from his making a new contribution; that he drew nothing from them is extremely improbable. Much can be said for the view that among these earlier writings known to Luke was our Gospel of Mark, or a book substantially identical with it in contents, and that he used it very freely.
[1]On the function of catechists as helping to stereotype the evangelic tradition vide Wright, The Composition of the Four Gospels, 1890. Mr. Wright is a thorough believer in the oral tradition.
5. The last observation naturally leads up to the second hypothesis, which is that the authors of the synoptical Gospels used each other’s writings, each successive writer taking advantage of earlier contributions, so that the second Gospel (in time) borrowed from the first, and the third from both first and second. Which borrowed from which depends of course on the order of time in which the three Gospels appeared. Six permutations are possible, and every one of them has had its advocates. One of the most interesting, in virtue of the course it ran, is: Matthew, Luke, Mark. This arrangement was contended for by Griesbach, and utilised by Dr. Ferdinand Christian Baur in connection with his famous Tendency-criticism. Griesbach founded on the frequent duality in Mark’s style, that is to say, the combination of phrases used separately in the same connection in the other synoptical Gospels: e.g., “at even when the sun did set” (1:32). In this phenomenon, somewhat frequently recurring, he saw conclusive proof that Mark had Matthew and Luke before him, and servilely copied from both in descriptive passages. Baur’s interest in the question was theological rather than literary. Accepting Griesbach’s results, he charged Mark not only with literary dependence on his brother evangelists, whence is explained his graphic style, but also with studied theological neutrality, eschewing on the one hand the Judaistic bias of the first Gospel, and on the other the Pauline or universalistic bias of the third; both characteristics, the literary dependence and the studied neutrality, implying a later date. Since then a great change of view has taken place. For some time the prevailing opinion has been that Mark’s Gospel is the earliest not the latest of the three, and this opinion is likely to hold its ground. Holtzmann observes that the Mark hypothesis is a hypothesis no longer,[2] meaning that it is an established fact. And he and many others recognise in Mark, either as we have it or in an earlier form, a source for both the other synoptists, thereby acknowledging that the hypothesis of mutual use likewise has a measure of truth.
[2] Hand-Commentar, p. 3.
6. The third hypothesis is that of one primitive Gospel from which all three synoptists drew their material. The supporters of this view do not believe that the evangelists used each other’s writings. Their contention is that all were dependent on one original document, an Urevangelium as German scholars call it. This primitive Gospel was, ex hypothesi, comprehensive enough to cover the whole ground. From it all the three evangelists took much in common, hence their agreement in matter and language in so many places. But how about their divergencies? How came it to pass that with the same document before them they made such diverse use of it? The answer is: it was due to the fact that they used, not identical copies of one document, but different recensions of the same document. By this flight into the dark region of conjectural recensions, whereof no trace remains, the Urevangelium hypothesis was self-condemned to oblivion. With it are associated the honourable names of Lessing and Eichhorn.
7. The fourth and last hypothesis was propounded by Schleiermacher. He took for his starting-point the word διήγησις in the introduction of Luke’s Gospel, and found in it the hint that not in one primitive Gospel of comprehensive character was the source exploited by our Gospels to be found, but rather in many Gospelets containing a record of some words or deeds of Jesus with which the writer had become acquainted, and which he specially desired to preserve. Each of our evangelists is to be conceived as having so many of these diegeses or Gospelets in his possession, and constructing out of them a larger connected story. In so far as they made use of copies of the same diegesis, there would be agreement in contents and style; in so far as they used Gospelets peculiar to their respective collections, there would be divergence; and of course diversity in the order of narration was to be expected in writings compiled from a handful of unconnected leaflets of evangelic tradition. In spite of the great name of its author, this hypothesis has found little support as an attempt to account for the whole phenomena of the Gospels. As a subordinate suggestion to explain the presence in any of the synoptists of elements peculiar to himself, it is worthy of consideration. Some of the particulars, e.g., peculiar to Luke may have been found by him not in any large collection, but in a leaflet, as others may have been derived not from written sources large or small, but from a purely oral source in answer to local inquiries.
8. None of the foregoing hypotheses is accepted by itself as a satisfactory solution of the synoptical problem by any large number of competent critics at the present time. The majority look for a solution in the direction of a combination of the second and third hypotheses under modified forms. To a certain extent they recognise use of one Gospel in another, and there is an extensive agreement in the opinion that for the explanation of the phenomena not one but at least two primitive documents must be postulated. In these matters certainty is unattainable, but it is worth while making ourselves acquainted with what may be called the most probable working hypothesis. With this view I offer here a brief statement as to the present trend of critical opinion on the subject in question.
9. It is a familiar observation that, leaving out of account the reports of the teaching of Jesus contained in the first and third Gospels, the matter that remains, consisting of narratives of actions and events, is very much the same in all the three synoptists. Not only so, the remainder practically consists of the contents of the second Gospel. It seems as if Matthew and Luke had made Mark the framework of their story, and added to it new material. This accordingly is now believed by many to have been the actual fact. The prevailing idea is that our Mark, or a book very like it in contents, was under the eye of the compilers of the first and third Gospels when they wrote, and was used by both as a source, not merely in the sense that they took from it this and that, but in the sense of adopting it substantially as it was, and making it the basis of their longer and more elaborate narratives. This crude statement of course requires qualification. What took place was not that the compilers of the first and third Gospels simply transcribed the second, page by page, as they found it in their manuscript, reproducing its contents in the original order, and each section verbatim. If that had been the case the synoptical problem would have been greatly simplified, and there would hardly have been room for difference of opinion. As the case stands the order of narration is more or less disturbed, and there are many variations in expression. The question is thus raised: On the hypothesis that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke, in respect of the matter common to all the three, how came it to pass that the writers of the first and third Gospels deviated so much, and in different ways, from their common source in the order of events and in style? The general answer to the question, so far as order is concerned, is that the additional matter acted as a disturbing influence. The explanation implies that, when the disturbing influence did not come into play, the original order would be maintained. Advocates of the hypothesis try to show that the facts answer to this view; that is to say, that Mark’s order is followed in Matthew and Luke, except when disturbance is explicable by the influence of the new material. One illustration may here be given from Matthew. Obviously the “Sermon on the Mount” exercised a powerful fascination on the mind of the evangelist. From the first he has it in view, and he desires to bring it in as soon as possible. Therefore, of the incidents connected with the commencement of the Galilean ministry reported in Mark, he relates simply the call of the four fisher Apostles, as if to furnish the Great Teacher with disciples who might form an audience for the great Discourse. To that call he appends a general description of the Galilean ministry, specifying as its salient features preaching or teaching and healing. Then he proceeds to illustrate each department of the ministry, the teaching by the Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5–7, the healing by a group of miracles contained in chapters 8 and 9, including the cure of Peter’s mother-in-law, the wholesale cures on the Sabbath evening, and the healing of the leper, all reported in the first chapter of Mark. Of course, in regard neither to the sermon nor to the group of miracles can the first Gospel lay claim to chronological accuracy. In the corresponding part of his narrative, Luke follows Mark closely, reporting the cure of the demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum, of Peter’s mother-in-law, of many sick people on the Sabbath evening, and of the leper in the same order. There is only one deviation. The call of Peter, which in Luke replaces that of the four, Peter and Andrew, James and John, comes between the Sabbath evening cures and the cure of the leper.
GREEK TESTAMENT
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
EDITOR OF “THE EXPOSITOR,” “THE EXPOSITOR’S BIBLE,” ETC.
VOLUME I-V.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE
THE Expositor’s Greek Testament is intended to do for the present generation the work accomplished by Dean Alford’s in the past. Of the influence of Dean Alford’s book there is no need to speak. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the success and usefulness of Dean Alford’s commentary in putting English-speaking students into possession of the accumulated results of the labours of scholars up to the time it was published. He made the best critical and exegetical helps, previously accessible only to a few readers, the common privilege of all educated Englishmen. Dean Alford himself would have been the first to say that he undertook a task too great for one man. Though he laboured with indefatigable diligence, twenty years together, from 1841 to 1861, were occupied in his undertaking. Since his time the wealth of material on the New Testament has been steadily accumulating, and no one has as yet attempted to make it accessible in a full and comprehensive way.
In the present commentary the works have been committed to various scholars, and it is hoped that the completion will be reached within five years from the present date, if not sooner. As the plan of Alford’s book has been tested by time and experience, it has been adopted here with certain modifications, and it is hoped that as the result English-speaking students will have a work at once up to date and practically useful in all its parts.
It remains to add that the commentators have been selected from various churches, and that they have in every case been left full liberty to express their own views. The part of the editor has been to choose them, and to assign the limits of space allowed to each book. In this assignment the judgment of Dean Alford has appeared to be sound in the main, and it has been generally followed.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL.
PREFACE
IN this Commentary on the Synoptical Gospels I give to the public the fruit of studies carried on for many years. These Gospels have taken a more powerful and abiding hold of me than any other part of the Scriptures. I have learnt much from them concerning Christ in the course of these years; not a little since I began to prepare this work for the press. I have done my best to communicate what I have learned to others. I have also laid under contribution previous commentators, ancient and modern, while avoiding the pedantic habit of crowding the page with long lists of learned names. I have not hesitated to introduce quotations, in Latin and Greek, which seemed fitted to throw light on the meaning. These, while possessing interest for scholars, may be passed over by English readers without much loss, as their sense is usually indicated.
In the critical notes beneath the Greek Text I have aimed at making easily accessible to the reader the results of the labours of scholars who have made the text the subject of special study; especially those contained in the monumental works of Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort. Readers are requested to peruse what has been stated on that subject in the Introduction, and, in using the commentary, to keep in mind that I have always made what I regard as the most probable reading the basis of comment, whether I have expressly indicated my opinion in the critical notes or not.
In these days one who aims at a competent treatment of the Evangelic narratives must keep in view critical methods of handling the story. I have tried to unite some measure of critical freedom and candour with the reverence of faith. If, in spite of honest endeavour, I have not succeeded always in realising this ideal, let it be imputed to the lack of skill rather than of good intention.
I rise from this task with a deepened sense of the wisdom and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. If what I have written help others to a better understanding of His mind and heart, I shall feel that my labour has not been in vain.
I enjoyed the benefit of Mr. MacFadyen’s (of the Free Church College, Glasgow) assistance in reading the proofs of the second half of the work, and owe him earnest thanks, not only for increased accuracy in the printed text, but for many valuable suggestions.
The works of Dr. Gould on Mark and Dr. Plummer on Luke, in the International Critical Commentary, appeared too late to be taken advantage of in this commentary.
A. B. BRUCE.
GLASGOW.
THE GOSPELS
ACCORDING TO
MATTHEW, MARK AND LUKE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING THE THREE GOSPELS
SECTION I. THE CONNECTION
1. The three first Gospels, bearing the names of Matthew, Mark and Luke, have, during the present century, been distinguished by critics from the fourth by the epithet synoptical. The term implies that these Gospels are so like one another in contents that they can be, and for profitable study ought to be, viewed together. That such is the fact is obvious to every reader. A single perusal suffices to shew that they have much in common in contents, arrangement and phraseology; and a comparison with the fourth Gospel only deepens the impression. There everything appears different—the incidents related, the thoughts ascribed to Jesus, the terms in which they are expressed, the localities in which the Great Personage who is the common subject of all the four narratives exercised His remarkable teaching and healing ministries.
2. Yet while these three Gospels present obtrusive resemblances, they also exhibit hardly less obtrusive differences. The differences are marked just because the books are on the whole so like one another. One cannot help asking: Seeing they are so like, why are they not more like? Why do they differ at all? Or the question may be put the other way: Seeing there are so many idiosyncrasies in each Gospel, how does it come about that notwithstanding these they all bear an easily recognisable family likeness? The idiosyncrasies, though not always so obvious as the resemblances, are unmistakable, and some of them stare one in the face. Each Gospel, e.g., has some matter peculiar to itself; the first and the third a great deal. Then, while in certain parts of their narratives they follow the same order, in other places they diverge widely. Again, one cannot but be struck with the difference between the three records in regard to reporting the words of Jesus. Mark gives comparatively few: Matthew and Luke very many, and these for the most part very weighty and remarkable, insomuch that one wonders how any one undertaking to write a history of Christ’s life could overlook them. Matthew and Luke again, while both giving much prominence to the words of Jesus, differ very widely in their manner of reporting them. The one collects the sayings into masses, apparently out of regard to affinity of thought; the other disperses them over his pages, and assigns to them distinct historical occasions.
3. These resemblances and differences, with many others not referred to, inevitably raise a question as to their cause. This is the synoptical problem, towards the solution of which a countless number of contributions have been made within the last hundred years. Many of these have now only a historical or antiquarian interest, and it would serve no useful purpose to attempt here an exhaustive account of the literature connected with this inquiry. While not insensible to the fascination of the subject, even on its curious side, as an interesting problem in literary criticism, yet I must respect the fact that we in this work are directly concerned with the matter only in so far as it affects exegesis. The statement therefore now to be made must be broad and brief.
4. All attempts at solution admit of being classified under four heads. First may be mentioned the hypothesis of oral tradition. This hypothesis implies that before our Gospels there were no written records of the ministry of Jesus, or at least none of which they made use. Their only source was the unwritten tradition of the memorabilia of that ministry, having its ultimate origin in the public preaching and teaching of the Apostles, the men who had been with Jesus. The statements made by the Apostles from time to time, repeated and added to as occasion required, caught up by willing ears, and treasured up in faithful memories: behold all that is necessary, according to the patrons of this hypothesis, to account for all the evangelic phenomena of resemblance and difference. The resemblances are explained by the tendency of oral tradition, especially in non-literary epochs and peoples, to become stereotyped in contents and even in phraseology, a tendency much helped by the practice of catechetical instruction, in which the teacher dictates sentences which his pupils are expected to commit to memory.1[1] The differences are accounted for by the original diversity in the memorabilia communicated by different Apostles, by the measure of fluidity inseparable from oral tradition due to defective memory, and of course in part also by the peculiar tastes, aims and individualities of the respective evangelists. This hypothesis has been chiefly in favour among English scholars, though it can likewise boast of influential supporters among continental critics, such as Gieseler and Godet. It points to a vera causa, and cannot be wholly left out of account in an endeavour to explain how written records of the evangelic tradition arose. There was a time doubtless when what was known of Jesus was on the lip only. How long that primitive phase lasted is matter of conjecture; some say from 30 to 60 A.D. It seems probable that the process of transferring from the lip to the page began considerably sooner than the later of these dates. When Luke wrote, many attempts had been made to embody the tradition in a written form (Luke 1:1). This points to a literary habit which would naturally exert its power without delay in reference to any matter in which men took an absorbing interest. And when this habit prevails writers are not usually content to remain in ignorance of what others have done in the same line. They want to see each other’s notes. The presumption therefore is that while oral tradition in all probability was a source for our evangelists, it was not the only source, probably not even the chief source. There were other writings about the acts, and words, and sufferings of Jesus in existence before they wrote; they were likely to know these, and if they knew them they would not despise them, but rather use them so far as serviceable. In Luke’s case the existence of such earlier writings, and his acquaintance with them, are not mere presumptions but facts; the only point on which there is room for difference of opinion is how far he took advantage of the labours of his predecessors. That he deemed them unsatisfactory, at least defective, may be inferred from his making a new contribution; that he drew nothing from them is extremely improbable. Much can be said for the view that among these earlier writings known to Luke was our Gospel of Mark, or a book substantially identical with it in contents, and that he used it very freely.
[1]On the function of catechists as helping to stereotype the evangelic tradition vide Wright, The Composition of the Four Gospels, 1890. Mr. Wright is a thorough believer in the oral tradition.
5. The last observation naturally leads up to the second hypothesis, which is that the authors of the synoptical Gospels used each other’s writings, each successive writer taking advantage of earlier contributions, so that the second Gospel (in time) borrowed from the first, and the third from both first and second. Which borrowed from which depends of course on the order of time in which the three Gospels appeared. Six permutations are possible, and every one of them has had its advocates. One of the most interesting, in virtue of the course it ran, is: Matthew, Luke, Mark. This arrangement was contended for by Griesbach, and utilised by Dr. Ferdinand Christian Baur in connection with his famous Tendency-criticism. Griesbach founded on the frequent duality in Mark’s style, that is to say, the combination of phrases used separately in the same connection in the other synoptical Gospels: e.g., “at even when the sun did set” (1:32). In this phenomenon, somewhat frequently recurring, he saw conclusive proof that Mark had Matthew and Luke before him, and servilely copied from both in descriptive passages. Baur’s interest in the question was theological rather than literary. Accepting Griesbach’s results, he charged Mark not only with literary dependence on his brother evangelists, whence is explained his graphic style, but also with studied theological neutrality, eschewing on the one hand the Judaistic bias of the first Gospel, and on the other the Pauline or universalistic bias of the third; both characteristics, the literary dependence and the studied neutrality, implying a later date. Since then a great change of view has taken place. For some time the prevailing opinion has been that Mark’s Gospel is the earliest not the latest of the three, and this opinion is likely to hold its ground. Holtzmann observes that the Mark hypothesis is a hypothesis no longer,[2] meaning that it is an established fact. And he and many others recognise in Mark, either as we have it or in an earlier form, a source for both the other synoptists, thereby acknowledging that the hypothesis of mutual use likewise has a measure of truth.
[2] Hand-Commentar, p. 3.
6. The third hypothesis is that of one primitive Gospel from which all three synoptists drew their material. The supporters of this view do not believe that the evangelists used each other’s writings. Their contention is that all were dependent on one original document, an Urevangelium as German scholars call it. This primitive Gospel was, ex hypothesi, comprehensive enough to cover the whole ground. From it all the three evangelists took much in common, hence their agreement in matter and language in so many places. But how about their divergencies? How came it to pass that with the same document before them they made such diverse use of it? The answer is: it was due to the fact that they used, not identical copies of one document, but different recensions of the same document. By this flight into the dark region of conjectural recensions, whereof no trace remains, the Urevangelium hypothesis was self-condemned to oblivion. With it are associated the honourable names of Lessing and Eichhorn.
7. The fourth and last hypothesis was propounded by Schleiermacher. He took for his starting-point the word διήγησις in the introduction of Luke’s Gospel, and found in it the hint that not in one primitive Gospel of comprehensive character was the source exploited by our Gospels to be found, but rather in many Gospelets containing a record of some words or deeds of Jesus with which the writer had become acquainted, and which he specially desired to preserve. Each of our evangelists is to be conceived as having so many of these diegeses or Gospelets in his possession, and constructing out of them a larger connected story. In so far as they made use of copies of the same diegesis, there would be agreement in contents and style; in so far as they used Gospelets peculiar to their respective collections, there would be divergence; and of course diversity in the order of narration was to be expected in writings compiled from a handful of unconnected leaflets of evangelic tradition. In spite of the great name of its author, this hypothesis has found little support as an attempt to account for the whole phenomena of the Gospels. As a subordinate suggestion to explain the presence in any of the synoptists of elements peculiar to himself, it is worthy of consideration. Some of the particulars, e.g., peculiar to Luke may have been found by him not in any large collection, but in a leaflet, as others may have been derived not from written sources large or small, but from a purely oral source in answer to local inquiries.
8. None of the foregoing hypotheses is accepted by itself as a satisfactory solution of the synoptical problem by any large number of competent critics at the present time. The majority look for a solution in the direction of a combination of the second and third hypotheses under modified forms. To a certain extent they recognise use of one Gospel in another, and there is an extensive agreement in the opinion that for the explanation of the phenomena not one but at least two primitive documents must be postulated. In these matters certainty is unattainable, but it is worth while making ourselves acquainted with what may be called the most probable working hypothesis. With this view I offer here a brief statement as to the present trend of critical opinion on the subject in question.
9. It is a familiar observation that, leaving out of account the reports of the teaching of Jesus contained in the first and third Gospels, the matter that remains, consisting of narratives of actions and events, is very much the same in all the three synoptists. Not only so, the remainder practically consists of the contents of the second Gospel. It seems as if Matthew and Luke had made Mark the framework of their story, and added to it new material. This accordingly is now believed by many to have been the actual fact. The prevailing idea is that our Mark, or a book very like it in contents, was under the eye of the compilers of the first and third Gospels when they wrote, and was used by both as a source, not merely in the sense that they took from it this and that, but in the sense of adopting it substantially as it was, and making it the basis of their longer and more elaborate narratives. This crude statement of course requires qualification. What took place was not that the compilers of the first and third Gospels simply transcribed the second, page by page, as they found it in their manuscript, reproducing its contents in the original order, and each section verbatim. If that had been the case the synoptical problem would have been greatly simplified, and there would hardly have been room for difference of opinion. As the case stands the order of narration is more or less disturbed, and there are many variations in expression. The question is thus raised: On the hypothesis that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke, in respect of the matter common to all the three, how came it to pass that the writers of the first and third Gospels deviated so much, and in different ways, from their common source in the order of events and in style? The general answer to the question, so far as order is concerned, is that the additional matter acted as a disturbing influence. The explanation implies that, when the disturbing influence did not come into play, the original order would be maintained. Advocates of the hypothesis try to show that the facts answer to this view; that is to say, that Mark’s order is followed in Matthew and Luke, except when disturbance is explicable by the influence of the new material. One illustration may here be given from Matthew. Obviously the “Sermon on the Mount” exercised a powerful fascination on the mind of the evangelist. From the first he has it in view, and he desires to bring it in as soon as possible. Therefore, of the incidents connected with the commencement of the Galilean ministry reported in Mark, he relates simply the call of the four fisher Apostles, as if to furnish the Great Teacher with disciples who might form an audience for the great Discourse. To that call he appends a general description of the Galilean ministry, specifying as its salient features preaching or teaching and healing. Then he proceeds to illustrate each department of the ministry, the teaching by the Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5–7, the healing by a group of miracles contained in chapters 8 and 9, including the cure of Peter’s mother-in-law, the wholesale cures on the Sabbath evening, and the healing of the leper, all reported in the first chapter of Mark. Of course, in regard neither to the sermon nor to the group of miracles can the first Gospel lay claim to chronological accuracy. In the corresponding part of his narrative, Luke follows Mark closely, reporting the cure of the demoniac in the synagogue of Capernaum, of Peter’s mother-in-law, of many sick people on the Sabbath evening, and of the leper in the same order. There is only one deviation. The call of Peter, which in Luke replaces that of the four, Peter and Andrew, James and John, comes between the Sabbath evening cures and the cure of the leper.
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