We’ve looked at quite a bit already that would indicate a possible order for the Gospels. Certainly, if we come up with tentative dates for the Gospels, then we have a tentative order for them as well. 

In looking at the dating of the Gospels, we’ve alluded to things like “Q” and “Proto-Luke,” but we haven’t focused on these things. Whole theories of document development have been brought forward regarding the Gospels that are very influential on the dating of them. Let’s take some time to look more closely at these ideas.

The earliest of my source materials that breaks the order of the Gospels out as a stand-alone topic is John William Wenham’s 1992 book: REDATING MATTHEW, MARK AND LUKE. The chapter heading is: Theories about synoptic relationships.

The first theory he calls the Oral Theory; this is where the material that the Apostles were teaching orally were written down by each one of them independently; no so-called source documents.

The second theory is the Two-document Theory: Mark and Q to Matthew and Luke. So, Mark and Q are the two source documents; Matthew and Luke both derive from Mark and Q.

The third theory is theFour-document Theory (originating from B. H. Streeter): M to Matthew; Mark to Matthew and Luke; Q to Matthew and Proto-Luke; L to Proto-Luke; Proto-Luke to Luke. So, M, Mark, Q, and L are the four source documents; Matthew derives from M, Mark and Q; Luke derives from Mark and a Proto-Luke version; Proto-Luke derives from Q and L.

Next is Markan priority (no Q), put forth by M. D. Goulder: Mark to Matthew and Luke; Matthew to Luke. So, Mark is the one source document; Matthew is derived from Mark; Luke is derived from Mark and Matthew

The fifth theory is Successive dependence (the Augustinian theory, as described by J. Chapman): Aramaic Matthew to Greek Matthew to Mark and to Luke; Aramaic oral teachings to Mark to Luke’s first draft to Luke. So, Aramaic Matthew is the source document; Matthew started in Aramaic, and was translated to Greek; Mark derived from Aramaic oral tradition and Greek Matthew; Luke derived from the Greek Matthew, from Mark, and from Luke’s first draft.

Number six is the Two-gospel theory, from J. J. Griesbach: Matthew to Luke and to Mark; Luke to Mark. So, no source documents; Matthew was the first gospel; Luke derived from Matthew; Mark derived from Matthew and Luke

The next theory is called Multiple Source Theory (from M. Boismard): Q to Intermediate Matthew and to Proto-Luke; Intermediate Matthew to Final Matthew, to Final Mark and Final Luke; A to Intermediate Matthew, Intermediate Mark; B to Intermediate Mark; C to Intermediate Mark and Proto-Luke; Intermediate Mark to Final Mark and Final Luke; Proto-Luke to Final Luke. In other words, Q, A, B, and C are the source documents; Matthew was derived from Intermediate Matthew, which itself was derived from Q and A; Mark was derived from Intermediate Matthew, and Intermediate Mark, which was derived from A, B, and C; Luke was derived from Proto-Luke, which itself was derived from Q, C, and Intermediate Mark.

The eighth and last theory is the Oral Theory with some measure of successive dependence, which is Wenham’s theory. This one says the oral teachings lead to Matthew, Mark and Luke; Matthew to Mark and Luke; Mark to Luke. So, no source documents; Matthew was independently derived; Mark was independently derived but influenced by Matthew; and Luke was independently derived but with influence from Matthew and Mark.

I think that Wenham’s theory (#8) is probably the most realistic, but I don’t rule out #5, but with Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

Wenham mentions that there are a number of scholars in the last century that thought the Gospels were maintained as oral tradition for a period of time before being written down. He lists three reasons that it is unlikely to have been a substantial period of time:

1. It would mean that a long list of verses would need to be memorized, but due to the differences in the Gospels, this was obviously not done with any strictness.
2. This would mean that the Gospels were written down “almost simultaneously.”
3. Church tradition doesn’t agree with this.

I would add one more caveat: it would require that men who were present for all the events of the Gospels were requiring themselves to memorize set pieces, rather than expounding on what they remembered. That doesn’t seem realistic to me.

Wenham briefly describes the last century with the waxing and waning of the different theories. He points out the issues with trying to determine what might have been in a Q document (or any of the other alphabetical documents), and concludes that we cannot know that these so-called documents existed, but “the three gospels exist, there is some relation between them; if this relation could be correctly stated all the data would be satisfactorily explained without remainder. Has something gone wrong with our methodology?”

After more review, Wenham queries: “Have we been justified in placing so much emphasis on documentary relationships?” This speaks directly to my problem with imagining the Apostles sitting at desks, copying one another’s work. In modern times, Wenham says that when more than about a dozen words are the same between two works, one assumes that there is a “literary connection,” implying that either one copied from the other, or both copied from a common source (and thus Q was born). He blasts this by reminding us that people, even today, can quote multiple Scriptural verses word for word. Therefore, it would not be unusual for a first century person to memorize the words of Jesus, or the teachings of one of the other Apostles that particularly resonated, and then incorporate those phrases (or even whole paragraphs) into his writing. There is even a case to be made that Luke, with memorized verses, was completely independent:

“J. W. Scott was made a PhD of St Andrew’s University in 1986 for a dissertation arguing Luke’s independence of Mark and Matthew. His unpublished thesis Luke’s Preface and the Synoptic Problem is noteworthy for its learning, clarity and independence of thought. The first nine chapters are devoted to exegesis of the preface, which, he maintains, makes no reference to Mark or Q, since, according to literary custom, Luke would have referred to them had he used them. He claims rather, in accordance with an interpretation widely favored by the fathers, to have been a follower of all the apostles, probably having lived in Jerusalem for a considerable time in the 40s. He became an expert in the oral traditions which they formulated and authorized, and it is these that he has written up accurately for his patron Theophilus…He considers it to be almost certain that Luke is saying that his work is base virtually (if not completely) on oral traditions alone.”

Wenham, of course, recites the reasons against independent writing of the Gospels. First, that so many of the verses are in the same order. While this is arresting, I don’t see why it can’t be explained with memory as well. These men were not working on the Gospel in their spare time; they devoted their whole lives to this pursuit. I look to myself as an example: unlike them, I pursue several different things in a day, but even with my divided attention (and my total inability to memorize text in my 8th decade), I still find myself starting to remember the order of things in the Bible, and even, in some cases, where they can be found. The memory of the order of the events of the Gospels would not be difficult for younger men, devoted solely to the Gospels, to recall.

His second point is one of my earlier ones: that there “was great mobility in both secular society and among the churches, as is witnessed not only in  Acts, but in the constant coming and goings to which the epistles bear witness.” I heartily agree with this, and that the writings of all early church Apostles and fathers traveled rather rapidly. But, just because a copy of someone’s writing traveled extensively doesn’t mean everyone had a copy of it. Copies were expensive to commission. Luke, for instance, may have heard a copy of Matthew’s Gospel read aloud, or even may have read it himself, but it doesn’t mean he had a copy to hand. 

Wenham adds:

“The canonical gospels, especially Matthew and Luke, were major works, written by leaders of great competence, and it is unlikely that knowledge of their projected books was kept secret…complete independence suggests a sudden almost simultaneous inspiration of three men and a speedy execution of the task by all of them. And they must all have found in their common oral tradition something sufficiently like the gospel genre to enable them thus independently to write in that genre. It seems a little improbable.”

Improbable, but not impossible. The genre is not that different from a number of the Old Testament books. But, I have to admit that it does seem likely that the writers were aware of the others who were writing.

Wenham’s last point is that “there are distinct (though occasionally mutually contradictory) traditions of gospel order in the early church, which most naturally presupposes that they were not all published at the same time.” He sees one of the writers as “inventing the gospel genre” and the others copying that genre. Again, I don’t see the “gospel genre” as being that different from other narrative, eye-witness-type accounts from the Old Testament, even if these accounts were passed orally for a period of time before being written down. 

Wenham’s conclusion is: “There may be a large measure of independence as well as an important measure of interdependence.” This is a common-sense approach to the synoptic issue. The rest of his book is a deep dive into all the similarities and differences between the synoptic Gospels, with explanations based on his conclusion, which is far beyond the scope of this work. It is very interesting and well worth reading; the book can be borrowed online at Internet Archive. We will be visiting Wenham again on future topics, but for now we’ll move on.

The next source is RETHINKING THE DATES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT by Jonathan Bernier from 2022, which has a very short section on the order of the Synoptic Gospels. This section provides little evidence for the order of the Gospels, or their dates, but rather reviews what current scholarly thought is on those topics and then draws a conclusion. The rest of the chapter that this section starts is more about some of the other arguments around dating the Gospels.

Bernier states that the current thought on dating is: Mark ~70; Matthew ~80; Luke-Acts ~85-90. Bernier reveals that this chapter “argues that Acts was written ca. 62 and the Synoptic Gospels before that date, with Matthew’s Gospel likely written prior to Luke’s Gospel, and Mark’s Gospel prior to Matthew’s Gospel.” 

While I agree with his timing, I don’t agree with the order that he settles on. And he really gives no evidence for it.

Lastly, for the Catholic view, we turn to the website stpaulcenter.com/when-the-gospels-written/ . Here we are told that currently, Mark is dated ~70-75; Matthew ~75; Luke ~80-90; and John ~90-100. The evidence provided for the Markan priority is that Mark was shorter and in much worse Greek than the others. The thinking is that Mark wouldn’t cut out so much of Matthew’s material, and he certainly would have copied Matthew’s superior Greek. In other words, no one would have made such a bad copy of Matthew. I find this to be an absurd argument. If Mark was truly copying Matthew, he might indeed shorten the Gospel and leave out much of what the Jews would think was important or meaningful, and only use what the Gentiles would find understandable. As for the Greek, unless Mark was copying word for word, if his Greek was poor then it would show.

But, I don’t think it happened this way at all, as I’ve mentioned earlier.

The website goes on to speculate on Mark being written first, just after 70 AD, and because of the disruption, it took “a few years” to circulate, “eventually it ended up in the hands of Matthew, who sat down to write his own narrative using Mark as a source. Luke came a few years after that, and John is dated later still.”  

The author then speculates about Matthean priority, because the Church Fathers testified that Matthew was first. In this case, Mark may have abridged Matthew’s work for the reason I stated above, but the reason given for the poor Greek is very interesting. It’s speculated that Mark had a copy of the Hebrew Matthew’s Gospel and so did his own translation of it into Greek. The author then adds:

“Finally, the fact that Mark includes many little but important details (e.g. describing the story of the sower as the most important of all the parables; see Mk 4:13) which are unique to him is suggestive that he might be writing after Matthew, since it is unlikely that Matthew would have chosen to leave those details out.”

I like this last speculation, it seems to answer the questions without suggesting uncharacteristic scenarios. 

I’m going to stop here for today as I have one more Synoptic Gospel related topic to address, but it’s long and involved, so I’ll give it it’s own post. We’ll be diving into the Lachmann fallacy rabbit hole, which will turn Markan priority on it’s head.