In his book on the synoptic problem [1], Farmer provides an overview of the history of research into the three Gospels. He shows that views on the Gospels throughout history were subject to historical trends and not only to thorough research. At the same time, he attempts to approach the Gospel texts carefully and methodically in order to determine, step by step, what the texts themselves say about the mutual relationships and the order of the Gospels.
Of course, this is never entirely possible. A complete and definitive solution to the synoptic problem is not possible, because then all options would have to be described in equal detail. That will never succeed. After all, researching the interpretation of the Gospels is like swimming in the ocean. You can never survey all approaches. So you just have to do it as well as possible. The alternative to definitive and objective research is to write about the problem consciously from a specific point of view. But then this must be done in such a way that a certain degree of probability is indicated [2].
Farmer then puts forward the following viewpoint: Matthew was first and Luke appears to be the second. Matthew was used by Luke, who is probably also the author of Acts. However, Luke arrived at the structure of his gospel independently of Matthew. This viewpoint is not new; on the contrary, the works of the researchers representing this viewpoint are, according to Farmer, more logically compelling than others. In earlier chapters, Farmer has already shown that this approach has been abandoned in favor of a less convincing solution. Consequently, Mark was seen as the oldest gospel. Griesbach and Owen, in particular, on the other hand, demonstrated in their own way as early as the 18th century that Mark is the third gospel, after Matthew and Luke [3].
That is what Farmer intends to explain step by step. This does not involve the logic of a chain, but rather a web of countless arguments leading to the conclusion that it is historically most likely that Mark was written after Matthew and Luke and dependent on both of them [4]. We follow Farmer here in these steps, which he attempts to present clearly and logically.
How Farmer investigates the order of the Gospels
Step 1: Matthew, Mark, and Luke resemble each other so closely that there is at least demonstrably a certain literary dependency.
The degree of literal correspondence is as high as or higher than in documents where it is accepted knowledge that the author of one document copied the other. Therefore, this is the most obvious approach. Another explanation is not ruled out, but it must be demonstrated that it is a better explanation. The rule of economy of hypotheses applies here. One should not add a hypothesis if it is not necessary.
Step 2: Logically speaking, there are 18 ways in which three documents can be interdependent.
Step 3: You can add infinitely many variations to this, but a critic should not claim hypothetical documents unless they have first tried to do without them.
Step 4: Only six of these 18 can be correct. This is because there is agreement in the Gospels of two over against a third in each instance. Consequently, 12 are ruled out.
After all: whichever evangelist was third, he had to work with two gospels between which a relationship of direct literary dependence already existed. One can, of course, claim that all three evangelists were the first, but then, regarding the other two gospels, only two possibilities remain each time. Six in total.
Step 5: There are identifiable and ascertainable categories of literary phenomena that can be better explained if Mark is third than when Matthew is third as Luke.
These are:
1. Order and content
2. The so-called minor textual similarities between Matthew and Luke as opposed to Mark.
3. There is a remarkable positive correlation between the order and the degree of similarity between Matthew and Mark on the one hand, and Luke and Mark on the other. Mark is usually more in agreement with Matthew when Mark and Matthew together have a different order than Luke. But Mark is usually more in agreement with Luke when Mark and Luke together have a different order of stories.
Step 6: The literary phenomena of the order and content of the textual material in each of the synoptic Gospels are best explained by the hypothesis that Mark comes after Matthew, who is first, and Luke, who is second.
With a single exception, Mark never has a different order in his text than either that of Matthew or Luke, or of both, provided they also correspond in sequence. The most striking similarity between Matthew and Luke and Mark is found in the story of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. Matthew and Luke place this on the same day as the entry into Jerusalem. Mark places it on the following day. This is easily explained if it is assumed that he follows Matthew and Luke but does not do so slavishly, so that he deviates here because it suits him for some reason.
Almost always, the order of Mark is the same as that of Matthew and Luke, or as one of them. This is easily explained if Mark is third. If, for whatever reason, he cannot or does not wish to follow both sources, he chooses one or the other. Naturally, he then adopts more characteristic words from the one he follows [5]. It is indeed possible to maintain, based on the assumption of the existence of Q, that Matthew and Luke sometimes have the same order and content independently of each other. However, this hypothesis cannot explain why Luke continues to follow Mark whenever Matthew deviates, and why Matthew continues to follow Mark whenever Luke deviates. After all, according to the two-source theory, they should not know what the other is doing. One can also proceed from Augustine’s solution that the evangelists knew and read each other in the order Matthew, Mark, Luke. But then Luke would need a reason to continue following Mark in all cases where Matthew deviates from Mark. The same problem arises if one were to propose that Matthew is third. Thus, two possibilities remain: either the order Matthew – Luke – Mark or Luke – Matthew – Mark.
Step 7: The minor similarities between Matthew and Luke form a category of phenomena that is better explained with Mark as the third [6]. The similarities between Matthew and Luke compared to Mark are significantly fewer in number than the similarities between Matthew and Mark compared to Luke and the similarities between Mark and Luke compared to Matthew. The most obvious explanation for this is that Mark is the third. If one were to assume that Luke is the third, then he would often have to adopt Matthew when following the text of Mark, since he would then have both texts before him. However, he never adopts Matthew when Matthew deviates from Mark. Then he always continues to follow Mark, even though he himself deviates often enough from Matthew and Mark in places where they correspond. That is strange.
Step 8: Where the order is the same, there is also more agreement in word choice between the different gospels. This also argues for a place of Mark after Matthew and Luke. It is naturally obvious that you adopt more words from the text you follow more closely.
Step 9: Mark’s editorial method becomes understandable from the hypothesis that he based his gospel primarily on Matthew and Luke.
Step 10: The most likely explanation for the multiple similarities between Matthew and Luke is that they made use of the other’s work.
However, this does not exclude the possibility that they also shared other sources. The style of Matthew and Luke is unique in literature. They are simultaneously unique and very similar literary works. This is rarely seen [7].
Step 11: The hypothesis that Luke made use of Matthew is consistent with the introductory words of his gospel. Luke speaks of an account of what has happened, to which many have already contributed. That word “account” is in the singular, so it could be that he simply means Matthew and that he views that book as a book to which many have contributed. Moreover, those opening words of Luke speak of “fulfillment,” and that is precisely the concept of Matthew, the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus Christ [8].
According to the standards of Hellenistic historiography, Matthew did not meet these standards. For example, there are double versions of stories; no good reason is given for why Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum, and it is only later in the story that it is told how the people in Nazareth rejected him; the Sermon on the Mount is addressed to the disciples, but the disciples are appointed only after the Sermon on the Mount. All of this is unusual in Hellenistic historiography.
Step 12: If we assume that there is a direct literary dependency between Matthew and Luke, then the internal evidence of the texts shows that the direction of that dependency goes from Luke to Matthew.
Farmer gives a few examples. In Matthew 10:5, the disciples are instructed not to go to the Gentiles, and in Matthew 24:20, the passage calls for praying that the flight from Jerusalem, when the time comes, will not be in winter or take place “on a Sabbath.” These are words that do not appear in Mark and Luke, and words that also become increasingly incomprehensible as the boundaries of the Christian movement move further away from its place of origin.
Moreover, Matthew makes extensive use of Semitic parallelisms. It is generally assumed that this was a helpful method during the first period of oral tradition. Parallel formulations that also partly repeat are easier to remember. When the Gospel is written down for the first time, this practice is naturally preserved initially. In a second phase, this is open to criticism of redundancy. This suggests that Luke, who consistently breaks this parallelism, is a later writer.
Step 13: The external evidence contradicts the hypothesis that Matthew was written after Luke. By this, Farmer means the testimony of the Church Fathers, which is quite unambiguous in this regard. If Luke were written earlier, Matthew is a Judaizing version of Luke. In that case, it is inexplicable that the Western Church, which established the canon, would have unanimously given the place of honor as the first to Matthew.
Step 14: The weight of the external evidence contradicts the hypothesis that Matthew was written after Mark. The same arguments as under 13 apply here as well.
Step 15: That Mark was written after Matthew and Luke corresponds with the earliest and best evidence regarding this matter [9]. Clement of Alexandria says that he heard from the elders that the Gospels with genealogies are older than the Gospels without. Clement wrote this around the middle of the second century. Clement’s statement carries even more probative weight because it comes from Egypt, where Mark played a major role. Justinian also cites the Gospel of Mark very early on, between 100 and 125.
Step 16: Upon closer analysis, Matthew appears to have been written after the era of the ancient Palestinian Christian community, but it was nevertheless adopted by Luke, and Mark comes after both Matthew and Luke and has often combined their respective texts. This naturally requires a detailed analysis and Farmer provides a number of rules for this:
1. That form of tradition which comes from outside Palestine and is of non-Jewish origin must be seen as secondary to the material originating from Palestine that comes from Jewish hands. 2. More specific traditions (names of persons, for example) are of later origin.
3. Textual material that provides more editorial explanation and is intended to make the tradition applicable to the needs of the church is secondary.
4. If a tradition has words and sentences that correspond to a writing hand present elsewhere in the gospel, that gospel is secondary to a form lacking such sentences and words. Thus, terms and words may also appear in a later gospel that actually originate from the first redaction and not so much from the writing hand of the secondary redaction.
The book “The Gospel of Jesus”
In “The Gospel of Jesus” (1994), Farmer provides a summary of his 1964 book accessible to lay people [10]. Moreover, he elaborates on the consequences for church life and proclamation along the lines of the two-source theory. These consequences amount to the congregation being taught not to take its own sources seriously anymore. We cite some of these text examples here to illustrate the above rules for the interpretation of the Gospels, which may seem somewhat abstract, with the texts themselves.
18John received news from his disciples about all these events.
He called two of his disciples to him
19and sent them to the Lord, to whom they were to ask:
‘Are You the one who is to come, or should we expect another?’
20When the men came to Him, they said: ‘John the Baptist sends us to ask You: “Are You the one who is to come, or should we expect another?”’
21Just then He was healing many people of diseases and all kinds of ailments and of evil spirits, and He restored sight to many blind people.
22He answered: ‘Tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind see and the lame walk, those who are unclean with a skin disease are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
23Blessed is the one who takes no offense at Me.’
24When John’s messengers had departed, He began to speak to the crowd about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? The swaying of reeds in the wind?
25What did you go out to see? A man clothed in fine robes? No, for he who wears fine clothing and lives in luxury dwells in a palace.
26But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes indeed, I tell you, and even greater than a prophet.
27He is the one about whom it is written:
“Look, I send my messenger ahead of You,
he will prepare the way for You.”
28I tell you: of all those born of a woman, none is greater than John, but in the kingdom of God, the least is greater than he.
29(All who listened to him, even the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s righteousness, for they were baptized by John.)
30But the Pharisees and scribes rejected God’s plan: for they were not baptized by him.
31To what then shall I compare the people of this generation? To what are they like?
32They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to one another:
“When we played the flute for you, you did not dance;
when we sang a lament, you did not mourn.”
33For John the Baptist has come; he eats no bread and drinks no wine, and you say: “He is possessed by a demon.”
34The Son of Man has come; he eats and drinks, and you say: “Look at him, what a glutton, what a drunkard, that friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
35And yet Wisdom was justified by all her children.’
Luke 7:18-35
The underlined text is the same verbatim in Greek in Luke and in Matthew. Where the underlining is interrupted, the same word is used, but in a different conjugation or declension. Sixty-three percent of the text of Matthew is taken over verbatim in Luke. Moreover, it appears in the same order. It must therefore have been taken over. Did Luke take it from a common source Q? This concerns a story. According to the proponents of Q, Q consists of words of Jesus, not stories. So this is not a solution here. Luke must therefore have taken it from Matthew [11].
The only verse of this passage in Luke that is also found in Mark is verse 27. Now, this text is a conflation of Malachi 3:1 and Exodus 23:20.
There are small differences in the way the various Gospels render this text. Here is a slightly more literal translation from the Greek:
Behold, I will send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare the way before you.
Matthew 11:10
Behold, [I] will send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare the way before you.
Luke 7:27
Behold, [I] will send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare the way for you.
Mark 1:2
Mark added “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah:” as an introduction to these words, and thus he does not mention Malachi at all. Luke and Mark omit the word “I”—that is because it is actually superfluous, as this can already be seen from the form of the verb in Hebrew. The second difference is that Mark omits the words “ before your face”. It is, then, quite a coincidence that Matthew and Luke both do have these words, whereas according to the two-source theory, it should be assumed that they copied the text from Mark. This could be explained by the fact that they both found it in a common source Q. But it does not stop there. For both Matthew and Luke place this word from Mark in a different context than Mark, and moreover, that is a context in which it fits perfectly. In short, it is much more plausible to assume the reverse: Mark adopted the text regarding the conflation of Malachi and Isaiah from Luke and Matthew, added words about Isaiah, and probably did not even notice that there was also a reference to Malachi included in it. Mark thus adds words from Isaiah:
3A voice cries in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight!”’
Mark 1:3
Farmer explains all these Bible quotations as follows: Luke adopted Matthew 11:2-19 and expanded it somewhat. He also adopted the quotation composed of Malachi and Isaiah from Matthew. Mark, who also omits the word “I,” which is superfluous in Greek, follows Luke in turn. Moreover, Mark adds the word from Isaiah 40:3 to further characterize John the Baptist. All dates in these texts can easily be explained on the basis of the two-gospels theory, whereas the two-sources theory has to take very complicated detours and make assumptions that cannot be verified.
The literal correspondence between Luke and Matthew is most strongly present in the words of Jesus. But in certain places, there is also a major difference in the choice of words. Here is an example of this as well:
2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
3 Therefore, obey everything they tell you and act accordingly; but do not act according to their deeds, for they themselves do not practice what they preach to you.
4 They bundle all the regulations into a heavy burden and lay it on people’s shoulders, while they themselves do not lift a finger to lighten it.
5 All their deeds are aimed at being seen by people. For they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels on their garments,
6 they desire places of honor at feasts and in synagogues,
7 and they desire to be greeted with reverence in the marketplace and to be called rabbi by people.
Matthew 23:2-7
46‘Beware of the scribes who love to walk around in expensive robes and want to be greeted respectfully in the marketplace, and desire a place of honor in the synagogues and at banquets: 47they devour the houses of widows and say long prayers for show. They will be judged more severely than others!’
Luke 20: 46-47
All scholars, according to Farmer, agree that Matthew is the most original here. One may also assume that the readers of Luke knew little of Jewish customs, such as “broadening their phylacteries” and lengthening the tassels on their clothes. In strict accordance with the legislation in Exodus and Deuteronomy, pious Jews wore rolled-up texts of the law on their bodies. The congregation members coming from the heathen peoples of Luke and Paul who flocked to the church knew very little of this. So Luke simply turns it into “expensive robes” (actually literally “long robes”). These Greek and Roman congregation members know all about that, because the wealthy in the Roman Empire also had such practices. This therefore indicates that Luke is secondary to Matthew, not the other way around [12].
How did Mark work with this passage?
38 During his teaching He said: ‘Beware of the scribes who love to walk around in expensive robes and want to be greeted respectfully in the marketplace,
39 and want a place of honor in the synagogues and at banquets:
40 they devour the houses of widows and say long prayers for show. They will be judged more severely than others!’
Mark 12: 38 – 40
Again, the underlining indicates the similarity, this time between Mark and Luke. The broken underlining points to a different form of the same word. Mark often explains Jewish customs or Jewish expressions. This indicates that his readers were not familiar with them. Here is a well-known example:
1 Then Pharisees and scribes came from Jerusalem to Jesus. They asked Him:
2 ‘Why do your disciples break the traditions of our ancestors? They do not wash their hands before they eat their bread.’
Matthew 15:1-2
1The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem also stayed near him.
2And when they saw that some disciples were eating bread with unclean hands, that is, with unwashed hands
3[for the Pharisees and all other Jews do not eat until they have washed their hands, because they keep the tradition of their ancestors,
4and when they come from the market, they do not eat until they have washed themselves completely, and there are all kinds of other traditions to which they keep, such as the cleaning of cups, pitchers, kettles, and beds]…
Mark 7:1-4
The section in square brackets is often considered a later addition. It would then have been meant for later Greco-Roman readers who needed that information. It is also possible that a remark in an earlier version was written in the margin and later ended up in the text. Theoretically, that is possible. But all copies of Mark that have been handed down have this “addition”. Therefore, it must be of very early date. That is a problem for all theories based on the assumption that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest. If Mark is the oldest, why would Matthew not have adopted this? He also explains Hebrew expressions to his readers elsewhere.
Admittedly, the passages mentioned above do not constitute conclusive proof of the view that Mark comes after Luke. You can also use other hypotheses as an explanation. But, according to Farmer, with the two-gospels hypothesis in hand, you can establish a comprehensive network of indications that supports this hypothesis, without all sorts of additional assumptions [13]. That network of hypotheses can be found by consulting the literature referred to in this contribution. It requires some study, but after a while, that network of references rises before you.
[1] Farmer, W.R., 1964. The Synoptic Problem – a critical review of the problem of the literary relationships between Matthew, Mark, and Luke”, McMillan, New York.
[2] Farmer 200.
[3] Griesbach J.J. 1774 – 1775. Synopsis evangeliorum Matthaei, Marci et Lucae (later expanded to Synopsis evangeliorum Matthaei, Marci, Lucae et Johannis), Owen, H., 1764. Observations on the Four Gospels; Tending Chiefly, to Ascertain the Times of Their Publication; and to Illustrate the Form and Manner of Their Composition. During a visit to England, Griesbach apparently purchased and read Owen’s book – it was found in his library after his death.
[4] Farmer 202.
[5] Farmer 213.
[6] Farmer 216.
[7] Farmer 221.
[8] Farmer 223.
[9] Farmer 226.
[10] Farmer W.R., 1994. The Gospel of Jesus; The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem, Wipf & Stock.
[11] Of course, you can also assume that some stories did end up in that source Q after all. Many scholars propose a different definition and approach to the possible content of this source Q. But by making all these kinds of assumptions—see Goulder’s criticism— one can indeed always make a theory work and make it consistent, but in doing so, under the guise of scientific inquiry, you make yourself unverifiable. You can always make another assumption and the story is complete again.
[12] Farmer Ibid 33.
[13] Farmer speaks of “evidence”; it is “evidence,” not “proof,” because it is not about mathematics, Farmer Ibid 35.
