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When
I was a senior in college I developed an intense interest in the historical
Jesus. I read many accounts of the “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” and
decided to embark on my own quest. I embarked upon an intense study of the
Gospels which lasted until I graduated from law school and began to practice
law. Even after that time I still would engage in sporadic bouts of Bible
study, and I have amassed two thick books containing notes of my studies.
One
thing that I was especially intrigued by was the Synoptic Problem—an attempt to
explain why the first three Gospels were so similar while at the same time
being so different. I read as much as I could about the Two Document
Hypothesis, the Four Document Hypothesis, the elusive Q Gospel, Proto-Luke, and
many other theories of how the Gospels came to be. I examined several Gospel
harmonies and Gospel synopses; and I decided I could distill the various
harmonies and synopses into a more harmonious synopsis of my own. I worked on
this synopsis for several years and made many false starts toward producing a
manuscript of my synopsis. Since most of my work was done in the years BCE
(Before the Computer Era), I found the project rough sledding as a spare-time
project.
Now
that we are firmly in the CE (Computer Era), and I have retired from full-time
employment, I have decided to publish a manuscript of my synopsis. You might
ask, “Why another synopsis (or harmony) of the Gospels. Aren’t there enough
already? My answer is, “Yes, there are many, but I find none of them entirely
satisfactory.” In harmonies, the authors try to interweave the Gospel of John
in among the Synoptics. Given the wide differences between John and the
Synoptic Gospels, this is a very difficult task which renders unsatisfactory
results. In most synopses, the passages from John are either ignored or
consigned to footnotes, another unsatisfactory treatment. Among the synopses,
the pseudepigraphal gospels are usually ignored. Throckmorton’s is different in
that his synopsis puts pseudepigraphal passages in footnotes.
I
wanted a synopsis which moved John’s parallel passages out of the footnotes and
into the main text. I also wanted the main text to include passages from what I
consider the two most important pseudepigraphal gospels, Thomas and Peter.
Although they are far inferior to the Canonical Gospels, they are far superior
to all the other pseudepigraphal gospels which I have read, and they just might
contain a small amount of authentic material.
The
Synoptic Gospels contain many of the same stories in almost precisely the same
order. These stories are called parallels. Although we see many sequential
parallels in the Synoptics, many of the parallels are non-sequential. For
example, Matthew and Luke report that when Jesus first enters the Temple during
the Passion week, he immediately cleanses it. Mark says he just looks around
and returns the next day to cleanse the Temple. Then there are doublets—stories
which sound a lot like other stories but are sufficiently different to cause
the reader to be in a quandary as to whether they are telling different
versions of the same story. For example, Matthew reports the exorcism of two Gergesene
demoniacs; but Mark and Luke say that Jesus exorcized one Gadarene demoniac.
Then we have doublets, which tell very similar stories but are sufficiently
distinct details that they are likely different incidents. For example, all
three Synoptics tell the story of Jesus healing a leper, but Luke also tells a
story about Jesus healing ten lepers. Then there are passages that I call
analogs: they tell similar stories, but the stories are very different. For
example, Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son is similar to Matthew’s Parable of
the Two Sons, but they are so dissimilar as to be two different stories.
Likewise, the Parable of the Sower, which appears in all the Synoptics, has an
analog in Matthew’s Parable of the Weeds.
How
do we prepare a synopsis which melds all these different types of stories into
one harmonious whole? I have tried to accomplish this task by putting the sequential
parallels in boldface and arranging them in parallel columns. The non-sequential
parallels are included with the sequential parallels, but they are not in
boldface. They may be put in parallel columns, or they may be set out below the
sequential parallels. I have treated the doublets and analogs the same as
non-sequential parallels, but they are usually placed below any non-sequential
parallels. The bottommost entries in each section are the pseudepigraphal
parallels and doublets.
In
arranging the stories, I have tried as much as possible to adhere to the
numbering system worked out by Albert Huck and Hans Leitzmann. I have also tried as much as possible to have
each story confined to a single page. Where it is not possible to get all the
information on one page, I have subdivided the stories and added letters to the
section numbers. For example, Luke’s Discourse against the Pharisees is in
Huck’s Section 154, but I have subdivided it into 154A-F. When I can’t get all
the non-sequential parallels, analogs, and doublets on a single page, I have
also subdivided the sections and given them trailing letters. For example,
Luke’s story of Sending out the Seventy is placed in Section 139A. The
additional material is in Section 139B.
Sometimes
this system breaks down, as in the story of Peter’s Denials. The parallels are
not sequential, but making separate sections for each of the non-sequential
parallels would have been tricky, so I put them all in a single section and set
them out in boldface despite the fact that they weren’t truly sequential.
Throughout the synopsis I have used public domain translations of the texts. The main text will come from the WEB Bible, which is available online at Biblegateway.com. Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas come from Mark M. Mattison’s The Gospel of Thomas: A Public Domain Translation. Quotations from the Gospel of Peter come from M.R. James’ The Apocryphal New Testament.
You
will encounter some unfamiliar words in the pages of this synopsis. I have
appended a glossary of those words at the end of the book. One word which ought
to be defined at the outset is “pericope.” It is a technical term used by Bible
scholars which means “Bible story.” Thus, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a
Gospel pericope, as is the story of the baptism of Jesus.
Regrettably,
the text of this book is single-spaced without spaces between the paragraphs. Although
it makes reading somewhat more difficult, doing otherwise would have made the
book a great deal longer and more expensive.
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