New Testament Survey - Questions and Concerns of Literary Criticism: Source Criticism

One prevalent view regarding the formation of the synoptic Gospels is the Mark-Q (Two Source) hypothesis. An alternative is the Griesbach hypothesis held by only a minority of NT scholars.

Questions concerning the formation of the synoptic Gospels (those Gospels that are similar in composition and literary style, i.e. Matthew, Mark; Luke) are ones of dating and usage of source material. Proponents of the Mark-Q hypothesis hold that Mark and Q (from the German quelle, meaning “source”) were written prior to the writings of Matthew and Luke. Q could be seen as a complete document or a collection of writings or even oral tradition of Jesus’ sayings (the Sayings Source or logia). The later gospel writers used Mark as their source material and what is seen as similar material in Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark can be attributed to a source called Q. The differences in Matthew and Luke can therefore be seen as their unique styling. This gives Mark priority of dating over the other gospels and explains the similarities and usages among them.

The following is a graphic of the Mark-Q hypothesis:

Figure 1: Those texts that appear similar between Matthew and Luke and do not appear in Mark could be seen as being drawn from Q. When Matthew and Luke differ and these texts are not found in either sources, then it is the unique styling of the particular evanglist.

Mark-Q Hypothesis

There are other derivations of the M-Q hypothesis, but this is the essential argument.

The alternative to the Two Source hypothesis is called the Griesbach hypothesis or Matthean Priority. This places Matthew, Luke, and Mark in their respective order of writing, with Mark drawing on its predecessors. Mark therefore is a last stage evolution of Matthew’s work, compiling its own references independent of extra biblical sources. Within either hypothesis, there is still a consideration of the use of source material and styling of each author. Each author is seen to have his own focus, audience, and even theological agenda.

The implication of the either view is based theological stances of inspiration. That this, can source materials outside of the NT canon be used and scripture still be inspired, that is God-breathed (or God-birthed)? Since within the gospels themselves, the writers used a variety of sources (chronologies, genealogies, sayings, Greek texts of Hebrew scriptures, extra-canonical literature; etc.) then there is no reason for them not to also use a source of sayings attributed to Jesus.

Matthean priority goes back to statements made by Irenaeus, Origen, and Augustine regarding the origin of the Synoptics. This would side with tradition being the authority over Modern critical studies, therefore a denouncement of Q source. Still others would hold to Markan priority and reject the Q material altogether.

Again, there is a difficult case to be made that the Gospel writers wrote so independently to not use any source, from their own experiences and grammar or otherwise. The more plausible solution is that they did draw their materials from each other and outside of their own corpus of Gospels. To what extent remains unverifiable, but the use of these materials does not negate inspiration. These texts draw from the imaginative expressions of the evangelists and declared by the church to be the holy text of Christian faith and practice. Either case continues in the tradition of the early church and is faithful to these witnesses.

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This work is licensed by Phuc Luu under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 2.0), and is an Open Educational Resource.

Last edited by Phuc Luu on Oct 25, 2006 7:39 pm GMT-5.