jesus man/myth portfolio excercise 3


In this exercise we were asked to write up the synoptic exercise from class, however I was not present in class. Because of this, I have therefore instead found some information appertaining to the subject on the Internet, including a method of looking at the synoptic problem, which I will use as my guide for completing this exercise. This can be located at: [http://www.andrews.edu/~jmcvay/puc_classes/relb328/Synoptic.htm]

Having followed the advice given in the web page I observed the following in response to the questions outlined on the website:

 What problems did you encounter in performing the exercise?
One problem I encountered was that of looking at the English translations of each of the gospels as some of the differences could purely have been variation in the translation from the Greek. For example, in the verse which talks about the arrival of the storm , both Matthew and Luke’s gospels have elements of Mark in them, and in the Greek could have quite feasibly said almost exactly the same thing, but the English translator of Luke chose to word this slightly differently to Matthew and Mark
The other main problem I encountered was that or the ordering in the parable. In Matthew, Jesus questions the disciples’ faith before calming the storm, where in the other two Gospels, this is the other way around, but the wordings are very similar.

 Do the parallels you observed require a literary relationship? (That is, does one or more "borrow" from another?) If not, what would explain the similarities you have observed?
I think that the parallels observed definitely required a literary relationship. Matthew and Luke both have more in common with Mark than they do each other, and where they do interact with one another there are places where Mark is not involved in this, perhaps giving rise to another source we don’t have access to?
It is most likely that Matthew and Luke have “borrowed” predominantly from Mark

 Does your comparison of the accounts bring any fresh understanding of the story? Do the unique contributions of a given author stand out? Are the accounts in any way contradictory?
There are places where the unique contributions of an author stand out for example, in Mark: 4.38 it is noted that Jesus was asleep in the stern, and he is the only person to note this, and as such it stands out. The only real point of contention, as previously mentioned is between Matthew’s gospel and the other two, where Jesus questions the disciples before calming the storm. There are other minor points, especially found in the first two verses of all accounts, where each version has a slightly different account of what happened.

 Can you explain any of the "differences"? That is, do any of the variations reflect the interests evident in the wider context of a given Gospel?
In this particular passage there are no real ‘differences’ which could be used to show any of the agendas of the respective authors. The differences can be most likely put down to oral tradition, and the speculated second source Matthew and Luke had access to.

 Assuming there is a literary relationship, what does your examination of this story suggest it to be? Which of these three Gospels camefirst? Second? Third? Why? Or is the relationship a more complex one?
In my opinion I think that Mark was the first of the three Gospels, as both Matthew and Luke seem to be utilising it as a source for their works. It is possible that Matthew also used Luke as a source or vice versa, however, I think that it is much more likely that there was another
source available to both authors, which would account for the other similarities between the texts.
As a result of this exercise I think that the portrayals of Jesus found in the synoptic Gospels are slightly different, as the authors each have their own agendas and motives for writing their particular version, and due to the oral tradition of that time, the story would have several variations to begin with anyway, as well as other sources to consider, for example, ‘Q’. However, I think that they do complement one another as when viewed as a whole in such a way we can see more information than if we were just looking at one Gospel.