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Eta Linnemann

Is There a Synoptic Problem?: Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels Paperback – April 1, 1992

by Eta Linnemann (Author)

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Print length

219 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Baker Pub Group
Publication date

April 1, 1992
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches
ISBN-10

0801056799
ISBN-13

978-0801056796
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Baker Pub Group; First Edition (April 1, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 219 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801056799
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801056796
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #871,833 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,239 in New Testament Bible Study (Books)

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Wallace Cason

Biblical conservatives will love this book

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2014

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Ever since seminary in the 60's - a liberal one with professors who studied in Germany - I have doubted what I was being fed. Now comes a work that uncovers just how fake were the arguments that were taught in my seminary. Here is the proof that there was no proof for Mark being the first gospel. Biblical conservatives will love this book, and also the other books by Professor Linnemann. Biblical liberals will hate it because it destroys their pretense that their arguments are scientific. They aren't.

7 people found this helpful

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Chris Sandoval

Different words or the same word with different grammatical endings?

Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2017

I read this book twenty-five years ago, and no longer have it in my possession, so I may be accused of a fading memory. But still . . .

As I recall, Linnemann compared parallel passages between the Synoptics, and argued that the verbal similarities between them were so few and trivial that there is no reason to think one Gospel was copied from another, or that two were copied from a common source. When I checked in my Greek New Testament, however, I found more verbal similarities than she allowed for.

She did not lie, but she did mislead. Let me illustrate her method with a hypothetical example in English. Suppose the article in "The Times" says "The thief shot the proprietor's face as he stole the merchandise," and the parallel article in "The Post" says "The robber shot the face of the proprietor, having stolen the goods." Are "proprietor's" and "proprietor" the same word with different grammatical endings, or are they two distinct words? Are "stole" and "having stolen" two different tenses of the same verb, or are they two distinct words? In each case, as I recall, Linnemann would have argued that we should count two different words rather than the same word with different grammatical endings. Since the Greek language has a ton more grammatical endings than English does, then of course someone using her methodology can reduce parallels between two synoptic gospels considerably and misleadingly.

In conclusion, (1) the significant verbal parallels between the Synoptics demonstrate that somebody copied from somebody else somehow, and (2) the Two-Document hypothesis has a 90% chance of being substantially correct in spite of pesky problems like the Minor Agreements, but (3) if it is false, then the true solution is beyond historical recovery.

Indomitable cynic that I am, I am surprised that scholars spend whole lifetimes dithering over this trivia. Thousands of scholars devote entire careers to unravelling the history of the composition of the Gospels and the Quest of the Historical Jesus (Zealot? Essene? Cynic Sage? Pharisee? Apocalyptic Prophet?), whereas only dozens of scholars dither over the quest of the Historical Socrates or the Historical Apollonius of Tyana. In short, New Testament scholars have reached the point of diminishing returns.

2 people found this helpful

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So, is the synoptic problem all nonsense?

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2013

In this fierce, passionately argued book, Linnemann takes on the entire of modern scholarship to argue that there never was a Synoptic problem.

The Synoptic problem was defined "by Rudolf Bultmann as 'the problem of literary dependence' (p 68). Common was the belief that "material common to the three Gospels was explained as tradition, material unique to one Gospel...was explained as redaction" (p 69).

By dependence scholars imagined someone reading Mark and writing a gospel more or less based on what they found. "Should it turn out that there is no literary dependence among the Synoptic Gospels, then the rug is pulled out from under about 40 percent of New Testament research" (p 69). Actually, I would have guessed an even higher percentage.

Now, it's clear the Gospels share great agreement on the life of Jesus and his death. But is this from an oral tradition based on remembered events or copying from Mark or Q?

There can be no doubt that the idea of literary dependence has prevailed in most of modern biblical scholarship. But what is more perplexing is the extent to which this idea can be justified. Are we relying too much on literary concepts for a society that was not based on literary information?

Matthew has added some 165 details to Mark, and Luke has 98 minor details not in Mark. Yet, strikingly, there is about "eighty percent agreement in recording the words of Jesus" (p 106) and "Matthew, Mark and Luke have in common just 830 words or 61.71 percent of the vocabulary of Mark's Gospel" (p 132), although a great many of those words are words such as Jesus.

Then there is the problem of structure. Linnemann points out that "The greatest problem that can be advanced to dispute a rejection of literary dependence is the unilinear structure that the three Synoptics have in common" (p 175).

Apart from the central facts about the life of Jesus, there are huge holes that are missing from one gospel to another. Mark "has no equivalent to the Sermon on the Mount, Luke lacks the material in Mark 6:45-8:26" (p 175), the structures of the Gospels are not really the same, and the miracles are not all the same either. Some read these differences as conscious changes to advance a varying theology.

Maddeningly, there are no simple answers. What is needed is a thorough investigation into oral tradition and how information was passed from group to group in ancient history. Perhaps there will be some answers found there.

10 people found this helpful

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