The Mysteries of the Synoptic Gospels™

The Crucifixion accounts are literally the “crux” of the Synoptic narratives, and once again we have a fascinating tapestry of similarities and differences. How do Matthew and Luke differ from Mark, and how can we explain the changes they make? How is it that both robbers taunt Jesus in Matthew and Mark, while one of them repents in Luke? Why do Jesus’s last words differ in Luke? How come there is an earthquake and a mini-apocalypse in Matthew? This class looks at the crucifixion narratives in Synopsis, and attempts to account for their origins.

One of the earliest Christian confessions was that Jesus was “raised on the third day.” Yet the Synoptic resurrection accounts tell the story of Jesus’s resurrection in strikingly different ways. Mark ends abruptly and surprisingly with the story of “the empty tomb,” without appending any accounts of appearances. Matthew and Luke supply what is lacking, but in very different ways. Why did the details of such an important story differ depending on which Gospel we read? This class will explore the three Synoptic resurrection stories in detail, speculating on the genesis of all three accounts.

For almost two millennia, the names “Matthew,” “Mark,” and “Luke” have been attached to the Synoptic Gospels. But the Gospels themselves are anonymous, and the texts do not feature any authorial claims. How, then, did the Synoptic Gospels get those names, and is there any chance that those were the names of the authors? This class will look at what can be known about the authors of the Synoptics, and it will explore how they came to be associated with Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Since the Gospels do not have publication dates written on them, scholars have to do some serious detective work to work out when they could have been written. Were they written in the first Christian generation, while Jesus’s first followers were still alive, or do they date from the end of the first century, or the beginning of the second? In this class, we will scour the Gospels for clues about their dates of composition, looking at the evidence that they were written in the shadow of the Jewish war in 66-70.

From the beginning of the Gospel to the end, Mark’s Jesus hides himself. He is enigmatic, mysterious and secretive, speaking in “parables” so that outsiders cannot understand him. He silences demons who know his identity, and he tells his disciples not to tell others who he is. What is the explanation for this secretive behavior? Why does Jesus want to hide his identity? This class attempts to unravel the mystery at the heart of Mark’s Gospel, the question of the “Messianic Secret” that has fascinated scholars for generations.

Matthew's Gospel is the most recognizably Jewish of the Synoptic Gospels – its author is immersed in the Hebrew Bible and there are frequent references to Jewish rituals and traditions. Some scholars see the Gospel as an attempt to “re-Judaize” Mark’s less Jewish Jesus. Yet this Jewish Gospel also frequently seems to be anti-Jewish, railing against the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders as “hypocrites.” How can this Gospel be both Jewish and anti-Jewish? This class looks carefully at the evidence in a bid to explain this “Matthean riddle."

Luke’s Gospel is written with attention to history – there are precise chronological details and the author writes with the kind of literary sophistication that sets him apart from the other Gospel writers. But is this “historical” Gospel actually reporting history? How much did Luke know about the events he narrates? This class explores one of the age-old questions in the study of the New Testament: was Luke a historian or a theologian?

We are so familiar with the fact that there are four Canonical Gospels that it might seem obvious that the first Christians would want to write books like these. But what was the catalyst? Why did the authors write the Synoptic Gospels, and who were they writing for? This class concludes the course by reviewing what we have discovered, and answering one final question about why the Synoptic Gospels were written, and how they changed the course of Christianity.