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UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
*
Agent: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON
By
ERNEST DE WITT BURTON
and
EDGAR JOHNSON GOODSPEED
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO • ILLINOIS
COPYRIGHT 1920 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED DECEMBER 1920
TENTH IMPRESSION JANUARY 1947
*
COMPOSED AND PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.
For more than a century, since the name "Synoptic Gospels" was first applied to our first three Gospels, because of their observed similarity in content and structure, the task of ascertaining the mutual relations of these three books and their sources has engaged the attention of New Testament scholars. The list of those who have contributed to the solution of the problem is a long one including, among others, Griesbach, Eichhorn, Schleiermacher, Gieseler, Wilke, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Weisse, Holtzmann, Holsten, Bleek, Weiss, Meyer, Wendt, Wellhausen, Jülicher, Wernle, Spitta, and Harnack in Germany, and among English writers, Owen, Marsh, Westcott, Bruce, Woods, Badham, Abbott, Salmon, Wright, Hawkins, Stanton, Sanday, and Streeter. One result of the labors of these men is that the question is no longer one which concerns the technical scholar only but demands the consideration of all who aspire to any measure of independence in their judgment of the value of the Gospels. Value is not indeed determined by origin, but the two matters are so intimately related that one cannot determine the former without an intelligent judgment on the latter. For the reaching of such a judgment an indispensable instrument is an arrangement of the Gospels in parallelism which makes possible an accurate comparison of their text, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, word by word.
Convinced by experience that none of the works prepared and published for this purpose fully met the necessities of the case, we began some years ago the preparation of a work which should more perfectly serve the needs of the student. The main lines for such a work were laid down in an essay published in 1904.1 Having in mind the widening interest in the subject on the part of students who do not read Greek, and discovering that the main facts can be exhibited even in the English text, we recently published with Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels for Historical and Critical Study. Except for its use of the Greek text in place of the English, the present work is in method and execution substantially identical with that.
As the purpose of this book is not harmonization or the discovery from the narratives of a historical order of events, but the exhibit of the facts respecting the parallelism of the Gospels as they stand, we have in general retained each of the three Gospels in its own order. The only exceptions to this statement are that the material of Matt. chaps. 8-11, in which Matthew has followed an order of his own, we have arranged in the order of the other evangelists, and that Luke 8:19-21, which though closely parallel to Mark 3:13-35 is placed by Luke after the Parables by the Sea instead of before them as in Mark, we have placed in Mark's position.
We have found the intricate documentary relationships of the Synoptic Gospels greatly clarified by making a sharp distinction between (1) parallel sections, and (2) parallel material in non-parallel sections.2 Parallel sections are sections which by position and content or by content only are shown to be as sections basally identical—narratives of the same event, or discourses dealing with the same subject in closely parallel language. They may differ greatly in extent by reason of one evangelist's including material which another omits. Parallel passages in non-parallel sections are passages which, though standing in sections not basally identical, closely resemble each other in thought or language. This Harmony places in parallelism not only the whole of the two or more parallel sections but also all parallel material in non-parallel sections. The latter is printed in smaller type and sometimes for practical convenience at the bottom of the page.
The book is therefore not constructed in the interest of any theory. Yet by our study of the facts, which has extended now through many years, we have come to hold certain definite opinions with regard to the relations of the Synoptic Gospels to one another and their literary sources, and we judge it not unprofitable to state briefly the theory which the facts seem to us to demand—a theory which we are more and more convinced furnishes the clue to the complicated problem.
1. Matthew and Luke also possessed in common a document containing substantially the non-Markan material now found in Luke 3:1—9:50, viz., Luke 3:7-18, 23-38; 4:2-30; 5:1-11; 6:20—8:3. For convenience, it may be called G.
2. Matthew and Luke possessed a third document consisting substantially of the non-Markan material now found in Luke 9:51—19:28, viz., Luke 9:51—18:14 and 19:1-28, from which Matthew drew about one-half; or this portion of Luke is itself composite, consisting of two documents, one of which Matthew possessed, but both of which were in the hands of Luke, probably already combined into one. The portion which was used by Luke only, and perhaps not in the hands of Matthew, may be called Pl; the remainder Pm; or the whole document P.
3. Matthew also possessed a document not in the hands of Luke. It included about one hundred and fifty verses of sayings of Jesus, now scattered through chapters 5-25 of Matthew.
4. Besides these major sources, there were, undoubtedly, several other sources of Matthew and Luke, oral or written, each having his own; thus, e.g., Luke had his infancy narrative and a special narrative of the passion and resurrection story; Matthew had his infancy story and a source or sources of rather late origin and pertaining to the public ministry and to the passion history.
The text of the Gospels employed in this book is that of Westcott and Hort, the critical excellence of which is now, thirty-nine years after its publication, more firmly established than ever, and is nowhere more significant than in the comparison of the Gospels. The use of this text with its marginal readings has made it possible for us to limit our additions to the latter for the most part to those variant readings which illustrate the effect of harmonistic corruption bearing directly on the synoptic problem.
Permission of the publishers, MacMillan and Company, Ltd., London, to make use of this text is herewith gratefully acknowledged.
To President Judson and the University of Chicago we desire to express our deep appreciation of their co-operation in the publication of this volume. Without the subsidy which the University, on the recommendation of the President, granted with no expectation of reimbursement, our work must still have remained in manuscript. Our hearty thanks are due to Miss Fridelle Newberger, Mrs. Mabel C. Lee, Mr. William H. Herdman, Mrs. Elizabeth Mader, and Mrs. Jessie Dunten Johnson, who with an interest, skill, and cheerfulness unequaled in our experience, have co-operated with us to make the book typographically correct.
ERNEST DEWITT BURTON
EDGAR JOHNSON GOODSPEED UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO August 1, 1920
1See Burton, Some Principles of Literary Criticism and Their Application to the Synoptic Problem, Chicago, 1904; cf. also Burton, "Some Phases of the Synoptic Problem" in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. XXXI, Part II, 1912.
2Burton, Principles of Literary Criticism, pp. 54 f. 1. Our Second Gospel, or a document in large part identical with it, was employed as a source by both our First and Third Gospels.
