Did the Gospels Copy Each Other?

Summary

The video explains why Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels and what their similarities suggest about how they were written. “Synoptic” means “viewed together”: unlike John, the three Gospels share many stories and often tell them in strikingly similar language.

Why the Synoptics appear related

• Matthew, Mark, and Luke include many of the same episodes, such as Jesus’s temptation, parables, the Transfiguration, the feeding of the five thousand, and the events leading up to his arrest.
• Nearly every story in Mark also appears in Matthew or Luke, while John contains many stories not found in the Synoptics.
• The Synoptics sometimes share extensive word-for-word wording. The video gives examples involving the call of Levi, Jesus’s teaching, John the Baptist, and Judas’s betrayal.
• One cited tabulation says that 77% of Mark’s precise wording appears in Matthew and 61% appears in Luke.
• Since Jesus taught in Aramaic, the video argues that independent authors would be unlikely to produce the same Greek wording by translating his speech separately. It therefore presents documentary dependence—authors using written texts—as the best explanation for the close verbal agreement.

Why scholars generally support Markan priority

Markan priority is the view that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke used it as a source. The video presents three main arguments:

1. The editorial pattern is easier to explain in Matthew and Luke than in Mark. Matthew and Luke add material that Mark lacks, including Jesus’s birth stories and post-resurrection appearances. It is easier to understand why authors using Mark would expand it than why an author using Matthew or Luke would remove those episodes.

2. Mark often acts as the “middle term” in shared stories. In stories found in all three Gospels (the “triple tradition”), Matthew and Luke often agree with Mark, while Matthew and Luke less often agree with each other without also agreeing with Mark. The video says this pattern fits Matthew and Luke each drawing on Mark better than a theory in which Mark repeatedly combined the other two.

3. Matthew and Luke show “editorial fatigue.” According to the video, they sometimes begin by changing a story from Mark but later slip back into Mark’s wording, creating inconsistencies. For example, Luke places the feeding of the five thousand near Bethsaida but later retains Mark’s description of the setting as a deserted place. The video says there are examples of this in Matthew and Luke, but no corresponding examples showing Mark becoming fatigued while adapting Matthew or Luke.

The unresolved “double tradition”

Matthew and Luke share about 220 verses of close agreement that have no parallel in Mark. This material is called the double tradition. The video describes two leading explanations:

• Two-source theory: Matthew and Luke independently used Mark and a lost source called Q (from the German word Quelle, meaning “source”) for much of the material they share outside Mark.
• Farrer hypothesis: Luke used both Mark and Matthew, so a separate lost source is unnecessary.

The video notes that these theories disagree about the double tradition but share two central assumptions: the Synoptic relationship requires a documentary explanation, and Matthew and Luke used Mark.

What this may suggest about the Gospel authors

The video argues that the Synoptic relationship can inform discussions of authorship and theology, though it does not identify the evangelists’ personal details. For instance, if the author of Matthew copied Mark’s story of the disciple Matthew, that may count against the idea that the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel bearing his name. Redaction criticism—the study of how Matthew and Luke changed Mark—can also help scholars explore those authors’ interests and emphases.

Speakers and sources featured

• Narrator/host: The ReligionForBreakfast presenter, whose name is not given in the subtitles.
• Matt from UsefulCharts: Identified as a collaboration partner, though he does not speak in the provided subtitles.
• Mark Goodacre: New Testament scholar cited for the argument about editorial fatigue.
• Austin Farrer: Oxford theologian after whom the Farrer hypothesis is named.
• Christian tradition: Discussed as the source of traditional accounts of who wrote the Gospels.
• New Testament scholarship: Cited broadly for the documentary solution and Markan priority.