How did John influence the Synoptic gospels?
If that sounds similar an odd question to you, then y'all need to know that someone once wrote a PhD on the influence of T Due south Eliot on Shakespeare. The thesis was of form on how our reading of Eliot creates a lens through which we and so read Shakespeare (I am assuming, dear reader, that you lot are aware that Eliot lived some 400 years later than WS…!), so that Shakespeareas we read it is shaped past the assumptions that might have been formed by the influence of Eliot on our own outlook. But some take argued that the Johannine tradition might in fact have pre-dated the writing of the Synoptics, mostly considering of i detail verse.
That verse is sometimes chosen 'the Johannine bolt from the Synoptic blue' (or 'the bolt from the Johannine blue' though I think that poesy gets the metaphor the wrong manner around):
All things take been committed to me past my Father. No ane knows the Son except the Father, and no 1 knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt 11.27)
All things accept been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Luke x.22)
It is immediately apparent why this looks rather Johannine. First, the Father and Son are talked of in accented terms, rather than the more than usual Synoptic was of Jesus talking nigh 'my' Father or 'our' Father; secondly, the mutual cognition of the Father and Son uniquely of each other, which sounds like to 'the Son only does what he see the Father doing' in John five.19; and the sovereignty of both in revelation, which sounds like to John half dozen.44. To illustrate this, I often have read the verse without the reference to a grade, and asked them to identify which affiliate of John this comes from—and they work hard to fit it in John, sometimes identifying chapter and verse with some conviction!
Because of this, some have suggested the beingness of a Johannine textual source from which the Synoptic writers drew in ane way or another. One thousand East Ladd'southwardTheology of the New Testament comments (on p 697) that this poetry offers 'good evidence that the Synoptic Evangelists were familiar with something like the Johannine view of Jesus'. A gimmicky advocate of early composition of at to the lowest degree function of the Johannine text is Paul Anderson of George Play a joke on Seminary, who sees this verse of evidence of 'interfluentiality' betwixt the two traditions. (At that place is quite a good summary of his wider statement here.)
At the Society of Biblical Literature meeting three years ago, Marking Goodacre gave a truly engaging paper exploring this verse and questioning this kind of conclusion. He traced the origins of the phrase itself back to Karl von Hase in his 1876Geschichte Jesu (y'all tin read the English translation of the earlier edition of this online) where he actually described this as a 'shooting star' (Ger:Aerolith) from the Johannine sky. Goodacre as well noted the remarkable verbatim agreement between Matthew and Luke in this and the preceding verse: 54 out of 69 words in Matthew (78% of the pericope) match Luke exactly, and conversely 54 out of 74 words in Luke (74%) match Matthew exactly. This is evidence, Goodacre argued, of one being dependent on the other, rather than each existence depending on a third source (the unknown document chosen 'Q')—or in Goodacre's memorable witticism, the match is 'too good to be Q'.
He then explored how these verses sit inside Matthew's language and theology in the residuum of the gospel. Starting time, the language of 'all things have been given to me' finds a hit parallel at the stop of the gospel in Matt 28.nineteen. Secondly, the format of the maxim is what Goodacre calls a 'repetitive converse logion', where Jesus says one matter and follows it with the negation of the opposite, something we find elsewhere in Matthew:
Anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others appropriately will be chosen least in the kingdom of sky, merely whoever practices and teaches these commands will exist chosen groovy in the kingdom of heaven. (Matt five.19)
For if you forgive others when they sin confronting y'all, your heavenly Father will likewise forgive you. Only if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matt half-dozen.14–fifteen)
Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever y'all loose on earth will be loosed in sky. (Matt 16.18)
Information technology is worth noting that these sayings are unique to Matthew and belong to his distinctive fashion.
Thirdly, the theological perspective fits well with Matthew. The Son of God Christology is found in both Matthew and Marker (Matt three.17 = Mark ane.11, Matt 17.5 = Marker 9.7, Matt 21.37 = Mark 12.6, Matt 27.54 = Mark 15.39) but also distinctively in Matthew at Matt 4.1–11, fourteen.33 and 16.16. Even more hit is the language of God every bit heavenly Father in Matthew; these phrases occur with the following frequencies in Matthew, Mark and Luke respectively:
Heavenly Male parent: vii/0/0
Begetter who is in sky: 13/1/0
Father + my/our/your: 20/one/three
In addition, Matt 12.50 includes 'the will of my male parent in heaven' where Marker 3.35 has 'God'.
All this is beginning to make the and so-called Johannine bolt await rather like a Matthean one afterwards all! The 'accented' use of Father and Son has in fact been fix in the previous verses past the address of God as Father and the clarification of 'my Father' at the outset of this verse. On the basis of this, Goodacre argued that, rather than being evidence of a Johannine tradition within the Synoptics, this verse (and others conveying like ideas) are developed inside John, particularly the 'begetter/son' linguistic communication, the idea of the Begetter 'giving all things' in John 13.three and elsewhere, and the idea of mutual noesis found in John 10.14–15. Goodacre noted that, where there is dependence betwixt the Synoptics, there tends to be a shut parallel of language, but where in that location are connections with John, paraphrase and influence is more common. In other words, this verse is non a Johannine commodities in the Synoptic blueish, merely a Synoptic platform for the Johannine rocket to launch from.
(Goodacre observed that the reason nosotros cannot help seeing Matt 11.27 as Johannine is the same reason why nosotros cannot help but run into these 'time travellers' using mobile phones in 1928 and 1938—even though there were no phone signals or masts then! Once we associate a particular pattern with a sure meaning, it is hard to unlearn the association.)
One of import implication struck me out of Marking Goodacre's newspaper: one time we get past an obsession with textual similarities, it allows united states to think more theologically, and allowing Matt 11.27 to be genuinely Matthean, and typical of his theology, allows us to come across that Matthew'southward theology is actually nearer John'south than we might otherwise suppose.
The question of similarity and difference depends to a great extent on where i sits in relation to study of the gospels. When education John'southward gospel to undergraduates in a ministry context, I felt I had to emphasise the striking differences between John and the Synoptics, since the students were in the habit (as most churchgoers are) of reading harmoniously, that is, filling in whatever is missing in i gospel from things they have read in the others. And so about ordinary readers don't observe that John does not mention Jesus' baptism, merely supply the information in gild to brand sense of John i.32, which makes no sense without it. And, similarly, they supply the terminal supper equally the context for the washing of the disciples' feet in John 13 as the necessary context for John thirteen.26.
Only in the Academy information technology is usually the other way around: the departure between the gospels is so assumed that it is easier to forget the similarities, specially when you consider other documents in the aboriginal world. James Arlandson lists the points of understanding between John and the Synoptics, and the list is both extensive and striking. (It is worth taking time to piece of work through it and let it sink in.) Having studied comparative literature in the ancient world for his doctorate, Arlandson concludes:
For me, the well-nigh surprising feature of this listing is how often the four Gospels share similarities: virtually 149 out of a grand total of 226 items, which makes 66%.
The four Gospels cohere together in a unified storyline and present the same characters in the life of Jesus, though, of course, an author like John omits some and highlights others. But Peter's life, for example, remains the same, in wide outline.
Arlandson is coming from a 'conservative' theological tradition, but that tradition is actually rather proficient at looking at the actual data, and that is what matters here. He does go on (briefly) to address related issues, and notes both the importance of story in the formation of retentiveness, as well equally the importance of eye-witnesses, and the hit divergence between the gospels and the not-canonical cloth which was judged heretical by the church—non least on the grounds of its lack of coherence.
You lot might even come to the determination that the gospels were drawing on a shared recollection of historical events…
(previously published in 2016)
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