Lesson #1

The Synoptic Gospels

As we begin our study of the Gospel according to
Mark, we need to place Mark within its proper
literary context as a gospel.

A gospel as a unique literary genre, an account of
the good news (Greek = euangelion; eu = good,
angelion = message) of the coming kingdom of God
and the redemption of humanity through the life,
death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.









A gospel is not a biography of a person, although it
does contain biographical information; it is not an
historical account of a person, although it is rooted in
historical time; it is not a fictional account of a
person, although it does include miracles, wonders
and a large dose of the supernatural. Rather . . .

a gospel reflects the understanding of who Jesus
Christ is and what he did, in light of a living faith
tradition, guided by the Holy Spirit, 30-60 years after
the events it portrays.











For the first 30+ years of the Church the gospel
spread throughout the Roman Empire by the oral
teaching and preaching of the Apostles and others.
Only in the mid-60s or so was the gospel message
written down. Many written gospel accounts
emerged during the first three centuries of the
Christian era, but common usage generally applies
the term to our four canonical gospels: Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. In this lesson we will explore
how the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and
Luke) came to be written, and we will place Mark
within the synoptic tradition.










Christianity is arguably the
single most important force in
shaping the past 2,000 years
of western civilization, and
one may reasonably argue
that Jesus of Nazareth is the
single most influential person
who ever lived.

Yet, what do we really know
about the historical Jesus?


















Desis Mosaic, depicting Christ Pantrocrator (c.1261),
South Gallery, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

Photography by Ana Maria Vargas
There is not a single piece of
documentary evidence from the
time of Jesus (4/6 B.C. A.D. 32)
to suggest that he ever existed.

Not a birth certificate.
Not a death certificate.
Not a letter.
Not a property record.
Not a record of his trial.
Not a single document with his name
on it.

Nothing.
























Apart from the New
Testamentwritten decades
after Jesus life on this
earththere are only a few
references to him.
















Flavius Josephus, c. A.D. 95
Jewish Antiquities (18.3.3)

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one
ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought
surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the
truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.
He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused
by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned
him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to
love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third
day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of
God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things
about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him,
has still to this day not disappeared.

















Flavius Josephus, c. A.D. 95
Jewish Antiquities (18.3.3)

Josephus mentions Jesus again in passing (20.9.1)
when he notes that the High Priest Ananias
summoned the Sanhedrin, the Jewish governing
council . . .

and brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called
Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he
had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law,
he delivered them to be stoned . . . [Acts 12 chronicles the result
of this incident].

















Gaius Cornelius Tacitus
Annals (XXV.44.2-8)

A longer account shows up in Tacitus Annals (c. A.D.
116). He recounts the great fire in Rome under Nero
(XXV.44.2-8):

Nero fastened the guilt and afflicted the most exquisite tortures
on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the
populace. Christus, from whom their name had its origin,
suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the
hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a deadly
superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not
only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but also in the city,
where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the
world meet and become popular.

















Pliny the Younger
Letters (10.96)

One of the earliest non-biblical reports about the
Christians comes from Pliny the Younger, governor of
Bithynia (c. 112 A.D.) He isnt quite sure how to deal
with the Christians, so he writes to the emperor
Trajan for advice (Letters 10.96). Pliny had
interrogated a few Christians, and he passes on to
Trajan the information he received:


















Pliny the Younger, cont.
Letters (10.96)

They maintained, moreover, that the amount of their fault or
error had been this, that it was their habit on a fixed day to
assemble before daylight and recite by turns a form of words to
Christ as to a god; and that they bound themselves with an
oath, not for any crime, but not to commit theft or robbery or
adultery, not to break their word, and not to deny a deposit
when demanded. After this was done, it was their custom to
depart, and to meet again to take food, but ordinary, harmless
food . . .. I discovered nothing else than a perverse and
extravagant superstition.


















Lucian of Samosata
Passing of Peregrinus (11-13)

A final account of the Christian movement before the end of
the second century comes from the satirist Lucian of Samosata
(A.D. 120-180). In his Passing of Peregrinus he slams
Peregrinusthe very model of the conman. Among those
duped by Peregrinus was a group of Christians (Peregrinus 11-
13):

It was then he learned the wondrous lore of the Christians by
associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine. Andhow else
could it bein a trice he made them all look like children; for he was
prophet, cult leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by
himself. He interpreted and explained some of their books, and even
composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a
lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be
sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine
because he introduced this new cult into the world.



Among Jewish writings, the
Talmud contains only a few
references to Jesus (Babylonian
Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a, b; 103a;
106b; 107b), though later
censors may have removed
others. The ones that do remain
are very brief and often veiled.

If we did not know of Jesus from
the New Testament, we would
probably not recognize the
allusions to him in the Talmud.














During the first century after Jesus
death, the world took little notice
of what it considered to be a minor
Jewish sect. For the most part,
Jewish and Hellenistic writers
completely ignored both Jesus and
Christianity.





















After Jesus resurrection he
said to his Apostles:

All power in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Go,
therefore, and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you.
Matthew 28: 18-20

And that is precisely what
they did.















1. For three years (A.D. 29-32) Jesus went around all of
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the
gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease and
illness among the people (Luke 4: 23).
2. During his 3-year public ministry Jesus gathered many
followers, twelve of whom became his inner circle,
his Apostles. They lived with him, traveled with him,
studied with him: they were eyewitnesses to his
public ministry and to his death, burial and
resurrection.
3. After his resurrection, Jesus commissioned his inner
circle to go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe
all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28: 19-20).





3. His Apostles did exactly that, becoming his witnesses
in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth [i.e., throughout the Roman
Empire+ (Acts 1: 8).
4. Jesus Apostlesand other followerstraveled
throughout the Roman Empire telling stories about
him: they repeated his teaching; they told about his
encounters with the religious authorities; and they
told about the miracles God performed through him.
5. Over time, this oral teaching and preaching took on a
fixed form and shape through repetition: expository
teaching (e.g., Sermon on the Mount), parables (e.g.,
the Prodigal Son); dialectic (argumentation); healing
stories; etc.

















Between A.D. 32 and the
mid 60s, teaching and
preaching about Jesus
was primarily oral, with
occasional letters, such as
those written by Paul.
Faith communities
formed throughout the
Roman Empire based on
such teaching and
preaching.








Jerusalem





















Virtually everyone in the
early Christian
communities believed
that Jesus was crucified,
buried and raised, and
that he would return
again, ushering in the
Kingdom of God.

And they believed this
would happen in their
lifetime.













By the mid-60s the
eyewitness generation
was drawing to a close
either through natural
death or persecution.
Jesus had not yet
returned, so it became
imperative that the oral
teaching and preaching
about Jesus be written
down, lest it be distorted
or lost.
Thus, the written Gospels begin to
emerge in the mid to late 60s.


























There were many gospels
written during the 1
st
and 2
nd

centuries A.D., but the gospels
we shall study are the
canonical gospels: Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John.

These are the gospels the early
church believed were written
by the Apostles (Matthew and
John) or someone closely
associated with the Apostles
(Mark and Luke)during the
first generation of the Church.
The Canonical Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke & John














Matthew, a tax collector, left his work to follow Jesus (Matthew
9: 9-13). One of the twelve apostles, he was a Jewprobably a
Leviteand he wrote for a Jewish audience.

John Mark, a young man, was not an apostle, but he was on the
fringes of the group that followed Jesus. He is first mentioned
in Acts 12: 12When this dawned on him *Peter+, he went to
the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where
many people had gathered and were praying. Mark was a
nephew of Barnabas (Colossians 4: 10) and the spiritual son of
Peter (1 Peter 5:13).
The Canonical Gospels, cont.
Matthew, Mark, Luke & John














Luke was not an apostlenor was he a follower of Jesus during
his three-year public ministry. Rather, Luke, the beloved
physician was a Gentile, a close friend and traveling
companion of Paul during A.D. 50-68. Luke wrote both the
Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.

John was an apostle, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the
brother of James and one of Jesus cousins. Of all the apostles,
John was the most intimate with Jesus. He is the beloved
disciple who rests his head on Jesus shoulder at the last
supper and the one to whom Jesus entrusts the care of his
mother, Mary, as he is dying on the cross. Traditionally, John is
the author of the Gospel according to John; 1, 2 & 3 John and
Revelation.













Matthew, Mark and Luke are
called the synoptic Gospels:

Syn = together (as in synomyn)
Optic = seen

Matthew, Mark and Luke all draw
from the same oral (and perhaps)
written sources.

John is very different from the
synoptic gospels, drawing on an
entirely different set of traditions.
















The Synoptic Gospels
Matthew, Mark & Luke
New Testament Manuscripts














The New Testament was written entirely in koine Greek, that is,
the common Greek understood by ordinary people living in
Palestine at the time of Jesus. They understood Greek because
Alexander the Great had conquered the region in 331 B.C.,
establishing a long period of Greek rule that lasted until the
Roman general, Pompey, conquered the area in 63 B.C. A Jew
living in Palestine at the time of Jesus would have understood
Greek, spoken Aramaic as his native language, and been able to
read Hebrew. Most would also have had a working knowledge
of Latin, since they were living under Roman rule.

Although the events in the New Testament happen in the first
century A.D., the manuscripts that record those events date
from much later. Manuscripts of the New Testament are
divided into four types: papyri, uncials, minuscules, and
lectionaries.















Example of a Papyrus Manuscript
This is the oldest existing manuscript of the new Testament,
a fragment of the Gospel according to John, A.D. 125 (John 18: 31-34; 37-38).
John Rylands Library, Manchester, England.














Example of an Uncial Manuscript
Codex Sinaiticus, perhaps the most important of the New Testament
manuscripts. Dating from the 4
th
century, it contains part of the Old Testament
and all of the New Testament. British Library, London.














Example of a Miniscule Manuscript
This is a parchment manuscript from the 10
th
century containing the Acts of the
Apostles, and the general and Pauline letters (Philemon 10-25 is shown above).
Mt. Athos, Greece.














Example of a Lectionary
This is a parchment codex containing a gospel lectionary dated A.D. 991. It is
carefully written with elaborate decorative letters in yellow, blue, green and
scarlet. The text is John 19: 10-16 and Matthew 27: 3-5. Vatican Library.













So, how do you know
that the Gospel
according to Mark that
you have in your
Catholic Study Bible is
what Mark actually
wrote, given that the
earliest manuscripts of
Mark are 300-400 years
older than the events
they portray?
















That is the job of textual criticism:
A textual critic reconstructs
ancient texts based upon the
manuscripts that do exist.

Presently there are:
Over 5,800 complete or fragmented
Greek New Testament manuscripts,
Over 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and
Over 9,300 manuscripts in other
languages.

These manuscripts date from A.D.
125 to the beginning of printing, c.
1450. The vast majority date after
the 10
th
century A.D.















Textual critics are the
unsung heroes of
biblical scholarship!
Textual criticism requires a
profound knowledge of
ancient languages, history,
literature and compositional
technique, as well as
enormously time-
consuming, meticulous and
detailed work. It is both a
highly developed science
and an art.
















Kurt Aland, et al., editors. The Greek New Testament, 4
th
edition. London:
United Bible Societies, 2001.













As we begin our study of the
Gospel according to Mark, it is
important to remember that a
gospel is not a biography of a
person, although it does contain
biographical information; it is not
an historical account of a person,
although it is rooted in historical
time; it is not a fictional account of
a person, although it does include
miracles, wonders and a large
dose of the supernatural. Rather .
. .
















. . . a gospel reflects the
understanding of who
Jesus Christ is and what
he did, in light of a living
faith tradition, guided by
the Holy Spirit, 30-60
years after the events it
portrays.




1. How does a gospel differ from other genres of
literature?
2. If the four canonical gospels emerge from 30-60 years
of oral tradition, would the stories they tell have
evolved with the telling? If so, how? If not, why?
3. Although Jesus lived in a remote corner of the Roman
Empire, wrote nothing and never traveled more than
100 miles from home, he and his message became a
global enterprise with 2 billion followers today. How
do you account for that?
4. Why are Matthew, Mark, Luke & John in the New
Testament, while other gospels, such as the Gospel
of Thomas, are not in the canon of Scripture?
5. How do you know that the Gospel you are reading is
what its author or authors actually wrote?






Copyright 2014 by William C. Creasy
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