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Two-gospel hypothesis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The two-gospel hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Synoptic Problem. The hypothesis, (once
called the Griesbach hypothesis), was introduced in its current form by William Farmer in 1964.[1]
The synoptic problem concerns the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The hypothesis states that Matthew was written first, while
Christianity was still centered in Jerusalem, to calm the hostility between Jews and Christians. After
Matthew, as the church expanded beyond the Holy Land, Luke was written as a gospel to the
Gentiles. But since neither Luke (nor his patron Paul) were eyewitnesses of Jesus, Peter gave public
testimonies that validated Luke’s gospel. These public speeches were transcribed into Mark’s gospel
and distributed immediately thereafter, as recorded by the early church father Irenaeus. Paul then
allowed Luke’s gospel to be published.[2] This hypothesis is the most serious alternative to the
two-source hypothesis.[3] Its main advantages over the two-source hypothesis include the fact that it
relies not just on internal evidence, that it does not require lost sources or other “plugs” (like the Q
document) and that it reconciles the view of the early church with the evidence. Unlike the
two-source hypothesis, the two-gospel hypothesis concludes that the traditional accounts of the
gospels (order and date of publication, as well as authorship) are accurate.[4] A further development
of the Augustinian and Griesbach hypotheses is found in the hypothesis of Eta Linnemann, followed
by F. David Farnell, that the "two Gospels" were required by the "two witnesses" rule of
Deuteronomy.[5]

Contents
1 Overview
2 Internal and external evidence
3 Contrasted with the two-source hypothesis
4 Compared to the Griesbach hypothesis
5 Criticism
6 Variants
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links

Overview
The proposal suggests that Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew, probably in the 40s AD.
At the time, the church had yet to extend outside of Jerusalem. The primary political problem within
the church community was caused by the fact that Jewish authorities were outright hostile to Jesus
and his followers. Matthew wrote his account in order to show that Jesus was actually the
fulfillment of what Jewish scripture had prophesized. It has been long recognized that Matthew is
the most “Jewish” of the gospels. It, for example, heavily references Jewish scripture and Jewish
history.[6]

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When Stephen was martyred, as recorded in

the Book of Acts, the disciples scattered
beyond Jerusalem into Gentile (mostly Greek
but also Syriac) towns. There they began
preaching, and a large number of Pagans in
Antioch quickly became Christians. By the
mid 50s, Paul, who converted and claimed
the title of "Apostle to the Gentiles" began to
realize the need for a gospel to the Gentiles.
This gospel would have to deemphasize the
Mosaic Law and recent Jewish history in
order to appeal to Greeks and Romans. Paul
commissioned his associate, Luke, who used
Matthew, as well as other sources. The first
verses of Luke’s gospel reference the fact
that “many have undertaken to draw up an
account” of the testimony of the actual
eyewitnesses, and, as such, he has “carefully
investigated everything from the beginning”
in order to “write an orderly account”. Once
the gospel had been written, Paul delayed its
publication. He decided that he needed
Peter’s public testimony as to its accuracy,
Almost all of Mark's content is found in Matthew, and since neither Paul nor Luke had known
much of Mark is similarly found in Luke. Additionally, Jesus before his death.[7]
Matthew and Luke have a large amount of material in
common that is not found in Mark. Paul asked Peter, who was the leader of the
Apostles, to testify that Luke's account was
accurate. According to early church sources, Peter gave a series of speeches to senior Roman army
officers. Due to the commonality between Mark and Luke, these speeches would have constituted
Peter’s public “seal of approval” upon Luke’s gospel. These church sources suggest that Peter was
ambivalent when Mark asked him if he could write down the words of the speeches. However,
since the Roman officers who heard the speeches liked them, they asked for copies, and so Mark
made fifty copies of Peter’s speeches. These copies began circulating, and became Mark’s gospel.
Only after the speeches by Peter were made (and Mark’s transcriptions began circulating) did Paul
feel confident enough to publish Luke’s gospel.[8]

The two-gospel hypothesis assumes that Peter made sure that his speeches agreed with both
Matthew and (the still unpublished) Luke. Since Matthew was the primary source for Luke, and
Matthew’s gospel (the only published gospel at the time) would have been well known to Peter, he
mostly would have preached on the contents of Matthew. Knowing Matthew better than Luke,
Peter was more likely to mention details found in Matthew and not Luke than vice versa. This
would explain why there are more details found in Mark and Matthew but not Luke than there are
details found in Mark and Luke but not Matthew. It also explains why Mark is so much shorter than
Matthew and Luke, is more anecdotal and emotional, is less polished, and why only it begins
immediately with Jesus’ public ministry. Peter was giving public speeches as to what he saw, and
never intended his speeches to become a full gospel. This was directly asserted by the early church
historians, and explains why there are so few commentaries on Mark (as opposed to Matthew, Luke
and John) until a relatively late date. It appears to have been considered the least important gospel in
the early church.[9]

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Internal and external evidence

Much of the evidence for the two-gospel hypothesis comes from the gospels themselves ("internal
evidence"), while some of the evidence is found in the testimony of the early church ("external
evidence"). The early church didn't just testify as to who wrote the gospels, in what order, and when
they wrote them, it also testified on the specific circumstances surrounding the creation of each
gospel. For example, early church documents claim that Mark's Gospel was created after Mark
made fifty copies of a series of speeches that Peter had given in Rome. The external evidence
(mainly the testimony of the early church) is the main difference between the two hypotheses. The
two-gospel hypothesis does not dismiss the views of the early church, and makes assumptions based
on both the internal and external evidence. The two-source hypothesis, in contrast, assumes that
evidence still in existence (mostly internal evidence such as sentence structure or length) should be
used, and makes assumptions using mostly that.[10]

Contrasted with the two-source hypothesis

Approximately 25% of Matthew and 25% of Luke are identical, but are not found in Mark. This has
been explained in the two-source hypothesis as coming from the hypothetical Q document, although
by the two-gospel hypothesis, this material was copied by Luke from Matthew, but not testified to
by Mark because Peter had not seen it. The two-source hypothesis also assumes that the
information unique to Matthew (“M”) and Luke (“L”) came from unknown sources. The
two-gospel hypothesis, in contrast, assumes “M” to be mostly Matthew’s testimony and “L” to be
the eyewitness accounts mentioned in the first verses of Luke’s gospel. In addition, it gives a specific
reason for the fact that Mark has more in common with Matthew than it does with Luke.

By the 1960s, scholars considered the two-source

hypothesis to be the unquestioned solution to the synoptic
problem. By the 1990s, however, the consensus had ended,
and some scholars claimed that the two-source hypothesis
had even been disproven. Subsequently, the two-gospel
hypothesis has emerged as the most serious challenger to
the two-source hypothesis.[11]

The two-gospel theory is less of a conjecture than the

two-source hypothesis because, unlike that theory, it
doesn't assume a priori that the accounts of the early
church are unreliable. Since the two-source hypothesis
rejects the evidence of the early church, it relies mostly on
internal evidence (such as the shortness of Mark) and
conjecture (e.g. ‘why would Mark write a shorter version
of a gospel in existence?’)[12] The Griesbach hypothesis suggests that
the Gospel of Matthew was written
Compared to the Griesbach first. The Gospel of Luke was written
using Matthew as a source. Then the
hypothesis Gospel of Mark was written using both
Matthew and Luke.
The Griesbach hypothesis is similar to the two-gospel
hypothesis. However, unlike the two-gospel hypothesis, the

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Griesbach hypothesis is principally a literary hypothesis. What came to be labeled the Griesbach
Hypothesis was already anticipated by the British scholar, Henry Owen (1716–1795), in a piece he
published in 1764 and by Friedrich Andreas Stroth (1750–1785) in an article he published
anonymously in 1781. Johann Jakob Griesbach (January 4, 1745 – March 24, 1812), to whom this
source hypothesis was first accredited, alluded to his conclusion that Matthew wrote the first of the
canonical gospels and that Luke, not Mark, made first use of Matthew in composing the second of
the canonical gospels in an address celebrating the Easter season at the University of Jena in 1783.
Later, for similar Whitsun programs at Jena (1789–1790), Griesbach published a much more
detailed "Demonstration that the Whole Gospel of Mark is Excerpted from the Narratives of
Matthew & Luke."

Griesbach's theory was, therefore, one of direct literary dependence between and among the
gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark, or what German scholars came to call a "utilization
hypothesis." According to Griesbach, the historical order of the gospels was, first, Matthew; second
Luke, making use of Matthew and other non-Matthean tradition; and third, Mark, making use of
both Matthew and Luke. In proposing this hypothesis, Griesbach maintained Matthean priority, as
had Augustine before him, along with every other scholar in the church prior to the late eighteenth
century. Griesbach's main support for his thesis lies in passages where Matthew and Luke agree
over and against Mark (e.g. Matthew 26:68; Luke 22:64; Mark 14:65), the so-called Minor
Agreements.

Criticism
Many generic arguments in favor of Markan Priority and/or Two-source hypothesis also work as
arguments against the two-gospel hypothesis. While it is impossible to list all arguments in favor and
against the theory, some notable arguments are as follows.

If Luke had access to the final version of Matthew (as opposed to both drawing independently
on other sources), why are there so many significant differences between Luke and Matthew
on issues such as Jesus' genealogy, circumstances of birth, and events following resurrection?
While Luke and Matthew do share a lot of text which is not present in Mark, almost all of it is
confined to teachings and parables. Construction of the gospels in accordance with the
two-gospel hypothesis would require Luke to rewrite major parts of Matthew's narrative –
even though Matthew was presumably an eyewitness who lived in Jerusalem and was
surrounded by other eyewitnesses, and Luke was neither.

"The argument from omission": why would Mark and Peter omit such remarkable and
miraculous events as virgin birth of Jesus and particularly his appearance to apostles following
resurrection? Both Matthew and Luke explicitly attest that Jesus appeared to the eleven
disciples, including Peter, after his resurrection, and it seems incredible that Peter would not
testify to that fact in his public speeches. And why is Sermon on the Mount completely
omitted? [13][14]

By design of the two-gospel hypothesis, the Gospel of Matthew had to be written originally in
Hebrew. No such copies of the Gospel of Matthew exist. (The majority view is, in fact, that
Matthew was written in Greek to begin with.[15]) This fact eliminates a major potential
advantage of the theory, because it eliminates the need for a hypothetical extinct source (Q)
but introduces a different hypothetical extinct source (Hebrew Matthew).

Many scholars (and particularly most Jewish scholars) hold that the concept of virgin birth in

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Christianity originated with mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14 into Greek, and therefore that authors
of Matthew and Luke were Gentiles.[16] This can be reconciled with the traditional Biblical
chronology that dates both gospels no earlier than 75 AD and attributes "the Gospel of
Matthew" to an unknown author, but it's in clear contradiction with the position of the
two-gospel hypothesis that Matthew was the Saint Matthew, and, therefore, a Jew.

Variants
A related theory has Luke drawing not directly from Matthew, but from a common source, seen as
a proto-Matthew. This was advanced in the nineteenth century by de Wette and Bleek, and more
recently revived by Powers.[17]

Matthaean priority is also a cornerstone of the Augustinian hypothesis, which, however, has Luke
drawing from Mark rather than vice versa.

See also
Gospel harmony
Synoptic Gospels
Farrer hypothesis
Four-document hypothesis

Notes
1. ^ Beck 12. ^ Black
2. ^ Black 13. ^ "The Priority of Mark"
3. ^ Black (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark-
4. ^ Beck prior.html).
5. ^ Robert L. Thomas Three views on the origins 14. ^ "The Synoptic Problem"
of the Synoptic Gospels 2002 p255, and p322 (http://www.ecwar.org
"Farnell 's third axiom notes, quoting /controlsynopticproblem.pdf).
Linnemann, that the reason for four 15. ^ Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (1959). The
independent Gospels stems from the legal International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
principle of Deuteronomy 19:15b: "[O]n the p. 281.
evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall 16. ^ Asher Norman. Twenty-six reasons why Jews
be confirmed."" don't believe in Jesus. pp. 91–96.
6. ^ Black 17. ^ Powers, B. Ward (2010). The Progressive
7. ^ Black Publication of Matthew: An Explanation of the
8. ^ Beck Writing of the Synoptic Gospels
9. ^ Black (http://www.wardpowers.info/POM.htm).
10. ^ Beck ISBN 0805448489.
11. ^ Beck

References
For Griesbach's life and work, including the full text of the cited work in Latin and in English
translation, cf. Bernard Orchard and Thomas R. W. Longstaff (ed.), J. J. Griesbach: Synoptic and
Text-Critical Studies 1776–1976, Volume 34 in SNTS Monograph Series (Cambridge University
Press, hardback 1978, paperback 2005 ISBN 0-521-02055-7).

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Beck, David (2001). Rethinking the Synoptic Problem. Baker Academic.

ISBN 0-8010-2281-9.
Black, David (2001). Why Four Gospels?. Kregel Publications. ISBN 0-8254-2070-9.

External links
A Web Site for the Two Gospel Hypothesis (http://web.nebrwesleyan.edu/groups/synoptic
/index.html)

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