Post 8: Intro to New Testament

Something that I found interesting is the Synoptic problem and the debate over whether Matthew, Luke, or John came first and which books influenced the others. Before reading this article I had assumed that all of the gospels were written around the same time. I was also very surprised by how similar some of the gospels are to each other. I knew that  the gospels tell many of the same stories, but I hadn’t realized that some of the material is exactly the same. I found it especially interesting that 80% of Mark’s 661 verses are reproduced in Matthew and 65% in Luke. I thought that the theory of a proto gospel to explain the similarities between the gospels to be very interesting. This theory makes a lot of sense to me but I don’t think the evidence presented in the reading was enough to be convincing. Another new insight I gained was the possible existence of Q, a hypothetical source to explain the similarities between Matthew and Luke but not Mark. I thought it was especially interesting that there are common themes and tones between the passages attributed to Q. To me, the Q theory seems like a logical way to explain the agreements between Matthew and Luke but it also raises questions about when the source was written and who it was written by.