Book Reflection. Is There a Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels by Eta Linnemann

Is There a Synoptic Problem? : Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels. By Eta Linnemann. Translated by Robert W. Yarbrough. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992, 219 pp.

Back when I began my own journey in wrestling with the Synoptic Problem (SP), I found that Eta Linnemann was frequently applauded by those who rejected the predominant modern SP theory that Mark was written in the AD 60s, followed sometime later by Matthew and Luke.¹ Linnemann’s Is There a Synoptic Problem?² is cited favorably (1) by those who favor her independence theory of Synoptic Gospel development;³ (2) by those who argue for a Matthew-Mark-Luke publication order;⁴ and (3) to a lesser extent by those who argue for a Matthew-Luke-Mark publication order.⁵ Accordingly, I’ve turned to Linnemann from time to time for her perspectives on the philosophical and theological climate that led to the development of the various SP theories that emerged over recent centuries. Overall, I have appreciated her commitment to defending the integrity of the Gospels against critical challenges.

Numerous reviews of Linnemann’s treatise have been published, so my intent below is not to provide a typical review, summarizing the book’s contents and arguments. Instead, I want to reflect on several aspects of Linnemann’s proposition which I continue to find unsatisfactory.

First. Linnemann characterizes the Gospel authors as being ignorant of prior Gospels; whereas, the New Testament portrays a ready flow of people and materials around the empire and the interest of the church in early Christian literature, suggesting that Gospel authors would quickly gain access to prior publications. To support her contention that authors did not have access to prior Gospels, Linnemann leverages her understanding of the accounts from the church fathers, primarily Irenaeus, to determine that Matthew was published “precisely” in AD 63 and Mark and Luke between AD 64 and 66.⁶ She then asserts that

The most ancient Christian accounts [i.e., Irenaeus] leave no room, therefore, for the assumption that the Gospels were copied from each other. The time span between them is much too short to allow this. According to higher criticism at least ten years must be allowed to make the alleged literary dependence possible. That is all the more true in light of other ancient accounts that locate the origin of the Gospels in various locales: Matthew in Judea, Luke in Achaia, Mark in Rome.⁷

Even if the Synoptics were published over such a short span in such diverse locations, which I’ll challenge later, it is hard to believe that it would take much more than a month or two before leaders of the Christian movement would gain physical access to newly published Gospels, given the New Testament’s portrayal of a world in which there was substantial movement of goods and people by means of the Roman road and sea networks. Further, the NT indicates that there were those in the synagogues and early church who were literate, and that as Christian literature (e.g., Paul’s letters) was produced it was valued as authoritative and expected to be shared. Hence, Linnemann is presenting a cultural paradigm which is at odds with what the NT itself portrays.⁸ Accordingly, I must concur with Wenham:

I think it likely that the later evangelists were aware of the earlier gospels, learning the genre from them and following their order often. … I argue that the mobility of the early church was such that a major Gospel would soon have been widely known and would have been of great interest to anyone writing a new one.⁹

At the same time, Wenham does agree with Linnemann “on the almost complete verbal independence of the Synoptics.”¹⁰ Elsewhere, Wenham visualizes the Gospels authors, such as Luke, as primarily leveraging what they themselves had preached, though also supplementing such by prior Gospels.

Thus what Luke wrote is fundamentally what he was accustomed to teach. That Luke actually knew and used Mark seems, however, to be shown by the closeness of order between the two books. It is therefore likely that when he came to write his work he from time to time refreshed his memory of what Mark (and perhaps, as I am inclined to believe, of what Matthew) had written and that he allowed them occasionally to influence what he eventually wrote. But it cannot be too strongly stated that one evangelist’s knowledge of the work of another does not necessarily mean that his work is a modification of another.¹¹

One can perhaps quibble over what rises to the level of “a modification,” particularly given the close alignment of some of the narrative material between Matthew and Mark on the premise of Matthean priority, but I do find Wenham’s view to better align with the NT presentation of the cultural situation than does Linnenann’s paradigm.¹²

Second. Linnemann contends that the church went for thirty years after the resurrection without a published Gospel; whereas, the NT not only portrays the need of the church for early Christian literature but also appears to reference Matthew’s Gospel at an early date. I have written in A Trustworthy Gospel and on this web site of the need of the early church for something like a Gospel, particularly after the church was scattered following Stephen’s martyrdom. Given that the earliest church had the means, motive, and opportunity for producing a Gospel like Matthew within a decade of the resurrection, acceptance of an early publication better fits into this reality than does belief in a multi-decade delay.

Further, there are early intertextual connections within the NT to an early Gospel or more specifically to Matthew. For example, Galatians 3:1 refers to something previously written (proegraphē) which describes the crucifixion, which Paul had presented before the Galatians on his first visit.¹³ 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 makes several connections to Matthew 23.¹⁴ Romans 12:14–20 makes several connections to Matthew 5.¹⁵ 1 Timothy 2 makes connections to Matthew 20:25–28.¹⁶ Mark 1:2 quotes Matthew 11:10, providing an intertextual link to Jesus’ tribute to John the Baptist.¹⁷

Third. Linnamann too quickly smooths over the problems with Irenaeus’ testimony to arrive at dates in the AD 60s.¹⁸ For reference, here is a familiar English translation of Irenaeus’s testimony concerning Matthew:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church.¹⁹

Several challenges with interpreting Irenaeus exist, as Peter and Paul are not known to have been together in Rome prior to the 60s, and by then the Roman church was well established. Further, a Hebrew or Aramaic version of our canonical Matthew has not been found. This leads some skeptics to dismiss the validity of the testimony of the church fathers concerning the origin of the Gospels. In my writings, I have aspired to resolve these difficulties by arguing that Rome should be understood as “Rome, the empire” and that Irenaeus is actually stating that Matthew’s Gospel was not in the language of the Jews.²⁰ This allowed me to assert that Irenaeus is reporting that a Greek Matthew was published coincident with the events in Acts 10–11.

Linnemann instead takes a novel approach for resolving the concerns over the timing of Matthew’s publication by translating the passage as:

[Matthew also] compiled a written Gospel for use among the Jews and in their own language at the same time that Peter and Paul were in Rome, evangelizing and edifying [themelioun] the church. [Italics added.]²¹

She defends this with the following footnote:

Gr. themelioun, literally “to lay a foundation.” In the NT it is used only figuratively. Unless one prefers to find Irenaeus mistaken here, one must assume that he is reflecting NT usage.²²

The translation and footnote are misleading. The Bible uses forms of this verb to describe the foundation of the house on the rock (Matt. 7:25), the Lord laying the foundations of the earth (Heb. 1:10), God’s establishing of believers (1 Pet. 5:10), Christ’s grounding of believers in love (Eph. 3:17), the founding of the earth (Job 38:4 LXX), etc. But no where is it used to mean edifying. Hence, Linnemann has stretched the meaning in order to conclude that Irenaeus is claiming that an Aramaic Matthew was written to the Jews in the AD 60s, while the author was in Judea.

In Summary. Again, I appreciate Linnemann’s motivation, her insight into the historical situation which gave rise to the various theories, her analysis of the Gospel vocabularies, etc. But there are aspects of her proposition which I continue to find unsatisfactory. Certainly, her bold claim that “the lack of evidence for literary dependence between the three Synoptic Gospels is overwhelming and speaks for itself” is overstated.²³ She has indeed decisively demonstrated that the relationship is not a matter of mere copying, redacting, smoothing, or other generic editorial activity, as is claimed by some scholars. However, this is not the same as demonstrating that there is no dependence or utilization of earlier texts.²⁴ That said, I rather hope that there is a moderated approach to the “independence theory” out there which I can someday embrace, as I value the perspectives of those who are advocating for this view—a moderated approach which is more akin to Wenham’s view, which accepts both an early date for Matthew and an awareness of previously published Gospels.

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1. Well known evangelicals who embrace the SP theory that Mark was written in the AD 60s, followed sometime later by Matthew and Luke include Craig Blomberg (with Matthew also in the 60s) and Craig Keener (with Matthew in the 70s). Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2007), 25–26; Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 42–44. ↩︎
2. Eta Linnemann, Is There a Synoptic Problem? : Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels, trans. Robert W. Yarbrough (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992). ↩︎
3. For example, Robert W. Yarbrough, “Eta Linnemann: Friend or Foe of Scholarship?,” in The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship, ed. Robert L. Thomas and F. David Farnell (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1998), 158–84; F. David Farnell, “The Case for the Independence View of Gospel Origins,” in Three Views on the Origins of the Synoptic Gospels, ed. Robert L. Thomas (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2002), 226–309. ↩︎
4. Wenham’s primary work is John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (Sevenoaks, Kent: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991). The review of Linnemann is in John Wenham, “Is There A Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels by Eta Linnemann (review),” Evangelical Quarterly 66, no. 3 (1994): 266–67. ↩︎
5. Farmer’s primary work is William R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1964). The partially favorable review of Linnemann is in William R. Farmer, “Is There a Synoptic Problem: Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospels by Eta Linnemann (review),” Religious Studies Review 20, no. 4 (October 1994): 337; William R. Farmer, The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 7, 7n10. ↩︎
6. Linnemann, Is There a Synoptic Problem?, 190. ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. It is amusing that Linnamann here appeals to the opinion of the higher critics, whom she otherwise criticizes. ↩︎
9. Wenham, “Is There a Synoptic Problem?,” 266–67. ↩︎
10. Ibid. ↩︎
11. Wenham, Redating, 20. ↩︎
12. Linnemann, Is There a Synoptic Problem?, 155. ↩︎
13. “Paul’s Early Reference to a Gospel.” ↩︎
14. “Allusions in 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 to Matthew 23.” ↩︎
15. Daniel B. Moore, A Trustworthy Gospel: Arguments for an Early Date for Matthew’s Gospel (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2024), 136. ↩︎
16. Ibid., 133–34. ↩︎
17. “Book Review. Matthew, Mark, and Luke: A Study in the Order and Interrelation of the Synoptic Gospels by John Chapman.” ↩︎
18. Linnemann, Is There a Synoptic Problem?, 187–90 ↩︎
19. Irenaeus, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature, 1885), 414. ↩︎
20. See A Trustworthy Gospel. For the language issue, also refer to “Response to NOBTS review: The language of Matthew and the use of the dative of respect for contrast.” ↩︎
21. Linnemann, Is There a Synoptic Problem?, 189. ↩︎
22. Ibid., 189n9. ↩︎
23. Ibid., 155. ↩︎
24. Before closing, I do want to acknowledge that those advocating for the independence theory have provided a reasonable solution to a pair of passages which I long felt were the “nail in the coffin” of the independence theory. Both Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 include a “(let the reader understand)” statement in the middle of Jesus’ warning concerning the abomination of desolation. Thomas points out “the widely held opinion [is] that these words were not parentheses added by Matthew and Mark, but were the words of Jesus Himself, referring to the reader of Daniel, not the reader of Matthew and Mark.” Robert L. Thomas, “Introduction: The ‘Jesus Crisis’: What Is It?,” in The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship, ed. F. David Farnell and Robert L. Thomas (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1998), 17. ↩︎

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