Synoptic Gospels - Life, Hope & Truth Synoptic Gospels by Richard Thompson What are the synoptic Gospels? Of what value are they in the account of the life of Jesus Christ? How do they help us know and believe our Savior? Students of the Bible are well aware that there are four Gospels. Those four Gospels — Matthew , Mark , Luke and John —each provide different information about the life of Jesus Christ. Interestingly, three of the accounts are similar in their presentation; and one, the Gospel of John, is quite different from the other three. Do the four Gospels contradict one another in their accounts of Jesus’ life? After all, four men wrote about Jesus , His teachings, His actions and His life on earth. It is important to know not only if they are accurate, but if they provide any help for human beings in the 21st century. What are the synoptic Gospels? The word synoptic is defined as “taking a common view: used chiefly in reference to the first three Gospels” (Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, 1991). Merrill C.

Tenney wrote the following regarding the synoptic Gospels: “Between the first three Gospels, however, there is a closer interrelation in content and manner of expression. They have consequently been called the Synoptic Gospels, from the Greek, syn, together, and optanomai, to see, since they take a common view of the life of Christ” (New Testament Survey, 1961, p. 133). The three Gospels that “take a common view” of Christ’s life are Matthew, Mark and Luke. Each writer affords us a special look into the life and teachings of Christ in a different way. One may provide one detail, and another may provide a detail that adds to the account so that the Bible student is able to receive additional insights. These insights give a more complete picture of what Christ was teaching or give details of an event that help us have greater understanding of the heart and mind of Christ. The synoptic Gospels do not contradict one another, but all three together provide a more complete account of Jesus’ life. The more information a Bible student is provided about Jesus, the more one has to understand and incorporate into one’s life.

Additional information regarding the synoptic Gospels According to The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, “There is overlapping between the first three and the fourth gospels, especially in the passion story, but only about nine per cent of the material in the Synoptics coincides with material in the fourth. The coincidence of material as among the Synoptics is much higher. Approximately ninety-one per cent of Mark is paralleled in one of the other two gospels or in both. The same thing can be said of about fifty per cent of Matthew and about forty-one per cent of Luke” (1962, article “Synoptic Problem,” p. 492). The truth of God’s inspired Word Although three different men wrote the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and there are certain differences in what they wrote, there is a very important underlying law that governs the Bible . It is the most special Book ever written, and it is essential that every serious Bible student believe in how the Bible was written. There are no “conflicts” among the accounts in the synoptic Gospels and the book of John because God inspired them all. All apparent conflicts can be explained when one carefully considers the content and purpose of each writer.

We read in Paul’s second letter to Timothy: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, New Revised Standard Version). With that statement, the apostle Paul says that all Scripture in the Bible—the synoptic Gospels included—is needed for the spiritual growth and fulfillment of life’s purpose of anyone who “belongs to God.” Therefore, for about 2,000 years the synoptic Gospels have played a very important role in adding to the understanding of Jesus Christ and the part He should play in the lives of human beings. The life of Jesus Christ and the words inspired by God to Matthew, Mark and Luke provide humans in the 21st century with eternal words from the Creator and Ruler of the universe. The part that Jesus should have in the lives of all human beings cannot be overstated. The synoptic Gospels provide instruction, inspiration, encouragement and admonition regarding the most important life to ever be flesh and blood—Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

According to Scripture, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, NRSV). The most important point about the synoptic Gospels The most important point to be made regarding the synoptic Gospels or any other book of the Bible is this: God , through His Holy Spirit, inspired the Bible to be written through human instruments. The Bible is God’s instruction book to humanity in answering why human beings exist and giving us hope for the future. It provides us with what only God can do for us and what we have as a personal responsibility to do with His help through the Holy Spirit . The synoptic Gospels provide humanity with a view of our Creator and Savior Jesus Christ. It is through Him that we have access to God the Father and the path to fulfilling our purpose in life. The synoptic Gospels are three books that provide valuable lessons and guides for us in our daily lives and in the way that leads to eternal life in God’s family. We encourage you to read and study them carefully and regularly.

For more study on this topic, see the article “ Gospels ” and the individual articles about Matthew , Mark and Luke . What are the Synoptic Gospels? What are the Synoptic Gospels? Subscribe to our Question of the Week : Question: "What are the Synoptic Gospels?" Answer: The Synoptic Gospels are the first three books of the New Testament , Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three books plus John are called the “Gospels” because they chronicle the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection—the basis of our salvation. The Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew the apostle, one of the twelve commissioned by Jesus. The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark, a close associate of the apostle Peter. The Gospel of Luke was written by Luke the physician, a friend and traveling companion of the apostle Paul. The first three Gospels are called “synoptic” because they “see together with a common view” (the word synoptic literally means “together sight”). Matthew, Mark, and Luke cover many of the same events in Jesus’ life—most of them from Jesus’ ministry in Galilee—in much the same order.

Nearly 90 percent of Mark’s content is found in Matthew, and about 50 percent of Mark appears in Luke. All of the parables of Christ are found in the Synoptics (the Gospel of John contains no parables). There are differences, too. Matthew and Luke are both considerably longer than Mark. Matthew was written for a Jewish audience, Mark for a Roman audience, and Luke for a broader Gentile audience. Matthew quotes extensively from the Old Testament, and his oft use (32 times) of the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” is unique—it’s not found anywhere else in the Bible. Luke places a definite emphasis on Jesus’ acts of compassion toward Gentiles and Samaritans. Much of Luke 10—20 is unique to that Gospel. The difficulty in explaining the similarities and differences among the Synoptic Gospels is referred to as the Synoptic Problem in the world of biblical scholarship. In the final analysis, the Synoptic “Problem” is not much of a problem at all—God inspired three Gospel writers to record the events surrounding the same Person during the same part of His life in the same locations, yet with slightly different emphases aimed at different readers. Synoptic Gospels [ ?

]Subscribe To This Site Who wrote the Synoptic Gospels? When I lecture on the synoptic gospels (synoptic means "seeing together") in my Who Wrote the Bible?, class at Columbus State University students frequently ask: Why did the earliest canonical written gospel not appear until the late 60s CE? Which gospel was written first and why? Why is Matthew's Gospel the first gospel in the New Testament even though it was probably not written first? Did Matthew, John Mark, and Dr. Luke write the synoptic gospels or are they pseudopigraphal? And most importantly... why is there such remarkable literary parallelism between the synoptic gospels? On February 27, 1933 the Reichstag (German Parliament) in Berlin was set on fire. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, looking around for a suitable “scapegoat”, blamed the Communists. Many of them were executed for it, even though they probably did not do it and everybody knew it. In the winter of 64 CE a similar thing happened in Rome.

A great fire devastated two thirds of the city and the mad emperor, Nero, who himself probably started the fire, found his scapegoat in the new sect of “Christians.” In the horror that followed, which even turned the stomachs of the Roman Senator Tacitus, hundreds of Christians were brutally slaughtered — including Peter and probably Paul. Left: The first page of Mark in Minuscule 544, a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, c. 337. It was shortly after this that a papyrus roll bearing the title: arche tou euayyeliou Iesou Christou (“The Gospel of Jesus Christ”) appeared... This is the book we know as the earliest written Gospel... It is what we call “The Gospel According to Mark” and it begins the synoptic gospels tradition. Why was a gospel not written until 66 CE? In graduate school my New Testament literature professor, Dr. Ron Cottle, emphasized repeatedly that “life precedes literature." He urged us to study carefully the "soil" of the first century context of the primitive church in the Ancient Near East out of which the synoptic gospels and the other books of the New Testament grew.

In my class I show students the following chart of the first century CE to demonstrate this principle. The first thirty years I call the period of Inception. This is the time of the "historical Jesus", his life, death, and resurrection (0-30 CE). The period of Expansion (30-60 CE) sees the Jesus movement grow from a small sect of Judaism in Jerusalem to a growing international religion spread throughout the Mediterranean region and increasingly centered in the imperial capital of Rome. The method of gospel transmission is oral. Scholars call this "living story of Jesus" as the Kerygma (from the Greek verb kerusso, meaning to proclaim in the manner of a herald). The term Kerygma means the consequence or outflow of what is preached... ...and according to Paul it is the foolishness of the kerygma that saves (1 Cor. 1:21)... ...and it was during this period that James and Paul write the first books of the New Testament. Students are often surprised to learn that all of Paul's letters predate the synoptic gospels.

It is during the period of Consolidation (60-100 CE) that most of the books of the New Testament, including the synoptic gospels, are written. Why was a gospel not written sooner? I suggest five reasons: * The early disciples expected Jesus to return immediately. * The main facts of Christ’s life were common knowledge among the people of Palestine. * The eye-witnesses were dying. * There were many different competing versions of the story of Jesus. * Believers were suffering for Christ under Roman persecution and needed a record of Jesus’s faithfulness in suffering for them to give them courage and strength. What is the "Synoptic Problem"? Look carefully at the parallel passages from Matthew and Luke. Identical wording is rendered in red. This illustrates the critical problem of the remarkable literary parallelism between the synoptic gospels. The task of the “synoptic problem” is to discover the very early sources on the life and teaching of Jesus that were available to the synoptic writers. When you place the contents of the Matthew, Mark, and Luke side by side and you soon become aware of the “Synoptic Problem.” We can easily explain parallel incidents, but the actual words are also parallel...

and not just very important words as would be the case if you read the same story in three different newspapers. The “Synoptic Problem” is this: The synoptic gospels, though independently written, must have drawn much of its material from a source or sources also available to one or both of the other two. The above chart shows the literary relationship between the synoptic gospels. 76% of Mark is reproduced almost word-for-word in both Matthew and Luke. An additional 18% of Mark is reproduced in Matthew but not in Luke, and an further 3% of Mark is in Luke but not in Matthew. This means that 97% of Mark is reproduced in Matthew and/or Luke. Only 3% of Mark's material is unique to Mark and not found in Matthew or Luke. Matthew contains 606 of Mark’s 661 verses. Luke contains 320 of Mark’s 661 verses. Of the 55 verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce, Luke reproduces 31; therefore there are only 24 verses in all of Mark not reproduced somewhere in Matthew or Luke.

The chart also shows that 23% of Luke is word-for-word identical to 25% of Matthew, but this is material unique to these gospels and not found in Mark. This suggests another literary source in independent of Mark used by Matthew and Luke in the evolution of the synoptic gospels tradition. Scholars have made various attempts to solve the synoptic problem... Oral tradition theory According to this theory, behind the synoptic gospels lies a common oral story of Jesus, which all three evangelists knew. This solution does not explain the minute resemblances in wording among the synoptic gospels. So it must be a “literary” problem. Two-Source Hypothesis (2SH) Originally conceived in Germany by Christian H. Weisse in 1838, the 2SH culminated in Burnett Hillman Streeter’s (1874-1937), The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan, 1924). Today the 2SH commands the support of most biblical scholars from all denominations. The first principle of the 2SH is the priotity of Mark. Mark is earliest written formal account of Christ’s life.

Luke and Matthew use Mark as one of their main sources. Scholars offer three proofs: * Common content: 97% of Mark is included in Matthew and Luke. * Common wording * Common order: Matthew and Luke almost always follow Mark’s order of events, and when one departs from it, the other always follows it. The cumulative force of these facts compels us to conclude that the earliest written Gospel is Mark. The second principle of 2SH is that Matthew and Luke both used a second written source. Scholars call it “Q” (from the German Quelle, meaning "source"). This explains the words (and verses) in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark. Conclusion: Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke, both of whom also independently used a now lost source called Q. 2HS is the generally accepted theory of the evolution of the synoptic gospels. Click here to learn more about the lost source Q. Four Source Hypothesis (4HS) 20% of Matthew's gospel is unique to Matthew and 35% of Luke's gospel is unique to Luke.

An expanded version of Streeter's hypotheses postulated Matthew’s and Luke’s own special sources as distinct, written sources (designated by scholars M and L). Some critics have theorized that Q and L constituted a "Proto-Luke", perhaps dated as early as Mark's gospel, before being incorporated into the final version Luke at a later date. The 4SH proposes at least four principle literary sources behind the synoptic gospels: Mark, Q, M, and L. Who wrote the synoptic gospels? None of the synoptic gospels name their author or authors. In each case authorial attribution dates from the second century CE. The Gospel According to St. Mark Left: Fra Angelico's Head of St. Mark, c. 1437-46 Papias, Bishop of Hieropolis, Asia Minor (c. 112-155 CE), gives us the author’s name, though it is not attached to the gospel itself around 150 CE): “Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that he remembered of the things said and done by the Lord, but not, however, in order.

For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow Him, but afterward, as I said, Peter, who adapted his teachings to the needs (of the hearers), but not as though he were drawing up a connected account of the Lord’s oracles. So then Mark made no mistake in thus recording of the Lord’s oracles. So then Mark made no mistake in thus recording some things just as he remembered them, for he made it his one care to omit nothing that he had heard and to make no false statement therein.” Other early statements relating to the authorship of Mark include the Anti-Marcionite Prologue (160-180), Irenaeus (c. 180), Clement of Alexandria (150-213), Origen (185-254), and Jerome (347-420). Right: Beginning of a Latin Gospel of Mark, Book of Durrow (7th Cent.) From 1 Peter 5:13 we know that Mark was with Peter in Rome (“... my son Mark”).

This agrees with the later Papias tradition, which is supported by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Eusebius that associates Mark with Rome. If this is correct we could call Mark’s Gospel “Reminiscences of Jesus as told by St. Peter to his friend John Mark.” The majority of scholars date the Gospel about 65-70 CE. Mark's sources include: Oral Traditions: The Kerygma; Peter's memories—Mark was his amanuensis (secretary) and interpreter; possibly his own personal memories of Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem and at his mother’s home. Written Sources: Document describing the conflicts between Jesus and Jewish religious leaders; collection of parables; Chapter 13 originally may have been an independent document (dated after 70 CE); the Passion story; the names of the Twelve; a account of the Work of John the Baptist. The Gospel According to St. Matthew Left: Icon of Saint Matthew, c. 1295-1317 Why is Matthew first in the New Testament canon? First, it presents Jesus as Messiah—the FULFILLMENT of Old Testament prophecies.

Second, it proves that the Church is the consummation and continuation of the saving purposes of God begun with Abraham in the Old Testament. Papias attributes this gospel to Matthew c. 150: “Matthew composed his sayings (logia) in the Hebrew dialect, and every one translated it as he was able.” Other ancient statements relating to the authorship of Matthew are found in the writings of Irenaeus (c. 180), Origen (185-254), Eusebius (c. 325), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 350), Epiphanius (c. 350), and Jerome (347-420). The nature of Matthew’s witness to the gospel as well as later references to Matthew in the Letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, suggests to scholars likely provenance (place of composition) in Antioch-in-Syria. Most critics date the composition of the gospel around 85 CE. The Sources of Matthew: * Mark and Q. * Matthew’s special source M: this source emphasizes observance of the Torah and “tradition of the elders.” It describes no attempt to convert the gentiles.

It departs from other materials in the account in its interpretation of the difference between the Jewish and Christian attitudes towards the Law. It Shows a distinctive attitude toward the Church. * Other sources such as a supposed Antiochene tradition, as well as a collections of parables. The Gospel According to St. Luke and Acts Right: St. Luke by Andrea Mantegna, c. 1453-1454. In addition to contributing to the synoptic gospels, traditionally Luke is believed to be the author of Acts. Internal evidences pointing to common authorship of Luke and Acts include: * Acts is described as a continuation of gospel account. * Tote the dedicatory prefaces of both are to Theophilus (Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-2). * Luke and Acts show homogeneity of style. About 700 words in Luke-Acts are used nowhere else in the New Testament. * Medical interest shown in both Luke and Acts by correct use of medical language and descriptions of miracles of cure, sorcery, and magic. External evidence relating to the authorship of Luke and Acts include the Anti-Marcionite Prologue (c.

150-180): “Luke was a Syrian of Antioch, a physicians by profession, a disciple of the apostles and later a follower of Paul until his martyrdom, serving the Lord without distraction, without a wife, without children. At the age of eighty-four he died in Boeotia, full of the Holy Spirit. Although gospels already existed—the one according to Matthew written in Judea, the one according to Mark in Italy—he was impelled by the Holy Spirit to write this whole gospel among those dwelling about Achaea, making clear in his preface the fact that other gospels were written before his, and that it was necessary to set forth the accurate narrative of the Dispensation to gentile believers, so that they should not be distracted by Jewish fables nor, deceived by heretical and empty fancies, miss the mark of the truth... And afterward the same Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles; later John, the apostle, one of the Twelve, wrote the Apocalypse on the Island of Patmos, and after that the gospel.” Other ancient statements affirming Lukan authorship of Luke-Acts are found in the Muratorian Canon (c.

170) and the writings of Irenaeus (c. 180), Clement of Alexandria (150- 213), Tertullian (c. 207-210), Origen (185- 254), Eusebius (c. 325), and Jerome (c. 347-420). When was Luke written? Some scholars suggest a possible Proto-Luke as early as 60-62 CE. Most agree that the final version is dated 85-90 CE. This is based on Luke's extensive used of Mark. Luke 21 indicates that the fall of Jerusalem (70 CE) had already happened and that the persecution of Christians by Domitian (81-96 CE) was underway. However, it must have been written before John’s gospel (c. 95 CE) as John seems to have had a knowledge of Luke’s gospel.

Sources used by Luke: * A source used only by Luke (L) * Oral Tradition Luke-Acts could be called The History of Christianity, Parts 1 and 2: Volume 1—The Story of How the Gospel Began with Jesus in Galilee and Jerusalem Volume 2—The Story of How His Apostles Carried the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome New! Comments Have your say about what you just read! Leave me a comment in the box below. Copyright 2009-2016 free-online-bible-study.org This site is owned by Teach the Nations, Inc., a non-profit organization incorporated in the State of Georgia, which is exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code from Federal income tax. Contributions are deductible under section 170. Gospel According to John | New Testament | Britannica.com Gospel According to John Origen Gospel According to John, fourth of the four New Testament narratives recounting the life and death of Jesus Christ; John’s is the only one of the four not considered among the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., those presenting a common view).

Although the Gospel is ostensibly written by John, “the beloved disciple” of Jesus , there has been considerable discussion of the actual identity of the author. The language of the Gospel and its well-developed theology suggest that the author may have lived later than John and based his writing on John’s teachings and testimonies. Moreover, the facts that several episodes in the life of Jesus are recounted out of sequence with the Synoptics and the final chapter appears to be a later addition suggest that the text may be a composite. The Gospel’s place and date of composition are also uncertain; many scholars suggest that it was written at Ephesus , in Asia Minor , in about ad 100 for the purpose of communicating the truths about Christ to Christians of Hellenistic background. John’s Gospel differs from the Synoptic Gospels in several ways: it covers a different time span than the others; it locates much of Jesus’ ministry in Judea; and it portrays Jesus discoursing at length on theological matters. The major difference, however, lies in John’s overall purpose.

The author of John’s Gospel tells us that he has chosen not to record many of the symbolic acts of Jesus and has instead included certain episodes in order that his readers may understand and share in the mystical union of Christ’s church, that they “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20:30). This motive pervades the narrative, as do a kind of mystic symbolism and repeated emphasis on the incarnation. The author begins his account with a pronouncement on the incarnation that clearly intimates Genesis (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”). The author continually adds interpretative comments of his own to clarify Jesus’ motives. In the narration of certain miraculous deeds, for example, the feeding of the 5,000 (6:1–15), which appears in all four Gospels, John’s version is explained as symbolic of a deeper spiritual truth (“I am the bread of life; . . .”). Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus openly presents himself as the divine Son of God, not hiding his identity as he does in Mark.

Thus, the author of John’s Gospel does not merely narrate a series of events but singles out details that support an ordered theological interpretation of those events. Similar Topics Common Theological Themes in the Synoptic Gospels | Free online Bible classes | BiblicalTraining.org Common Theological Themes in the Synoptic Gospels This is tape 1 for the series on the Theology of the New Testament Gospels. I. Overview of Two Important Approaches for Studying the Theological Themes of the Gospels. There are two important approaches that need to be taken when studying the major themes and theological emphases of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is the only place in the New Testament (indeed in the whole Bible) where we find four overlapping accounts of many of the same events, characters and period of time in God's history of salvation with this world. So, we may look, on the one hand, for what are the dominant or pervasive themes across the four gospels. Or, on the other hand, we may highlight what is distinctive to each of the four. Each of these approaches has its place. a.

Study the Themes that Matthew, Mark and Luke (Synoptics) have in Common It is further complicated by the fact of the three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. These are called synoptic gospels because one can place them in parallel columns, more often than not, where two or three deal with the same event and thus create a synopsis: literally "a together look". The synoptic gospels are more similar than different while John, compared to any or all of the synoptics, is more different than similar. Thus, one can comparatively readily find those details that are dominant or characteristic of the synoptic gospels as a group, but they will not necessarily also include either the dominant or the distinctive features of the gospel of John. What we propose to do therefore is to begin looking at the characteristic or dominant or pervasive themes in the synoptic gospels as a unit. Also, there is growing appreciation, after a period of intense scholarly skepticism, that at least the broad contours or main emphases of the synoptic gospels can indeed be trusted historically as putting us in touch with the true Jesus of Nazareth.

We will thus take a period of time in these six lectures to look at the synoptic gospels and what they present about Jesus and others around Him from a theological vantage point as a unit. Then we will go back through the three, looking for particularly distinctive but still prominent emphases that set Matthew, Mark or Luke off from the others. This will, in part, answer the question of why they felt the need to write a gospel if indeed there were others being written at roughly the same time. b. Study the Distinctive Themes in the Synoptics and in the Gospel of John. Finally we will turn to the gospel of John and take it in its integrity, in its current literary form, and see what appears both dominant and distinctive that has not already been treated in our previous conversations. II. Common theological themes that are characteristic of the synoptic Gospels So we begin with what is common and characteristic in Matthew, Mark and Luke. a.

The "Kingdom of God," also Referred to as the "Kingdom of Heaven." Little disagreement among scholars of all theological traditions would result if we said the logical place to begin, and indeed the central theme in the teaching of Jesus as presented in the synoptics, involves the kingdom of God (sometimes also referred to as the kingdom of heaven). These expressions appear 104 times by my count in the synoptic gospels. They appear only 5 times (and then only in 3 verses and then only in 2 contexts) in the gospel of John, 7 times in Acts, 13 in Paul, 3 in Hebrews, 1 in James, 1 in Peter and 6 in the book of Revelation. What is the kingdom of God? The Greek term is basileia, no doubt translating a concept already known in Hebrew and Aramaic. The Hebrew equivalent is malcouth, for example. It can and has been translated as God's reign or rule or power or even dominion. That is to say, it is unlike the use of the word kingdom in English.

We use it today in expressions to describe modern sociopolitical divisions: we can speak of the kingdom of Jordan (the country to the east of the Jordan River in the Middle East) or the kingdom of Syria (to the north of Israel). But in the ancient Greek and Hebrew, and particularly in the concept of speaking of God or heaven, kingdom was much more a power than a place. It was more a reign rather than a realm. We might therefore speak of it today more as God's kingship or His kingly rule. 1. The Kingdom of God has Arrived and also Remains Future What do Jesus and the gospel writers have to say about this kingdom that appears so often, more often than any other individual theme, in the synoptic gospels. There is a complex mixture of statements which, at first glance, appear to affirm both that the kingdom is present or has arrived with the teaching and ministry of Jesus and that the kingdom remains future, to arrive only with Christ's second coming. Not surprisingly, different schools of thought have developed among scholars over the past centuries. There is what has often been called the futurist or consistent eschatological school of thought.

This is associated classically at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century with that great theologian, organist and medical missionary, Albert Schweitzer. It was to focus almost exclusively on the future dimension of the kingdom, but to see the heart of Jesus' teaching as announcing that the future was so imminent or near or at hand that it would be breaking into human history in all its fullness – perhaps even during Jesus' lifetime. And if not during that period of time, as events to the crucifixion drew near made plain it would not, then at the very latest within the generation of many of Jesus' first followers. Schweitzer's famous, but sad, conclusion, therefore, was that Jesus turned out to be mistaken. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a school of thought that has been known as present or realized eschatology or interpretation of the kingdom. This focuses so much attention on the present arrival of the kingdom in Jesus' ministry and teaching, in his death and resurrection, that it can appear to leave little or no room for some supernatural apocalyptic intervention of God in Christ at what has popularly come to be known as the second coming.

The prominent English scholar C.H.Dodd in the middle of the 20th century is particularly well known for tirelessly promoting this perspective. As scholarship progressed, it became increasingly clear that it was not a matter of pitting present against future, but of affirming both at the same time. Joachim Jeremias, in the 1940s and for 30 years beyond that, wrote prolifically about eschatology in the process of being realized. The American Evangelical, George Eldon Ladd (for many years a professor at Fuller Seminary until his death in 1982), popularized this for the English speaking world. The slogan that the kingdom is "already but not yet", both present and future, or inaugurated (to borrow a term claimed by Werner Georg Kümmell in Germany) is the perspective that dominates scholarly understanding of the gospels today. i. John the Baptist But what do the texts say in detail? How is this perspective defended? In fact, the synoptics begin talking about the kingdom and related concepts already with that famous forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist.

Matthew 3:2 and 4:17, Matthew's headlines first over John's ministry and then over Jesus' ministry, use the identical words in his original Greek. The message of each of these men was: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Matthew, as the most Jewish Christian of the gospels, regularly, though not exclusively, uses the euphemism kingdom of heaven rather than kingdom of God. He probably does this to avoid overusing the divine name, which was seen as uniquely sacred. John the Baptist, of course, was a prophet, at least as he styled himself and as many people came to accept him. This suggests that the prophecy, which many Jews believed had come to an end for a temporary period of time with the last of the Old Testament writing prophets Malachi, was now being renewed. Intertestamental Jewish religion had increasingly focused on obedience to the law (or Torah) and to wisdom or proverbial type of literature for guidance for daily living. But there was also an important body of intertestamental Jewish thought that did continue to hold out apocalyptic hope for God's prophets reappearing and ushering in the messianic age and bringing a liberator for God's people.

John is the first in over 400 years to emerge claiming to be bringing the fulfillment of those very hopes. He therefore calls on all of Israel to repent and to symbolize and testify to that repentance through baptism in water. Immersion in pools of ritual purification characterized priestly washing rituals. Also, at the monastic community at Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea there were daily ritual washings of the group of Jewish Essenes that populated that site. And indeed, it is possible that Jewish proselytes (that is, Gentiles converting to Judaism) were already being immersed in water as an initiation rite. Nevertheless, John is the first to insist that all Israel must demonstrate their repentance and symbolize it in this fashion. Indeed, he does so even as he predicts the coming of one who would do more than merely baptize in water, but baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. This is a reference to both the cleansing and purging effects of the Spirit in those who responded with repentance, but in judgment for those who rejected the Spirit's overtures. The repentance that John spoke so centrally of is based on the Greek metanoia or the verb metanoeo.

This undoubtedly reflects the underlying Hebrew concept so often behind that Greek term in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, the verb shub. This means much more than a change of mind, the standard Greek meaning of the term. It means a change of behavior, turning around – likening the moral transformation of the individual to 180 degree about-face in one's travel. John also predicted that there would be one he called the coming one, ho erchomenos in Greek, who would perform this additional two-part baptism. Although that term seems innocuous enough in English, Psalm 118:26 and 40:7, already at Qumran, were understood in a messianic sense where they spoke of one who was to come. And so John may well have intended this meaning with this title for the one who will turn out to be Jesus of Nazareth. Not long after John's ministry of baptism is under way, Jesus bursts on the scene as well. He identifies and puts His stamp of approval of John's message and ministry by submitting to baptism Himself – even though Matthew, particularly in his account, makes it clear that He does not need to repent of personal sin.

But He could well be identifying with the sins of His nation and of His people. ii. Jesus' Message of the Kingdom of God This brings us to consider Jesus' message of the kingdom of God in considerably greater detail than our brief overview of John's. Israel indeed, in the first century, was very much aware of what could be called its corporate plight. Individual Jews no doubt had varying degrees of awareness and willingness to repent of personal sin. But what was an inescapable reality for first century life, even in Israel, to say nothing of the Diaspora (the other countries into which Jews had historically been dispersed), was that they were not living as free people in an independent nation, fully able to govern themselves and implement and live according to their God-given laws. Rome was the great power who dominated the ancient Mediterranean world and occupied Israel, as well as much of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and beyond. Jews in the first and second centuries BC increasingly longed for a Messiah, a deliverer, a savior.

While there was diversity of expectation and hope, the dominant model that emerged was hope for one who, as a literal descendant of King David, would like David be a military ruler and an earthly king and lead the Jewish troops in battle and deliver them from Roman occupation and oppression. One important way of conceiving of Jesus' message about the kingdom is to recognize that, in countless ways, He stressed that it was not deliverance from Rome that was the most crucial issue. Rather deliverance from the realm of sin and the domain of Satan was crucial, whether or not they lived in a free piece of geography. Following N.T.Wright's very influential book, Jesus and the Victory of God, we can speak of Jesus' message of the kingdom boiled down to one short sentence as His announcement that the exile or the occupation or the enslavement was indeed over. But it was not as many were hoping. It was not because Rome was about to be vanquished, but because He was God's representative to deal with sin and with the devil. So, what are some of the most crucial texts in the synoptic gospels with respect to the kingdom? We have time to canvas only a small handful.

But the ones we have chosen are those that scholars have regularly turned to as among the most central and telling in helping us to come to grips with this concept. Mark 1:15, the Marcan parallel to Matthew 4:17 to which we have already alluded says: "The time has come," Jesus said, "the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news." As the headline over Jesus' ministry in the oldest of the four gospels, in perhaps the form that is closest to the most literal translation of Jesus' original Aramaic words, we see a verb in the Greek ēyyiken (from the verb eyyizō) in the perfect tense: "has come near", "has drawn near". It does not quite seem to affirm the full arrival of the kingdom at this point. And indeed, since this is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry rather than after His death and resurrection, even the fully realized eschatological approach would acknowledge that there is more to come. But the dominant sense of this text is that a new era is dawning in human history. This is not by standards that would call the attention of people thinking as historians of world civilizations.

Rather it is from God's perspective in His history of redeeming humanity. Matthew 12:28 and parallels in Mark and Luke expand on this present sense of the kingdom. Jesus is casting out demons and some among the Jewish leadership have charged that He drives them out by demonic powers themselves. His reply, beginning in Matthew 12:25 declares: "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul [another name for Satan], by whom do your people drive them out? So then they will be your judges." In other words, He refutes the claim that He is casting out demons by demonic power. But then verse 28 argues the converse, "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Here we have the comparatively rare verb ephthasen, the aorist or simple past tense of the verb phthanō.

It is almost impossible, despite Schweitzer's attempts, to see this as merely imminent, very soon to come in the future. It is almost impossible to avoid some present tense sense, particularly in the context of Jesus' response to His miracle-working ministry. This is not looking ahead even to just the crucifixion and resurrection a year or two down the road. Rather, this is saying that these new supernatural signs and wonders – My miracles and particularly My vanquishing of Satan in exorcisms – are a sign that the messianic age is now in these very events beginning to arrive. But if the messianic age (the age of God's kingly reign is here), then the Messiah must be here. The unstated implication is that He is that Messiah. Or again, we may consider in the gospel of Luke 17:20-21.

"Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied: 'The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say "Here it is" or "There it is, because the kingdom of God is in your midst'." This is not to deny what we have just seen: namely, Jesus' claim namely that outward, visible signs such as miracles are pointers to the arrival of the kingdom. But rather, this is a reminder that the kingdom is not to be localized to one particular place or territory or national entity. The kingdom of God is present with them wherever Jesus was present with them. Some translations render the Greek here entos humōn as "within you" which would lead Jesus to have said: "Because the kingdom of God is within you". But this seems much less likely, since His audience is a group of Pharisees who are typically Jesus' opponents rather than His followers in the gospels. Jesus would not have affirmed that the kingdom had already taken up residence inside these Pharisees, as He might have if He were addressing His disciples.

Rather, it is an affirmation that, with the presence of Jesus, God's kingly reign is present as well. Finally, we may take a look at a very puzzling and hard to translate text in Matthew 11:12. It too has a parallel in Luke. Jesus, speaking to the crowds about John the Baptist after John was imprisoned, declares: "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence and violent people have been raiding it." It is possible to translate the first reference to violence in this text in a more positive sense: "the kingdom of God has been forcefully advancing" – so forcefully it seems to be a violent disruption on earth. But more likely, both of these words from the Greek root biaz, leading to the verb biazomai and the noun biastēs (to suffer violence and a violent person respectively), it is more likely that both of these occurrences reflect the negative perspective of the translation I have just read. The more important observation, however, is that, beginning already with John according to the headline over his ministry that we already discussed back in Matthew 3:2, the kingdom was sufficiently present that it could be rejected.

This sometimes even happened violently: John has now been imprisoned; Jesus will, in not too many more days or periods of time, be crucified. Therefore, God's new kingly power must be on earth so as to generate this visible reaction which has not been present in the immediate past to any of God's spokespeople the way it now is. In some senses the kingdom was present. It had arrived in the ministry of Jesus. b. The God of the Kingdom So what? If we reflect on the topic for a moment of what has been called the God of the kingdom, we note that characteristic and dominant and to a certain degree distinctive of the synoptic gospels is the description of Jesus' own form of addressing God. He calls Him "Father". And the one place where His Aramaic language is preserved in Greek transliteration ("Abba" in Mark 14 when Jesus prays in that amazingly intimate and poignant scene in the Garden of Gethsemane), discloses a term that could almost be translated in English as "daddy". This is a term of dear intimacy for God as Father relatively unparalleled in other previous Jewish literature.

This by no means excludes the focus on God's holiness that we find in no less than the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed it be Thy name". But it is a holy, transcendent God who may be intimately addressed because of His deep love for His people. Jesus is not coming, as the kingdom is coming, to reveal a new God. This is still Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel. And Yahweh's love has been present from the beginning of creation and even before. But the way in which it is being clearly and visibly demonstrated in the ministry and teaching, and culminating in the death and resurrection of Jesus, is now ratcheting that love up to another level in terms of the extent of its disclosure to humankind. This creates a deep mystery. c. Jesus Uses Parables to Illustrate that the Mystery of the Kingdom is that it has Arrived but not without Irresistible Force.

Indeed, one of the expressions that comes particularly from Jesus' teaching in parables (a very dominant and characteristic form of teaching consistently about God's kingdom) is that to you the secrets or the mystery of the kingdom have been revealed (see Matthew 13:11 and Mark 4:1). What is this mystery that is portrayed, particularly prominent in Jesus' parables about seeds and planting and their growth (particularly in Mark 4 and Matthew 13 and Luke 8)? George Ladd would appear to have gotten it exactly right when he describes this mystery as the fact that the kingdom has arrived, but not with irresistible force. It has arrived in seed-form. It may seem as small as a mustard seed or as hidden as leaven in a loaf of bread, but over time it will grow to a surprising size. Not all can accept this redefinition of God's kingly power and relegation of the arrival of the messianic era to two periods of time with a period of growth in between.

And so, particularly in Mark 4:11-12 and parallels, Jesus goes on to say: "Not only to you have the secrets of the kingdom been given, but not to those outside." And then, quoting a passage from Isaiah 6, He speaks of how some will hear, but not really hear or understand. Some will see but not really see or perceive – lest they turn again and be forgiven. It is almost as if to say that God was initiating and choosing some to respond properly and others not to. But in the context of Isaiah 6, what was originally a prophecy against the wickedness of Israel centuries earlier, it is clear that this is God's response to prolonged willful disobedience of some of His people. And it is not an irrevocable response, because Isaiah 6 ends with a promise of a holy stump (a portion of the tree) from which the plant could again sprout left in the land, when proper repentance would come. But Jesus' appropriation of this Isaianic text, at the very least, explains the growing polarization of response to His kingdom teaching and ministry. d.

Some Parables Describe an Emphasis on Forgiveness and Grace The parables also describe a uniquely tender emphasis on forgiveness and grace from this God of the kingdom. This is seen in such well-known passages as the parable of the Prodigal Son and of the Pharisee and Tax-collector. e. Shift in the Dominant Thinking about Uncleanness vs. Holiness And there seems to be a shift in the dominant thinking about issues like uncleanness versus holiness, as Jesus is regularly as characterized as going out of His way to touch and to have fellowship and even the intimacy of table-fellowship with those who are sinners in order to call them to repentance. That repentance (that proper response to His kingdom) is envisioned as entering the kingdom like a little child, acknowledging one's utter dependence on God and inability to save oneself. f. Cost of Discipleship But it goes on to speak of the cost of discipleship, particularly in the area of the stewardship of one's material possessions. g. Final Judgment And the God of the kingdom looks ahead to a time of final judgment of all people and peoples of the world when Christ returns and, as in Matthew 25 for example, separates the metaphorical sheep from the goats.

III. Shift from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant a. In the OT, Five Dominant Features of God's Role as the King of the Universe Bruce Chilton, in a book called Pure Kingdom, summarizes much of what is involved in the turn of the ages – what today we would call the shift from the old to the new covenant or testaments. In Jewish backgrounds, indeed even entrenched in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Christian Old Testament itself), are five dominant features of God's role as king of the universe. These are not to the exclusion of other features, but nevertheless they are clearly dominant. God's kingly reign is regularly spoken of as still primarily future, as very transcendent, as bringing judgment, as demanding ritual purity and as centered in national Israel. b.

Jesus' Distinctives in the Synoptic Gospels Chilton goes on, rightly in my opinion, to point out that Jesus' distinctives in the synoptic gospels, while not obliterating any of these five previous prevailing trends, focus much more on the presence of the kingdom, its eminence (that is, its special closeness to people), to the joy of salvation rather than the fear of judgment, to the need for moral repentance rather than ritual purity, and for a much more universal offer and composition of representatives and subjects of the kingdom. c. Calling Twelve Apostles How did Jesus see this fleshing itself out, especially after His death when God's kingly power could not simply be equated with His presence and His ministry as a human figure? He begins by calling twelve apostles, particularly close followers and leaders among His wider group of followers. Matthew 19:28 in particular confirms our hunch that when a Jewish prophet and self-styled Messiah would gather twelve followers, he almost certainly had the twelve tribes of Israel in mind. Indeed, this text in Matthew 19:28 declares that the twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel in the final judgment. d.

"New" or "Renewed" Israel Jesus is thus making a claim to constitute what has been variously described as a new or renewed or true or freed Israel. That is to say, the elect (and therefore saved people of God) are no longer going to be faithful Jews who live out their commitment to Yahweh by following Torah, both those born into ethnic Judaism and those who through conversion adopt the Jewish religion. But rather the elect, saved people of God will be those of any nationality or ethnicity who become Jesus' followers. They will be those who have faith in Him and live out their allegiance by following His commands and His fulfillment of the Old Testament, with all of the continuity and discontinuity with the law that that produces (and about which we shall speak more when we turn to the ethics of Jesus). Because of this radical and bold claim, a majority of the Jewish people and especially of their leadership, increasingly over the approximately three years of Jesus' public ministry, come to reject His claims. But a minority accept, akin to those many periods of Israelite history when there was only a righteous remnant.

And Jesus uses similar imagery when He speaks of His followers as a little flock or of the recovery of some of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Indeed, Luke in 19:10 gives what may be Luke's take as a one verse or sentence summary of Jesus' ministry when Jesus declares: "I came to seek and to save the lost." e. Claims of Jesus' Teachings being Anti-Semitic are Baseless Because of this radical difference from conventional Judaism and because so many did reject Him and He in turn rejected them, there are those who have accused the portrait of Jesus and His teaching of the arrival of the kingdom in the synoptic gospels, and indeed even in John, of being anti-Semitic. But that would require Him not to have been a Jew. It would require all of His first followers not to have been Jews. But they were. And indeed, there is nothing even in the harshest of Jesus' woes against the scribes and Pharisees (for example, in Matthew 23 and parallels) that does not parallel as harsh or even harsher indicting prophecies by some of the writing prophets of the Old Testament against many, though never all, in their generations.

And, as with those prophets, there is a hint (no more than that), of future restoration in such texts as Matthew 23:39 and parallels. Also in Matthew 24:30, when Jesus looks ahead to the time when people will cry blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord and will mourn (possibly including the mourning of repentance) when they see Him returning and coming on the clouds back to earth. The kingdom then is a powerful and central concept. f. Relationship between the "Kingdom" and the "Church" Today, many people use the term kingdom as if it were interchangeable with the word church, but it is much, much bigger. This brings us to the question of the relationship between the kingdom and the church. Some have argued that: "Jesus preached the kingdom, the Jews rejected it, so the church was God's plan B." Or they argue that Jesus preached the kingdom and His later followers misinterpreted or deliberately changed His teaching to be about the church. But, in fact, the Greek word (appearing three times in two verses in Matthew 16 and 18), ekklesia, is simply the Septuagint's translation of the Hebrew qahal.

And indeed, in secular Greek this also was a common term, as it was in these Old Testament contexts, for an assembly (in this case, the assembly of God's people). The church as the elaborate institution that it began to evolve into beginning already in the second century is most admittedly not in view in the synoptic gospels, or arguably anywhere in the New Testament. But that Jesus expected a community of His followers, who regularly gathered together for distinctive purposes just as the children of Israel had done (in the tabernacle, in the temple and eventually in synagogues), seems beyond reasonable doubt. Matthew 16:18-19 promises that Peter will be the leader of that group, the rock on which the church is built. And we need not reinterpret that most straightforward understanding of the text in light of those who later supplemented this simple concept with far more elaborate definitions not found in Scripture. The book of Acts in its first twelve chapters describes Peter as the leader of the initial apostolic band. That may well be the sum total of the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy here.

What Jesus predicts will be permanent is, not Peter's leadership or that of any of his successors, but rather that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church (the sum total of Jesus' disciples now and in the future) and that what they loose on earth or bind on earth will have been loosed or bound in heaven (see Matthew 18 where this promise is extended to all of the disciples when they announce the forgiveness or the lack thereof due to lack of genuine repentance of those who either accept or reject the gospel). They are, as it were, opening the doors to entrance into God's kingdom. g. Jesus' Ethical Teaching Requires a Gathered Community Extending into Time And the fact that much of Jesus' ethical teaching appears to require a gathered community extending into time for a significant period also supports the idea that Jesus expected an assembly of His followers to outlive Him.

His ethical teachings on such topics as marriage and divorce and remarriage or celibacy (Matthew 19:1-12); on paying taxes; on living with and among earthly governments (in Mark 12:13-17 and parallels); on coming hardships and persecution (in Matthew 10:17-42 and parallels) and other such teaching, all suggest that the fullness of the arrival of the kingdom was not as imminent as Schweitzer first thought. h. George Ladd's Concluding Five Points George Ladd, then, gives an outstanding concluding set of five points to explain the relationship of the church to the kingdom. From the interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13 (especially 38 and 41), we learn that the church is not identical to the kingdom. The church is a group of people; the kingdom is God's regal reign. Indeed the kingdom creates the church (Matthew 13:47, 50) – the parable of the dragnet sifting the good fish from the bad fish.

The church, furthermore, witnesses to the kingdom (see those missions already commissioned by Jesus of the twelve disciples in Matthew 10 and of the seventy in Luke 10). The church is furthermore the instrument of the kingdom (Matthew 10:8, Luke 10:17 and Matthew 16:18). God's regal rule works throughout the entire cosmos in all kinds of ways, but most centrally through the gathered community of His people, and then as they are sent out for mission in the fullest sense of being God's conduit to meet people's spiritual and physical or material needs. And then finally the church is the custodian of the kingdom: the expression Ladd uses to describe the role of the keys in locking and unlocking doors in such texts as Matthew 16:19, 18:18 and John 20:23. What is your vision of the Christian life? Do you think of it as just individuals in glorious isolation trying to do various spiritual things? Do you think of it as the role of one local church that you may be heavily involved in? No, Jesus casts the vision as grand as it possibly can be.

God wants to transform the cosmos and has promised ultimately that it will be so transformed after Christ's coming. Then a millennial kingdom arrives and that will give way to eternal new heavens and new earth. Will you be a subject to, a witness to, an instrument and custodian of that kingdom – not putting personal or local church priorities first, but God's universal vision and purposes and reign at the forefront of all you do? Synoptic Gospels | biblical literature | Britannica.com biblical literature See Article History Synoptic Gospels, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the New Testament. Since the 1780s the first three books of the New Testament have been called the Synoptic Gospels because they are so similar in structure, content, and wording that they can easily be set side by side to provide a synoptic comparison of their content. (The Gospel of John has a different arrangement and offers a somewhat different perspective on Christ.) The striking similarities between the first three Gospels prompt questions regarding the actual literary relationship that exists between them. This question, called the Synoptic problem, has been elaborately studied in modern times. St.

Mark, illuminated manuscript page from the Gospel Book of the Court school of Charlemagne, … Stadtbibliothek, Trier, Ger. St. Matthew, from the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, 50 ce; in the British Museum. Hulton Archive/Getty Images St. Luke, detail of St. Luke Drawing the Virgin, oil on canvas by … © Photos.com/Jupiterimages Gospel According to John fourth of the four New Testament narratives recounting the life and death of Jesus Christ; John’s is the only one of the four not considered among the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., those presenting a common view). Although the Gospel is ostensibly written by John, “the beloved... in biblical literature: Literary criticism In the New Testament, literary criticism has centred principally on the Gospels. In the Synoptic Gospels (that is, those having a common source—i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke) indicators as to source and composition are provided by the presence of so much material common to two or to all three of them. The majority opinion since the mid-19th century has been that Mark served as a source...

12 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References Gospel According to John (in Gospel According to John ) View More Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback. MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later. Edit Mode Submit Tips For Editing We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Encyclopædia Britannica articles are written in a neutral objective tone for a general audience. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are the best.) Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Submit Thank You for Your Contribution! Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article.

Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. Uh Oh There was a problem with your submission. Please try again later. Close Date Published: November 13, 2009 URL: Access Date: January 20, 2017 Share Parallel Gospels - The Synoptic Gospels Side by Side (1. Preface) 1The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Luke 1 1Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, 2even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, 3it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus; 4that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed. John 1 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God.

3All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. 6There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. 7The same came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. 8He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light. 9There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. 11He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not. 12But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth. 15John beareth witness of him, and crieth, saying, This was he of whom I said, He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me. 16For of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Please wait while we change your translation... This site uses the Biblia web services from Logos Bible Software . © Jeremy Beckham 2014

Question: Which of the New Testament gospels is not synoptic?
Answer: John's Gospel