"Building a Synoptic Theory: (1) The Relation of Luke to Mark"

"Building a Synoptic Theory: (1) The Relation of Luke to Mark" Wenham, pp. 11-39

In this chapter Wenham builds three steps toward his theory. First, he attempts to show that Luke was familiar with Mark's gospel. Second, he observes (p. 11) that "fifty-two pericopes of Luke and Mark have a common origin...fourteen others cover the same ground, but show no signs of common origin." Finally, he observes (p. 11) that "Luke keeps to the sense of mark in the truly parallel passages."

The foundation of some of the text-critical work has been identifying words or series of words which appear in multiple different gospels. Wenham includes charts which demonstrate that there are similarities of numerous words in numerous passages between Mark and Luke. He seems more interested in the fact that Luke follows Mark in a substantial number of pericopes, keeping them in the same order. The use of particular phrases and clauses is not actually very widespread.

p. 19 "If we think of Luke as working directly on the scroll of Mark, we find that he often omits from, adds to or gives a more polished version of Mark's story, but he almost always does so without changing the basic meaning. This is particularly true with regard to the words of Jesus." It seems that where there are passages with identical or nearly identical wording, they tend to be quotations of Jesus. This is consistent with a strong oral tradition of the sayings of Jesus.

p. 20 "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 the other." This strikes me as an instance of Wenham being quite fair with the evangelists. Just as a modern author can be familiar with another author and be informed by that other author's writing does not mean that we are simply re-writing what the other author said.

Wenham spends pp. 21-39 giving texts of common passages along with highlights of similarities and commentary on the similarity and differences he finds. A warning - this portion of the book is largely quotations in Greek which are not translated. If you read Greek it's quite clear. If not, prepare for a mystery.

My observation of the texts Wenham quotes is that they seem related in their vocabulary and usage in only a casual way. Because they are statements of the same events they tend to use similar vocabulary. Verb tenses, cases of significant nouns, etc., all point to a natural phenomenon which we observe when speaking of the same events. This observation of mine is consistent with what Wenham seems to be affirming, that the authors acted rather independently of one another but were quite aware of a standard collection of events about which they would write.