More NT Pod Shorts: Triple Tradition; Double Tradition; Marcan Priority

I've uploaded three more NT Pod Shorts on the Synoptic Problem:

What is the "triple tradition"? 

What is the "double tradition"?

Was Mark the First Gospel? 

These are all on my Youtube Channel. If you like it, please subscribe and "like" so that I can grow the channel, i.e. produce more videos. 

I am also uploading them to TikTok and to other social media. 

NT Pod Shorts: What is the Synoptic Problem?

 My next NT Pod Short goes back to the beginning and asks "What is the Synoptic Problem?"

NT Pod Shorts: Why is Q so Appealing?

I'm trying something new: NT Pod Shorts. These are short (less than three minute) videos about topics connected with the podcast, and the first few are going to be focused on the Synoptic Problem. Here is the first:

 The topic is: Why is Q so appealing? 

Luke's Arrangements and Luke's Special Material

One of the challenges of studying the Synoptic Problem is also one of its joys. The more you stare at the Synopsis, and the more you think about the issues, the more you realize that there are important things that you have missed. This post is about one of those things. Why had I not noticed before that it would have been impossible for Luke to have retained Matthew's order of the double tradition ("Q") material given the huge amount of special Lucan material ("L") that the author wanted to add? 

Let me put the question in context, and then I'll try to explain it as clearly as I can. I tried this out in an online discussion group and had some good feedback, so I'd like to try it out here too, in the hope of getting some good feedback. And if the point still seems like a good one, I'll add it to the revised edition of The Case Against Q. 

Here's the story so far. One of the two primary arguments for the existence of Q is that some scholars cannot imagine why Luke would have rearranged the order of Matthew's non-Marcan material, so he must have found this material not in Matthew but in Q. The most influential version of this argument was made just over a century ago by B. H. Streeter who in The Four Gospels argued that Luke would have been a "crank" to have taken the double tradition material from its excellent Matthean contexts only to reinsert it into different, less appropriate contexts in his own Gospel. Q sceptics like me pointed out in response that Luke's behaviour is not only explicable but expected. His rearrangement of the material makes excellent sense in his Gospel, especially when we observe the way he treats Mark. Moreover, Streeter's argument is any case simply a value judgement, a statement of aesthetic preference for Matthew's order over Luke's. 

That's a quick summary of many pages of argumentation by me and others. But I realized recently that I had missed something really important. The way the argument is always framed by two-source theorists is in terms of Luke taking double tradition material from its Matthean locations and placing it somewhere new. So Streeter talks about where Luke "inserts matter also found in Matthew". He talks about how Luke would have had to "re-insert" sayings the Matthean sayings into a different context. 

Even if we work with this kind of model, where source material is simply slotted into specific contexts, new or old, the framing forgets something we know for certain about Luke: he has a huge amount of Special Lucan (L) material to incorporate into his Gospel. So on the Two-Source Theory, Luke combines the Q material with this new L material. On the Farrer theory, he does the same thing, but instead of getting the double tradition from Q, he gets it from Matthew. But here's the thing. Given that Luke has so much L material, how could he have integrated this L material into the Matthean contexts where he finds the double tradition? It's just not possible.

Let me illustrate. Matthew has the Lost Sheep parable in Matt. 18.10-14, in a teaching complex that is partially derived from Mark 9. Luke could have placed the Lost Sheep parable here, in his own chapter 9, just before the Central Section begins in Luke 9.51, but he does not.

He has it instead in Luke 15.3-7, nested in a fresh literary complex, with a themed opening about Pharisees and Sinners (15.1-2), pairing the Lost Sheep with the very Lucan Lost Coin (15.8-10), leading into the legendary Lucan Prodigal Son (15.11-37). 

Aside from the fact that it would be ludicrous to find Luke's new context for the Lost Sheep as having what Streeter described as "no special appropriateness", let's remember that as soon as you have double tradition material alongside L material, it makes using the Matthean location practically impossible. 

If Luke had used the Matthean location, he would have had to integrate his "Lost" parable context into his Luke 9, creating a massive discourse at just the point where Jesus is about to set off on the road to Jerusalem (Luke 9.51). 

In other words, it is not simply a question of where Luke "inserts" double tradition material. It is a question of what new Lucan material lies alongside it, and those decisions surely impact Luke's decisions about the placing of the material. The special Lucan material really matters when we are looking at Luke's location of double tradition material. It's key in seeing how Luke adopts and adapts the material he takes over from Matthew.

To illustrate further: the big criticism of Farrer's Luke is that he does not retain Matthew's marvellous Sermon on the Mount all in one piece. I and others have argued that this is a really problematic argument (e.g. The Case Against Q, Chapters 4, 5, and 6), but let us for a moment imagine that Luke had wanted to retain all 138 verses of Matthew's masterpiece in one place. Does this Luke not want to add his Friend at Midnight parable (Luke 11.5-8) to Matthew's "Ask, Seek, Knock" (Matt. 7.7-11 // Luke 11.9-13)? Does he not want to add the Rich Fool parable (Luke 12.13-21) to the "Consider the Lilies" (Matt. 6.25-34 // Luke 12.22-31) material? And so we could go on. Luke's Sermon would now have to be over 200 verses, and for an author who even cuts Mark's Parables discourse (Mark 4.1-34, a mere 34 verses) almost in half (Luke 8.1-18, 18 verses), I can't see that as viable. 

To be fair, I made a related point in The Case Against Q, Chapters 4 and 6, arguing that Luke's new locations for the double tradition material made good narrative sense, but what I had not seen so clearly was that this is not simply a question of the locations for the material. It is also a question of the impossibility of retaining the Matthean locations given that Luke has related special material that he wants to place adjacent to it, material that would expand the Matthean discourses, which are already massive, into monster discourses. 

A two-source theorist might say that this is a circular argument. Am I not just surmising that Luke wanted to place special Lucan material alongside the double tradition material because that is what he did? I don't think so. The point is that even on the two-source theory, Luke made the decision to place Q material alongside contextually relevant, narratively interesting L material. Farrer's Luke wants to do the same thing, but in his case, it necessitates recontextualizing Matthew's material, the very thing that Q theorists find so problematic.

I am surprised that I have only just realized this. I suppose it's in part because I was seduced by the two-source theorists' own rhetoric, which causes us to focus on where Luke "relocates" or "reinserts" material, without noticing the impact that retaining as well as adding would cause. 

Favourite Jesus Films 2025

It was great to be back in the classroom this spring after a sabbatical that itself followed several years as department chair, when classroom time is drastically reduced. As well as a graduate class on the Synoptics, one of my regular offerings, I taught my undergraduate course on Jesus in Film for the fourth time. It's a real joy to teach, but a huge challenge too, especially given the sheer volume of films that we could cover.

Each time I teach the course, I ask the students to vote on their favourite and least favourite Jesus films. There were fifteen students, and I asked them to vote for their three favourite Jesus films, not in ranked order (to make it easier). I also asked them for their least favourite film. Here are the results:

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Favourite Jesus film: 

(1) Jesus of Montreal (dir. Denys Arcand, 1989): 10 votes

(2) Son of Man (dir. Mark Dornford-May, 2006): 6 votes

     Last Temptation of Christ (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1988): 6 votes

(4) Journey to Bethlehem (dir. Adam Anders, 2023): 5 votes

(5) The Chosen (dir. Dallas Jenkins, 2020-present): 4 votes

(6) The Gospel According to St Matthew (dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964): 3 votes

(7) Greatest Story Ever Told (dir. George Stevens, 1965): 2 votes

    Passion of the Christ (dir. Mel Gibson, 2004): 2 votes

    Life of Brian (dir. Terry Jones, 1979): 2 votes

    Jesus of Nazareth (dir. Franco Zeffirelli): 2 votes

One vote: 

Mary Magdalene (dir. Garth Davis, 2018); The Nativity (dir. Coky Giedroyc, 2010); Jesus Christ Superstar (dir. Norman Jewison, 1973), Mary (dir. D. J. Caruso, 2024)

--

Least favourites film:

(1) Godspell (dir. David Greene, 1973): 5 votes

(2) Karunamayudu (dir. A. Bhimsingh, 1978): 3 votes

(3) Shanti Sandeshem (dir. P. Chandrasekhar Reddy, 2004): 2 votes 

   Gospel According to St Matthew (dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964): 2 votes

   Passion of the Christ (dir. Mel Gibson, 2004): 2 votes

One vote: Greatest Story Ever Told (dir. George Stevens, 1965) and Journey to Bethlehem (dir. Adam Anders, 2023)

--

I found the students' votes fascinating. Jesus of Montreal was a runaway winner, with two-thirds of the class voting for it. One of the biggest surprises was seeing how well Journey to Bethlehem faired. I have to admit that I absolutely love this film too, and I have been meaning to blog and podcast about it for some time. Other new films like Mary Magdalene and Mary also make the cut.

The Chosen is also in there, but it has the disadvantage of being the only film that the class did not watch in total. That was impossible! There's so much of it. Nevertheless, it's interesting that several people still voted for it. 

Films that we watched but that did not chart included King of Kings (1961), The Passion (BBC, 2008), The Nativity Story (2006), Young Messiah (2016) and all the documentaries we watched. 

As usual, Godspell got the bottom spot! I'm a little sad that Karunamayudu and Shanti Sandeshem were unpopular too, but we were so hampered by the lack of English subtitles for both. 

It's also striking that several films appear in both lists -- favourites and least favourites -- Gospel According to Matthew, Greatest Story, Passion of the Christ, and Journey to Bethlehem. It just shows how personal and emotional reactions to these films can be, and it made class discussions fascinating.

I hope to blog a little more about the course soon, and to think out loud about how to change it. 

The Fourth Synoptic Gospel

I have written a new book! I'm afraid it takes me a while, especially as I have been in university administration for some years. Even without that, it does not come easy, and I don't even write these massive books like my friends and colleagues write. This one is about John's knowledge of the Synoptics. 

I joke in the preface that it's the third part of my trilogy. The first part, The Case Against Q (2002), argued that Luke knew Matthew and Mark. The second part, Thomas and the Gospels (2012), argued that the Gospel of Thomas knew the Synoptics. This book argues that John's Gospel likewise used all three Synoptic Gospels. 

It's a joke because I had no plan at all, but rather followed the research wherever it led. My interest in Gospel interrelations helped me to see, I hope, some links between the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptics that others might have missed. And this book is not a million miles away from that.

I argue in the new book that John's Gospel knew the Synoptics, presupposed their narratives, dramatically transformed them, and Christologically absorbed them. 

The Fourth Synoptic Gospel actually began as the Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies in Oxford in 2017. There are only seven chapters in the book, and four of the them are expansions of those lectures. I also tried my ideas out in multiple other forums, and I promise to acknowledge those in future blogs. 

I hope to blog and podcast about the book some more in the coming weeks. 

In the meantime, here are some links:

The Fourth Synoptic Gospel (Amazon)

The Fourth Synoptic Gospel (Eerdmans)

NT Pod Joy!

Earlier this week (NT Pod Woes!), I shared my deep frustration about my failure to get my podcast's website sorted. It had stalled on Spotify, and I tried all sorts of things to fix it, including a massive transfer over to WordPress. 

Well, I didn't give up. I tried a bunch of other things and at last, one of them worked. I hate to say it, but I got the tip in a very helpful conversation with ChatGPT, which suggested I try Feedblitz as a replacement for Feedburner, and it worked! Feedblitz does cost money, but it's worth it since it has fixed my big issue, and will help me to get back on track again, including setting up email followers again. I may even get some of the money back; I made the link there a referral (affiliate) link!

When I get the chance, I'll set up Feedblitz here too, and see if I can restore the possibility of following the blog by email. 

Anyway, if you're a Spotify user, here's where you can subscribe to my podcast:

NT Pod on Spotify

And that's not an affiliate link. I don't earn money from the podcast. Existing Spotify subscribers shouldn't need to change their subscription, by the way. Likewise Apple, Amazon and others: there shouldn't be any need to make adjustments (but please let me know if you have any problems, and we may be back to NT Pod Woes again!).