Two-gospel hypothesis

The two-gospel hypothesis contrasts with the two-source hypothesis, the most popular and accepted scholarly hypothesis. Supporters say that it does not require lost sources like the Q source and was supported by the early Church. Proponents of the two-gospel hypothesis generally also support the traditional claims of authorship as accurate to disciples and their direct associates, which implies the gospels were written comparatively soon after Jesus's death, rather than the later dates of authorship supported by other schools of thought.^[2]

Overview

The hypothesis states that Matthew was written first, while Christianity was still centered in

The proposal suggests that Matthew was written by the apostle Matthew, probably in the 40s AD. At the time, the church had yet to extend outside of Jerusalem. The primary political problem within the church community was caused by the fact that Jewish authorities were outright hostile to Jesus and his followers. Matthew wrote his account in order to show that Jesus was actually the fulfillment of what Jewish scripture had prophesied. It has been long recognized that Matthew is the most "Jewish" of the gospels. It, for example, heavily references Jewish scripture and Jewish history.[4]

When

Paul asked Peter, who was the leader of the Apostles, to testify that Luke's account was accurate. According to early church sources, Peter gave a series of speeches to senior Roman army officers. Due to the commonality between Mark and Luke, these speeches would have constituted Peter's public "seal of approval" upon Luke's gospel. These church sources suggest that Peter was ambivalent when Mark asked him if he could write down the words of the speeches. However, since the Roman officers who heard the speeches liked them, they asked for copies, and so Mark made fifty copies of Peter's speeches. These copies began circulating, and became Mark's gospel. Only after the speeches by Peter were made (and Mark's transcriptions began circulating) did Paul feel confident enough to publish Luke's gospel.^[6]

The two-gospel hypothesis assumes that Peter made sure that his speeches agreed with both Matthew and the still unpublished Luke. Since Matthew was the primary source for Luke, and Matthew's gospel (the only published gospel at the time) would have been well known to Peter, he mostly would have preached on the contents of Matthew. Knowing Matthew better than Luke, Peter was more likely to mention details found in Matthew and not Luke than vice versa. This would explain why there are more details found in Mark and Matthew but not Luke than there are details found in Mark and Luke but not Matthew. It also explains why Mark is so much shorter than Matthew and Luke, is more anecdotal and emotional, is less polished, and why only it begins immediately with Jesus' public ministry. Peter was giving public speeches as to what he saw, and never intended his speeches to become a full gospel. This was asserted by early church historians, and explains why there are so few commentaries on Mark (as opposed to Matthew, Luke and John) until a relatively late date. It appears to have been considered the least important gospel in the early church.^[7]

Contrasted with the two-source hypothesis

Proponents generally separate arguments made from the text of the gospels themselves ("internal evidence") and evidence from preserved writings of the early church ("external evidence"). For example, early church documents claim that Mark's Gospel was created after Mark made fifty copies of a series of speeches that Peter had given in

The Church Fathers settled on Matthaean priority themselves, but kept to the order seen in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, then John. This would later be referred to as the Augustinian hypothesis. The Monarchian Prologues, from around 380, state that Mark used both Matthew and Luke.^[10]

The first major proponent of something like a Matthew-Luke-Mark ordering was Johann Jakob Griesbach. The Griesbach hypothesis is similar to the modern two-gospel hypothesis. However, unlike the two-gospel hypothesis, the Griesbach hypothesis is principally a literary hypothesis. What came to be labeled the Griesbach Hypothesis was anticipated by the Welsh scholar Henry Owen (1716–1795) in a piece he published in 1764, and by Friedrich Andreas Stroth (1750–1785) in an article he published anonymously in 1781. Griesbach (1745–1812), to whom this source hypothesis was first accredited, alluded to his conclusion that Matthew wrote the first of the canonical gospels and that Luke, not Mark, made first use of Matthew in composing the second of the canonical gospels in an address celebrating the Easter season at the University of Jena in 1783. Later, for similar Whitsun programs at Jena (1789–1790), Griesbach published a more detailed "Demonstration that the Whole Gospel of Mark is Excerpted from the Narratives of Matthew & Luke."

Griesbach's theory was what German scholars came to call a "utilization hypothesis." Griesbach's main support for his thesis lies in passages where Matthew and Luke agree over and against Mark (e.g. Matthew 26:68; Luke 22:64; Mark 14:65), the so-called Minor Agreements.

A related theory has Luke drawing not directly from Matthew, but from a common source, seen as a proto-Matthew. This was advanced in the nineteenth century by Wilhelm de Wette and Friedrich Bleek.^[11]

• If Luke had access to the final version of Matthew (as opposed to both drawing independently on other sources), why are there so many significant differences between Luke and Matthew on issues such as Jesus' genealogy, circumstances of birth, and events following resurrection? While Luke and Matthew do share a lot of text which is not present in Mark, almost all of it is confined to teachings and parables. Construction of the gospels in accordance with the two-gospel hypothesis would require Luke to rewrite major parts of Matthew's narrative – even though Matthew was presumably an eyewitness who lived in Jerusalem and was surrounded by other eyewitnesses, and Luke was neither.
• "The argument from omission": why would Mark and Peter omit such remarkable and miraculous events as virgin birth of Jesus and particularly his appearance to apostles following resurrection? Both Matthew and Luke explicitly attest that Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples, including Peter, after his resurrection, and it seems incredible that Peter would not testify to that fact in his public speeches. And why is the Sermon on the Mount completely omitted from both Mark and Luke?^[14]
• Proponents cite the simplicity of not having to include an unknown lost tradition in Q. However, lost sources are not unusual in antiquity, with thousands of references by surviving works to books that were not preserved. Even strictly theologically, lost works are attested to directly in scripture: an Epistle to the Laodiceans is referenced in Colossians, but is generally considered lost. The book of 2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical book considered scripture in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, directly states it is an abridgement of a five-volume work by Jason of Cyrene, but this original work has been lost. Even if taken on its own terms, the two-gospel hypothesis cites patristic evidence such as Papias who believed there to be a "Gospel of the Hebrews". If such a document existed, it too has since been lost.
• Proponents also cite the early Church Fathers as holding a position of Matthaean priority. However, the early Church Fathers disagreed with each other on many issues, and held various positions given credence by essentially no one today. The earliest reference to all four canonical gospels that calls them by the names ascribed to them now is from Irenaeus's Against Heresies (written around 185 AD) and the Muratorian fragment (written around 170–200 AD) - over a century after Jesus's death. Justin Martyr, writing 30 years earlier than Irenaeus from the same location (Rome), loosely quotes gospels but does not give them their modern attributions, suggesting that these attributions were made at some point between 150–180. If the stories of Mark recording Peter's speeches truly originated from Rome circa 60 AD, why did Justin not refer to Mark or Peter? Even if Justin simply omitted mention coincidentally, it is still a long time for a chain of oral transmission traditions on authorship before it is recorded. As such, the Church Fathers should not be assumed to have special insight into the truth on this matter.^[15]
• Conversely, if the early Church Fathers really are reliable, then why not trust them on their ordering of Matthew - Mark - Luke? The two-gospel hypothesis introduces a delay in the dissemination of Luke to explain the traditional order, but such a delay is never described explicitly in ancient church writings.^[16]

See also

• Farrer hypothesis
• Four-document hypothesis
• Gospel harmony

References