Matt's author wanted to show Jesus' mission was to the Jews, as their own messiah, but the author of Luke wanted to picture Jesus in a manner that his Hellenistic readers would understand and relate to. The author of John wrote from a highly individual viewpoint and in this Gospel, the writer's personal interpretation and authorship becomes most apparent.
The author of Mark, understood to be the first Gospel composed, appears to have inherited and collected different stories about Jesus and set them down to present Jesus starting from Galilee and journeying towards Jerusalem where he meets his death. He has no interest in Jesus' life before this and therefore has no infancy or childhood stories about Jesus unlike Matt and Luke. He has joined several different pieces of tradition together, and it is possible that Mark originally ended at 13:37 and the subsequent chapters were written by another Christian, possibly in Rome, who built up the trial and passion stories from Old Testament (OT) texts that he believed were prophecies. Throughout Mark, the author presents Jesus emphasising the need for secrecy about his messiahship and this may have been the author's attempt to deal with the problem of why there was so little evidence for, or recollection of Jesus' life at the time that he composed the gospel (after ca. 90CE). In chapter 16, the author develops the original Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus by writing of an empty tomb, thus depicting a physical resurrection: it is noteworthy that he says the women who meet the angels at the tomb 'said nothing to any one' (16:8) presumably to explain the lack of eyewitness testimony about a physically-resurrected Jesus at the time that he wrote. Mark is the bridge between the belief in a Jesus who 'lived sometime in the past' and begun to appear to messianists to announce his return and the eschaton, and the Jesus who had physically existed, preached, died and been resurrected in Jerusalem during the third decade of the first century CE. In view of this, Mark represents the greatest amount of 'adaptation' to present a particular theological viewpoint.
The author of Matthew's Gospel constructs his account from Mark and his own sources and this shows that Jesus' ministry, before the resurrection, is for the Jews. However, after this, it is for the world (28:19). Jesus is pictured as the Jewish messiah, the descendent of Abraham and the Son of David; his life fulfilled the OT prophecies and expectations. The OT texts are invariably wrestled from their context and used very artificially in Matt. Whilst pro-Jewish, the author nevertheless wrote about certain Jewish groups against whom he felt particular hostility. In Luke, Jesus is the saviour of the world - to Jew, Samaritan and Gentile, and the author makes it clear from the very beginning, that not only Israel, but the world was blessed by Jesus' appearance on earth. (2:14,32).
In Luke, the author, using Mark and his own sources, presents Jesus' coming as vital in world history and history, and both past and present had to be shaped around the years of Jesus' life on earth. Jesus' coming in Luke influences history as is shown by Jesus' comment in Luke 16:16 that the law and prophets were only 'until John'. From this point a new phase in history begins.
Luke's author was clearly sympathetic to the poor and outcast; he includes material that advances this view, which is only found in Luke, e.g., the woes against the wealthy (6:24,25), the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16). In Matt 5:3,6, Jesus says "Blessed are the poor in spirit...Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." (Matt 5:3,6), but in Luke this becomes "Blessed are you poor....Blessed are you that hunger now..." (6:20,21). Here, one of the evangelists has deliberately changed the wording to suit either his spiritual theology (Matt) or his social theology (Luke).
In Luke there is the call by Jesus to care for the outcast with the promise of reward for doing this (14:12-14), and there is also Jesus' teaching that the despised classes (in this case a tax collector) were more sincere and pleasing to God than the so-called religious teachers (18:10-14).
It has been argued that the Gospels contain 'pillar passages', i.e., statements that conflicted with early church theology and belief: therefore, so it is argued, their inclusion shows that the evangelist's account is reliable. One such passage is Mark 3:21 where it is stated that Jesus' family went out to 'seize him' because of the accusations of insanity. At first sight it does appear that the author has included something that places Jesus' family in a bad light and does not harmonize well with the church's belief that Jesus' family later became members of the church (e.g. Acts 1:14). However, some commentators believe the text is not necessarily connected with mental instability, and furthermore, the author may have had in mind the 'prophecy' of Isa 53:3 that the servant would be despised and rejected of men; indeed Jesus does remind the disciples that he would suffer contempt (9:12).
Another example is Mark where there is the statement that Jesus could not work miracles because of unbelief (6:5): Matt (13:58) modifies this, and Luke omits it altogether. However, this is not necessarily a passage that reduces Jesus' stature as Mark repeatedly emphasises the need to believe in Jesus for his power to be able to manifest itself (e.g., Mark 5:34, 10:52).
Therefore, because some passages were included in the Gospels and these may have embarrassed the church does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the evangelists recorded an accurate historical account of Jesus' life: this is particularly so in view of the situation in the early church which was very fluid.
The principal motive of each evangelist in producing a 'Gospel' was for the preaching of the church in the last decade of the first century: the Gospels were not intended to be for general and public circulation and reading. It is clear that they wrote as missionary-theologians and not historians and therefore cannot be viewed as trustworthy (i.e., reliable and accurate) documents.
This is demonstrated in John where hostility against Judaism reaches a peak; by the end of the first century, Christianity was no longer deemed to be just a schism within Judaism and there was at this point an official cursing of the Christians ('Minim') in the synagogues. The fourth Gospel therefore coincides with the mutual feeling between the Jews and early Christians at the time of being written. In John, the Jews are pictured as slow, dull-witted, aggressive and hypocritical, deviating from the original faith. They are prepared to murder (12:10-11) and are portraytd as ignorant of God's word (5:38-40), without God's love (5:42), accused by Moses (5:45), potential murderers (8:40), children of the devil who was a murderer and liar (8:44) and they are even reported as making several attempts to kill Jesus (8:59, 10:31).
The author also puts words into their mouths which could not have been spoken, e.g., the statement of 'We have no king but Caesar' by the chief priests (19:15) would have been a denial of all Jewish theology and history apart from the fact that a Jewish leader making this statement would soon encounter the murderous fury of the nationalist Zealots. The author comes very close to preventing Jesus from being a Jew himself when he writes of Jesus speaking to the Jews of 'your father Abraham' (8:56), and 'your law' (10:34).
John's author continues his polemic in having the Jews asking for leg-breaking after Jesus had died (19:31): this results in Pilate instructing this even though it conflicts with Mark which describes Pilate being unaware of Jesus' death (15:44-45). John's author also writes about the expulsion of Christians from the synagogues and the possibility of executions (9:22, 16:2), factors which did not exist in the time that Jesus supposedly lived, but did exist in the closing years of the first century.
Another indication that the evangelists have composed stories about Jesus without historical foundation is their interpretation of what they considered to be OT messianic 'prophecies'. Because the author of John understood the Hebrew parallelism of Psa 22:18 as two different actions, he has the soldiers carrying out two separate actions (19:23-24). The other evangelists, who did not misunderstand this, only have one action in the disposal of Jesus' clothes (Matt 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34). In the same way, the author of Matt misunderstood the parallelism of Zech 9:9 and has two animals involved in Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (21:2-7) when in fact there is only one animal being spoken of. The other evangelists do not make this mistake and have only one animal (Mark 1:2-7, Luke 19:30-35, John 12:14-16).
From these examples it can be seen that the evangelists, rather than being historians, were only interested in a theological purpose. In these two cases they have deliberately introduced details to 'agree' with what they felt to be an OT prophecy.
One commentator admits that the whole of Jesus' trial is based on OT texts: therefore, rather than the Christian statement that the life of Jesus 'fulfilled' O.T prophecies (although in reality few are actual 'prophecies'), the very reverse is true - Jesus' earthly life was constructed on these 'prophecies'.
John gives the picture of the Logos in full control of every situation with his power being considerably greater than that reflected in the Synoptics, e.g., whilst the Synoptics record resurrections of people who had only just died (e.g. Matt 9:18), Jesus resurrects a man who had been dead for four days (11:17); the blind man healed was not like the man who had once seen in the Synoptics (Mark 8:24), but had been blind from birth (9:1); Jesus carries his own cross (19:17) and does need not this to be carried for him as in the Synoptics (e.g., Matt 27:32). Again, the theological view of John's author completely overshadows any desire to present a historical account.
In the same way, the author of Matt is keen to present that Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, while the authors of Luke and Mark are more concerned with portraying a Jesus who would be acceptable to Gentiles. Mark, almost certainly the first Gospel composed, includes a number of errors that not only show the author was not an eyewitness to the events that he describes, but also makes errors in respect of the Jewish religion, geography and chronology.
For example, Mark (1:2) has a quotation from Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3, but the author attributes both to Isaiah (furthermore he interfered with the poetry by changing the location of the wilderness which is mentioned), there is a chronological error in naming Abiathar as the high priest (2:26), Herod is called a king when he was in fact a tetrach and this is followed by an error regarding Philip's wife (6:14,17), he attributed a custom of the strict Pharisees to all the Jews (7:3), his mention of Dalmanutha in 8:10 indicated that he was unfamiliar with Palestine, there is a reference by Jesus to women divorcing their husbands, a custom not possible in Palestine (10:12), together with an error over the timing of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (14:1,12). On occasions, the author seems to be very confused about Palestinian life.
The errors contained within Mark were 'corrected' by the authors of Matt and Luke, and sometimes by later copyists, particularly when they involved important theological points. It was the same situation with each of the four evangelists: each one had a particular motive, each one had a specific theological belief and each one had a certain group of people in mind for whom their Gospel was intended.
On occasions, the reason for relating a story not found in the other three Gospels, or for making a drastic change in it is not altogether evident. All four Gospels have the story of Jesus being anointed by a woman: however, Matt (26:6-13) and Mark (14:2-11) have this after the entry into Jerusalem, but John has this before, while Luke has it long before the arrival in Jerusalem during the early ministry (Luke 7:36-50). Whilst Luke has the woman anointing Jesus' feet as does John (12:3), Matt and Mark have the woman anointing Jesus' head. Other minor differences occur, e.g., Jesus warns Peter of his denials after leaving the room where supper was eaten, on the way to Gethsemane in Matt (26:30-35) and Mark (14:26-31), but in Luke (22:33-34/39) and John (13:37-38/18:1), Jesus tells him before leaving.
In Luke, Jesus is assaulted before the questioning by the Sanhedrin and the questioning takes place the following morning (22:63-71), but in Matt (26:57-68/27:1) and Mark (14:53-65/15:1) the assault is immediately after the questioning, and this all takes place before the morning. Presumably there was a reason for the differences which occur in all four Gospels, but this has been lost in time. Differences such as these may arise because of the evangelist wishing to convey a particular point which is not obvious, or they may simply arise because of the way the material/tradition was transmitted and reached the evangelist.
When certain passages are examined, it can be seen what the evangelist had in mind and furthermore, what he personally viewed as important. The author of Matt wanted to show that Jesus' mission was to the Jews. In 15:21-28, Jesus' objection to healing the Gentile woman's daughter is much more obvious than in Mark (in Mark, the only time Jesus is called 'Lord' is by this woman - 7:28: here Mark has used the story, which in Matt is anti-Gentile, to show that it was a Gentile who recognised the divine status of Jesus). Matt also adds that Jesus said that he had only come 'to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'. The author of Luke, not only pro-Gentile, but endeavouring to portray Jesus as humane, omits the whole story.
In Matt, Jesus instructed his disciples not to go anywhere near Gentiles or Samaritans, but to go to 'the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matt 10:5-6), but Mark does not include this (6:7ff), and nor does Luke (9:1ff). Luke contradicts this by saying that Jesus wanted to enter Samaria. but was prevented from doing so by the inhabitants there (9:52-53). In Luke, Jesus heals a Samaritan (17:11-16), and Jesus' mission to the Samaritans, which is precluded in Matt, goes even further in John when Jesus goes into Samaria and 'many' are converted there (4:4,5,39-42).
Not only did the authors of Matt and Luke correct the errors in Mark, and the author of John reinterpret the oral and written material, some of which was the basis for the Synoptic Gospel account, they also clearly made considerable divergences from the account in Mark. Although some corrections and changes are to make the account sound authentic, the principal cause for the changes is clearly theological.
Matt begins with a genealogy tracing Jesus back to Abraham through David (1:1-16) to show Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, but Luke has this going back to Adam (3:23-38) to show that Jesus' coming was to save all mankind rather than just Israel: this is announced just after the birth in Luke (2:28,32). The author of Mark begins his Gospel very abruptly, whilst the author of John begins his Gospel by stating that Jesus was the pre-existent Logos (it is this portrayal of Christ that pervades the fourth Gospel).
To the end of the Gospels, the personal theological belief, manner and motivation of each author clearly manifests itself: in Mark, the resurrection narrative ends as abruptly as the Gospel begins; the resurrection appearances are not mentioned possibly because the whole message of Mark is faith. In Matt, the last appearance by Jesus to the disciples is on a mountain; this may be an attempt to connect Jesus' departure with Moses' (NB. In Matt, Jesus teaches about the law on a mountain - 5:1,17-42, recalling how Moses received the law on the mountain: in the Lukan parallel, Jesus did not teach on a mountain, but rather 'he came down and stood on a level place' and this did not relate to the law - 6:17-49).
What has to be borne in mind is the fact that the evangelists were not only producing their narratives from isolated disconnected sayings and stories, many of which had survived down to their time only through oral tradition, their narratives were also related to the particular Jesus in whom they believed, shaped by their own personal experience and the experience of their own community. Their account was also shaped for the people for whom it was intended.
The Gospels also reflect the evangelists' own culture and background. They also had to deal with factors which had only emerged during their time, e.g., why Jesus had not returned, why Judaism had rejected its Messiah, how Christianity could be related to Judaism, how Christianity could show that Jesus was the one foretold in the OT, and as the church became distanced from the time that Jesus supposedly lived, the rising importance of the disciples/apostles.
The source of Matt and Luke, although there is disagreement about this, appears to have been a mixture of,
(a)the Q document (the authors of Matt and Luke may not have used the same document, i.e., due to difference in time and area, one evangelist may have seen a different (e.g., expanded) Q document. (The term 'Q' (for German 'Quelle' referring to 'source') is also used to denote oral as well as written tradition) and,
(b)Mark; it appears they most probably Mark, and this may have been an earlier edition, and,
(c)their own sources.
Both Gospels mainly follow the order in Mark. In the case of Luke, more than one-third is material not found in Mark, but almost one-third of Mark is not found in Luke. The non-Markan material is principally inserted into two places in Luke, i.e., 6:20-8:3 (the small insertion) and 9:51-18:14 (the large insertion) although there is non-Markan material found in the sections that do repeat Mark (e.g. Luke 3:23-4:13, 4:16-30).
In the case of Matt, half of this is not found in Mark, whilst over a half of this material is found in Luke; the remainder appears to be Matt's author's own material. This has to led to numerous questions, e.g., whether the evangelists wrote their accounts, but then expanded them when coming across Mark, or whether their special material was actually found in Q, but because the other evangelist chose not to use it, this results in it appearing to be material only available to one evangelist. It is also argued that the special material in some cases was not written, but oral tradition; some suggest that the material found in only one Gospel, without parallel in another, may be the author's own composition, i.e., they produced stories that they believed would teach the readers about a certain subject that they considered important, e.g., Luke's story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16).
A brief examination of both Matt and Luke will show that the authors were sympathetic to certain ideas, and introduced these into their Gospels, either by simply rephrasing or rearranging the material, or by using stories that supported their particular perspectives. Matt's author clearly wished to show that Jesus' mission was only to the Jews (10:5,6, 15:24); and as already noted, in the case of the Canaanite woman (15:22-28), Jesus' hostility towards her is far greater in Matt than in Mark (7:24-30): Luke's author chose to omit this altogether.In Matt, the Gentile mission was only authorised after the resurrection (28:19): it is at this point where the pro-Jewish line is concluded; after the crucifixion the Jews are pictured as being particularly hostile - e.g., approaching Pilate to authorise a guard on the tomb (27:62-66) and the Jews bribing guards to say the disciples had stolen the body (28:11-15).
Before the resurrection in Matt, Jesus is shown as being solely for the Jews; Jesus is pictured as the Jewish messiah, the descendent of Abraham and the Son of David, and his life fulfilled OT prophecies and expectations: the OT texts are usually wrestled from their context and used very artificially in Matt. While pro-Jewish, the author writes against certain Jewish groups towards whom he felt particular hostility. In Luke, Jesus is the saviour of the world - to Jew, Samaritan and Gentile. Luke's author makes it clear that from the very beginning, not only Israel, but the world was blessed by Jesus' appearance on earth. (2:14,32).
On occasions it is inevitable there would be a clash between the evangelists. This is apparent in the stories already mentioned, e.g., when Matt has Jesus telling the disciples to avoid Gentiles and Samaritan towns and only go to the 'lost house of Israel' (10:5,6), but Luke has Jesus attempting to enter a Samaritan town, and only failing to do so because of Samaritan hostility (due to his intention to reach Jerusalem) (Luke 9:51-53). Jesus also heals a Samaritan, and Luke's author elevates the Samaritan by pointing out that he was the only one who expressed gratitude (Luke 17:11-19). There is also the story, only found in Luke, about the 'good Samaritan' who is elevated above the priest and the Levite (10:30-37).
In contrast to the Jewish-only mission of Matt 10, not only does Luke omit mention of the exclusiveness of this mission (9:1-6), but it also has a second mission which is usually understood as a mission specifically for the Gentiles in 10:1-17 (i.e., the number of seventy (or seventy two - as some MSS have) disciples is significant; the Jews believed this was the number of Gentile nations). Luke's author stresses the success of the Gentile mission by having Jesus say that he had seen Satan cast down when the seventy/seventy-two returned (10:18).
The trial/death of Jesus as recorded by the Gospels appears suspect as while his crime of blasphemy could be punished on a Feast day, there was no permit to execute thieves on a Feast day, but the Gospels say thieves were executed with him.
In Luke, the statement made by Jesus to the high priest in Matt 26:64 when Jesus says the high priest would see his return is amended to remove any likelihood of this (Luke 22:69). The cryptic 'abomination of desolation' in Matt (24:15) is made into Jerusalem's fall, but as Jesus' return was supposed to be 'immediately' after this (Matt 24:29), Luke's author has to introduce a unspecified time-period between the Fall of Jerusalem and the Parousia - 'the times of the Gentiles' - 21:20,24.
Luke takes on the appearance of a travel narrative (9:51-19:27), and the author has the material in a different order (when compared with Matt): he presumably did this when it would have the most impact. This reveals an example of redaction where the author has consciously adapted the material to suit his theological motive: Jerusalem is the starting point for not only Jesus, but also the church, i.e., Jesus' presentation in Jerusalem, his boyhood visit there, his journey to the city as part of his ministry, concluding with his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension in the area with the disciples being instructed to wait there for the Spirit. It is because of such endeavours, a conflict is inevitable between Luke and Matt, i.e., both evangelists had a free hand before Jesus' ministry began (as in Mark 1:1), and after the visit to the tomb (as in Mark 16:8): at these points, the evangelists were no longer obliged to follow Mark, and the differences become the most noticeable.
There are other factors in Matt and Luke that reveal that rather than being reliable accounts of historical events, they are compositions where the theological purpose dictates the content. As Matt does not explain references to Jewish customs, this indicates it was written for a Jewish audience not requiring explanations; the author stresses the importance and validity of the Law and also uses Jewish expressions alongwith rabbinic colouring. Luke however is presenting a Gospel to deal with problems peculiar to his situation: for Gentile readers, it improves Mark's Greek and also includes changes where necessary, e.g., the attitude of Jesus' family to Jesus, the non-fulfilment of the promise of an imminent parousia.
The authors of the four canonical Gospels cannot be viewed as trustworthy historians as they clearly used and adapted both mythology and tradition as a basis for the 'Good News' that they sought to declare. Consequently, the Gospels are not biographies of Jesus' life, but rather, compositions for preaching and/or to satisfy the need of a particular Christian community; therefore, there is no 'historical' data in their contents.
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