Parallel Chapter 1

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If you are reading or desire to use this course, there is a list of parallel scriptures. Unfortunately Blogger does not do well with tables. Please e-mail me at don.jamison@sydenstrickerumc.org and I will be glad to send them to you. 


Introduction

The purpose of this course is to allow us to explore the writings of the Gospel’s. More specifically the parallel writings. As we explore the writings that find themselves in multiple Gospels, we should continually ask ourselves a series of questions.

·       How did the writer hear the story?

·       Why did the writer put it in this particular place in their story?

·       Why did they structure it the way that they did?

·       What story are they trying to tell or authenticate?

I have not included all the parallel’s that occur and offer that there are plenty of great Parallel Bibles around to assist the reader in finding out more. My hope is to illuminate what each writer wants us to hear and by comparing, we can gather a sense of the tremendous story being told by the early Disciples.

Course

Chapter 1     Bible History and Structure

Chapter 2     Birth Narrative

Chapter 3     Prepare the way, Baptism and Temptation

Chapter 4     Ministry into Galilee

Chapter 5     Miracles

Chapter 6     Sermon on the Mount/ Plain

Chapter 7     Parables

Chapter 8     Ministry in Judea and Jerusalem

Chapter 9     Olivet Discourse

Chapter 10   Passion Narrative and Resurrection

Appendix     List of Parallel Scriptures

Chapter 1

Bible History and Structure

Bible History and Structure

The best starting place in dealing with the Bible is to start with the structure of the Bible and discuss the history of each section at that time. To begin, we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that it illuminates the relationship between God and humanity, that it is the Only source for questions related to Salvation and the Primary source for understanding God at work in the world. The Bible we often refer to as the Protestant Bible is a collection of books written at different times, by different writers and translated in many languages. There are 66 books of the Bible divided into the Old Testament (39 Books) and the New Testament (27 Books). The Old Testament is divided into 5 groupings or divisions.

• The Books of the Law
• The Books of History
• The Books of Poetry
• The Major Prophets
• The Minor Prophets

We understand that originally the Hebrew people divided the Old Testament into three sections.

• The Books of Law, Torah or Pentateuch is considered to have been written by Moses or have been accumulated at or shortly after the time of Moses. These books chronicle the creation story, the flood story and the Exodus Story of the Hebrew people out of Egypt. They include the Mt. Sinai experience where God brought the guidelines for living that encompasses the Ten Commandments. The first five books of the Bible are included in this group, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
• The Prophets originally included 21 books of the Old Testament. They included Joshua Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Then there were the so-called Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12 Minor Prophets (Hosea-Malachi).

·       The Writings were considered by the Hebrew people as books that were written by men who were inspired of God but were not prophets. We do not know who collected these books or when some of them were written. This group includes the 5 books of Poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon) as well as these remaining 8 books: Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 & 2 Chronicles.

The Hebrew Bible, which became our current Old Testament, came into reality somewhere around 300 years before Christ when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek. It included additional books that did not find their way into the Protestant Bible but are part of the Catholic Bible. These books are known as the Septuagint. These books appeared around the time that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek and included works that were known at that time. They include Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch as well as additions to the Books of Esther and Daniel. These books are often referred to as the Apocrypha. They are not part of the Protestant Bible because Protestant biblical Scholars argued that they were not part of the original Hebrew Bible.

When the Bible was translated into Greek, it was divided into the groupings of present day. These groupings were by literary style more than chronological order or Hebrew definition.

• The first five books, the Books of Law have been left intact.
• They are followed by the Books of History which explains the history of the nation of Israel. They include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
• The next grouping is called the Books of Poetry; include the Books of Ester, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. They are sometimes called Wisdom writings as well.
• Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel have become known as the Major Prophets. They lived between 2700 and 2500 years ago and include prophecies concerning the nation of Israel including prophecies of Christ.
• The final grouping of the current Bible Old Testament include all of the Minor Prophets which include Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. The term minor prophets comes from the length of these books, not the status of the prophet.

We come now to the discussion of the New Testament. The New Testament is divided into three groupings.

• The Gospels which include the Books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We believe them to be written after the death of Christ, most likely some 30 - 40 years after his death. The Apostles believed that Christ was coming again in their lifetime, but as they began to die off realized that he might not. So they began to write down the teachings, events in his life and his sayings so that they would survive.
• The Writings or Epistles include Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude. They were written by followers of Jesus. They often were sent to other people to help explain Christianity. Sometimes they were written to counter heresy, or wrongful interpretations of the teachings of Jesus.
• The final grouping is one single Book, The Revelation of John. This book is thought to have been written around 70 AD or 70 years after Jesus died. It contains a future vision of Jesus and the world.

How it came to be

The early Christians continued to hold to the OT as their divinely-given Scripture, but they soon came to realize the need to value 1^st century apostolic writings as well. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter and the others preached on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). This process of inspiration continued in their preaching and in their writing. It is assumed that all NT books were written before the end of the 1^st century. Paul wrote letters to several churches and asked that they be read publicly when the Christians assembled (I Thessalonians 5:27; Colossians 4:16). Early historical accounts clarify that apostolic writings were read on a regular basis in the Christian assemblies.

In Paul's letter to the Colossians, he commands that they exchange letters with the church of the Laodiceans (4:16). It appears that early Christians soon began to circulate many of the apostolic writings. It is in this way, most likely, that various books of the NT began to be gathered into collections. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:16, indicates already a collection of Paul's letters (notice that Peter calls them "scriptures" and places them alongside that of the OT).

In the 2^nd century, following the death of all the apostles the writings of the apostles became more valuable. The desire to exchange and collect such writings increased. The gospel accounts appear to be quickly accepted by the Christian community. Paul's letters were commonly accepted. There was yet, however, no mention of a canon of the NT; there were only casual collections of writings that were being passed around.

Soon, however, spurious or pseudonymous letters came into circulation among the churches (letters falsely bearing apostolic names and/or claiming apostolic authority). Furthermore, false teachers arose claiming knowledge handed down by tradition. All this led to the beginning of the canon as Christians realized the need to determine what writings were genuine and what writings were not. By the end of the 2^nd century, the idea of a NT canon was clearly understood. The extent of that canon, however, was yet to be determined.

It is important to understand the criteria used by early scholars to determine the canonicity of any book. The true (and obvious) test of canonicity is/was inspiration. If a book was clearly inspired of God, then certainly it was accepted as part of the NT canon. The question then remains: how was inspiration to be demonstrated?

According to history, several books were universally accepted by every church without any doubt or hesitation. These were the four Gospels, Acts, the 13 letters of Paul, 1 Peter and 1 John (20 books). Several years would pass, however, before the acceptance of the complete canon of 27 books as we have today.

In the 3^rd century, Origen, a well-known scholar of that time, gave a list of generally accepted books. He acknowledged the four gospels, Acts, the 13 letters of Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation. He mentioned Jude, wavered in regard to James, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John, and he evidently hesitated concerning Hebrews because, as he said, "God alone knows who wrote it."

In the early part of the 4th century, Eusibius expressed the general Christian thought of his time. He accepted Hebrews as authentic and indicated that James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 John were beginning to find recognition. Finally, it was in 367 that a man named Athanasius first gave a list of canonical books identical with our 27 today. Scholars since that time have generally remained in agreement that the 27 books we have in our NT are all inspired of God and are the only available such writings.

So where did the writings of the Gospels come from? There is almost a universal acceptance that the three writings we know as Matthew, Mark and Luke came from oral traditions that were passed among the early disciples. These oral traditions may well have found their way into printed writings and some suggest that there was early writings referred to now as M and Q that have been lost over time. Most believe Mark is the first text though Matthew has text that Mark does not have. Where Matthew and Luke agree with another text, it is usually Mark that they agree with. Matthew and Luke then probably came about with knowledge of Mark already in existence. Mark is the shortest. Matthew, Mark and Luke all seem to follow the same sequence of order with slight differences. Most likely, these three are independent writings using the available oral and written sources of their time. Acts is generally considered to be part of the writings from this time period and in fact many believe Luke and Acts to have been written together possibly as one manuscript. Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels, synoptic meaning similar or like.

Of the 27 books of the New Testament, it may surprise most people to know that the Epistles, the letters attributed to the early disciples are the oldest. They were likely written while the Disciples still lived which would date them well before 70 AD and most like within the first 30-40 years after Jesus resurrection. Next would come Mark and then Matthew and Luke sometime together. Some attribute these writings to around 90 AD but many theologians argue the destruction of the Temple would have been included if that was the case and it is not. So those folks argue for an earlier date, possibly mid to late 60 years after the resurrection but prior to the Temple destruction. John and John’s Revelation come later probably around 90 to 100 AD. Acts likely came into existence prior to 70 AD but followed Luke in its existence.

           So the question clearly is why study the Gospel in parallel anyway? I believe there is something that can be learned from subtle and sometimes not so subtle different ways the story is told. Each of the writers of the three synoptic Gospels has a story to tell and an audience that they are clearly targeting. So much of what is said is focused on that audience. How the story is told shares a different perspective on how they each heard the words of Jesus plus how the re-telling of miracles, healing and otherwise, shares a perspective on who they believe Jesus to be. For example as we study the birth narrative it is important to understand why Mark doesn’t include it and why Matthew promotes the Magi over the Shepherds.  Some of this has to do with how the oral traditions are shared and who gets to hear what. Some of this has do with what is important about presenting Jesus to the rank and file of their audience.

           Matthew is laid out in a way that you could literally take Matthew apart week by week to preach as sermons. Matthew’s audience we believe are the Jews in and around Jerusalem so the story of Jesus takes into account Herod, the focus of who the people are looking for in a Messiah and what significance the teaching will mean. Hence, Matthew spends a great deal of time telling the story of the Sermon on the Mount in a very orderly way while Luke includes it throughout his narrative. Mark on the other hand may not have had knowledge of the birth narrative when he wrote his Gospel or he may have felt it not strong enough to authenticate the story so he starts his narrative with John the Baptist, which would have been widely known at the time of the writing of Mark. His audience is the Roman people in and around Judea and outward toward Rome. Luke on the other hand is clearly working on the Greek’s in society so he spends a great deal of time on Miracles, on spiritual teaching and spinning the story so that the non-Jew can grasp the significance of Jesus. John’s Gospel also was written for the intellectual Greek and Roman and stands out as different than the other Gospels so will not be included in this work, since there are very few parallel verses with Matthew, Mark or Luke.

           As we study the parallel’s, the right question, as Dr. Mickey Efird would say, is not why are they different, but what does it tell us? So our focus should be on the things that they say together and when they do diverge, what does it have to do with the audience or how the story is being told.