The four-document hypothesis or four-source hypothesis is an explanation for the relationship between the three
Gospels
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...
of
Matthew,
Mark
Mark may refer to:
In the Bible
* Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark
* Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels
Currencies
* Mark (currency), a currenc ...
, and
Luke. It posits that there were at least four sources to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke: the Gospel of Mark and three lost sources (
Q,
M, and
L). It was proposed by
B. H. Streeter in 1925, who refined the ''
two-source hypothesis
The two-source hypothesis (or 2SH) is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were base ...
'' into a ''four-source hypothesis''.
Description
According to
B. H. Streeter's analysis the non-Marcan matter in Luke has to be distinguished into at least two sources,
Q and
L. In a similar way he argued that Matthew used a peculiar source, which we may style
M, as well as Q. Luke did not know M, and Matthew did not know L. Source M has the
Judaistic character (see the
Gospel according to the Hebrews), and it suggests a
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
origin; source L Streeter assigned to
Caesarea; and source Q, the analysis posits, was connected with
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as ...
. The document Q was an Antiochene translation of a document originally composed in
Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
– possibly by the
Apostle Matthew
Matthew the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles, twelve apostles of Jesus. According to Christian traditions, he was also one of the four Evangelists as author of the Gospel of Matthew, and thus is also known as Matthew the Evangelist.
Th ...
for Galilean Christians. Gospel of Luke developed in two phases (see picture).
According to this view the first gospel is a combination of the traditions of Jerusalem, Antioch, and
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, while the third gospel represents Caesarea, Antioch, and Rome. The fact that the Antiochene and Roman sources were reproduced by both Evangelists Matthew and Luke was due to the importance of those Churches. Streeter thought there is no evidence that the other sources are less authentic.
Streeter hypothesized a proto-Luke document, an early version of Luke that did not incorporate material from Mark or the birth narrative. According to this hypothesis, the evangelist added material from Mark and the birth narratives later. Telling against this hypothesis, however, the gospel has no underlying passion tradition separate from Mark, and Luke's travel account is evidently based on
Mark 10.
A contemporary version of the four-source theory omits proto-Luke, with the evangelist combining Mark, Q, and L directly.
Still, the gospel might have circulated originally without the birth narrative in the first two chapters.
[ Funk, Robert W. and the ]Jesus Seminar
The Jesus Seminar was a group of about 50 biblical criticism scholars and 100 laymen founded in 1985 by Robert Funk that originated under the auspices of the Westar Institute.''Making Sense of the New Testament'' by Craig Blomberg (Mar 1, 200 ...
. ''The acts of Jesus: the search for the authentic deeds of Jesus.'' HarperSanFrancisco. 1998. "Birth & Infancy Stories" pp. 497–526.
See also
*
Augustinian hypothesis
The Augustinian hypothesis (sometimes referred to as the Augustinian Proposal) is a solution to the synoptic problem, which concerns the origin of the Gospels of the New Testament. The hypothesis holds that Matthew was written first, by Matth ...
*
Farrer hypothesis
The Farrer hypothesis (also called the L/M hypothesis, the Farrer–Goulder hypothesis and the Farrer–Goulder–Goodacre hypothesis) is a possible solution to the synoptic problem. The theory is that the Gospel of Mark was written first, follo ...
*
Gospel harmony
A gospel harmony is an attempt to compile the canonical gospels of the Christian New Testament into a single account. This may take the form either of a single, merged narrative, or a tabular format with one column for each gospel, technically kn ...
*
Gospel of Marcion
The Gospel of Marcion, called by its adherents the Gospel of the Lord, or more commonly the Gospel, was a text used by the mid-2nd-century Christian teacher Marcion of Sinope to the exclusion of the other gospels. The majority of scholars agree t ...
*
Hebrew Gospel hypothesis
*
Marcan priority
Marcan priority (or Markan priority) is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was the first of the three synoptic gospels to be written, and was used as a source by the other two (Gospel of Matthew, Matthew and Gospel of Luke, Luke). It is a cent ...
*
*
Two-gospel hypothesis
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
*
{{Synoptic problem
Christian terminology
Synoptic problem