The three-source hypothesis is a candidate solution to the

synoptic problem The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose c ...

. It combines aspects of 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 ba ...

and the Farrer hypothesis. It states that the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and ...

and the

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke), or simply Luke (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two ...

used the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to ...

and a sayings collection as primary sources, but that the Gospel of Luke also used the Gospel of Matthew as a subsidiary source. The hypothesis is named after the three documents it posits as sources, namely the sayings collection, the Gospel of Mark, and the Gospel of Matthew. The sayings collection may be identified with Q, or with a subset of Q if some (typically narrative-related) material normally assigned to Q is instead attributed to Matthew's creativity in conjunction with Luke's use of Matthew. This theory has been advocated by Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Eduard Simons,

Hans Hinrich Wendt Hans Hinrich Wendt (June 18, 1853 in Hamburg – January 19, 1928 in Jena) was a German Protestant theologian. Life After studying theology at Leipzig, Göttingen and Tübingen, he became in 1885 professor ordinarius of systematic theology at ...

, Edward Y. Hincks, Robert Morgenthaler and Robert H. Gundry. Alternatively, M.A.T. Linssen proposes it as a variant by equating the sayings collection to

The Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is an extra-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate ...

, suggesting that Matthew and Luke worked together to write different gospels, each targeted at their own audience

References

External links

A brief history of the Three-Source TheoryA Synoptic Gospels Primer
{{Gospel of Mark Synoptic problem Biblical criticism Christian terminology Gospel of Mark Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Luke

See also

References

External links