Word: griesbach
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Lost Sayings. In the 4th century, St. Augustine opted for the conventional biblical order; it prevailed as Catholic and, later, Protestant teaching until the 18th century. Then biblical scholars of the Enlightenment, becoming concerned about disparities in the internal chronology of the Gospels, reopened the issue. German Scholar Johann Griesbach, in 1774, performed one service by eliminating the Gospel of John from the dispute. He showed that John is distinct in style and content, whereas the other three share many parallel passages and signs of interdependence. Griesbach called them the "synoptic" Gospels, meaning that they should be "viewed together...
...theory was based not so much on conclusive proof from the Gospel texts as on a desire for a neat, scientific solution to satisfy a scholarly predilection for evolution: the more primitive Mark evolving into the smoother, more elaborated Matthew and Luke. Farmer returns to a sequence proposed by Griesbach: Matthew, then Luke, then Mark. Farmer's critics ask why Mark would have omitted so much of importance, such as the Sermon on the Mount and so many of the parables. Defenders reply that Mark's could have been simply a special-purpose Gospel for a particular community...