Liberty University
THEO 510 – Survey of Theology
Andrew Reitenauer
Journal Article Critique
“The Relationship between John and the Synoptic Gospels”

Introduction
The Journal article entitled “The Relationship between John and the Synoptic Gospels,” focuses on the relationship that John may have had access to the synoptic gospels when he wrote the book of John. The debate focuses on three theories about how the book of John was written, and how John is similar, yet uniquely different from the Synoptic Gospels, of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The journal compares the writing style and the scripture context in comparisons and differences between the synoptic gospels and the book of John.
Brief Summary
The three distinct positions of the article focuses on, first “that John was literally dependent upon one or more of the synoptic gospels” (1). The second is “that John was literally independent of the synoptic gospels, but that similarities between them are due to use of a common synoptic tradition” (1). The third and final position is “that John was literally independent of the synoptic gospels, but was aware of them and their traditions.” (1). All of these literary theories help the reader to understand why the book of John is different, yet similar in many ways to the synoptic gospels, although it is not included as one of the synoptic gospels.
“The term synoptic is derived from a combination of the Greek words συν (syn = together) and οψις (opsis = seeing) to indicate that the contents of these three Gospels can be viewed side-by-side, whether in a vertical parallel column synopsis, or a horizontal synoptic alignment.” (2) “These first three books have been called the synoptic Gospels since the 18th century and are so called because they give similar accounts of the ministry of Jesus.” (2) The book of John also gives accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus, but has some unique differences compared with the other gospels in context.
Critical Interaction
The purpose of the article is to take a critical look at the three theories of why John is different from the synoptic gospels, and why it is not included with them. The author seeks to view the literary dependence that John had from the synoptic gospels. The argument focuses on the order in which key passages occur to support this theory, which could be refuted largely by the timing of the events themselves that occurred in the timeline of Jesus’ ministry. (1) The author concludes that it is not a strong argument to think that John is dependent upon the synoptic gospels for its narrative.(1)
Since the author concludes that John is not literary dependent of the synoptic gospels, the author then looks at John being literary independent from the synoptic gospels. The author does admit “that out of 868 verses in John, only 153 have synoptic counterparts, most of which are found in the passion, the feeding of the multitude, and Jesus’ walking on water.”(1) In the end the author makes a critical point in that John was a Palestinian Jew, he was one of the apostles, and that John was an eye witness to the ministry of Jesus. (1) All of these facts point to a literary independence from the synoptic gospels, although the style of writing is similar. The author points out that Matthew and Luke were not eye witnesses and that there are only traces of similarities between these gospels.
The author concludes that the third and final way of relationship is most likely the most accurate, in that it is the mediating view. (1) “It proposes that John wrote his gospel independent of the synoptic gospels, although he knew of them and their traditions.” (1) The author points out that “the synoptic gospels only requires about a year for the ministry of Jesus, while John requires about three years of ministry.”(1) The author concluded and dispelled that John is written not in the shadow of the synoptic gospels, but separately including the same events of the ministry of Jesus.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I thought the author did a good job at examining the theories of how the book of John was written. The author used many scriptures to prove each view point, and to draw his conclusion. The author wrote this article as an essay for a class that he was taking as a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois. I believe the author reached his goal of educating his readers on the theories and the controversy of how the book of John was written from a literary stand point. The author could have gone into more of why some believe that John was dependent upon the synoptic gospels. The author quickly concluded this to be a false argument, and drew attention to why he concluded his theory to be correct. The article was interesting to me to see the theological view of how there is still some debate among scholars about how John was written in light of the other gospels, while also independent of them. I was also able to view in my research the scriptures in comparison to the theories that the scholar suggested to support their arguments.

Works Cited
Dvorak, James D. The Relationship between John and the Synoptic Gospels. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2nd ser., JETS, no. 41 (June 1, 1998): 201-13.

The Synoptic Gospel Parallels. Synoptic Gospel Parallels. July 10, 2015. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://www.gospelparallels.com/.