1520 | The Synoptic Gospels and Acts
and triumphant Messiah should experience suffering and rejection. Mark seems to suggest that the answer lies in the fact that Jesus has redefined the terms of messiahship altogether. In the first half of the Gospel, prior to the revelation of Caesarea Philippi( Mk 8:27 – 30), the evangelist seeks to establish Jesus as the promised Messiah. In the second half of the narrative, he conveys the surprising things that Messianic identity entails. The reason why so many do not accept the Messiah is because only some are“ good soil”( Mk 4:1 – 20), receptive to the claims of Jesus. Mark’ s Gospel, with its twin focus on Christ’ s compelling character and suffering, serves as an unparalleled charter document for Chris tian discipleship.
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
The Gospel of Matthew is often assigned a date much later than that of Mark. This is primarily a consequence not only of the Two-Source Hypothesis, but also of the sense that the author of Matthew’ s Gospel is addressing concerns relevant to the late first century AD( e. g., Chris tians’ conflicts with the synagogue and issues of church order). Moreover, the twice-used phrase“ to this day”( Mt 27:8; 28:15) seems to imply some historical distance between Matthew’ s recording of the events and the events themselves. These factors may suggest an authorship date in the late first-century AD, although other factors suggest an earlier date; the dating of Matthew remains open to discussion.
Antioch in Syria is the most probable place of origin for Matthew’ s Gospel. Other suggested locations include Caesarea Maritima, Alexandria and the territory east of the Jordan. The Gospel has an obvious concern for the Gentiles, and Syrian Antioch was a cosmopolitan mix of Jewish and Gentile cultures during the first century AD. The earliest attestations of Matthew’ s Gospel stemming from the church father Ignatius of Antioch also suggest a Syrian origin for the Gospel. 2
The first Gospel seems to have been written with a Jewish audience foremost in mind. Matthew’ s modeling of Jesus on the figure of Moses, the polemic against institutional Judaism and the various“ fulfillment citations”( referencing an Old Testament passage as being fulfilled in the NT, especially how Jesus personally fulfills Old Testament Scriptures; e. g., Mt 1:22 – 23; 2:15,17 – 18,23; 4:14 – 16) all seem to presuppose an attempt to legitimize a fledgling Chris tian movement within an established Jewish culture. Matthew shows Jesus as the true teacher of Torah, indeed as the embodiment of Torah itself, and as the culmination of the history of God’ s redeeming purposes through Israel.
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE AND BOOK OF ACTS
The Gospel of Luke, the latest of the Synoptic Gospels, has traditionally been credited to Luke, a Gentile physician and companion of the apostle Paul( Col 4:11,14; 2Ti 4:11; Phm 24). The book of Acts( or Acts of the Apostles) is also traditionally attributed to Luke since the prologue presents it as a sequel to the Gospel( Ac 1:1 – 2). There are also four“ we passages” in Acts, which appear as if the author was present for the events being narrated( Ac 16:10 – 17; 20:5 – 15; 21:1 – 18; 27:1— 28:16). This would make sense if Luke was indeed the author.
Assuming that Luke and Acts were written together as one piece( the two works show striking structural parallels that make it hard to believe otherwise), the dating of Luke-Acts is closely connected with prior judgments relating not only to the authorship of Mark( on whom Luke presumably depends) but also to the events narrated in Acts. The earliest that Luke – Acts could have been
2 E. g., Ignatius of Antioch, To the Smyrnaeans, 1.1; To the Ephesians, 19.1 – 3.