The Synoptic Problem

The word “synoptic” comes from two Greek words, syn and opsesthai, meaning, “to see
together.” Essentially the synoptic problem involves all the difficulties that arise because of the
similarities and differences between the Gospel accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke have
received the title “Synoptic Gospels” because they present the life and ministry of Jesus Christ
similarly. The content and purpose of John’s Gospel are sufficiently distinct to put it in a class by
itself. It is not one of the so-called Synoptic Gospels.
Information that the writers obtained verbally (oral tradition) and in writing (documents)
undoubtedly played a part in what they wrote. Perhaps the evangelists also received special
revelations from the Lord before and or when they wrote their Gospels.
Source Criticism

 The study of the other sources the evangelists may have used
 A. E. Lessing  argued for a single written source for the Synoptic Gospels (Gospel of the
Nazarenes)
 Some favored the view that Mark was one of the primal sources because over 90 percent
of the material in Mark also appears in Matthew and or Luke
Form Criticism

 Concentrated on the process involved in transmitting what Jesus said and did to the
primary sources
 Assumed that the process of transmitting this information followed patterns of oral
communication that are typical in primitive societies
Redaction Criticism

 Accepts the tenets of source and form criticism

 Gospel evangelists altered the traditions they received to make their own theological
emphases. They viewed the writers not simply as compilers of the church’s oral traditions
but as theologians who adapted the material for their own purposes.
 There is a good aspect and a bad aspect to this view. Positively it recognizes the individual
evangelist’s distinctive purpose for writing. Negatively it permits an interpretation of the
Gospel that allows for historical error and even deliberate distortion. Redaction scholars
have been more or less liberal depending on their view of Scripture generally.
In recent years the trend in critical scholarship has been conservative, to recognize more
rather than less Gospel material as having a historical basis.
A much more helpful critical approach to the study of the Bible is literary criticism, the
current wave of interest. This approach analyses the text in terms of its literary structure,
emphases, and unique features. It seeks to understand the canonical text as a piece of
literature by examining how the writer wrote it. Related to this approach is rhetorical
criticism, which analyses the text as a piece of rhetoric. This approach is helpful because there
are so many speeches in the Gospels.

Notes on Matthew
Writer  Matthew
Distinctive Features

 “If a Bible reader were to jump from Malachi into Mark, or Acts, or Romans, he would
be bewildered. Matthew’s Gospel is the bridge that leads us out of the Old Testament
and into the New Testament.”
 Compared with the other Gospels Matthew’s is distinctively Jewish
 Matthew referred to the Old Testament more than any other evangelist
 Referred to many Jewish customs without explaining them, evidently because he
believed most of his original readers would not need an explanation
 No other Gospel contains as many of Jesus’ discourses and instructions
Audience & Purposes

 Matthew wrote his Gospel primarily for his fellow Jews

 He did not state these purposes concisely, as John did in his Gospel (John 20:30-31).
Nevertheless, they are clear from his content and his emphases.
 To demonstrate that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament,
that He fulfilled the requirements of being the promised King who would be a
descendant of David, and that His life and ministry fully support the conclusion that
He is the prophesied Messiah of Israel
 He also wrote it to explain God’s kingdom program to his readers
 Matthew presented three aspects to God’s kingdom program. First, Jesus presented
Himself to the Jews as the king that God had promised in the Old Testament. Second,
Israel’s leaders rejected Jesus as their king. This resulted in the postponement, not
the cancellation, of the messianic kingdom that God had promised Israel. Third,
because of Israel’s rejection Jesus is now building His church in anticipation of His
return to establish the promised messianic kingdom on the earth.
 He wanted to provide an apologetic to aid his Jewish brethren in witnessing to other
Jews about Christ
Plan & Structure
Matthew often grouped his material into sections so that three, five, six, or seven events,
miracles, sayings, or parables appear together. Jewish writers typically did this to help their
readers remember what they had written. The presence of this technique reveals Matthew’s
didactic (instructional) intent. Furthermore, it indicates that his arrangement of material was
somewhat topical rather than strictly chronological. Generally chapters 1—4 are in
chronological order, chapters 5—13 are topical, and chapters 14—28 are again
chronological. Matthew is the least chronological of the Gospels.

Exposition (Matthew)
I. The King’s Genealogy
Genealogy (1:1-17)
The name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, and it means “Yahweh is
salvation” (yehoshua, the long form) or “Yahweh saves” (Yeshua, the short form).
Matthew began his Gospel with a record of Jesus’ genealogy because the Christians
claimed that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. To qualify as such,
He had to be a Jew from the royal line of David (Isa. 9:6-7). Matthew’s genealogy proves
that Jesus descended not only from Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation, but also
from David, the founder of Israel’s royal dynasty.

II. The King’s Birth

The Birth of Jesus Christ (1:18-25)
The prophecy Matthew said Jesus fulfilled comes from Isaiah 7:14 (v. 23). It is a difficult
one to understand.
Prelude - Isaiah 7:1-10
Judah is faced with invasion by its northern neighbors, the Kingdom of Israel (also called
Ephraim) and Aram-Damascus (Syria), but God instructs the prophet Isaiah to tell king
Ahaz that God will destroy Judah's enemies.
The prophecy - Isaiah 7:11-16
Isaiah delivers God's message to Ahaz and tells him to ask for a sign to confirm that this is
a true prophecy (verse 7:11). Ahaz refuses, saying he will not test God (7:12). Isaiah replies
that Ahaz will have a sign whether he asks for it or not, and the sign will be the birth of a
child, and the child's mother will call it Immanuel, meaning "God-with-us" (7:13-14); by
the time the infant "learns to reject the bad and choose the good" (i.e., is old enough to
know right from wrong) he will be eating curds and honey, and Ephraim and Syria will be
destroyed (7:15-16)
Aftermath - Isaiah 7:17-25
 Isaiah 7:17 follows, with a further prophecy that at some unspecified future date God will
call up Assyria against Judah: "The Lord will cause to come upon you and your people and
your ancestral house such days as have not been seen since Ephraim broke away from
Judah - the king of Assyria" (verse 7:17). Verses 18-25 describe the devastation that will
result: "In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines ... will be turned
over to thorns and briars" (verse 23). The "curds and honey" reappear, but this time the
image is no longer associated with Immanuel: "In that day a man will save alive a young
cow and two sheep, and there will be such an abundance of milk, he will eat curds and
honey" (verse 21-22)
What did this prophecy mean in Isaiah’s day? At the risk of oversimplification there are
three basic solutions to this problem.
First, Isaiah predicted that an unmarried woman of marriageable age at the time of the
prophecy would bear a child whom she would name Immanuel. This happened in Isaiah’s
day. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in the sense that a real virgin bore Him, and He was “God
with us.” This is a typological view, in which the child born in Isaiah’s day was a sign or
type (a divinely intended illustration) of the child born in Joseph’s day. I prefer this view.
A second interpretation sees Isaiah predicting the virgin birth of a boy named Immanuel
in his day. A virgin did bear a son named Immanuel in Isaiah’s day, advocates of this view
claim. Jesus fulfilled the prophecy since His mother was a virgin when she bore Him, and
He was “God with us.” This is a double fulfillment view. The problem with it is that it
requires two virgin births, one in Isaiah’s day and Jesus’ birth.
A third view is that Isaiah predicted the birth of Jesus exclusively. He meant nothing about
any woman in his day giving birth. Jesus alone fulfilled this prophecy. There was no
fulfillment in Isaiah’s day. This is a single fulfillment view. The main problem with it is that
according to this view Ahaz received no sign but only a prophecy. Signs in Scripture were
fairly immediate visible assurances that what God had predicted would indeed happen.
Matthew presented three proofs that Jesus was the Christ in chapter 1: His genealogy,
His virgin birth, and His fulfillment of prophecy.

III. The King’s Childhood

The Prophecy About Bethlehem 2:1-12

The Old Testament not only predicted how Messiah would be born (1:18-25)
but where He would be born (2:1-12)
“Matthew adroitly answers Jewish unbelief concerning Jesus Christ by quoting their own
official body to the effect that the prophecy of His birth in Bethlehem was literal, that the
Messiah was to be an individual, not the entire Jewish nation, and that their Messiah was
to be a King who would rule over them.”
“In the original context of Micah 5:2, the prophet is speaking prophetically and
prophesying that whenever the Messiah is born, He will be born in Bethlehem of Judah.
That is the literal meaning of Micah 5:2. When a literal prophecy is fulfilled in the New
Testament, it is quoted as a literal fulfillment. Many prophecies fall into this category . .
.”[95]
Another writer called this, literal prophecy plus literal fulfillment.
It is remarkable that the chief priests and scribes apparently made no effort to check out
Jesus’ birth as the Magi did.
“It is strange how much the scribes knew, and what little use they made of it.”[97]
Their apathy contrasts with the Magi’s curiosity and with Herod’s fear. It continued into
Jesus’ ministry until it turned into antagonism.
“. . . the conflict on which the plot of Matthew’s story turns is that between Jesus and
Israel, especially the religious leaders.”
Several contrasts in this section reveal Matthew’s emphases. Herod, the wicked Idumean
usurper king, contrasts with Jesus, the born righteous king of Israel. The great distance
from which the Magi traveled to visit Jesus contrasts with the short distance Israel’s
leaders had to travel to see Him. The genuine worship of the wise men contrasts with the
feigned worship of Herod and the total lack of worship of the chief priests and scribes.
The Gentile Magi’s sensitivity and responsiveness to divine guidance also contrast with
the insensitivity and unresponsiveness of Israel’s leaders.
“Even though Israel is cognizant of the prophecies, they are blind to spiritual realities.
The King of Israel is worshiped by Gentiles, while His own people do not bother to own
Him as their King. The condition of Israel is clearly implied in the early verses of Matthew’s
Gospel. They are cold and indifferent.” (They understand literal prophecies)
As noted, Matthew frequently used the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies to show
that Jesus was the Christ. Verse 15 contains another fulfillment. This one is difficult to
understand, however, because in Hosea 11:1 the prophet did not predict anything. He
simply described the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt as the departure of God’s son (cf.
Exod. 4:22). Old Testament writers frequently used the term “son” to describe Israel in
its relationship to God. What did Matthew mean when he wrote that Jesus’ departure
from Egypt fulfilled Hosea’s words (Hos. 11:1)? Matthew’s quotation is from the Hebrew
text.
Jesus was the “typological recapitulation of Israel “[111] Another writer called this “literal
[event] plus typical [fulfillment].”[112] Still another referred to it as “literal prophecy
plus a typical import.”[113]
“There were similarities between the nation and the Son. Israel was God’s chosen ‘son’
by adoption (Ex. 4:22), and Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Son. In both cases the descent into
Egypt was to escape danger, and the return was important to the nation’s providential
history.”[114]
“. . . Matthew looked back and carefully drew analogies between the events of the
nation’s history and the historical incidents in the life of Jesus.”[115] in Matthew 2:15: An
Alternative Solution,” Bibliotheca Sacra 143:572 (October-December 1986):325. This
article evaluated several other proposed solutions to this difficult citation.

2:16-18
“In the original context, Jeremiah is speaking of an event soon to come as the
Babylonian Captivity begins. As the Jewish young men were being taken into captivity,
they went by the town of Ramah. Not too far from Ramah is where Rachel was buried
and she was the symbol of Jewish motherhood. As the young men were marched
toward Babylon, the Jewish mothers of Ramah came out weeping for sons they will
never see again. Jeremiah pictured the scene as Rachel weeping for her children. This
is the literal meaning of Jeremiah 31:15. The New Testament cannot change or
reinterpret what this verse means in that context, nor does it try to do so. In this
category [of fulfilled prophecy], there is a New Testament event that has one point of
similarity with the Old Testament event. The verse is quoted as an application. The
one point of similarity between Ramah and Bethlehem is that once again Jewish
mothers are weeping for sons they will never see again and so the Old Testament
passage is applied to the New Testament event. Otherwise, everything else is
different.”
Cooper called this “literal prophecy plus an application.”[121] Bailey saw three points
of comparison between the two situations: in both of them a Gentile king was
threatening the future of Israel (cf. 2:13), children were involved, and the future
restoration of Israel was nevertheless secure (cf. Jer. 31:31-37).[122]
Matthew evidently used Jeremiah 31:15 because it presented hope to the Israelites
that Israel would return to the land even though they wept at the nation’s departure.
The context of Jeremiah’s words is hope. Matthew used the Jeremiah passage to give
his readers hope that despite the tears of the Bethlehem mothers, Messiah had
escaped from Herod and would return to reign ultimately.
“Here Jesus does not, as in v. 15, recapitulate an event from Israel’s history. The
Exile sent Israel into captivity and thereby called forth tears. But here the tears are
not for him who goes into ‘exile’ but because of the children who stay behind and
are slaughtered. Why, then, refer to the Exile at all? Help comes from observing
the broader context of both Jeremiah and Matthew. Jeremiah 31:9, 20 refers to
Israel = Ephraim as God’s dear son and also introduces the new covenant (31:31-
34) the Lord will make with his people. Therefore, the tears associated with Exile
(31:15) will end. Matthew has already made the Exile a turning point in his thought
(1:11-12), for at that time the Davidic line was dethroned. The tears of the Exile
are now being ‘fulfilled’—i.e., the tears begun in Jeremiah’s day are climaxed and
ended by the tears of the mothers of Bethlehem. The heir to David’s throne has
come, the Exile is over, the true Son of God has arrived, and he will introduce the
new covenant (26:28) promised by Jeremiah.”

Careful attention to the terms Matthew used to describe this fulfilment helps us
understand how Jesus fulfilled Scripture. First, Matthew said the prophecy came
through “prophets,” not a prophet. This is the only place in the first Gospel that he
said this. Second, Matthew did not say that the prophets “said” or “wrote” the
prediction. He said “what was said or spoken” through them happened. In other
words, Matthew was quoting indirectly, freely.

There is no Old Testament passage that predicted that the Messiah would come from
Nazareth or that people would call Him a Nazarene. How then could Matthew say that
Jesus fulfilled Scripture by living there? The most probable explanation seems to be
that Nazareth was a specially despised town in the despised region of Galilee in Jesus’
day (John 1:46; 7:42, 52). Several of the Old Testament prophets predicted that
people would despise the Messiah (Ps. 22:6-8, 13; 69:8, 20-21; Isa. 11:1; 42:1-
4; 49:7; 53:2-3, 8; Dan. 9:26). Matthew often returned to this theme of Jesus being
despised (8:20; 11:16-19; 15:7-8). The writer appears to be giving the substance of
several Old Testament passages here rather than quoting any one of them.
 “In the first century, Nazarenes were people despised and rejected and the
term was used to reproach and to shame (John 1:46). The prophets did teach
that the Messiah would be a despised and rejected individual (e.g. Isa 53:3)
and this is summarized by the term, Nazarene.”
Cooper preferred to call it “literal prophecy plus a summation.”

In chapter 1 Matthew stressed the glories of Messiah’s person. In chapter 2 he gave a

preview of the reception He would receive as Israel’s Messiah. In chapter 3 he introduced
the beginning of His ministry with accounts of His earthly forerunner’s heralding and His
heavenly Father’s approbation.