Sunday School: Synoptics Section 254

I guess, must be need to get Mr. C back and everybody will be here. Might be useful to.

You if you have it because this is a challenging little section.

Section 254.

The overall meaning of the text is not difficult, but this is one of the key synoptic problem and we would be shirking our responsibility despite the fact that there's nobody here.

What is this?

I mean, this is really weird and it's also weird how you all have sat. There's no one in the middle of the room. It's like you've all formed a... We did set a new record yesterday, a record high yesterday for Phoenix, which is just what we all wanted.

Well, no, we had that one cool front move through and we're like, ah, that's it and Need to realize it's been 103 all the way into, what was the latest that was, October something, so it ain't over until it's over.

Well, Thanksgiving, yeah, I remember an 84 degree Thanksgiving once, so yeah, it can still happen, but it's supposed to slowly be on the downslide for next, at least I hope so, because I'm riding 140 miles next weekend and I really don't want to start at 2 .30.

In the morning again.

It's weird being out in the middle of nowhere at 2 .30 in the morning on a bicycle with your little headlight and you turn the little headlight off and go, wow, you turn it back on, okay. I didn't see anything out there other than an amazing amount of traffic.

I was on the road out to Wickenburg, which is a horrible road, oh, it's horrible, I had no idea it would be that rough, it just beat the fillings out of my teeth, it was terrible, but an amazing amount of traffic.

I don't know what those people are doing at that time in the morning, but I was, every time somebody would come up behind me, I'd go, probability this person is drunk, very high, let's make sure we've got some place to dive if he's weaving when he gets here, so it was definitely interesting.

I wouldn't do that if it weren't for that furnace thing that happens by about 9 o 'clock in the morning, but anyway, it's a tough section, tough only in the sense that, as I said, it is considered to be one of the synoptic problems and it has been, I don't know how many years since we did the introduction to this material, to the synoptics, and so I might need to go back over a few points so that we have the proper foundation for dealing with this, and like I said, it would be easier just to skip over it, but given that this is the kind of text that is presented in all of our classes that you would take at ASU or Glendale or Phoenix or Scottsdale, whatever, as a classic example of the editing of the New Testament text, then I feel a responsibility to work through this with you so you are familiar with this and know what is headed your direction.

The Rich Young Ruler and the Synoptic Problem

The Rich Young Ruler, section 254, Matthew 19, let's just read the first couple verses here and then compare them with Mark and Luke. And behold, one came up to him, saying, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. Compare Mark, chapter 10, verse 17, and as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal.

Life?

And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. And then Jesus says, You know the commandments and begins with the last half of the Decalogue. And Luke, chapter 18, and a ruler asked him, Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments. And then you have the same commandments cited, but not in exactly the same order. We will look at the commandment issues a little bit later on.

The key is to be found, the key issue to understand is to be found in this first section. We need to go through this and note the differences between the three Gospels. This section is not given to us in John, that's why it's called specifically a synoptic issue.

First Mark gives us a background. He was setting out on his journey, which is not provided in either Matthew or Luke. Mark says that a man ran up and knelt before him. Matthew simply has one came up to him and Luke identifies him as a ruler.

A ruler asked him. But then the key issue is found in the fact that Mark and Luke have good teacher. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Or what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good?

No one is good but God alone. But Matthew has an interesting difference. He doesn't say good teacher. He simply says teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good?

One there is who is good. If you would enter eternal life, keep the commandments. Now, the normal assumption of the large portion of what is called New Testament scholarship today, and I do not include in that phrase only believers, there is a lot of New Testament scholarship that is practiced by unbelievers.

So keep that in mind when you hear people talking about New Testament scholarship. But even amongst what would be called conservative seminaries, remember a number of years ago when we did the introduction, we talked about what is called Markian priority.

And that is the majority today, this is not the view of the early church, this is pretty much a modern view. But the majority today believe that Mark was the first gospel written. And then the assumption is, on the part of a large majority, remember there can be some who believe that Mark was written first, but there is not necessarily a genealogical relationship between Mark, Matthew and Luke in the sense that Matthew and Luke possessed the gospel of Mark.

So a slightly smaller number of people then would believe that Mark writes his gospel first, and Matthew and Luke possess Mark's gospel. They have it in front of them. But they make changes in it. And much of writing in commentaries concerning Matthew, Mark and Luke today involves attempting to discern, attempting to climb into the minds of men who lived long, long ago and discern somehow, based upon theories that you come up with, why they made the changes they made.

And the common presentation, you'll hear it from Bart Ehrman, you'll hear it from a large swath of writers on the New Testament today, is that basically Luke wasn't bothered by what Mark said because he pretty much just repeats it.

Even though it is odd that he would mention to him that he was a ruler when that wasn't mentioned before by Mark. He had some kind of information that Mark didn't give to him. And yet Matthew is scandalized by what Mark has in some way.

And evidently it would be, well, it seems like Jesus is not viewing himself highly enough here. Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

Now, I have had Muslims quote this text to me this past Tuesday evening right here in Phoenix. I did a major debate. Don't feel badly if I didn't post where it was or anything. It was in a TV studio and there was a very small RSVP studio audience, but it was a Jewish Voice broadcast.

Dr. Michael Brown and I debated two Unitarians on the Doctrine of the Trinity and guess what text got mentioned briefly in passing? But this one as well. It is very commonly cited. And it's very commonly cited in the context that we'll see Mark has a low Christology.

He clearly doesn't believe in the deity of Christ. But then Matthew is trying to exalt Jesus and so he has to edit what Mark has to say. That's what you hear very, very commonly. And so what Matthew does, he's just moved the words around a little bit.

He's kept teacher, but he's moved good over to deed. What good deed must I do to have eternal life? And he said to him, why do you ask about what is good? One, there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.

And so he's removed the embarrassing statement, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

There's the argument.

Now, at the very least, if you ever talk with one of these professors like the fellow that my daughter ran into at Glendale who clearly keep notches on their guns as to how many Christians they managed to disabuse of their Christian belief, you can look them in the eye and say, yeah, I'm well aware of the issue.

And no, we don't just skip over it and dodge it.

And I'll be honest with you.

Most of the time in the vast majority of evangelical churches, you're not going to have any discussion of this at all because people are uncomfortable when you point things like this out. And they would rather just go, I don't really want to see things like that.

Can't you just make us all feel nice and warm and fuzzy when we go home and not make us work through issues like this? That's just not how you do things. There may have been a day when you could do that when most of the people in your congregation would not necessarily be exposed to unbelieving professors at the local university.

But we now have things like this.

This is a computer.

And it's with me all the time. And I can get my email and Internet and Twitter and everything else. It just follows me around. It's everywhere. When I was doing the debate, I had this bag with me. I had this thing set up as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

So that down on the stage, on my iPad,.

I had access to the Internet.

I could do Internet searches if I needed to do something. And it was connected Wi-Fi to my phone out in the audience with my daughter at the TV studio. We are connected. So our people are no longer insulated from arguments like this.

So the head-in-the-sand defensive mechanism doesn't work anymore. You know a group that's really found this out that's fascinating? The Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses for years lived on the assumption that they could insulate their people from all the information that would demonstrate that the society had changed its beliefs over and over again in its history.

Then along came cable TV and then the Internet. And they can't do that anymore. And it has literally resulted in a major change in how they do things and how they change theology and everything else. It's changed the practice of religion.

Well, I think that we need to change the assumption that we can skip over stuff like this and avoid the tough questions. So having said all of that, what then do we do with this? Well, notice a couple things.

Let's first begin with the assumed meaning of Jesus' words in Mark and Luke. Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? Why does anyone assume that Jesus is saying, I'm bad?

This is the same Jesus that says elsewhere, who convicts me of sin. There is never a word of confession of sin upon his lips in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It is the continued assertion of all believers from the beginning that Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

The Lamb of God had to be pure and spotless. So the very assumed meaning of what Jesus is saying is not an appropriate meaning at all. And it's not just conservatives that view this. I was very interested a couple of months ago listening to the unbelievable radio program out of London, which I would recommend to you, by the way.

You can get it on iTunes, a podcast type thing. It's only once a week. It has a fascinating guest, and at the very least, one of the things you'll learn from listening to Unbelievable is that things are a lot better over here than they are over there.

I mean, honestly, and Justin Brierley does a great job on the show. I've been on the show a number of times, both in studio, but some of you may recall that a little over a year ago, I was on via ISDN connection from here in Phoenix, and the reason I was on is Justin Brierley could not find anyone in the UK to defend the historical doctrine of hell.

Had to get a Reformed Baptist from Phoenix to be on the program to defend the historical doctrine of hell. That doesn't mean there isn't anybody in the UK that doesn't believe that anymore, but there are so few of them that actually have experience doing radio and can present their perspective that that's how I had to do it.

So I recommend the program to you for another reason. Sometimes you'll just be banging your head on the table going, ah, boy, we don't want to go the direction of Europe in any way, shape, or form. But I was listening, they had Dr. Richard Balcom, very well-known New Testament scholar, but certainly not someone who would be as conservative as I am.

And he was on and was dialoguing with someone about Christology in the New Testament. He said, I don't understand why people look at the Gospel of Mark and think there's nothing about the deity of Christ in Mark.

Haven't you read Mark chapter 10? When the young man says, Jesus, good teacher, what's my duty to inherit your life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. Don't you hear what Jesus is saying?

He's not denying his own goodness. He's giving a basis for this young man to recognize who he's dealing with. And I was like, I was undoubtedly riding my bike some place at the time, like, yay! It must be odd to sometimes see me riding by and the various noises and gestures I'm making because I'm listening to stuff on my iPod.

And that is the case. So there is an assumed, very often when you have some type of alleged problem in the text, the alleged problem goes back to a gross misinterpretation. And unfortunately, a lot of people are unwilling to challenge someone.

My daughter's good evidence of what happens when you do challenge someone. So, first of all, it starts off with a false assumption that what is going on here. But, even if someone were to grant that, the argument amongst the liberals is, well, okay, you can take it that way.

However, it seems clear to me that Matthew didn't interpret it that way and that's why he's changing Mark. And so, the question still comes back to, why is there a difference? Well, if you hold to a direct genealogical perspective, that is, that Matthew's sitting there and he's got Mark in front of him and he's changing what Mark is saying, you've got a problem.

I mean, you really do. Those who accept that perspective, in essence, have to somehow come up with a theory that can explain a direct, purposeful redaction on the part of one gospel writer of another gospel writer.

And that does open the door to all sorts of speculation about why is there a difference? I don't know if we can answer any of that stuff. But it certainly opens the door to it. Now, in the introduction, years and years and years ago, to this study of the synoptics, I gave you other perspectives.

We know that Luke does specifically say that he used written sources. He interviewed people. He gathered materials together. He's doing research. Matthew does not say that. But Luke, at the beginning, says others have compiled accounts, whether that was oral or written, but others have compiled accounts.

And it seemed good to me, O Theophilus, to do the same thing so that you might know the exact truthfulness of what you've been taught. And so, the world doesn't come crashing to an end, in my perspective, if Mark is first.

And by the way, the early church did not believe that. As I said, they thought Matthew was first. And I read a fascinating study about a year and a half ago where they used a computer based upon grammar and syntax and word usage to compare the Gospels.

And the computer said Luke was first. The computer said Luke was first, which everyone went, eh? But that's what the computer came up with. I mean, obviously, what you feed in is what you get out, so it depends on how you program the computer.

But the early church thought Matthew was. Computers think Luke is. N .T. Wright is exactly right when he says, we don't know. In computer lingo today, we have time stamps. It tells you when this transaction took place.

You get your receipt from the ATM. Or what I like now at Wells Fargo, you can choose to have them email you your receipt to your email address. And so, you got this receipt there. It's got a time stamp on it.

It tells you exactly when you put that little envelope into the thing and it processed the transaction. It gives the date and the time. Well, we don't have a time stamp on Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

There's nothing there that tells you which one was first, which one, the exact date they were written, or anything else. That would be nice and wonderful, but we don't have that. And so, if you theorize that Mark comes first, then you have to deal with, does Matthew and Luke possess Mark?

And if they don't, then what do you do with the many sections where things are very, very, very similar to one another? You have a question, sir. I have my Greek text in front of me, but I noticed, I was going to point this out.

If you look down below, see the little teeny tiny, well, see, you're not looking at the blue text. If you look at the blue text, Brick will share it with you there. If you look at the blue text, you will notice down below, Matthew and the 16, good master A.

And good master A means that's in the authorized version, so the King James. And just master in the revised standard version. And then both those have deed or thing as well. So it gives you, in English, some of the variants that take place.

Clearly what happens in the Greek manuscripts is the scribes notice the very same difference. And the tendency amongst the later Byzantine scribes was always to try to harmonize the texts. So, yeah, the easy way around is to go with the Byzantines and say there's no difference at all.

But the problem is you go to the earliest texts and the difference is there, and there is a, you know, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is,.

Why is it there?

And it's real obvious the later scribes didn't like to deal with this either. And so they went with Mark and Luke's version. But, but, but, but, if you looked at the same little teeny tiny font stuff at the bottom of the page, you will note that it went both directions.

So in other words, in Mark, there's some that say master or teacher, add there is none good but one that is God, and Luke likewise. So whenever you have a major difference between the synoptic Gospels, your later manuscripts are going to show scribal confusion because they did try to harmonize.

They wanted them all to say the same thing. That's a problem, obviously.

Yes, sir.

No, that's a step.

Right, right.

And if you, that's one of the problems is that the critics of the faith will say, see, the later scribes hid this. The Muslims will say, see, you're trying to hide this. And that's why most people have never worked through the issue because not only do you not normally read in a synopsis where you're going to see it anyways.

And honestly, if you read through Matthew, by the time you get to Mark, it's not going to sound identical. I mean, no matter how many hours have passed since you've read Matthew once you get to Mark, the change is so subtle that you, you're probably not even going to notice it unless you're looking at it in this fashion.

So, yeah, there is that as well. And those that prefer the Byzantine text and say it's all just a tempest in a teapot. Well, I don't think we can go there. So, as I mentioned in the introduction, how do you then answer the question of how there is so much similarity between the synoptics if you don't have a direct literary dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark?

And I think the best way to understand this, that answers the questions most clearly, is to recognize that as Luke said, and as Richard Balcombe has documented rather clearly in his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, the preaching of these texts and the circulation of these messages was not done just by a few people.

There were eyewitnesses throughout the early church. It didn't just evaporate shortly after Jesus' ascension to heaven. And in fact, their testimony in the church was extremely important for many, many, many decades.

And this was being preached not just in one place,.

But all over the world.

And these eyewitnesses would travel. And as they got fewer and fewer, they became more and more important. And they functioned and acted as a repository and as a correction upon the oral preaching prior to the writing of the Gospels themselves.

And so you have one tradition, one body of preaching and teaching that is being promulgated in many different places, and yet there are people traveling between these places. And they are acting as a correction and as a guide upon the nature of that teaching.

So if you have here three ancient versions, and they are not identical to one another, and obviously you know what would happen if they were. If they were identical to one another, what would the argument of the critics be?

Ah, well, it's just clearly just copying from one another, and therefore it's only one witness and it's not three witnesses. So you sort of, darned if you do and darned if you don't. If there are any differences, oh, that shows there's been, oh, that's bad.

If there aren't any differences, oh, that's plagiarism. That means there's just one testimony here and it's not three. So in a court of law, when you have three people that witness an accident and they come in, you do not expect them to use the exact same words in the exact same order.

And if they do, you go,.

Hmm, wonder what's going on here.

You expect the substance to be the same. But you're not going to, you've heard the stories about how people have a, you know, in the middle of the class, they'll have someone run in and do something strange.

A clown run in and do something and bop the teacher on the head with a yellow bat or whatever else and run out of the room. And then immediately have to get out a piece of paper. Everyone write down what you just saw.

And then you compare what people saw. And of course, the chick in the back who was texting her boyfriend didn't see anything at all. The teacher said to get out paper and write something.

I don't know.

And then, you know, you have some people say it was a yellow bat and the colorblind guy in the back thinks it's a blue bat. And you get all these differences in eyewitness accounts. That's a thumbs up.

Were you going to ask a question?

Almost none. Almost none. Given that the question is the same, the answer is the same, results in the same discussion on riches and rewards of discipleship. No, this is clearly the same incident, especially since Mark and Luke are giving us an identical thing.

The question that we have to face is, and we dealt with this early on, if we do not assume literary dependence, then we don't have to climb into Matthew's mind. And we have to ask ourselves the question, does his recording of this change the substance of the issue?

Or is Matthew simply recording the version of the encounter that has come down to him in his location, which is probably a different location than Mark, which is a different location than Luke. Possibly Matthew is still in Judea, or at least an area close to Jews, because he's writing for the Jews.

Mark seems to be writing for Gentiles, probably history says Rome. Luke is traveling with Paul, so he's outside of that particular area. Are these just simply different flavors of the very same story that differ in one minor issue, and that is where the word good went?

That would seem the case to me, and the answers all are the same. Whether it is what good deed must I do, Jesus' response is still to ask the man, why are you asking me about what is good? Why do you call me good?

Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one good. There is only one there is who is good. It's a rather odd translation there, but there is only one who is good, and that is God. In both situations results in the exact same conversation and the exact same emphasis on Jesus' point apart, and that is to point the young man, and I'm not sure why he's called young, because I was noticing the rich young man.

It says he's a ruler. We know he was rich, but he talks about, I've observed from my youth. This isn't bothering me.

Oh, there it is.

There it is. Matthew 19, 22. The young man heard this. There it is. So he is the rich young ruler. So you put it all together, and that's how you come up with the rich young ruler, but you have to have all three to come up with that.

Anyway, Jesus' response to him in each one is the same. A, to attempt to get the young man thinking about who he's addressing and why he is addressing him, and then B, to go directly into the presentation of the second half of the Decalogue, which is our behavior toward others.

Notice he skipped the first half, which is our relationship to God. The point, as we'll get to next week, because we're not going to have time today, the point, as we'll get to next week, is that the young man is an idolater.

The young man has kept the external law, but the young man has not kept the internal law in regards to his relationship to God. He loves his possessions more than he loves God, and that's why Jesus skips over.

Having no God before me goes directly to the external. Did I commit adultery? Did I kill? Did I steal? Did I bear false witness? Oh, I've done that from the time I was a youth up. But one thing you lack.

And the only basis upon which the young man, the young ruler, whatever, would have to hear Jesus' words in saying, you lack one thing, is if you were to understand who he's talking to. How does Jesus know what he lacks?

How does Jesus know what he needs to be perfect?

Because he truly is good.

He truly knows this young man's heart. This young man may be putting on a fine display of asking various religious authorities about being religiously good, but he's now bowing down before a religious authority who is so because of who he is, not because of where he studied.

And so, it just seems to me that if you have been watching the phraseology all the way up to this point, and we've gone through a fair amount of stuff now, there are a lot of times when there is a difference between Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the use of adjectives, where the adjective falls in a sentence, providing background information, you know, Jesus is starting a journey, well, one doesn't give that information, you know, all the rest of the stuff, and Luke doesn't even want to try to create that kind of chronological situation.

Anyways, there have been all sorts of places where it's been different. What makes this one different than the rest is that if you assume certain currently popular scholarly ideas, then it opens the door to all sorts of speculation about why's and wherefore's that the text was never intended to answer.

In the first place.

When in reality, they all end up at the exact same spot, and that is Jesus responds to the man's question by pointing to himself as the ultimate good, and as the one who is able to tell him this one thing you lack.

And as far as we can tell, you know, we don't know what this young man's eventual situation was. I mean, there were thousands that were saved in the day of Pentecost. And there were thousands saved afterwards.

So much so that the Jews began persecuting the Christians and drove them out of the area. So, we don't know, but the Scriptures don't tell us. All we know is that this young man,.

And it's interesting,.

Jesus looked upon him and loved him. Mark records for us. Jesus looked upon him, loved him, and said to him, you lack one thing. This was a unique encounter for this young man, and he needed to know something about the person that he was asking because he is going to look into his very heart.

And he is going to reveal to him the one thing he's missing. You see, amongst the Jews, it was a given that you said the Shema. Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh our God. You said it every morning.

There's only one true God.

And they reduced the first part of the Decalogue to just Jewish identity rather than relationship to God. And that's how the Pharisees could love their stuff and love their money and have hearts set upon the things of this world and yet still think that they were being really good Jews.

And they missed the point. And this young man, in this instance, misses the point too because each of the Gospels say he went away.

His countenance fell.

He was sad.

Why?

Because he was rich.

He had many possessions. And he just did not hear what Jesus did. He did not hear who Jesus was. He did not hear what Jesus said because he didn't understand who Jesus was. And the difference of the appearance of the word good can either be used to become a stumbling block to say, oh, Matthew's editing Mark or we can hear all three Gospels and realize that no matter where you put the word good, Jesus answered the same question and directed the man to the same thing.

So, that's the issue as I see it. I'm sure Jesus did answer similar questions many times, but I cannot possibly see how these are different incidents given that they all occur concurrently in Matthew, Mark, and Luke at the same part, same point in the discussion.

So, if we do not assume certain modern theories for which we have no historical evidence whatsoever, then the problem is not overly relevant. But if we assume those things, then you can see how people make the arguments that they do.

Now, we didn't actually cover the whole thing. I just had to cover that first and then we can... Well, I did sort of make applications, so it won't take us very long to work through the rest of it. But do we see what the issues are?

Yes, no, maybe?

It's...

Again, I know it's unusual to study through a synoptic and it's unusual to point out these things, but I think it's far better to point that out here in this context and to be able to challenge it and to offer options than it is, unfortunately, what most people get, where they just simply have it presented and, well, it's a fact Mark was first, it's a fact Matthew edited Mark, it's a fact that, therefore, none of this is reliable, and, therefore, it's a fact you shouldn't be a Christian.

I mean, that's what's presented day in, day out, on campuses all across our land. And, unfortunately, to 99 of the people walking into those classrooms, they are not prepared. Even if they're believers, they're not prepared.

And, at the very least, it results in silence on their part and embarrassment. And if that means that they're not going to open their mouths and give testimony to the gospel, then damage done, accomplished, from their perspective.

Far better if they then abandon the faith, which is what they very often want people to do. But we'll at least finish with the whole story next time around when we get a chance to continue with our study.

Okay? Let's close with a word prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the freedom you've given to us, the resources you've given to us to be able to, once again, struggle with and wrestle with issues in your Word.

We do ask that, like the scriptures would warn us, that we would not be like this rich, young ruler who, kneeling before the very Incarnate Son of God, did not hear because of the great love he had for the things of this world.

May we be preserved from his deafness and his blindness. May we hear your Word and be obedient to it. We pray in Christ's name.