1 - Introductory

Summary

In all four gospels the closing chapters stand apart from the rest in form and character as well as in contents. These chapters contain a long continuous narrative–the only such narrative found anywhere in the gospels–moving from stage to stage in orderly sequence and forming a unity. By contrast, the earlier parts of each of the four, giving an account of the Ministry of Jesus in word and deed, lack any such unity or continuity. Form-critics who have studied the structure of the Synoptic Gospels regard the units of narrative and teaching as the primary constituents of the gospels, preserving even as literary products much of the character of the oral tradition in which they had originally been current. The arrangement of pericopae is regarded as due to the editorial work of the evangelists. There is no sign that they felt themselves strictly bound by any fixed scheme.

In the Passion narrative, by contrast, the three Synoptic Gospels scarcely differ in the order of incidents. Attempts to show that the Passion narrative, like the account of the Ministry, grew up out of separate units have not, in my judgement, succeeded. It may be that some two or three of the incidents which now appear in the course of that narrative were handed down separately, but for the most part each incident is intelligible only in its place within the continuous sequence, depending on what has gone before and preparing for what comes after.