9 - Summary and prospects

Summary

It is time to take stock. We have examined a great number of passages in the Synoptic Gospels, some from the so-called Triple Tradition, some from the basic Gospel framework that we identified in Chapter One, and many others besides. We have pointed to the difficulties involved in showing particular passages, let alone particular Gospels, as more primitive, and we have observed that even if in a particular passage it can be shown that either Matthew or Mark is the more primitive, it does not follow that he is necessarily also the older, let alone the source, of his more sophisticated parallel text. We have argued that in many places it is certainly incorrect to infer derivation from close similarities of wording.

It is also necessary to draw attention to a fact so obvious that it has been regularly overlooked. If we ask the question; ‘Did Jesus ever say the same thing twice, or even three times, in more or less the same words?’, we can only answer, ‘What preacher doesn't?’ So we should be surprised if we did not find in the Gospels very similar passages, regardless of whether or not we subscribe to a theory of literary dependence. And we might expect to find amalgamated versions of oft-told parables, and similar verbalizations of similar preaching in different places.