7 - From Caesarea Philippi to the Burial of Jesus

Summary

It would obviously be possible to discuss every line and indeed every word of the Synoptics in search of literary derivation, but after a while the exercise becomes monotonous. I have already noted that in the later sections of the Synoptics it has been observed that variation in the order of pericopae between Matthew, Mark and Luke (apart, of course, from Luke's ‘Travel Narrative’) is very much reduced. For whatever reason, the general order of material in many of these sections is more obviously fixed. It might look, therefore, as if literary dependence is available as an explanation of this. I believe, however, that the hypothesis of such dependence in the case of Mark and Matthew is not only unnecessary but that there are many passages which cast doubt upon it, and I shall discuss a number of them. In a sense nothing new will be added to our earlier evidence, but it may be of interest to see that similar results are obtainable from one end of the Synoptics to the other.

Divorce

Both Matthew (19:1 - 12) and Mark (10:1 - 12) have a section on divorce after Jesus leaves Galilee for Judaea and eventually Jerusalem. Luke, who shortly rejoins the Synoptic sequence after his ‘Travel Narrative’, omits this section, probably because he has already given us teaching on divorce a little earlier (at 16:18).