This groundbreaking study poses a solution to what one scholar has called "one of the most difficult research problems in the history of ideas"—the Synoptic problem. The phenomenon and mystery of three similar but different Synoptic Gospels has for centuries challenged some of the best minds of academia and the church. How can we explain the differences and similarities among Matthew, Mark and Luke? Which Gospel was written first? To what extent did the Evangelists depend on oral tradition, written sources or each other? John Wenham courageously opposes the reigning two-document theory-that Mark was the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke independently using Mark and a lost source of sayings of Jesus labeled Q. Through careful argument and analysis, he seeks to defend an alternative theory that satisfactorily accounts for what he argues is some degree of structural dependence but nevertheless a surprising degree of verbal independence among the Synoptics. This brave new revisioning of the writing of the Synoptics redates Matthew, Mark and Luke prior to A.D. 55. Insightful and provocative, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke offers a fresh look at a hard problem as well as an interesting perspective on the inner workings of the early church. It is a book to be reckoned with—and sure to stir up scholarly controversy.

The problematic literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels has given rise to numerous theories of authorship and priority. The primary objective of Rethinking the Synoptic Problem is to familiarize students with the main positions held by New Testament scholars in this much-debated area of research. The contributors to this volume, all leading biblical scholars, highlight current academic trends within New Testament scholarship and updates evangelical understandings of the Synoptic Problem.

Offers a fresh reading of the much-debated Synoptic Problem.

The first four books of what is commonly referred to as the New Testament are The Gospel according to Matthew, The Gospel according to Mark, The Gospel according to Luke, and The Gospel according to John. The reader will find many of the same stories told in each of the gospels but from a different point of view according to the author. The reader will notice specific and comparable attention to detail from each author's gospel. A Detailed Outline to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was written to guide and help the reader understand the order of events during this era. The purpose of this outline is to help the reader identify the main points of each of the gospels, thereby enabling the reader to gain revelation as they study. Dr. Leland McClanahan has done an outstanding job in summarizing the main points of each book and putting it in a format that is easy to follow along.

This study explores the way in which, by way of the Christian mysteries, divine action impacts human life. The triune God acts in Jesus Christ by means of historical events whose effects transcend time and which are mediated through their celebration in memorial and worship. Drawing on both Evangelical and Catholic writers, Nichols provides evidence that the general portrait of Jesus found in the Pauline letters and the four Gospels rests on reliable historical witness. On this basis, he offers a concise Christology which presents Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Messianic hope of the Old Testament; explores his unique being as laid out in the teaching of the great Ecumenical Councils of the first Christian millennium, and describes how the classic theologian of the Latin tradition, St Thomas Aquinas, sees the chief historical events of Christ’s life as affecting humanity throughout future time. Nichols then looks at the Christian concept of God – namely, Trinitarian monotheism. God so conceived can act efficaciously in the created order and does so by the deployment of his Word and Spirit in ways which express for a fallen, historical world, the dynamics of the interaction of the divine Persons in eternity – Persons who now draw human beings within their range. Those gains in understanding are then applied to the individual mysteries of the life of Christ, from his biological conception to his coming Parousia. For each mystery, Nichols describes a biblical preamble; an account of how the mystery is seen by the Liturgy and the Fathers of the Church; illumination from the three theological masters whom the author makes his own in this work – Aquinas, Balthasar and Bulgakov;- and a visual image drawn from the treasury of sacred art.