2. The Bible

Well, hello again. This is Session 2 of New Testament Survey, the Gospels through Acts, and you can consider this to be like, I don't know, introduction part 2. We'll get to Matthew in our next session, but what I want to talk about in this session is the Bible itself. I think it's important that as we study the Bible and that we learn more about God's Word, that we increase our trust in the Bible as a gift from God. So let's start by prayer, and then we'll get into the session. Father, I'm so thankful for this opportunity to share more about your Word. I'm thankful for each person that will be viewing this video. I pray, God, that you will speak deep into their heart and grow them deep, Lord, in their understanding and knowledge of you. We know, God, that as we know more about you, we can live out more your calling on our lives, and we thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to be blessed by your mercy and your grace and your love through your Word, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so let's jump right into it. You should have the slide deck, and we'll start with a slide that says, sanctify them by the truth, truth, your Word is truth, and that's John 17, 17. John, the 17th chapter, is really a fascinating chapter. We'll talk more about it as we get into the gospel of John, but just in summary, we see in that first part of John 17, Jesus is praying to God the Father, and he's praying about his mission, right? And then he begins to pray for the disciples, and then he prays for those who will believe in the disciples, which are us. And so that is a fascinating truth that we see in God's Word, where our Father, our Savior, prays for us, the believers in him, to magnify his name before others. So really blessed to have this opportunity to talk about God's Word tonight. So the Bible is God's communication, or God's Word. The words of the Bible contain the very message God wants and would give us if we could sit and talk with him like I'm talking to you in this session. Through the Bible, especially if you memorize it, or you have a conversation, you can have a conversation with God all day long as you memorize and meditate and think about his Word. As you read the Bible, it does something so much more miraculous than any other book or item that you will read. So you're reading the Bible, and you think you're learning about God's Word, which you are. But in the same vein, at the same time, the Bible is reading you. In other words, it is showing you things about yourself that no other manuscript, no other book could do. So we're thankful that not only did God give us this gift, but this gift is able to read us as well. The Bible is alive, and it changes who we are the more we read it, the more we study it, the more

we memorize it, and the more we know about his Word. Let's look, for example, at Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 through 13. For the Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. The Bible is essential and is the normative source, normative source of truth as it governs our spiritual life and relationship with God. So as we want to know God more, we are simultaneously saying that we want to know more about his Word, right? The Bible is essential to sanctification, that is to the cleaning and holiness in our life that we're hoping to arrive at as we study and learn more about God. Let's look at this verse a little closer, and actually this will be the memory verse for the course. Again, the verse says, John 17, 17, sanctify them by the truth that them are the disciples and us, your word is truth. The word sanctify, the Greek term sanctify in that verse means to make holy or to treat as holy, to set apart as holy. So what Jesus is praying is that he wants us to be sanctified, to be set apart as holy. So as you go into your neighborhoods and as you go to work and as you talk with people and interact with people that live in your house, we as Bible students, as Christ's followers, we're going to be sanctified. We're going to be sanctified. should bring about some holiness and some difference in those that we encounter, right? The them in this particular verse refers back to the disciples. If you look at verse six, you'll see that he starts to pray about his disciples. But in verse 20, he begins to pray about the believers of the disciples. So he includes us in the message. That's the them in this particular verse. The word by is a preposition. This is a word governing or usually preceding a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word

or element in the clause. So what is the preposition or what is the connecting words in this particular verse? The them and the truth. You follow me? So the them is connected to the truth because we're going to sanctify them, the disciples by the truth. Does that make sense? And the word the is a definite article. This is a determiner that introduces a noun phrase and implies that the thing mentioned has already been mentioned or is common knowledge. So when we say the truth, we're talking about undisputed, unarguable truth. This is not just truth in my opinion, but when John uses this word truth, he is talking about an idea or in reality, a sincerity about this particular truth. Truth in its moral sphere and a straightforwardness. So the truth that he's referring to in this particular text is not something that is maybe true to me, but not true to you. This is truth in reality, if that makes sense. The word your in the Greek means a possessive adjective, meaning your very own. And so when Jesus is using this word your, he's referring back to the one he's praying to, which is God the Father. Does that make sense?

And what does he say? Your word, that word in this particular text is the Greek word logos. And it is the same word that we see in John 1, 1. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. That word in both of these texts, John 1, 1, John 17, 17, refers to the Greek word logos. And we know that logos in this text, especially in this book, is referring back to the preeminent Christ. So we'll talk more about this when we get into the discussion of the gospel of John, but the word, word is God as expressed through Christ. So sanctify them by the truth, your word, your logos is the truth. So as Jesus is praying this, what's interesting is he's praying to father God to sanctify the disciples and us by the truth, undisputed, in reality, truth. And he's saying your word or in essence, he is the truth. Does that make sense? Yeah, that is a fascinating one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight or nine words, right? Sanctify them, the them is the disciples and in part us by the truth. And the truth that we need to be sanctified by, the truth that we need to be made holy by is the word, the logos.

So I hope that you can see why this is an important verse, especially for us to learn more about God's word. We don't wanna just study God's word so that we can have more knowledge. We want to study God's word so that it can change us. That's the goal for study. So Charles Spurgeon said, it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until the very essence of the Bible flows from you. He was in many Christian leaders throughout history, underscore the imperative of ingesting the Bible so that we can share its message with others. If you've listened to any of Robbie, Pastor Robbie Gallaty's messages, he likely has said this at some point during the sermon, get into the word until the word gets into you, right? Charles Spurgeon would say, it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible, understand the deep meanings there until the very essence of the Bible flows from you. That doesn't mean that when you go out and you talk to people, you quote scriptures as you're talking to them, but you digest the scriptures enough so that you can inject truth into that conversation. Does that make sense? Yes, so we want to know God's word so much so that it's... speaks in and through us. If we ingest the Bible, what could be the result?

Well, we could live more in line with God's instructions. We might even be kinder to those of the world and fellow believers. We might even understand those with whom we might be around each day. So let's look at a very familiar text, Matthew chapter six, verse nine through 15. So Matthew is writing and he gives us an example of how to pray. But what I want you to see here is a transition that takes place in these verses that perhaps you've not seen before. The scripture says, therefore, you should pray like this. Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Here's the transition. This is what is happening here, what Matthew is doing is he's given us that pattern for how to pray. But look at verse 14 to 15. It becomes more instructional, if you will. For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses. Do you see that?

So in verse 12, Matthew writes and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. But he returns to the message of verse 12. For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you also. But if you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses. So that's how I would encourage you to read the Bible. Look for those transitions and those differences in speech and what the writer might be saying to the readers of the text. Our goal as Bible students is to arrive at the meaning of the writer or speaker, okay? We don't want to just read the Bible and say things like this. Well, what that means to me, and that's a dangerous phrase. Our goal, I'm gonna say this again. Our goal as Bible students is to come to the meaning and understanding of the speaker or writer of the text. The challenge we have in 2026, and ironically, it's the same challenge that we had in 2025 and 2024 and every year before that, is we approach the Bible with our baggage. And I think I might've mentioned this in the first session, the last session. If we are not careful, we can carry into the Bible our own interpretation.

And there's a word for that. We talked about it in our last session. What is the word for reading into the Bible, the meaning of the text, rather than pulling out of the Bible the meaning of the text? We read into the text, the meaning, that is called eisegesis. But what we want to do is exegesis, that is pull out the meaning, pull out the meaning of the text. If the Bible can be read with the notion of this is what it means to me, then the Bible can have as many interpretations as readers. And I was looking back at the session, the first session, and I misspoke. I said that there are several interpretations of the Bible. Well, there are, but that's not what I meant. I was talking about the different versions of the Bible. And the term that I should have used is translations. That is, you remember me saying that the Old Testament or the First Testament was originally written in Hebrew, and the Second or the New Testament was originally written in Greek. Well, we have a translation of those original languages. And what we don't want to do is have a misinterpretation of what those writers meant. So if you look at this slide, the difference between meaning and interpretation. So that red line, this is the meaning.

And the meaning, it is in the mind of the speaker or writer. So whoever wrote the text, Matthew, the text that we just read, the meaning of those verses or those words of that particular text is in Matthew's mind. The interpretation of Matthew's writing in this example is in the mind of the listener or reader, that's us. So what we have to do is really force that blue arrow into the red arrow. Does that make sense? The interpretation is in our mind, but what we want to do is to make sure that we're interpreting whatever is the meaning that is in the mind of the speaker. speaker or writer. So in essence, we got a red arrow and a blue arrow, and what we need is a purple arrow, right? Because we're gonna blend that blue into the red, and I had to look this up before our session, that makes purple, right? So the meaning is in the mind of the speaker, red arrow, the interpretation is in the mind of the listener or reader. What we have to do is force that blue arrow into the red to make sure that we're getting the right interpretation, and that is the only interpretation which is in the mind or the speaker who wrote the original text. Does that make sense? All right. We have no textual evidence.

That is none of the gospel writers tell us, the readers, that they wrote the gospel. The only way until we get to heaven to know that Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the gospels that bear their name is really through historical evidence. Tradition, that's how we know. We know that when these gospels, when these writings came away and they were passed along, they were done so with those names attached to them. So Matthew was on his writing, and Mark, and Luke, and John, the same. We know that through tradition only, because they don't identify themselves in the bodies of their work. We know, for example, that Matthew was a Jewish tax collector. He is widely believed to be the author of the book that bears his name. We believe he wrote this gospel to help Christians learn how to read their Bible, both the First Testament or Old Testament, and obviously the Testament that he starts to write or begin the New Testament with. And he wrote to evangelize those would-be Christian Jews. He was a Jew writing primarily to a Jewish audience. We know that from tradition, and we know that about Matthew in studying his life. This is a question, obviously, that we will answer throughout this entire course.

Are the gospels accurate? We'll start that process tonight, or today, rather, or in this session, and then over the next few weeks, we'll continue to build on that understanding. I'm sure you've had people approach you and want to debate something in the Bible. And I used to involve myself in these discussions and get into the debate with them, right? But very often, people are asking you questions about the Bible to confirm what they already believe. And those conversations, I mean, you can have them, you can go search the scriptures, and you can argue with people, but very often they're fruitless, right? So the best way to respond to a debate or someone that is questioning you or challenging you about something that's in the Bible is to ask more questions. So what makes you interested in that? And once you find out that answer, what do you feel like you might do with it? If a person is genuinely interested in knowing and understanding the truth of God's word, then those conversations, that time is well spent doing some extra study to answer those questions, right? But if you have someone that's just trying to defend themselves and their misunderstanding about the Bible, it's just a waste of time. So again, we will answer the question about whether the gospels are accurate

beginning in this session, but over the next few sessions as well. Textual evidence as it relates to the Bible is support for analysis purposes that comes directly from the Bible. Does anyone remember the term that I used in the first session for using the Bible to interpret, explain and provide clarity for itself? I'm gonna pause and give you a second to think about that. You're correct. Intertextuality is the term that to define the Bible is best interpreted by itself. That is using other scripture to understand it, right? So let's look at, I guess it's a pretty familiar slot. Slide or concept. We're gonna compare the New Testament to many other writers that are known in history. And then we're gonna compare those writings, those authors, those writers to the New Testament. So let's look at this. So this slide is broken down in five columns. The first column, as you'll see, is the work of the author. The date in which that author wrote their oratory. The earliest copy that we have of that original writing. The years that have elapsed between the original writing and the earliest copy. the fourth column, and then lastly how many copies we have of that original writing. Does that make sense? So let's go through this. Caesar wrote between A.D. 100 and 44 B.C. I'm sorry not A.D. but he wrote between 100 and 44 B.C. The earliest copy we have is dated 900 A.D. So he wrote the

item that we found in 900 A.D. He wrote that in 100 to 44 B.C. How many years elapsed between the time that Caesar wrote and the earliest copy we have? The slide tells you 1,000 years and we have 10 copies of his original writings. Plato wrote between 427 and 347 B.C. The earliest copy we have is dated 900 A.D. So how many years elapsed between the writing of Plato's work when he wrote it and the earliest copy we have? 1,300 years. 1,300 years. And we have seven copies of those original manuscripts. Does that make sense? So I would imagine that nobody has ever said to you if you've mentioned in a conversation or been in a conversation where someone mentioned Caesar or Plato, I don't know if Caesar exists. I don't believe that Plato exists. All right. Aristotle wrote between 384 and 322 B.C. The earliest copy we have is dated 1100 A.D. 1,500 years elapsed between the time it was written, between the time that Aristotle wrote the work that we discovered in 1100 A.D. 1,500 years elapsed and we have 49 copies of his original work. Iliad or Homer wrote in 900 B.C. The earliest copy we have is 400 B.C. And 500 years elapsed between the time of the writing, the earliest copy that was found and we have 643 copies of the original work. Herodotus wrote between 480 and 425 B.C. The earliest find, the earliest copy is dated 900 A.D. 1,300 years elapsed between the writing and the earliest copy. We have eight copies of Herodotus' work. And look at the New Testament. I'm sure you've been following this and you see the vast difference between those previous five writers, which really no one questions their existence, and the writing of the New Testament. The date of the event or the writing was between 40 and 95 A.D. The earliest copy, which is the John Ryland's papyrus, which we'll talk about when we discuss the Gospel of John, was found in A.D. 125. 30 years elapsed between the last writing of the New Testament and the earliest copy that we have. And we have 24,000 copies that confirm or that align with the earliest writings of the New Testament. I mean, it's a phenomenal comparison as you look at the writings of well-known writers in our culture and the New Testament. There's just no comparison. The New Testament text, this screen is a portion or a picture of the Codex Sinaticus, which was drafted or written in the fourth century. So that's between A.D. 301 and 400 A.D. The Codex contains much of the Old and a complete New Testament in ancient Greek. It is one of the most important known manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament and the New Testament and is the oldest fully preserved copy of the New Testament. We have this particular item, you can view it online. In 1844, the Codex was discovered by Constantine von Tistendorf

in St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt. And he published 43 sheets of his manuscript in 1846 in honor of the supporter of his journey. There are different statements about the way that Tistendorf came into possession of the scriptures, but in essence he did. Under Stalin, the Codex was sold to England. And since 2009, it is fully visible on the internet. So you can look this up and see this amazing. Here are some other texts, other Bibles that help produce the Bible that you and I read today. The Leningrad Codex, it is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew using the Masoretic text and Tiberian vocalization. It is dated in 1008 B.C. according to the publisher's imprint or emblem on the book. That's the one to the far left of the screen as you're looking at it. And then the Biblia Hebraica, this is an Old Testament text. It was started to be developed in 1901. It is the first edition of the Biblia Hebraica. It is a two-volume work, again, that was published in the early 1900s, so 1906 I think was the original publishing. And then the book to the third, third book to the left side, from the left side of your screen, the Biblia Hebraica star Stuttgartensia. That is the second publication of the Biblia Hebraica. So they were just building on that particular text. And then the fourth book from the left is the Novum Testam grace. It is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nessel-Alland edition, after its most influential editors, whose names are in the name Nessel and Alland. The text edited by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research is currently in its 28th edition, as is indicated on the book. And then we have, lastly, the Christian Standard Bible, published originally in 2017. And as I mentioned in the first session, it's a hybrid between formal and dynamic, or referred to as an optimal equivalence. So these books, the ones that are represented on this screen, are building up to the Bible that we have today. And there is a symmetry between the writings all the way from the first book that I mentioned, which is the Leningrad Codex, up to the Christian Standard Bible. So you can be confident that the Bible that you have is the one that God intended for you to have. It is the Bible that God wrote himself and blessed us with for us to grow from today. So let's look at some chronological dating of the Gospels. Mark, for example, for this class, and I know there are different dates of the Gospels, but for this class, let's

look at these dates, which are pretty commonly accepted. Mark, we accept according to Karsemu, your New Testament text, was written in the late AD 50s or 60s or early 60s. Luke was written in AD 60s, mid AD 60s. And then, of course, Luke also wrote Acts. So following the Gospel of Luke, we find the book of Acts. Matthew, the writer, of course, is Matthew, just before AD 70, before the destruction of the temple. And then John Carson dates between AD 80 and AD 85. None of the Gospels mentioned the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. And so that is a reason that Matthew, Luke, and Mark are dated prior to AD 70. And John is dated well after AD 70, because he doesn't mention the destruction of the temple either. So it's probably, you may know this already, but when I use the term synoptic or similar, I'm referring to, as it relates to the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because they are very similar in their structure. They talk about the life of Jesus, either from his infancy until his resurrection. But John takes a different focus. He is not amongst the synoptics. Much of John's writing is unique to his Gospel. I believe it's 93% of his Gospel cannot be found elsewhere. So he is taking a different approach to the Gospel. Let's look at this scripture from a hermeneutical lens. And if you remember again from the first class, hermeneutics is the art and science of biblical interpretation. So let's look at this text with the lens of understanding the text and not just reading it. So let's read it together in its entirety. And then we're going to pull out exegete, some of those words, so that we understand this text a little better. It's just an example that I pulled from Matthew. The eye is the lamp, and this is Matthew 6, verse 22 through 23, I'm sorry. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? Now, of course, there is a message or messages

that we can run with just on the surface. But let's look at some of the Greek terms in this text and see if it doesn't amplify the meaning of the text. The first word that sticks out to me is healthy. What does that mean, if your eye is healthy? That word, the Greek word for healthy in that text is the Greek word haplos, and it means singular, okay? So Matthew is writing, and in essence he's saying, if your eye is singular, your whole body will be full of light. What does that word light mean? That is the Greek word, photenos, and it means to illuminate or revelatory. Verse 23, but if your eye is bad, that word bad in the Greek is the Greek word porneros, and it means bad, evil, grievous, lewd, malicious, or wicked. Your whole body will be full of darkness. That is the Greek word opposite of photenos, it is skotenos, and it means opaque or benightened. Second part of verse 23, so if the light, that is the Greek word phos, to shine or make manifest within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? So let's look at that verse again, those two verses again. What Matthew is saying in the Greek and his meaning there is the eye is the lamp of the body, okay? If your eye is singular, let me inject some ideas about what he might mean by singular. If your eye is focused singularly on God's word, your body will follow that understanding,

and you will receive revelations, and your life will be illuminated with the truth of God's word. But if your eye is bad, porneros, evil, grievous, lewd, malicious, or wicked, your whole body, your whole life will be full of darkness. So if the light, the phos, within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? So what Matthew is telling us in this text is that in order for us to follow God's word, we have to have a singular focus, and that is to understand his word, to be enlightened by his word, to receive revelation from his word. And we will find that our life, our body, our actions are going to be what God wants it to be, right? You remember our memory verse for this course, it's John 17, 17, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. So Matthew is telling us, in order to control our body, we have to control what enters it. In order to control our mind, we have to control what enters it. And if we're entering it with things of the word, three things of God, then our whole body will be full of light. Let's look at another verse, Matthew 8, 22. But Jesus told him, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead.

So to understand this verse, it's important to know the context of the first century people that Matthew was writing to. So there's a few things happening here that I want to make sure you understand. So first of all, Jesus, I mean, it could come across as a bit harsh for Jesus to say this to one of his would-be followers. But let's talk about how death was handled in the first century. Dead people can't bury dead people, obviously, right? So it has to mean something different than that. But spiritually dead people, ungodly people, can process a body after death. In the first century, there were no undertakers. There was no funeral staff. You didn't drop off the body to a funeral home and they prepare the body. The families of the deceased took responsibility of their own loved ones. Also during this time, the burial process was lengthy and often preceded the person's death. That is the dead person referred into the scripture may not actually be dead. in the way that we think about dead in 2026. The dying person could have been old or have a terminal illness or for some other reason is expected to die soon. And as a result, that process of the person dying could take months or years before they actually are deceased. And it doesn't end there. After the person is deceased, the friends and relatives have to say goodbye. So there's still more to do. One of those tasks includes collecting the bones of the deceased and placing them in a box after a year of the person having actually died. So we got possibly

a year before the person is actually deceased. And then we have the burial process, which includes the family preparing the body for burial. And then we have perhaps another year after that person passes away for the bones to be collected and placed in a box. And then lastly, this is what this verse is saying in essence. The person with whom Jesus was speaking most likely did not want to follow Jesus anyway and was just making an excuse not to follow him because Jesus and the person knew what the burial process meant. And Jesus was saying, follow me now. And the person said, well, you know, I got to go bury my dead, my relative. And Jesus said, let those that are not going to follow me bury their own dead. So it's important to not only understand the Greek meaning in these scriptures in the New Testament, but it's also important to understand the culture of that time before you pull that verse and build a belief. Does that make sense? All right. Let's look at the synoptic gospels. That's Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You'll see this slide. There are 1068 verses in Matthew. There are 661 verses in Mark and 1149 verses in Luke. So you'll see as it relates to the number of words, Luke's gospel is the longest. But what this slide is telling us is if you look at the Mark bubble, for example, only 55 verses of Mark's gospel are unique or can only be found in Mark. When you look at Matthew's bubble, for example, we'll see that 500 verses in Matthew can also be found in Mark. So they share 500 verses. You look at the commonality between Luke and Matthew, 200 verses are common to the gospel of Luke and the gospel of Matthew. And then lastly, we see on this slide that 320 verses are common between Luke and Mark. Why is that? Why are these verses so common? Let's look at some possible explanation. So these differences have been explained basically in five categories, and they're on your slide. The Greek New Testament contains a total of 138,000 words. Of the 57,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts, there are about 400,000 textual variants divided into five categories. The first category is spelling or nonsensical errors. The second category is there are minor changes or synonym differences which really don't affect the meaning. The third largest group is variants that have some possibility of reflecting the original text where others don't. So you look, for example, at 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 9, the gospel of God versus the gospel of Christ. We really don't have a significant difference there. And then the fourth largest category, which is less than 1% of the changes or the differences, we have verses like Romans 5.1, where we have we have peace versus let us have peace. There's differences there. And then the earliest and best manuscripts, and we'll look at some of these as we look at each gospel, don't

contain Mark chapter 16, verse 9 through 20. And some of the best earliest manuscripts don't contain John 7.53 through 8.11. And that is the story about the woman who was caught in adultery. So very common story that we likely all know, but some of the earliest manuscripts don't have that in the gospel of John. So these differences, some have explained as a synoptic problem, right? Some suggest the problem exists because the gospels do not all say the same thing. Many theologians and Bible scholars feel there are differences in the gospels which need an explanation. Why are these differences there? They're writing about the same person, Jesus the Christ, right? Why are there differences? Even though those differences, as we saw in the previous slide, are rather minor, they still want to understand why these differences could exist. Let's look at it a different way, another way. So Mark, 7% of his gospel is unique to him. Mark's gospel, 93% of his gospel can be found elsewhere. Matthew, 42% of his gospel is unique to him, and 58% of his gospel can be found elsewhere, or coincidences is what the slide says. Luke, 59% of his gospel can be found only in his gospel, while 41% can be found elsewhere. And then John, 92% of his gospel is unique to his gospel, and then 8% of John's writing can be found elsewhere. So let's look at this slide. Here's an example of the synoptic problem, if you will. Matthew 23, verse 37 through 39, is the same text or same story that we see in Luke 13, 34 through 35. Remember, Matthew's gospel was written just before AD 70, so likely around AD 68, and Luke's gospel was likely written somewhere between AD 62, 63, and so we have a difference in time, right? But they're telling the same story. And you'll see on the slide, the two verses where there's a difference in content is found in Matthew 23, verse 38 and 39, and Luke 13, verse 35. So let's read just that section. See, Matthew's gospel, see your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Verse 35 of Luke 13, see your house is abandoned to you, I tell you, you will not see me again until the time comes when you will say, or when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Not a big difference there, but this is an example of the synoptic problem. So here's a couple of ways. This first slide is a way to explain not only the

differences, but the similarities, okay? This first way to explain the similarities is the Griesbach hypothesis, and under this hypothesis, the gospel of Matthew was written first, okay? And then the gospel of Luke was written using Matthew as a source, and then the gospel of Mark was written using both Matthew and Luke as a source. That's why under this Griesbach hypothesis, you would see that Mark, only 55% of his work is unique to his gospel, and that's because he got most of it from Matthew and Luke. So that's the Griesbach hypothesis, and it was proposed by Christian Herman Weiss in 1838, so it explains the similarities and differences between the three Gospels. Matthew written first, Luke written, borrowing from Matthew, and then Mark written last, borrowing from both Matthew and Luke. That explains a difference. Another hypothesis is the two-source hypothesis, which has Mark written as the first gospel, and under this hypothesis, there is also an additional source called Q or Quell, that is Q-U-E-L-L-E, and this is a German term meaning source, so Q, source, source, or source, source, and we don't have Q anymore. We believe that it was made up primarily of tradition or oral settings, sayings, but there's a lot of content in Matthew and Luke that is similar that may not be in Mark, and so we believe under this hypothesis, and there's another source that Matthew and Luke are borrowing from. So Mark, in this particular hypothesis, is the first gospel written, and you'll find that a lot of this course is taught with this hypothesis in mind. It doesn't mean that this is the only rationale that one could come away with. As a matter of fact, a lot of folks believe in the Griesbach hypothesis, that is, Matthew was written first, but under the two-source hypothesis, Mark is written first, and then Mark obviously provides content to Matthew. Mark also provides content for Luke, and then Q we see in both Matthew and Luke. So as the slide has the colors, you see Mark there in this kind of purple, you see the amount of Matthew's gospel that contains Mark, and the amount of Luke's gospel that has Mark content, and then we see this Q source, again oral traditions, oral sayings that we no longer have, and Q means quell, Q-U-E-L-L-E, German word for source, and we see the similarities

between Matthew and Luke with the Q source. Well, that is our time for today, and I appreciate... the time that you've given me. Next session, we'll talk about Matthew's gospel. And there are some assignments in the syllabus for reading to understand the content that we'll discuss. And I'm so thankful that you took the time to listen in to this session. I hope that you were blessed by it, that you got something out of it. But now we'll talk about the gospel of Matthew in our next time together. So let's pray. And then I look forward to talking to you soon. Father, I'm so thankful for this time. I'm thankful, Lord, for your grace and your mercy. I'm thankful, Lord, for even the words that I mispronounce. But Lord, we just thank you for our time together. We thank you, Lord, for your grace and your mercy on our lives. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the gift that it is to our lives and the difference that it continues to make in not only my life, but those who are in view of this screen, but also around the world. Lord, we just give you a name, the praise and the honor that you are so worthy of in Jesus' name, amen.