spamandham

He probably had Luke in front of him as well.

Solitary Man

Evidence for this?

spamandham

I'm leaning on Price, who claims the order is Mark, Luke, Matthew, John ("The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man"). If he's wrong about that, then so am I.

Solitary Man

To me, the only sane alternative to the Q hypothesis is the Farrer-Goulder theory, which has Luke dependent on Matthew, and not vice versa. And I don't even buy that. Price here is almost most certainly wrong, but then again, what's new?

angelo

And I'm quoting John Shelby Spong. The order according to him is thus.
1. Mark
2. Matthew
3. Luke
4. John

The simple fact is that the N/T, as we know it, is a helter-skeltor accumulation of more or less discordant documents, some of them probably of respectable origin but others palpaly apocryphal, and that most of them, the good along with the bad, show unmistakable signs of having been tampered with.

Whether the gospels are history or invention they are virtually our only sourcse for an examination of the life and teaching of Jesus, so that if we reject them we are left with nothing at all.
A proper course is therefore to use them with extreem caution.