Malachi151

This is just one small thing, but one of the things that makes me think that whoever wrote John knew of Matthew in some form.

First of all, of all the synoptics, GMatthew shares the most in common GJohn. Every single instance where GJohn shares a scene with another Gospel, GMatthew contains that scene. IOW, there are no scenes in John that are in Luke or Mark but not Matthew, but there are scenes in John that are in Matthew but not Mark or Luke.

In addition, this scene in particular is important:

Which compares to:

What makes this particularly striking is that Matthew makes a mistake with this passage. In Matthew the writer misunderstood the OT passage and had Jesus ride into town on TWO animals.

This seems to indicate that the writer of Matthew was the inventor of this scene. That also makes sense, because the writer of Matthew was fixated on coming up with Jewish fulfillment scenarios, such as this one.

If the writer of Matthew was the inventor of this scene, then of course the writer of John had to come across it either directly or indirectly from Matthew.

Chris Weimer

Mark and Luke have this passage also, and John doesn't make the mistake that Matthew does, but keeps it singular like the other synoptics.

Ben C Smith

You may be interested to know that B. H. Streeter arrived at rather the opposite conclusion in chapter 14 of The Four Gospels.

On John and Mark:

It will be noticed that John always has a certain number of verbal agreements with Mark; hence wherever either Matthew or Luke have reproduced Mark's wording exactly John agrees with them also. But, though he frequently supports Mark where the others have deserted him, he very rarely agrees with either of them when they depart from Mark.

....

Another point on which Stanton [Op. cit. pp. 215, 220.] lays special stress is the fact that, whereas both Matthew and Luke (and therefore Q) have much fuller accounts than Mark of the teaching of John the Baptist, the only instance here of verbal resemblance between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptists is in a sentence where John agrees with Mark against the other two.

....

There are very few sayings of Christ in John which are verbally at all like sayings found in the Synoptics; all but one (Jn.i.16 = Mt.x.24 = Lk.vi.40) occur in Mark, and the wording of John's version is usually a shade nearer to Mark than it is to the others.

On John and Luke:

Neither singly nor together do these points amount to demonstrative proof that what John knew was, not Proto-Luke, but our Gospel of Luke; yet, to my mind, they make the balance of probability incline still very decidedly in that direction.

On John and Matthew:

The points of contact between Matthew and John are extremely few; fewer still are those that are of a material character....

....

Matthew (xxi.5) and John (.15) agree in connecting with the triumphal entry the passage in Zechariah ix.9, Behold, thy king cometh, sitting on the foal of an ass. Seeing that Christians were in the habit of ransacking the Old Testament for Messianic prophecies, concurrence in such an obvious instance proves nothing. What is significant is that the words as quoted by John are so different from Matthew that they must either represent a different translation of the Hebrew or be free quotations from memory.

....

To sum up, the evidence that can be adduced to prove John's knowledge of Matthew is quite inconclusive.

Why is your conclusion so very different from that of Streeter? What are you seeing that he missed?

What makes you think Matthew invented the triumphal entry scene? Why would it surprise you that both Matthew and John turn to the obvious OT text that scene was based upon (whether Jesus was the one basing his actions on Zechariah 9.9 or the evangelist was the one basing his story on Zechariah 9.9)?

And, if Matthew has made an exegetical mistake as to the number of animals, yet John does not follow him in this mistake, what evidence is there in this fact that John knew Matthew?

Ben.

ETA: My post crossed with that of Chris. I see he already pointed out that this incident is present in all four gospels and that John did not follow Matthew in his mistake.

Malachi151

Matthew and John are the only ones that quote this passage from the OT. Yes, John makes the correction. I wonder if the author of John had heard Matthew orally. A lot of the same scenes or OT references are used, but it's obviously not a case of direct copying, as in the synoptics.

Chris Weimer

Ah, I see what you're saying. But Matthew didn't make the scene up, since it's in Mark, nor did Matthew make the quote up, since it's in Zechariah. Besides, John and Matthew use different language not only in the quote, but also in the way they introduce the quote. There's nothing there to suggest dependence.

Nazaroo

This makes good sense. There seems to be no direct literary dependance, in spite of the fact that John and Matt. uniquely quote Zech. The two traditions could have a common root, but someone else has pointed out the primacy of Mark on the basic story. Matthew definitely knows Mark, so he can't have created very much of the story himself.

As a person seeking as many OT fulfillments as possible, it is quite natural that here Matthew borrows one more, and dovetails it into the Markan account. Its just a case of simple pilfering of John's version.

The gigantic boner that Matthew makes regarding the number of animals and the misreading of Hebrew chiastic poetry is stunning, both in revealing the secondary (non-authentic 'Jewish') nature of Matthew, but also by contrast confirming the authenticity of the Johannine account. (John never makes mistakes like this, in spite of his many liberties with text and tradition).

Matthew's boner is in keeping with his struggling attempt to make something out of another early 'prophecy' "He shall be called a Nazarene". Many times Matthew is severely strained and overburdened with 'interpretation', a sign it is a late church production.

But the strongest sign pointing in the opposite direction to that of the OP is the obvious 'Johannine sections' embedded in Matthew (and Luke). These, once they are recognized, are clearly Johannine in form and content, and entirely foreign to both Luke and Matthew and their other 'sources', like Mark and (supposedly) 'Q'.

Luke 10:1-24, especially Luke 10:2-3, and Luke 10:21-22, smell strongly of Johannine language and tradition (John 4:35f, and John 5:19-27 etc.) Luke and Mark's Jesus simply don't sound like this, and Luke can hardly have invented the 'Johannine genre'. He has obviously borrowed it.

Likewise, John could hardly have imitated this small piece of foreign material from Luke (or Matthew) and turned it into a full-blown gospel. The fact is, the style is John's, not Luke's or Matthew's, and John is consistent throughout in presenting all his materials in his own style, and stamping them with his own imprint.

Luke either here tipped his hat to John, or used related Johannine material already in circulation. But in that case, even more so for Matthew. Matthew could never have invented John, but could have easily stolen from the Johannine traditions, or even done so without knowing it, by simply following Luke, one of his sources.

Cege

Since GMatthew was supposedly written years before GJohn, it seems reasonable that the later writer had knowledge of the earlier writing.

If the author of GJohn was familiar with one or more of the synoptic gospels, his intention may have been to include allegories, miracles, and years of ministry not included in the 1st three books. Certainly GJohn's emphasis is different from the synoptics.

Malachi151

Yeah. Another thing is that there appears to have been several other writings based on Matthew, summary Gospels, or variants, or attempts at harmonization, etc., so one would not had to have known Matthew directly to have been influenced by it.

If you look at the four Gospels parallel: http://www.utoronto.ca/religion/synopsis/meta-4g.htm

You see, at least according to this, that Matthew and John share the most in common in terms of events, perhaps not in mentality or ideology, but just in terms of narrative elements and scriptural references.

So, if the writer of John knew of any of the synoptics, directly or indirectly, which I think is pretty much certain, then it would seem to be Matthew or some variant derived from Matthew.

I also think that the writer of Matthew is the one who originated the reference to Zechariah 9, because he misunderstood it. It would seem unlikely that someone would mess up a correct use of a passage by someone else, or that multiple people would copy the same mistake without realizing that it was a mistake and correcting it.

If "Matthew" didn't originate this reference then someone else either had to have done it and also created a flawed narrative element that "Matthew" uncritically duplicated, or they originated it and "Matthew" changed it in a way to mess it up, which seems like an odd thing to happen.

So, to me it seems most likely that this is a reference and narrative element that the author of Matthew created originally, and since we also find this in John, that would mean that "John" got it from Matthew one way or another, or they both independently originated the same reference, which I find to also be less likely.

Cege

While it's not an element of your discussion, I'll still just throw in that the writer of GJohn probably had access to the writings of apostle Paul and drawn from those for theology.

And while the writer of GJohn may have used GMatthew to draw upon, it's also possible that the writer may have been aware of the oral stories circulating about Jesus and used what he wanted to use rather than what Mark and Matthew had already used.

Steven Avery

Matthew 21:4-6
All this was done,
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
Tell ye the daughter of Sion,
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek,
and sitting upon an ass,
and a colt the foal of an ass.

Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout,
O daughter of Jerusalem:
behold, thy King cometh unto thee:
he is just, and having salvation;
lowly, and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Simple question, Nazaroo

When the Jewish translation gives us for Zechariah ..

Zechariah 9:9 (Judaica Press)
Be exceedingly happy, O daughter of Zion;
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem.
Behold! Your king shall come to you.
He is just and victorious;
humble, and riding a donkey and a foal,
the offspring of [one of] she-donkeys.

Are they miscounting the animals ?
Missing the chiastic poetry ?
And are they being accurate or inaccurate in representing the Hebrew grammar ?

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic