THE PROBLEM OF THE SIMILARITIES AND DISSIMILARITIES OF THE GOSPELS.
1. This problem has allegedly made a harmony of the Gospels impossible. i.e apparent contradictions have been impossible to resolve.
2. As far as we know the first harmony of the Gospels, the Diatessaron was compiled by Taitian in 160 A.D..but he was a heretic. It was not harmonious and really only caused people to cast doubt on the integrity of the Scriptures.
3. In order to explain this problem some have accepted Papias’ words that the Gospels were not first written by the apostles themselves but that the words of Jesus existed as sayings that were orally communicated. From these sayings the Gospels were eventually compiled into books not by eyewitnesses but by the Church and the names accounted to each Gospel were not necessarily those of the authors.
4. Some have concluded that the words that Jesus spoke were not recorded as spoken but the apostles wrote them down in their own words: effectually a paraphrase. This is the view of the evangelical Church. This has implications for it means that such things as the tense, mood etc. of a verb and the number of a noun are of little consequence. If this is so then deep exposition of the Scriptures is largely pointless.
4. Some have concluded that the gospels were written as much as several hundred years after the resurrection.
5. Many have accepted that the there was one original Gospel from which all others were copied.
6. Some have concluded that there was another original source either written or unwritten from which the Gospel writers gathered there information.
7. These ideas undermine the fact that there were four independent witnesses to the life of Christ. They effectually claim that there was only one anonymous witness; and that was only an unreliable oral witness which may have been watered down by a hundred years of verbal communication.
8. All these are assumptions without evidence: false assumptions , which have led to liberalism. A belief that the Gospels are not of Divine origin but human origin and therefore are not superior to other books, not the ultimate authority but may be studied in naturalistic terms the same as any other book. This is the prime reason for the impotency of the Church.
But Jesus says, “The Holy Spirit will bring all things, which I have spoken to your remembrance.”
THERE IS A SOLUTION TO THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM. SEE http://www.neillcadman.com/