Oral Tradition And Synoptic Verbal Agreement

New Testament scholars routinely claim that verbal agreement among parallel Synoptic pericopae is a reliable indicator of literary borrowing by the Synoptic Evangelists. In Oral Tradition and Synoptic Verbal Agreement, T. M. Derico presents a critical assessment of that claim through a consideration of the most recent empirical evidence concerning the kinds and amounts of verbal agreement that can be produced among independent performances of oral traditions.

Synoptic pericopae is a reliable indicator of literary borrowing by the Synoptic Evangelists. In Oral Tradition and Synoptic Verbal Agreement, T.M. Derico presents a critical assessment of that claim through a consideration of the most recent empirical evidence concerning the kinds and amounts of verbal agreement that can be produced among independent performances of oral traditions.

The fascination with literary dependency in the most popular approaches to the synoptic problem has been built upon a faulty presupposition: that oral tradition is incapable of producing the word for word verbal agreement found in the synoptic accounts. Recent research in the area of oral tradition has shown that this is not the case, but we still rely on increasingly complicated literary models to explain the relationships between the Synoptic Gospels. This book engages in comparative analysis of Old Greek quotations found in more than one of the Synoptic Gospels, along with the material that surrounds these quotations. The resulting conclusions indicate that oral sources may better explain the similarities and differences found in the Synoptic Gospels, and that we ought to reexamine our foundational presuppositions in order to craft a better model for understanding the origins of the Synoptic Gospels. The hope is that the reader will join the author in seeking to better understand these books that include the climax of the greatest story of all time: the true story of people marred by sin, and their creator who seeks after them as he redeems all things to himself.

The Synoptic Gospels contain traditions about Jesus which differ in some respects from Gospel to Gospel and, it is presumed, from the very earliest Christian traditions. Scholars often seek to establish the earliest form of each tradition and the methods and criteria they use are of the greatest importance. Dr Sanders here provides a reassessment of this whole problem. His study deals directly with the question of determining the reliability of the Synoptic Gospels.

Revised thesis (Ph.D.) - University, Durham, UK, 2003.