What are the differences in the synoptic gospels?

A:

Theologians have traditionally believed that differences in the gospel accounts result from the different evangelists seeing or learning of different events in the mission of Jesus, or of having different interests in what they paid most attention to, in communicating to their audiences. Yet the Church Fathers, by means of parallel readings in the original Greek language, had already realised in the second century that there was a literary dependency among the three synoptic gospels. The gospels were originally anonymous and the Church Fathers attributed the gospel now known as Matthew's Gospel to the disciple Matthew, believing it to have been the source used by the authors of Mark and Luke. Modern biblical scholars agree that there is a literary dependency, but say that Mark's Gospel was the original, and that Matthew and Luke were based largely on that Gospel. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) assumes that Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek.

The authors of Matthew and Luke elaborated some of Mark's material or, in other cases, corrected apparent errors in their original. They also relied on the hypothetical 'Q' document for further sayings material attributed to Jesus. However, Q does not provide the context in which Jesus spoke those sayings, so each author, of Matthew and Luke, added his own context. The author of Mark appears to have been unaware of Q, so included none of that material in his gospel.

Matthew was written before Luke, but the author of Luke was unaware of Matthew's Gospel and could not harmonise his own gospel with it. Both authors wished to write a story of the birth of Jesus, but Matthew sought to make the Old Testament appear to prefigure the story of Jesus, and drew parallels between Jesus and Moses. Luke appears to have relied on material from the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus, to add authenticity to his story. Thus, he added the census of Quirinius, but was either unaware or unconcerned that Quirinius was governor of Syria too late for his story. Brown say the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately.

The authors of Matthew and Luke wished to provide evidence that Jesus really had risen, but Mark's Gospel, in its original form, ended at verse 16:8, with the young man telling the women that Jesus was risen and they told no one. Each author had to create his own ending, and each ending is entirely different to the other. The "Long Ending" (verses 16:9-20) was added to Mark's Gospel long afterwards to provide the necessary resurrection appearances and to more or less harmonise it with Matthew and Luke.