New Testament Studies, Synoptic Gospels

On peut considérer qu'il s'agit d'un indice valable d'authenticité chaque fois qu'un Evangéliste rapporte un acte ou une parole de Jésus en désaccord formel avec la situation ou les croyances de la communauté chrétienne de son temps. J'en donne trois exemples.

A review of A Gospel Synopsis of the Greek Text of Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Comparison of Codex Bezae and Codex Vaticanus. Edited by Jenny Read-Heimerdinger and Josep Rius-Camp, in collaboration with Enric Muñarch. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xxi + 315. Cloth, $240.00.

Matthew C. Williams' "Two Gospels from One: A Comprehensive Text-Critical Analysis of the Synoptic Gospels" promises more than it can deliver, misleads readers with its subtitle, and stymies rather than advances the agendas of text-critical research and gospel criticism. Williams' study not only fails to shed new light on the synoptic problem, but also misappropriates (and misapplies) text-critical criteria to problems beyond their purview. The result is a work that amounts to little more than a cataloguing of well-known arguments for Marcan priority, encumbered by repeated attempts to tether a text-critical approach to the Synoptic Problem. Despite the appearance of copious detail, the work is selective in its treatment and founded upon a number of abstractions.

The purpose of this paper is a reconstruction of the main economic ideas expressed in the three Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark and Luke). The teachings of the 'Jesus Movement' expressed in these works form the basis of much later economic analysis, particularly amongst the Medieval Schoolmen. Because of the problems inherent in carrying out economic analysis directly on theological texts, the present paper attempts the process in reverse, outlining briefly the main theological message of the three Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament, as a means of accessing any economic content to be found therin. In general, the peril  of wealth as a barrier to the appropriate spiritual perspective is found to be emphasized. Renunciation of capital accumulation and denouncement of a retention of surpluses is supported incontrovertibly within the narrative, but appears not to have been developed into a general normative principle binding upon all would-be Christians. Not unexpectedly, alms-giving remains the fundamental imperative associated with individual consumption patterns.