Solutions to the Synoptic Problem 5: Johann Herder

Herder thought that Mark most exactly reproduced Urev_Or. Matthew reproduced it with expansions, and Luke, aware of these expansions, “wished to create ‘an actual historical account’ after a wholly Hellenistic pattern.” Herder also hypothesized that “[s]ome forty years later John . . . wrote an ‘echo of the earlier Gospels at a higher pitch’ which undertook to set forth Jesus as the Savior of the world. . . .”

See Kümmel 79–83. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

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