Page 18 - The Gospel Chronicle - Redaction SE

Redaction: Introduction

on which gospel is granted priority. But from a chronological perspective less that 12% of the
combined content can be removed. These two results cannot be reconciled; they are too
different. But how can there be such a large difference, when both perspectives have the same

goal of comparing the gospels to each other?
Before investigating further let’s first level the field and remove the gospel of John so
that both perspectives contain only three of the four gospels. Adjusting the numbers to exclude
the book of John, approximately 18,600 words should be subtracted from the total starting word

count. The new word count for total gospel words is approximately 64,000 words, reducing by
22.5% of its total. As John is considered to have too little shared content to include in the
Synoptic Gospel theory, then we shall subtract the same word count from the Gospel Chronicle
Narrative, reducing it to 54,600 words or about 25.5%. The 3% difference should approximately
represent how much John might contribute to the Synoptic theory should John have been

icluded. Now as before let’s subtract the narrative word count from the total gospel word count.
The result is now 10,000 words for a difference of only 600 words between the John inclusive
and John exclusive word count. This increases shared content amongst the three remaining
gospels to 17.5%, a 5.5% increase. An expected result if the gospel of John contributes more

shared content than previously understood. All considered these compared percentages remain
drastically lower than the 40-75% shared content suggested by the Synoptic perspective. The
difference is clear. But why is there such a large difference in these numbers? Could it be
because the gospels contain a much broader array of differing content than has been previously
suggested?

The difference lays in the definition of shared or synoptic content. Observing the
Synoptic Gospel theory in practice, shared content is determined primarily by whether an event
in one gospel sounds similar to an event in another gospel. This seems practical, but quickly
becomes very subjective, leading to a multitude of gospel harmonies which largely disagree on

the specific arrangement of the four gospels’ events. One example that stands out is the
passages in Matthew and Luke that Jesus teaches the Beatitudes.

ii • The Gospel Chronicle