The Synoptic Problem. An Introduction

Written by R. H. Stein Reviewed By D.R. de Lacey

The title is somewhat misleading, since it is designed as ‘an introduction that would help students work their way, step by step, through the Gospels disciplines’ (p. 11); hence serving a much wider purpose than merely exploring the Synoptic Problem itself. The second half is roughly equally divided between form and redaction criticism.

A compressed introduction to the writing of synopses is concluded by a valuable discussion of some currently available; it is a strong point of Stein’s approach that he both presupposes that the student will be working at the text with a synopsis and provides examples to be worked through, producing something like Farmer’s Synopticon (a work to which remarkably no reference is ever made). The various issues to which a solution of the Problem must address itself are thereby well illustrated before they are discussed, and any student who takes the effort to use the book as intended will end up with a broad grasp of the problems raised by the text itself to which answers must be found.

Stein’s own answer is the traditional four-source theory, a position which is maintained with some vehemence, and not always even-handed assessment of the rival options. The position is stated and defended clearly enough (though occasionally as on p. 52f. by arguments which are simply wrong); but proponents of the new Griesbach position are dismissed without even a reference (p. 49) on the basis of just two points which both begin ‘it is difficult to understand why …’. Those to whom it is not so difficult are left in a limbo of unanswered questions.

The section on Form Criticism bases itself on the 1939 introduction by Redlich. Stein draws from it eight ‘presuppositions’, and discusses these in order to explain the discipline. Worked examples are not used here, and I wonder if the reader will really understand the issues or the tool from this approach. Indeed, Stein’s own understanding of literary ‘form’ becomes broadened to include, for instance, parallelismus membrorum, which moves far beyond the concerns of the form critics whom the section ostensibly studies. And his natural concern to defend the historicity of the accounts leads perhaps to an ignoring or downplaying of other significant factors.

On Redaction Criticism the book is adequate, if not particularly penetrating; but worked examples make a welcome re-entry and ensure the student a good grasp of the basic issues. Nothing is said about more recent approaches to the Gospels, and indeed the whole book has a slightly old-fashioned air about it. It lacks an adequate bibliography. Because of these and other criticisms, I would hesitate to recommend this as the only guide to the area, but it will usefully stand beside others as an introduction to a crucial and complex field of study.


D.R. de Lacey

Tyndale House, Cambridge