Think the synoptic problem is 3 gospels? Think again

Get access to the Q course! - https://www.bartehrman.com/qdebate What is the synoptic problem — and why does it stop at three gospels? Matthew, Mark, and Luke clearly share a literary relationship. That much has been recognized since Griesbach laid the three texts side by side in 1776. But the same phenomenon appears far beyond the synoptic gospels, and it rarely gets mapped as a single picture. In this episode, CJ Cornthwaite, PhD traces the literary connections running through early Christian writing: John's knowledge of the synoptics, the Gospel of Thomas and its synoptic parallels, the Protevangelium of James, the Gospel of Peter, Papyrus Egerton 2, P.Oxy 1224, Marcion's gospel, Secret Mark, and the hypothetical sources — Q, the Signs Gospel, a possible John the Baptist infancy narrative — that scholars have proposed behind the texts we have. The argument is that very few early Christian texts are genuinely independent. These writers knew each other's work, copied it, reworked it, and argued with it. And the standard explanation for the connections that fall outside the canonical gospels — oral tradition — often does less work than it appears to. In several cases the verbal agreement is too close for that answer to hold. The synoptic problem, on this reading, is not a canonical gospel problem. It is an early Christian writing problem. TEXTS AND SOURCES DISCUSSED Mark Goodacre, The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John's Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Eerdmans, 2025) James McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith (Eerdmans, 2024) Hugo Méndez, The Gospel of John: A New History (Oxford, 2025) Robyn Faith Walsh, The Origins of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge, 2021) 0:00 What is the synoptic problem? 3:10 How Matthew and Luke use Mark 3:32 Is John a fourth synoptic gospel? 7:03 The Gospel of Thomas and the synoptics 8:49 The Protevangelium of James 10:56 The Gospel of Peter 12:14 P.Oxy 1224 13:38 Papyrus Egerton 2 15:07 Q and the hypothetical sources 17:19 A John the Baptist infancy narrative? 18:40 Marcion's gospel 20:06 Secret Mark and the lost gospels 21:15 The woman taken in adultery 21:29 The problem with "oral tradition" 23:02 A network of early Christian writers