TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM: A TEXTUAL COMMENTARY ON THE MINOR AGREEMENTS OF MATTHEW AND LUKE AGAINST MARK

The development of modern critical tools for research into the literary relationships among the synoptic gospels as well as their texts has progressed in several respects along similar lines. The similarities among the various criteria used in each area of research has contributed to the combination of two presuppositions, priority assumption and proclivity toward internal textual evidence, into one text-critical criterion--the use of source theories as a text-critical criterion. Especially in the treatment of the minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark have literary and text-critical principles been combined. Thus, the minor agreements provide a medium for exploring the relationship between textual criticism and synoptic research. Thirty passages with a total of fifty-two minor agreements previously attributed to textual corruption are examined. As a result of the extensive textual examination, the legitimacy of textual corruption as an explanation for the minor agreements is questioned.;Within the investigation was found a further need to examine the function of source theories in the textual decision process in light of the principles and criteria of textual criticism. While traditional text-critical principles are motivated by the desire to solve textual problems, the use of source theories as a text-critical criterion is often motivated by the desire to solve literary problems in a textual manner. Although literary and textual research in the synoptic gospels are parallel in many ways, the distinctive purpose of each must be maintained. While textual criticism seeks to determine which reading among several is more original, synoptic research seeks to establish which reading is the more original among the first three gospels. If any aspect of synoptic literary research should be free from bias toward a particular source theory, it should be the text upon which the various theories are tested. For the text to remain free of such inclinations the process whereby it is established must refrain from the application of literary and source theories.