Same Song, Second Verse

If you read straight through the New Testament, you will find lots of passages that sound like each other.  A parable sounds like one you know from another gospel, or an argument from Paul echoes something from another letter. 

Looking at similar texts side by side, we can recognize each text's individual emphasis and themes more clearly, so students of the New Testament have developed tools and practices for doing close, comparative reading of similar passages.

Why Compare Similar Texts?

Overall, our objectives for comparing similar texts are:

1. To identify the voice and particular emphases of each author, and
2. To discover questions you would like to follow up on as you continue to study a text.

Desired Results

Each Into the New Testament unit has been designed to foster enduring understandings as well as key knowledge and key skills. Here are the learning goals for Comparing Similar Texts. (Here's more about the pedagogical theory behind Into the New Testament.)

Enduring Understandings

1. If you think you've heard it before, you probably have.
2. The different contexts of similar texts mean changes in focus and meaning.
3. Biblical authors edited their sources to shape the meaning of their writing.
4. Sometimes "similar texts" occur across the Old and New Testaments.

Essential Questions

1. What do we mean when we say the Holy Spirit has inspired the Scriptures?
2. How "creative" were the New Testament writers?
3. Do inconsistencies in the way similar stories are told cast doubt on the Bible's truthfulness?

Key Knowledge

1. Introductory knowledge of synoptic relationships and the synoptic problem.

Key Skills

1. Use a synopsis to find subtle differences in the synoptic gospels.
2. Use Pauline Parallels and/or a concordance or study Bible to find similar Pauline texts.

Comparing the Synoptic Gospels

"Eyes on your own paper..."
Some of us remember our elementary school teachers' exhortations to "keep your eyes on your own paper."  The gospel writers were thankfully much more free when it came to getting by with a little help from their friends.  In fact, Matthew, Mark and Luke are so much like each other in structure and content that we are pretty sure someone was copying from someone else's paper.

As we compare similar New Testament texts, Matthew, Mark and Luke are a special case.  They all tell the story of Jesus' ministry, death and resurrection, and they do so in ways that are more like each other than like the gospel of John.  In fact, they are so close to each other in structure and content that we are pretty sure someone was copying from someone else.  In other words, one of these gospels was written first, then the others used that first one as a source for their retelling of the story. 

So who had whose paper?  We are guessing about this, of course, but after looking very closely at the relationships between the three books, most modern New Testament scholars believe that the gospel of Mark was the first of the three written, and that Matthew and Luke each used Mark as a source of material for their own telling of the gospel story.

The Inspiration of Scripture
A literary relationship between the gospels (meaning that someone had someone else's paper) does not exclude the idea of the gospels' having been inspired by the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit could have guided the work of the evangelists to edit and borrow from their sources.

A synopsis of the gospels is a book in which similar texts from Matthew, Mark and Luke are published side by side.  These are available in Greek, Greek-English and English versions.  You can find buying recommendations on Getting Started, page 2. 

Online Tools

Some online synopsis tools are also available.  My favorite online tool for comparing the gospels in English is The Five Gospels Parallels, edited by John W. Marshall.  In a single browser window, you may open various combinations of texts, like (1) the three synoptics, (2) the four canonical gospels, (3) the four canonical gospels plus the gospel of Thomas.  From there, you can click on links to make the biblical texts scroll to their parallel passages. 

Comparing Pauline Texts

The New Testament contains thirteen letters that bear Paul's name.  Some of these letters share common themes or passages that are quite similar to each other.  We do not find significant verbatim agreement in the Pauline corpus, as we do when comparing Matthew, Mark and Luke to each other.  It doesn't look like Paul used the "copy and paste" method of composition! Yet we do find similar themes and texts across the body of his writings.

Fred O. Francis and J. Paul Sampley have arranged similar Pauline texts side by side in a book called Pauline Parallels.  Perhaps the best resource for comparing Pauline texts, however, is the selection of footnotes in a reference study Bible.  A study Bible's notes will cross reference texts that are like the one you are reading.

Comparing Other New Testament Texts

A few other close connections exist between passages of the New Testament.  For instance, Acts sometimes offers parallels to stories that Paul tells in his letters.  The advice to wives and husbands in 1 Peter 3:1-7 resembles material in Colossians and Ephesians.  Parts of James and 1 Peter are alike.  When they are available, the activity grid will have links to practice activities on these texts.

Resource Pages on this Skill

Currently, resource pages on this skill are written with only the synoptic gospels in mind. When other pages are added to the site, I'll add links to them there. Here is a summary of the resource pages currently available.

Same Song, Second Verse | This is the introductory page you are reading right now.

Getting to Know Your Synopsis | Here you will find an introduction to the different types of pages and information contained in The Synopsis of the Four Gospels, edited by Kurt Aland (United Bible Societies, 1982).

Look at Synopsis Pages | Here you can review material from the preceding resources pages by mousing over parts of synopsis pages and looking for information about each part in a feedback area of the screen.

Coloring Your Synopsis | By using colored pencils and a variety of line types, you can quickly see precisely where the synoptic gospels agree and differ from each other. This page gives you an underlining method.

What Does It All Mean? | After you color a pericope and find differences, what do they mean? This page introduces some "describe and decide" steps for this skill.

Next: Getting to Know Your Synopsis