The Problem with the Synoptic Problem

Texts: (all the texts are located on this link)

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Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 36:5-11

Hebrews 9:11-15

John 12:1-11

The text from John's Gospel for today has many parallels to chapters in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).  Likely written toward the end of the first or beginning of the second century, the author of this Gospel had the luxury of telling stories that had been in circulation for some time.  

Reading Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, and Luke 7:36-50, the parallels in the texts are clear.  Unfortunately, when we harmonize the Gospels and read them as one, we place many assumptions on the text which are not there, necessarily.  To illustrate how this works, having read all of the Gospels we take bits and pieces from each, and construct a picture that does not exist in any of the Gospels.

First, it must be said that, while helpful for finding a particular passage, Bibles that include headings regarding the following stories color how we read the stories.  For example, when we read the heading for Luke 7:36-50 in the Harper Collins NRSV, "A Sinful Woman Forgiven," we immediately are looking for a particular sort of thing within the story.  Unfortunately, throughout the centuries, many have commented and speculated as to what this particular woman's sin may have been (as though it were possible), alluding to some sort of sexual sin (with the primary accusation being that she was a prostitute) though there is absolutely no indication of this in the text.

It is important to note: none of the other gospels mention sin in conjunction with this woman, though we seem to read the indications found in Luke's Gospel into the others.  What is worse, we read the centuries of assumption that the woman in Luke's Gospel was a prostitute and read this into the women in the other accounts, though this indication is not present in Luke's Gospel.

In John's Gospel, the woman is Mary of Bethany, and the one protesting is Judas.  In none of the other Gospels is the woman named, and the other accounts have different indications of who complains (and why).  

So, now we read into all of the Gospels that the woman who annoints Jesus is Mary, that she is a sinner (namely, a prostitute), completely blowing past Jesus' words and actions in the passage because we have distracted ourselves from the point of the text in our desire to judge this woman along with the others in the passage.  Rather than seeing the woman as a foil for ourselves, we see ourselves as those who judge her.  Rather than receiving the radical forgivness offered to sinners in Luke's Gospel, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace," we would rather cling to our own righteousness and our propensity to judge.  Rather than seeing the woman doing with abundant generosity what none of the disciples or religious leadership of the time had done (preparing Jesus for his burial), far ahead of them in understanding the nature of Jesus and what was coming for him, we judge her as foolish for having offered such a generious gift.  Conflating the story and cheapening the woman to a prostitute and relegating her gift to a foolish act of indulgence, we miss the words of Christ - for her - and the words of Christ for us.

Seeing similiarites within the texts is natural; wanting these to function in the same way and communicate the same thing would make reading the text much more simple.  It would require much less of us as readers and as observers.  If this were what we were meant to do, however, our forebears would have selected only one Gospel and not four.  Part of the complication and part of the richness of the text is that we have four Gospels that all point to the same Truth.  The challenge to us is how to read the text and see the similiarites and to resist harmonization or simplification.  It is when we think that we are able to do something to the text (rather than the text doing something to us) that we miss the point entirely.  Manipulating the Gospels into a simple harmonization cheapens the message and absolves us of having to wrestle with passage that challenge or threaten us or our assumptions (when did Jesus ever make anyone's life less complicated?).  In so doing, it gives us an image of Christ that is not one we have fashioned in our own image, but one that fashions us after Christ's image.

Reading the text with imagination is one thing. Fancying ourselves omniscent observers of the story is an entirely different thing.  It is when we believe we are judges that we find ourselves judged.  It is when we see ourselves as apart from and unaffected by the text that it seeps into our lives and starts to move the furniture of our assumptions around.  Refusing to be pinned down by our assumptions, the text complicates our lives in ways more difficult and more beautiful than what we have imagined.

In allowing the text to be messy, complicated, and frustrating, we find that this text has a Word to speak to us during the times our lives are messy, complicated, and frustrating.  The message is a gift of abundant grace, the overflowing gift of a God who would go to any lengths to teach us the Truth of what it is to be human and what it is to have a God.