Four Source Hypothesis Essay

Submitted By Ebonyamesha4
Words: 1338
Pages: 6

Ebony Cohen
New Testament
Dr
. Coleman
000098309

The Four Source Hypothesis The New Testament begins with three important books which is Matthew
,
Mark
,
and Luke
.
People believe that these three books was put in this order because of way they are seen in the bible but it is actually quite different
.
People also think that the books was created with only three sources when it was really four sources
.
What was the four source hypothesis
,
how did it come about and why it was done this way are questions we all ask ourselves
.

A four document hypothesis or four source hypothesis is an explanation for the relationship between the three gospels of Matthew
,
Mark
,
and Luke
.
It posits that there were at least four sources to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke
;
which was the Gospel of Mark
,
and three lost sources which is Q source
,
M source
,
and L source
.
The Q stands for quelle which means unknown
.
The first source is of course Mark
.
In
Mark it validate Jesus as the Messiah
,
Messiah meaning anointed one sent by God
.

Source number two is the Q source which no one knows where the information came from . M is our source number three
.
The M source came from Matthew
.
In Matthew they talk about the teaching of the christian faith
;
validate Christianity as a legitimate religion .
[1]
Mark you will find that he uses most miracles
.
In Matthew they take us back to Abraham to relate to what is going on in Matthew
.
The last source number four is L
.
In Luke it stayed the universality of Christianity
.
In this book the take us all the way back to Adam so we can understand the situation that's going on with Jesus in Luke
.

The most important questions one will ask is how did these four sources come about . Well in the year of 1925 an English biblical scholar by the name of Burnett
Hillman Streeter studied the New Testaments and discovered the

four source hypothesis ”. Streeter was born November 17
,
1874
,
Croydon
,
Surrey
,
England
.
He went to Queen

s College and University of Oxford
;
Streeter spent most of his life there
,
becoming chaplain in 1928 and provost in 1933
.
He was ordained in 1899 and for 15 years , from 1922 to 1937
,
was a member of the Archbishop

s Commission on Doctrine in the
Church of England
.[2]
He wrote or contributed to a dozen volumes in the fields of philosophy of religion
,
comparative religion
,
and
New Testament studies
.
Streeter soon became well known for his studies of the New Testament
.
He developed the theory of

“ local texts

in the manuscript transmission of the New Testament
.
Afterwards The
Primitive Church followed his work
.
Streeter stated that there were three systems
,
not one , of church government in the earliest Christian churches
.
Streeter discovered The
Four Gospels
:
A Study of Origins in the year of 1924
.
His other work included

Foundations
:

A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of Modern Thought
,
which came about in 1912 by Seven Oxford Men
,
The Chained Library in 1931
,
Reality
:
A New
Correlation of Science and Religion in 1926
,
and The Buddha and the Christ
(
Bampton
Lectures
, in 1932
).
[2]
Most people get confused when it comes to the four source hypothesis
.
We have Mark
,
Q
,
M
,
and L sources
.
The Gospels according to Matthew
,
Mark
,
and Luke are similar to each other because they view Jesus the same way
.
Even though they are similar in ways they are also different as well which gives us our other three sources
.
Source number one comes from Mark because it was the first to be written
.
How do we know?
Because Matthew and Luke have information in Mark that they do not have in each other . Source number two is our Quelle source
,
or just Q source
.