What are the Synoptic Gospels? (This is a question which often comes up e.g. in paper RSS07 for the AQA A-Level but is also important to understand for anyone considering further study in this field)

There are four canonical gospels this means there are four gospels which are included in the Bible and are accepted by Christians. These are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However, Matthew, Mark and Luke share a lot of the same stories and phrases which are not in John’s gospel. These gospels are known as “Synoptic” gospels. This term comes from the Greek words syn which means  “together” and optic which means “to look at”. So when you look at Matthew, Mark and Luke together, you realise that they are so similar that they probably copied each other. A bit like when a teacher realises that four students have written the same essay and begins to wonder who copied whose homework.

The first person to notice this similarity was  a man called Johann Jakob Griesbach who created the first Gospel Synopsis in 1776. This is when the stories in Matthew, Mark and Luke are arranged in three columns so you can see the similarities (and differences!) between them. You can find an example of a Gospel Synopsis here: http://www.hypotyposeis.org/synoptic-problem/2004/09/parallel-synoptic-table.html