synoptic essay history

Home / Student / 36-86 / How to guides / What your a Synoptist Essay and Instructions Do I Write One?

What your a Synoptic Essay and How Do I Note One?

Writing the synoptic essay, wherewith do exam boards describe one synoptic element.

Essentially, we are looking for breadth of understanding (an ability to see beyond the obvious both to see one deeper implications of questions), together to a relevancies linking regarding ideas plus arguments across the topic / cycle of the question.

It mixes breadth of comprehension (an ability to see that select base themes of the period the 'drivers' bringing change; the degree of continuity; the your bet state and people), with depth of example and understanding of the importance of precise supporting detail.

At A2, essays are likely to have more than one special; view than one issue to discuss and more than one viewpoint to analyse. The question itself invites a 'synoptic response' so a good conventional essay answer will do all these things.

AN synoptic essay will usually ask you to examine "how far" otherwise "how valid/convincing". In order the approach a synoptic well, computers is good habit to organise your themes FIRST. Such will making this essay easier to write. A Level History Essay Structure A Instructions Pass History Exams.

Examples of synoptic style question

In is question, you are expected not only on be ably to assess how important Hitler was to and Ns, but you are also prospective to set the Nazis in the bigger long context of the time or untersuchen other long/short terminate factors that may may aided their success.

The legacy about the Bismarckian device - of nature of authority press rule, as well as who legacy on policies such as Kulturkampf.

Difficult relations with Britain, France furthermore Russia. The whole power struggle of the time - especially the growing confidence of Russia for Austria-Hungary and the difficult family ties between ruling families. To transportation out the research for and writing of your coursework essay.

World War I and Germany's loss.

This Treaty a Versailles and the 'stab in the back' myth.

In the Shorter-term...

The personality of Adolf Hitler and his option the aforementioned leading of the NSDAP.

Nazi party tactics - i.e. putsches, propaganda, assemblies, use by ASA etc...

The Wall Street Smash real depressing, growth in anti-semitism.

The mistakes of Hindenburg, Von Papen and Von Schleicher.

This is not an exhaustive list of reasons for the achievements of the Nazi Party; however, it should accentuate to you that the personality of Hitler as suggested to the question was just one of many short and longer term factors that helped an Fascists the become successful. Essays Mark Sheets Bibliography Mark Scheme Assessing-Sources Guide A Level Sources.

In a synoptic write you would need to weigh this above for and light of the additional features at play, while at an same time displaying choose understanding of the complete period and actually how plenty change took place. Some will argue in example that more of Hitler's politische are more extreme versions the Bismarckian strategy, required show, Bismarck's' Kulturkampf intended tracked Catholics in Germany; Hitler, in a far more extreme way, persecuted Jews. A rank AQA History essay structure The Student Apartment.

Some may also argue that because Bishkek and the Kaiser got ruled in an absolute way, that save was the kind of rule that Germans were used up; perhaps they weren't ready for the democracy that was offered over the Republic, so when Hitler was go supply a return to the traditional absolute style of rule, it seemed familiar to Foreigners. Every have any advice to writing a good books essay This threaded is archived New show cannot be posted real votes does.

A good way to organise your related might be for follows:

Introduction that includes very brief setting of the scene and country your line of argument.

Discuss the theme that is asked to by the question (in this case the personality of Hitler) - how important was this?

Discuss the select short-term themes that were also important to the period/event or estimate sense. Then save the significance of diese other factors in comparison to the initial factor.

Finally, here comes the synoptic analysis, you following required up scrutinize the longer term topic at play and examine own role - how important were your in comparison to one shortage term factors. Inhered present many shifts or changes? How much durability where here? How did any changes or continuity affect the situation?

Conclusion - how important was the contributing as stated of who enter? Set it included light of the wider contextual of who time plus re-assert your point of viewer.

More love this...

Popular in student.

What Is a Synopsis and How Do You Write One?

What to Put In and What to Leave Out

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

In the 19th century, a synopsis was a classroom exercise used for teaching traditional grammar but today, the accepted definition of a synopsis is a general overview of an article, essay, story, book, or other written work. In the field of publishing, a synopsis may serve as a proposal for an article or book. In feature writing and other forms of nonfiction, a synopsis may also refer to a concise summary of a polemic argument or event. You might also find a synopsis included in a review or report.

Fast Facts: Synopsis

Pronunciation: si-NOP-sis

Etymology From the Greek, "general view"

Plural : synopses

Adjective : synoptic

Synopsis vs. Outline

Some people use the terms outline and synopsis synonymously and they really are very similar. When it comes to fiction, however, the distinction is more clearcut. While each may contain similar information, a synopsis is an overview that summarizes the main plot points of the work, whereas an outline functions as a structural tool that breaks the plot down into its component parts.

If you think of it in terms of a novel, the synopsis would be similar to the book jacket copy that tells you who the characters are and what happens to them. It usually also gives readers a feeling for the tone, genre, and theme of the work. An outline would be more akin to a page of chapter listings (provided the author has titled the chapters rather than just numbering them) which functions as a map that leads the reader from the beginning of a literary journey to its final destination or denouement.

In addition to crucial information, a synopsis often includes a thematic statement. Again, thinking in terms of fiction, it would identify the genre and even subgenre, for example, a romance Western, a murder mystery, or a dystopic fantasy and would also reveal something of the tone of the work—whether dark or humorous, erotic or terrifying.

What to Include and What to Leave Out

Since a synopsis is a condensation of the original material, a writer must be sure to include the most important details so that the reader will be able to fully comprehend what the work is about. Sometimes, it's hard to know what to put in and what to leave out. Writing a summary requires critical thinking . You're going to have to analyze the original material and decide what the most important information is.

A synopsis isn't about style or details, it's about supplying enough information for your audience to easily understand and categorize the work. A few brief examples might be permissible, but numerous examples, dialogues, or extensive quotations have no place in a synopsis. Do, however, keep your synopsis true to the plot and timeline of the original story.

Synopses for Non-Fiction Stories

The purpose of a synopsis for a work of nonfiction is to serve as a condensed version of an event, a controversy, a point of view, or background report. Your job as a writer is to include enough basic information so that a reader can easily identify what the story is about and understand its tone. While detailed information is important when telling the larger story, only the information crucial to comprehending the "who, what, when, where, and why" of an event, proposal, or argument is necessary for the synopsis.

Again, as with fiction, the tone and the eventual outcome of your story will also likely come into play in your summary. Choose your phrasing judiciously. Your goal is to use as a few words as possible to achieve maximum impact without leaving out so much information that your reader ends up confused.

• Fernando, Jovita N., Habana, Pacita I., and Cinco, Alicia L. "New Perspectives in English One." Rex, 2006
• Kennedy, X.J., Kennedy, Dorothy M., and Muth, Marcia F. "The Bedford Guide for College Writers." Ninth Edition. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011
• Brooks, Terri. " Words' Worth: A Handbook on Writing and Selling Nonfiction ." St. Martin's Press, 1989
• How to Write a Good Descriptive Paragraph
• An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction
• How to Write an Abstract
• What Is Literary Journalism?
• How to Write a Narrative Essay or Speech
• Genres in Literature
• How to Write a Great Book Report
• The Difference Between an Article and an Essay
• What Is a Novel? Definition and Characteristics
• Conciseness for Better Composition
• Defining Nonfiction Writing
• The Essay: History and Definition
• Third-Person Point of View
• Interior Monologues
• Book Report: Definition, Guidelines, and Advice

The UK National Charity for History

Password Sign In

Become a Member | Register for free

Essay Writing

Student Guides

• Add to My HA Add to folder Default Folder [New Folder] Add

History is not just about writing lots of essays! It is also about discussion, debate and evidence. However, there will be, as with many other subjects at A-Level, some essays to write - but it is not as tough as it looks. Essay writing is a skill that you will get better at over time, but you might find the guide below useful to help you along.

How to Write a History Essay

• Are you new to the 6th form?
• Are you already in the 6th form but worried about your essay writing skills?
• Are you moving on to study history at university?

Then this could be just what you need! This guide will not help you to get outstanding grades - that is up to you, but it will prepare you with the skills that you need to produce that masterpiece!

Key Features: The Must Haves

A-Level/Undergraduate essays should contain the following features; although it depends on the type of essay you are writing as to how far you go; for example, a personal study or dissertation will require a great deal of historiography and referencing, whereas class essays may require less. If you are unsure as to how much your teacher will expect, it is best to ask! 

A well considered argument - This is VERY important to get right. It means that you will need to make sure that you clearly state your line of argument and do it convincingly. At the same time, you will also need to give full coverage to other factors/opinions/arguments that are at play - even if it is to rubbish them!

Reference to the question

An introduction

A middle -  the substantive part of the essay, where you present the evidence and arguments

A conclusion

Footnotes and bibliography

Before You Start...

The key to success in any history essay is preparation. This not only includes focussed and wide reading around the topic, but also your preparation of your thoughts and arguments. Richard Harris, experienced history teacher and now lecturer in education at Southampton University provides a very good starting point for essay writing. His plan is designed to get you thinking and planning your structure before you write. You can find a copy of this planning sheet at the end of the guide. 

1) Considered Argument

The key to providing a considered argument is to read widely! What is the historiography (views of different historians) surrounding the topic? What evidence is there to support different lines of argument? Your job is firstly to present these lines of argument.

Secondly, you should critically evaluate these views and evidence as you explain them. Is there evidence to counteract? By providing a considered argument - what we don't mean is that you sit on the fence! Every essay MUST have an argument, but by considered, we simply mean that you should be prepared to consider other arguments/factors, other than your own view, even if it is to critically evaluate them and dismiss their importance! But you must be convincing and be prepared to examine them fully.

At A level, the mark-schemes tend to be stepped into 5 different levels; you cannot progress beyond level 2/3 if you do not provide a well considered argument! The examiner wants to see what your opinion is, but they also want to know that you have not just "plucked" this opinion from nowhere - they want to see that you have considered the topic fully, taken account of all of the views and arguments before making your judgement. Therefore, you should stick to your line of argument throughout, but you should clearly evaluate other points of view, showing your reader how and why they are less valuable arguments than your own. 

2) Reference to the question

Where possible you should show how the evidence you are presenting links back to the question. You should refer back to the question wherever a link or piece of evidence provides some clues to help formulate an answer. This should help you to avoid going off track. Always think as you are writing "does this paragraph help to present the evidence to support my line of argument or help me to answer the question?" 

3) The Introduction

The introduction should set the scene. It should be short and snappy, no more than a few lines, but they are very important as you need to hook your reader in. There should be some very brief background detail to the question. You should also include some brief historiography - what is the main debate among historians about this issue? Who is saying what? You should also at this point wish to state what YOUR argument is going to be.

You should then refer back to the question by stating how you are going to measure/argue your case; a good way to do this is by referring back to the question itself. It should help you to get the question straight in your own mind too and give you some direction. For example, if you have a question asking you how significant an event was, you need to explain what is meant by significance and how you will measure this.

E.g. 'How significant was the Reichstag Fire in the Nazi revolution?'

When this question is analysed, bit by bit it helps us to explain to our reader what the essay intends to cover. 

4) The Middle

This is the substantive part of the essay. This is the bit where you have to present the evidence and arguments. It should predominantly contain your analysis/argument but you must also look at the counter-arguments and the views of historians.

• Present evidence in a balanced way: You should present your argument/response to the question clearly and effectively, using the views of historians and other evidence to back up the points you make. On the other side, you should also consider the arguments against your own and critically evaluate them in order to show why they are less important/plausible than your own.
• Present your evidence in a logical order : Try to avoid jumping around. Make a plan before you write that organizes your evidence logically. This could either be in themes or in chronological order.
• Include analysis: You must make sure that you don't just fall into the trap of presenting evidence without analysis. This reads more like a list! When presenting a piece of evidence or the view of a historian, don't forget to critically analyse. Is the evidence reliable? Is the view of the historian reliable or are they writing from a specific viewpoint? Are there different interpretations? What do you think? Is it a valid point?
• Refer often to the title: Don't forget to link your points back to the question where possible. It will help your essay and your reader stay focused on the answer to the question!

How to Structure Paragraphs:

It is important to structure your points within the scaffolding of the paragraph well. A good way to do this is to PEE all over your paragraphs!!!

Of course, don't take this literally and ruin your essay - what we mean is to use the PEE formula:

E - Example

E - Explanation.

This is a good habit to get into and a good way to provide structure. Simply make your point, give an example or piece of evidence to back it up, then explain it. What is the context? How or why is it significant/insignificant? How does it fit into the topic? How does it help to answer the question? 

Test yourself:

See if you can spot the PEE on this paragraph which forms part of an answer to the question "Was Edward IV a new monarch?"

"Edward's power did not increase at the expense of the nobility; a key criteria for new monarch status. Edward continued the tradition of letting powerful magnates rule the peripheral regions of the country, such as the North and Wales. This resulted in the creation of a number of large power bases including the Herberts in Wales, Gloucester in the North, the Percys in the eastern marshes and the Woodvilles in London. This was largely due to the small number of noble creations in his reign - he only made nine promotions to high nobility. On the one hand this shows that he was in form control as he had sufficient power and stability without having to make lots of noble creations to gain support, yet on the other hand he was creating a volatile situation as rivalries built up between powerful factions and Edward was cresting a potentially explosive situation which only he could control." 

5) Conclusion

This is the end of the essay. This is the bit where you are expected to answer the question! Here you should sum up in a couple of sentences what your argument is, and why it is the most plausible explanation, being careful to remind the reader of supportive evidence. Finally, you should put the essay in context. Explain the wider context to the question. It might be that there are longer-term or under the surface issues that need further exploration, or it may be that there is a bigger picture in play. By putting your answer in context, we don't mean just adding some extra facts about the period at the end - your setting in context should display your broader understanding of the period. A good example of this is when a student was writing about the Golden Age of Spain:

"In conclusion, the extent to whether this period can be deemed as a "Golden Age" ultimately rests on the context of the time. Although it is true to say that Spain was making advances in several areas, in terms of power, unity, wealth, economy, culture, empire and discovery. The extent of religious and racial persecution however, could be deemed as less golden in terms of morality, even if both policies were successful in terms of strengthening Spain's power base. In the wider context of the time, Spain's achievements seem less golden than they may at first appear. We have to remember that this period saw the Renaissance. The Renaissance affected practically every area of life at the time, and was a new dawn of discovery and thinking -  Leonardo Da Vinci, William Harvey, Martin Luther, Copernicus and Galileo were but a few of the characters that shaped the time;  therefore, if Spain had a golden age, so too did many other countries." 

• Re-state your argument using the key words from the title
• Be confident in your argument
• Hint at a broader context
• What other issues would you explore, given more time? 

6) Footnotes and Bibliography

At A-Level and undergraduate level, you will be expected to footnote your essays. Because you are not expected to do this at GCSE, this may be a new skill for you, but it is very easy! 

What are footnotes?

When you quote evidence or the views of a historian from a book or periodical, you are expected to let your reader know where you got this evidence from, so that if they wished (very few would) they could go and check your evidence. You can do this by including citations or footnotes.       

How to Footnote

The process of footnoting is slightly different on different computer programs and may differ again if you are using a MAC, but the process is the same, even if you are handwriting.

Footnotes should be numbered and should either appear at the bottom of the page on which they are cited or in a list at the end of the essay. They should include the following information:

1.) Author's name (surname first)

2.) Date and place of publication (found on the first page of the book usually)

3.) Title of book (in italics)

4.) Page reference. 

How to footnote on the computer

If you have Microsoft Office, the simplest way to insert a footnote is by going to the references section on the tool-bar and then following the instructions above. If you are using an earlier version of Office, you should click on insert and then select footnote from the list.

Below is an example to illustrate what a footnote should look like:

"Leo, the holy pope in Rome, passed away; and in this year there was a great pestilence among cattle than man could remember for many years..." [1]   

Footnote extras

• If the book is a collection of articles or a reproduction of primary source material, it will not have an author, but an editor instead. If the main name on the book is an editor, you need to write the letters (ed.) next to the name.
• If your next footnote in the sequence is from the same book, but a different page, you do not need to write out all of the information again, you can simply write the word "Ibid" which means same source and then cite the page number. However, you should only do this once in any given sequence. If you have 3 quotes in a row from the same book, the third time, you should write out the information again. 

What is a bibliography?

A bibliography is the list of books that you have used to help you write your essay. This may include books that you have quoted from or used as part of your reading.

You should always include a bibliography at the end of your essay which lists the books that you have used. You can use the same format as you would for footnotes. Below is a sample to show you how it should look.

1.) Campbell, J (ed) Cambridge 1982 - The Anglo-Saxons

2.) Swanton, M (ed) J.M Dent 1997 - The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle                                                  

The Harvard Footnote System

Another option to make sure you have referenced correctly is to use the simpler Harvard system. This may be a preferred method for the writing of normal class essays, although for a personal study, the use of traditional footnoting is still recommended. Harvard referencing uses the author and the date of the work in the main body of the text, and then has a reference list at the end of the essay which contains the references cited in alphabetical order by author. The reference list contains the full details of the book or journal cited. Because you only refer to a shortened form of works in the main essay (author, date) your essay doesn't get filled with too much reference material. The use of the author/date shorthand does make it easy to locate works in the reference list.

An example from the main body of a text:

Within the last ten years, teachers who have attended INSET courses have reported that the courses have helped to increase their competence and confidence in using IT (see, for example, Higham and Morris, 1993; ESRC 1990), yet despite the fact that the passing years have presented opportunities for more teachers to increase their skills in IT, weaknesses identified by McCoy (1992) seem to be still evident (Gillmon, 1998; Goldstein 1997). This suggests that we need to look for explanations other than attendance at INSET courses for the reasons for the apparently poor state of teachers' competence and confidence in IT.

In this text the author is citing entire works by other researchers to support her argument. Notice the use of brackets and the author/s and dates of all works.

Another example from the main body of a text:

One resource provided in the secondary speech genre is the "posited author" (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 312).

Here the quotation is a direct one so a page number has been added. Quotations of no more than two sentences can be incorporated into the main text and marked off with quotation marks, but if you quote a longer passage it must be placed in a separate paragraph and indented from the left and right margins of the main text.

_______________ 

[1] Swanton, Michael (ed), J.M Dent 1997, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, pg. 185

Attached files:

• Essay Planning Sheet 54.5 KB Word document
• How to write a synoptic essay
• A-level 'how to' guides

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Acquisition
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Media
• Music and Religion
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Ethics
• Business Strategy
• Business History
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic History
• Economic Systems
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Politics of Development
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous
• Next chapter >

Introduction

• Published: March 2023
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

The field of Synoptic studies traditionally has had two basic foci. The question of how Matthew, Mark, and Luke are related to each other, what their sources are, and how the Gospels use their sources constitutes the first focus. Collectively, scholarship on the Synoptic Problem has tried to address these issues, and recent years have seen renewed interest and rigorous debate about some of the traditional approaches to the Synoptic Problem and how these approaches might inform the understanding of the origins of the early Jesus movement. The second focus involves thematic studies across the three Gospels. These are usually, but not exclusively, performed for theological purposes to tease out the early Jesus movement’s thinking about the nature of Jesus, the motivations for his actions, the meaning of his death and resurrection, and his relationship to God. These studies pay less attention to the particular voices of the three individual Synoptic Gospels because they are trying to get to the overall theological character of Jesus.

This book takes a different approach to the study of the Synoptics. Instead of the two traditional foci just described, its two parts are titled “The Problem and Nature of the Synoptics” and “Particular Features in Comparison.” A few of the essays in Part I include discussion of the sources for the Synoptics, literary dependence, and the development of the written forms of these Gospels (Kloppenborg, Foster, and Barker [to a certain extent], chapters 1–3 here). At the most basic level, the Synoptic Problem assumes a stable text tradition, usually starting with the Gospel of Mark, although there have been and remain some challenges to Mark’s temporal primacy. The work of theorizing dependence happens at the level of individual words, phrases, and pericopae, with the arguments for certain use of one text by another being quite detailed and intricate. Teasing out solutions to the Synoptic problem usually dominates this area of research, and in recent years, there has been an uptick in debate about the Synoptic problem and its solutions. While some form of the two-source hypothesis still holds sway with most scholars, there has been an effort to revisit earlier theories that question the existence of Q and/or the independence of Matthew and Luke.

Other interesting questions have arisen regarding the tools used to evaluate literary dependence beyond that of traditional source criticism and redaction criticism, while maintaining the value of these methods. Creative studies have been performed on the way that sources were used by other ancient authors to contextualize how the Synoptic authors might be using their sources ( Barker , chapter 3 here). In addition, ancient rhetoric has been studied as a model for how the gospels present their stories in relation to each other as a way of detecting or confirming dependence ( Damm , chapter 4 ). Therefore, the study of ancient composition practices holds a great deal of potential for providing a deeper understanding of the relationships among Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and so several essays address these issues. The oral nature of the Synoptics also raises questions about the arguments for literary dependence, and the interrelation of orality and writing is precisely the topic of Kirk’s essay (chapter 6 ), while Johnson explores the oral performance of the Synoptics as an integral part of their nature (chapter 7 ). Two essays take up the analysis of the literary design of the Synoptics and its ramifications for their nature. Ferguson (chapter 5 ) develops a distinct way of understanding Paul’s possible influence on the Gospel of Mark, which in turn affects Matthew’s and Luke’s appropriation of the Pauline tradition, assuming traditional Synoptic relations along the lines of the two-source hypothesis. And Dinkler (chapter 8 ) addresses the literary design of the Synoptics through the tools of New Formalism, which focuses its attention on narrative form and structure, while addressing critiques of formalism’s earlier iterations.

One also can recognize that the plurality of manuscript traditions has to come into play when thinking about literary dependence and the Synoptic Problem. There has been some creative new work about how to think about the end of the publication process of the Gospels, which Larsen (chapter 10 ) addresses, and the work of text criticism in this question, which Nongbri (chapter 9 ) explores. With the plurality of “final” versions a clear phenomenon, what can be said about literary dependence must be raised as a fundamental question regarding Synoptic relationships and the Synoptic Problem. Larsen’s and Nongbri’s work poses the most fundamental challenges to the Synoptic Problem, along with Kirk’s and Johnson’s, because all these essays either directly challenge the stability of the early versions of the text or rightly recognize the fluidity of orality as a characteristic of the tradition. Finally, taking the Synoptics a generation or two into the future, Spittler’s and Sellew’s essays discuss the noncanonical Gospels in relation to the Synoptics to see what light they might shed on the compositional processes ( Spittler , chapter 11 ) and the content of both (in comparison to the Gospel of Thomas; Sellew , chapter 12 ). While the essays in Part I recognize the importance of the history of scholarship on Synoptic relations, the various ways of understanding the nature of the Synoptics demonstrated in these essays show the complexity of these traditions about Jesus that needs to be grappled with in order to understand more fully the nature of their relationship. This complexity shows that scholars cannot rely on the traditional assumptions that ground the theories of literary dependence in trying to solve the Synoptic Problem.

The studies in Part II fall under the general rubric of thematic studies of the Synoptic Gospels. Traditionally, topics like Jesus, discipleship, justice, love, parables, miracles, and so on are treated thematically across the Synoptics without much attention to the ways that each Synoptic author expresses his own voice through the use of these topics. In addition, there is usually little attention paid to the greater context of the Synoptics in Judaism and Greek and Roman culture. This gives the impression that the Synoptics were written in a vacuum or that they were major literary works of the ancient world. Neither of these impressions is close to reality, of course, because the Synoptics were minority writings within a minority sect of Judaism, which itself was a diverse minority culture within the dominant Roman culture of the time. Part II takes a different approach to the way topics are handled in Synoptic studies. Most of the essays in Part II are comparative in two ways—among each Gospel and between the Gospels and other expressions of the topic in Jewish, Greek, and Roman contexts. But the essays that keep the discussion mostly on the Synoptics also give voice to each individual Gospel to convey the diversity of expression and preserve the author’s perspective as much as possible. Overall, the idea is to capture the similarities and differences in the presentation of the topics in each Gospel, and to situate the Gospels in a wider frame of reference.

The topics reflect a combination of some traditional categories and some less traditional categories. Early on a decision was made not to cover many of the traditional categories often found in books on the Synoptics (e.g., parables, discipleship, Christology, etc.). These traditional topics are important to understand, but it was felt that there was already so much written on them that is easily accessible in other books that this book would risk redundancy by including them. Where the essays in Part II do cover more traditional topics (kingdom, suffering, healing, resurrection and afterlife, etc.), the authors have worked to come at the topics in a comparative way that sheds new light on how these features of the Synoptics are not monoliths inserted into the literature but particular expressions of these general topics (e.g., Henning, Whitaker, Somov, chapters 19 , 22 , 23 ). And this particularity grounds all of the essays in Part II . Instead of mining the Synoptics for evidence to build abstracted notions of the themes, there is a real and consistent effort in these essays to describe the evidence in the Synoptics in its own context. Each essay topic performs an interesting analysis that brings out the distinct voices of each Gospel, alongside the similarities that exist across the Gospels.

There is a richness to Part II that shows the power of the approach the authors have taken in exploring the Synoptics from a number of different perspectives. They raise important questions of power (Rollens, Peppard, chapters 14 and 15 ) and the social consequences of it (Moss, Blanton, Luckritz Marquis, and Al-Suadi, chapters 13 , 16 , 17 , and 18 ). They address the social nature of these traditions (Kampen, Zetterholm, and Reno and Ahearne-Kroll, chapters 25 , 26 , and 29 ) and the literary expression of these social realities (Rollens, Myers, Reno and Ahearne-Kroll, and Moore, chapters 14 , 28 , 29 , and 30 ). And they explore in depth how the traditions of Israel have shaped the concerns of the Synoptic authors (Whitaker, Garroway, Kampen, Zetterholm, and Docherty, chapters 22 , 24 , 25 , 26 , and 27 ). As a whole, the essays in Part II beg the question whether or not “Synoptic” is the best way to describe these three Gospels.

The book as a whole provides thirty studies that substantially contribute to the field of Synoptic studies, moving it forward in interesting ways and providing the groundwork for a new generation of scholars to pursue the directions initiated by the book’s contributors.

Many of the essays in this book were written and edited during the deadly global pandemic originating in late 2019 and continuing on up through the final stages of the production of the book. The difficulties the pandemic presented for finishing this book in a timely manner were substantial, and I am deeply thankful to the contributors for their excellent scholarship, prompt responses, and patient endurance as we completed this book. I am also very grateful to Kristofer Coffman and Kristi Lee, who helped a great deal in the formatting and editing of the manuscript. Their futures are bright in Synoptic studies and in the study of religion within the broad landscape of ancient culture.

While Kristofer, Kristi, and all the contributors persevered in their excellent work throughout the pandemic, our efforts do not compare to those of the millions who have suffered and endured real hardship across the globe since late 2019, from the frontline workers of all statuses, who have helped care for, feed, and clothe victims and develop therapies and vaccines, to those who have contracted the virus and struggled for their lives and health. Their work far outshines any scholarship, no matter the level of excellence.

And so this book is dedicated to all those affected by this modern plague, especially the millions who have lost their lives and millions more of their family members who keep their memories alive.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• Subject List
• Take a Tour
• For Authors
• Subscriber Services
• Publications
• African American Studies
• African Studies
• American Literature
• Anthropology
• Architecture Planning and Preservation
• Art History
• Atlantic History

Biblical Studies

• British and Irish Literature
• Childhood Studies
• Chinese Studies
• Cinema and Media Studies
• Communication
• Criminology
• Environmental Science
• Evolutionary Biology
• International Law
• International Relations
• Islamic Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Latino Studies
• Linguistics
• Literary and Critical Theory
• Medieval Studies
• Military History
• Political Science
• Public Health
• Renaissance and Reformation
• Social Work
• Urban Studies
• Victorian Literature
• Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

• Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Synoptic Problem

Introduction, introductory works.

• Critical Introductions
• Dictionary Treatments
• The Development of the Synoptic Problem
• Bibliographies
• Synopses and Related Tools
• Concordances and Statistical Tools
• Essay Collections
• The “Augustinian” Theory
• Two-Gospel (Griesbach) Hypothesis (2GH)
• Two-Document Hypothesis (2DH)
• “M” and “L” and Proto-Luke
• Mark without Q (Farrer) Hypothesis (MwQH)
• The “Jerusalem School”
• Proto-Mark, Deutero-Mark, and Other Complex Theories
• Representing Synoptic Data
• The Argument from Order
• Oral versus Literary Dependence
• The Minor Agreements
• Scribal and Rhetorical Models for the Synoptic Problem
• The Theological and Historical Consequences of the Synoptic Problem

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

Lorem Ipsum Sit Dolor Amet

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam ligula odio, euismod ut aliquam et, vestibulum nec risus. Nulla viverra, arcu et iaculis consequat, justo diam ornare tellus, semper ultrices tellus nunc eu tellus.

• Gospel of Mark
• Gospel of Matthew

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

• Metaphor in the New Testament
• Roman Slavery and the New Testament
• Find more forthcoming articles...
• Export Citations
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Synoptic Problem by John S. Kloppenborg LAST REVIEWED: 13 September 2010 LAST MODIFIED: 13 September 2010 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0120

The Synoptic Problem is the problem of the literary relationships among the first three “Synoptic” Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called “Synoptic Gospels” because they can be “seen together” ( syn-optic ) and displayed in three parallel columns. The three gospels contain many of the same stories and sayings, often related in the same relative sequence. However, there are also important differences in the wording of individual stories and sayings, in the ordering of some materials, and in the overall extent of each gospel. In some instances, the degree of verbatim agreement or the sequential agreement in the arrangement of episodes and sayings is so strong that one must posit some kind of literary relationship among the gospels. By contrast, there are often marked differences in wording between any two gospels, and sometimes among all three. This raises several questions: (1) Is the relationship among the three gospels a matter of direct literary dependence, indirect dependence mediated through oral performances of written texts, or common dependence on oral information? (2) Can the direction of dependence be established? (3) Can a genealogy of the development of the Synoptic Gospels be constructed?

Most introductions to the New Testament have at least a brief discussion of the Synoptic Problem. As critics of the Two-Document Hypothesis (2DH) have observed, the treatment of the Synoptic Problem is often far from even-handed, with various theorists either dismissing other theories as inadequate or not considering them at all. Kümmel’s otherwise masterful introduction to the New Testament ( Kummel 1975 ) provides a detailed history of scholarship but is lacking in a full consideration of alternatives to the 2DH. Collins 1983 gives careful attention to various logically possible theories, while ultimately favoring the 2DH. Both Goodacre 2001 and Kloppenborg 2008 are intended for the introductory student. Two online resources are available oriented to the novice, one maintained by Stephen Carlson ( Synoptic Problem ) and the other by Mark Goodacre ( New Testament Gateway ).

Collins, Raymond F. Introduction to the New Testament . Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983.

A careful treatment of New Testament source criticism, including a brief but clear presentation of the arrangements of the three gospels that are logically possible, given the array of Synoptic data. See especially pp. 115–155.

Goodacre, Mark S. The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze . The Biblical Seminar 80. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.

An introductory level treatment of the Synoptic Problem that argues for Markan priority and the dependence of Luke on Matthew (hence, the Mark without Q (Farrer) Hypothesis (MwQH)). Critical of the 2DH, especially the arguments in favor of positing Q, Goodacre offers a careful and fair-minded analysis of the Synoptic Problem. Some attention is given to the Two-Gospel (Griesbach) Hypothesis (2GH), but none to complex theories.

Kloppenborg, John S. “What is Q?” In Q, The Earliest Gospel: An Introduction to the Original Stories and Sayings of Jesus . By John S. Kloppenborg, 1–40. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008.

Designed as a basic introduction for undergraduates and the informed public, the first chapter of this text explains the data and arguments that go into the formulation of the 2DH. Kloppenborg compares and contrasts the 2DH with the explanations of the same data by the Two-Gospel (Griesbach) Hypothesis (2GH) and Mark without Q (Farrer) Hypothesis (MwQH).

Kümmel, Werner Georg. Introduction to the New Testament . Rev. ed. Translated by Howard C. Kee. Nashville: Abingdon, 1975.

Kümmel’s now standard introduction to the New Testament provides a long bibliography of works through the mid-20th century, as well as an account of the history of scholarship, culminating in a defense of the 2DH. Kümmel’s presentation has been criticized for its neglect of alternate hypotheses, except as preliminary steps toward the eventual triumph of the 2DH. See especially pp. 38–80.

New Testament Gateway .

Mark Goodacre’s New Testament Gateway contains a subdirectory on the Synoptic Problem and Q , collecting links to other websites that discuss issues related to the Synoptic Problem.

Synoptic Problem .

The site, maintained by Stephen Carlson, presents diagrams of two dozen possible theories to the Synoptic Problem, a brief bibliography, links for some important primary and secondary sources, and links to several other sites that defend other theories of the problem.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

• About Biblical Studies »
• Meet the Editorial Board »
• Archaeology and Material Culture of Nabataea and the Nabat...
• Acts of Peter
• Acts of the Apostles
• Adam and Eve
• Aelia Capitolina
• Afterlife and Immortality
• Agriculture
• Alexander the Great
• Altered States of Consciousness in the Bible
• Ancient Christianity, Churches in
• Ancient Israel, Schools in
• Ancient Medicine
• Ancient Mesopotamia, Schools in
• Ancient Near Eastern Law
• Anti-Semitism and the New Testament
• Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
• Apocryphal Acts
• Apostolic Fathers
• Archaeology and Material Culture of Ammon and the Ammonite...
• Archaeology and Material Culture of Aram and the Arameans
• Archaeology and Material Culture of Judah and the Judeans ...
• Archaeology and Material Culture of Moab and the Moabites
• Archaeology and Material Culture of Phoenicia and the Phoe...
• Archaeology and Material Culture of the Kingdom of Israel ...
• Archaeology, Greco-Roman
• Art, Early Christian
• Astrology and Astronomy
• Barnabas, Epistle of
• Benefaction/Patronage
• Bible and Film
• Bible and Visual Art
• Bible, Exile, and Migration, The
• Biblical Criticism
• Biblical Studies, Cognitive Science Approaches in
• Caesarea Maritima
• Canon, Biblical
• Child Metaphors in the New Testament
• Children in the Hebrew Bible
• Children in the New Testament World
• Christian Apocrypha
• Christology
• Chronicles, First and Second
• Cities of Refuge
• Clement, First
• Clement of Alexandria
• Clement, Second
• Conversation Analysis
• Corinthians, Second
• Cosmology, Near East
• Covenant, Ark of the
• Crucifixion
• Daniel, Additions to
• Death and Burial
• Deuteronomistic History
• Deuteronomy
• Diaspora in the New Testament
• Digital Humanities and the Bible
• Divination and Omens
• Domestic Architecture, Ancient Israel
• Early Christianity
• Ecclesiastes/Qohelet
• Economics and Biblical Studies
• Education, Greco-Roman
• Education in the Hebrew Bible
• Egyptian Book of the Dead
• Election in the Bible
• Epistles, Catholic
• Epistolography (Ancient Letters)
• Eschatology of the New Testament
• Esther and Additions to Esther
• Exodus, Book of
• Ezra-Nehemiah
• Faith in the New Testament
• Feminist Scholarship on the Old Testament
• Flora and Fauna of the Hebrew Bible
• Food and Food Production
• Friendship, Kinship and Enmity
• Funerary Rites and Practices, Greco-Roman
• Genesis, Book of
• God, Ancient Israel
• God, Greco-Roman
• God, Son of
• Gospels, Apocryphal
• Great, Herod the
• Greco-Roman Meals
• Greco-Roman World, Associations in the
• Greek Language
• Hebrew Bible, Biblical Law in the
• Hebrew Language
• Hellenistic and Roman Egypt
• Hermas, Shepherd of
• Historiography, Greco-Roman
• History of Ancient Israelite Religion
• Holy Spirit
• Honor and Shame
• Hosea, Book of
• Idol/Idolatry (HB/OT)
• Idol/Idolatry (New Testament)
• Imperial Cult and Early Christianity
• Infancy Gospel of Thomas
• Interpretation and Hermeneutics
• Intertextuality in the New Testament
• Israel, History of
• Jesus of Nazareth
• Jewish Christianity
• Jewish Festivals
• Joel, Book of
• John, Gospel of
• John the Baptist
• Jubilees, Book of
• Judaism, Hellenistic
• Judaism, Rabbinic
• Judaism, Second Temple
• Judas, Gospel of
• Jude, Epistle of
• Judges, Book of
• Judith, Book of
• Kings, First and Second
• Lamentations
• Latino/a/e and Latin American Biblical Interpretation
• Letters, Johannine
• Letters, Pauline
• Levi/Levittes
• Levirate Obligation in the Hebrew Bible
• Levitical Cities
• LGBTIQ Hermeneutics
• Literacy, New Testament
• Literature, Apocalyptic
• Lord's Prayer
• Luke, Gospel of
• Maccabean Revolt
• Maccabees, First–Fourth
• Man, Son of
• Manasseh, King of Judah
• Manasseh, Tribe/Territory
• Mark, Gospel of
• Matthew, Gospel of
• Medieval Biblical Interpretation (Jewish)
• Mesopotamian Mythology and Genesis 1-11
• Midrash and Aggadah
• Minoritized Criticism of the New Testament
• Miracle Stories
• Modern Bible Translations
• Mysticism in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
• Myth in the Hebrew Bible
• Nahum, Book of
• Names of God in the Hebrew Bible
• New Testament and Early Christianity, Women, Gender, and S...
• New Testament, Feminist Scholarship on the
• New Testament, Men and Masculinity in the
• New Testament, Rhetoric of the
• New Testament, Social Sciences and the
• New Testament Studies, Emerging Approaches in
• New Testament, Textual Criticism of the
• New Testament Views of Torah
• Numbers, Book of
• Nuzi (Nuzi Tablets)
• Old Testament, Biblical Theology in the
• Old Testament, Social Sciences and the
• Orality and Literacy
• Otherness in the Hebrew Bible
• Pain and Suffering in the Hebrew Bible
• Passion Narratives
• Pauline Chronology
• Paul's Opponents
• Performance Criticism
• Period, The "Persian"
• Philippians
• Philistines
• Philo of Alexandria
• Piety/Godliness in Early Christianity and the Roman World
• Poetry, Hebrew
• Pontius Pilate
• Priestly/Holiness Codes
• Priest/Priesthood
• Pseudepigraphy, Early Christian
• Pseudo-Clementines
• Qumran/Dead Sea Scrolls
• Race, Ethnicity and the Gospels
• Revelation (Apocalypse)
• Samaria/Samaritans
• Samuel, First and Second
• Second Baruch
• Sects, Jewish
• Sermon on the Mount
• Sexual Violence and the Hebrew Bible
• Sin (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament)
• Solomon, Wisdom of
• Song of Songs
• Succession Narrative
• Synoptic Problem
• Tales, Court
• Temples and Sanctuaries
• Temples, Near Eastern
• Ten Commandments
• The Bible and the American Civil War
• The Bible and the Qur’an
• The Bible in China
• the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Egypt and
• The New Testament and Creation Care
• Thessalonians
• Thomas, Gospel of
• Trauma and the Bible, Hermeneutics of
• Twelve Prophets, Book of the
• Virtues and Vices: New Testament Ethical Exhortation in I...
• War, New Testament
• Wisdom—Greek and Latin
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testa...
• Worship in the New Testament and Earliest Christianity
• Worship, Old Testament
• Zoology (Animals in the New Testament)
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility

Powered by:

• [66.249.64.20|185.80.151.9]
• 185.80.151.9

What Are the Synoptic Gospels, and Where Do They Come From?

• September 18, 2017
• Share Twitter Facebook

The Bible’s four gospels paint four portraits of Jesus. While each gospel follows him on the same journey, they recount it a little differently. They had their own methods, styles, purposes, audiences, and (probably) sources—making each portrait of Jesus uniquely valuable.

Despite their unique qualities, the first three gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—share many of the same accounts of Christ, often shared in the same order and with the same wording. Because of their similar perspectives on Jesus' ministry, together they’re known as the synoptic gospels. (The word “synoptic” comes from the Greek word synoptikos, meaning “able to be seen together.”)

While the differences between the gospels can be a challenge for us, these similarities can be problematic, too. The parallel passages between the synoptic gospels have left scholars with pressing questions about their origins. If Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote about Jesus’ life and ministry from different perspectives, why are they so similar? If four people witnessed a car accident or a parade, they’d probably have loosely similar timelines, but significant variations in how they remember dialogue, what details they recall or omit, and how they describe it all. Yet these three gospels are remarkably similar. How did that happen?

The uncertain relationship between the synoptic gospels is known as “the synoptic problem.”

The synoptic problem

Looking at parallel passages, it’s hard to imagine that Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t share a source or sources of some kind. What’s unclear is whether or not one or more of the gospels served as a source for the others.

For example, take a look at these passages where Jesus interacts with little children:

The quote from Jesus is identical in all three passages, and the text leading up to the quote has slightly different wording, but basically says the same thing. Matthew adds that people wanted Jesus to pray for the children. And the gospels are full of passages like these.

So how do we know what’s happening here?

Two key questions we need to answer

The gospels don’t come with a “works cited” page. We don’t have a detailed list of sources to cross-examine. To answer the synoptic problem, scholars mostly have to work from the gospels themselves.

While that means solutions to the synoptic problem rely heavily on speculation, there’s a lot we can deduce from the information we have, and many brilliant people have arrived at the same handful of conclusions.

There are two questions the synoptic problem challenges us to answer:

1. Did the synoptic gospel writers use each other as sources? There’s a clear overlap in material, but the gospels could have shared another source—some combination of written and oral—to produce such similar writings. If we decide that one or more of the gospels was a source for the others, this leads us to a more complicated question:

2. If so, which synoptic gospel was written first and which depended on the others? Without the gospels’ original manuscripts, we can’t just look at the dates to determine which came first. We have to use literary clues to identify which gospel (or gospels) seem to exert the greatest influence on the others.

5 signs the synoptic gospel writers used each other as sources

While some scholars believe each of the gospels was written completely independently of the others, several highly unlikely coincidences make that pretty hard to accept. Here’s why most scholars believe one or more of the gospel writers used the others as sources:

1. So much common material

The Gospel of John isn’t one of the synoptic gospels because it was clearly written independently. Over 90% of the Book of John is unique, that is, the book’s material is not found in any of the other three gospels.

If the synoptic gospels were written independently, we’d expect a significant portion of those gospels to be unique as well. However, over 90% of Mark appears in either Matthew or Luke, and in many cases the wording is unchanged or barely different.

2. So much verbal agreement

While it’s completely possible that the disciples memorized the exact words of Jesus, quotes alone can’t account for the similar wording in the synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain entire sentences that are the same word for word, even in narrative material.

These numerous instances of exact matches seems to suggest that the writers worked from the same written material—if they separately worked through oral material years apart, it’s unlikely that they would have all preserved these accounts of Christ verbatim.

3. So much agreement in order

It’s not just the precise wording of parallel passages that raises eyebrows. While some of these passages appear to occur at different times in different gospels, there are numerous instances where the gospel writers presented accounts of Jesus in the same order— even when they don’t appear to be recording the chronological order of events. Towards the beginning of Jesus' ministry, the gospels all present the following events in the same order:

• Jesus heals the paralyzed man (Matthew 9:1–8, Mark 2:1–12, Luke 5:17–26)
• Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors (Matthew 9:9–13, Mark 2:13–17, Luke 5:27–32)
• Jesus is questioned about fasting (Matthew 9:14–17, Mark 2:18–22, Luke 5:33–39)
• Jesus heals on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1–14, Mark 3:1–6, Luke 6:1–11)
• Paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15–22, Mark 12:13–17, Luke 20:20–26)
• Marriage at the resurrection (Matthew 22:23–33, Mark 12:18–27, Luke 20:27–40)
• Whose son is the messiah? (Matthew 22:41–46, Mark 12:35–37, Luke 20:41–44)
• Warning against the teachers of the Law (Matthew 23:1–12, Mark 12:38–40, Luke 20:45–47)

While you’ll find some unique accounts in between, these passages are never rearranged in any of the synoptic gospels. So now we have much of the same material worded the same way and appearing in the same order. The gospel writers certainly aren’t copying everything from each other, but these similarities suggest that each gospel writer is drawing from common material.

4. Agreements in comments and asides

If you and a friend were to tell the same story from your own perspective, what are the chances you’d both choose the same moment to provide commentary? The writers of the synoptic gospels frequently follow the same patterns in their narratives, pausing for parenthetical statements in the same places. Take a look at where the writer breaks up Jesus' quote (which happens to be a word-for-word quotation):

Even when the wording isn’t exactly the same, the writers choose the same opportunities to add narrative asides. You can see this in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14, Mark 5:8 and Luke 8:29, and Matthew 27:18 and Mark 15:10.

So is this a coincidence? Not likely. If a writer has details to add to the story, they could choose any number of places to add that information. The chances that all three writers would happen to choose the same locations to add the same details—without using one of the other writers as a model—are pretty small. Add that to the fact that many of these same events are recorded with the same (or similar) wording in the same order, and you’ve got a pretty good case for one of these three gospels influencing the other two.

Now here’s the kicker:

5. Identical alterations of the same Old Testament quotes

When Matthew, Mark, and Luke introduce John the Baptist, all three of them quote Isaiah 40:3 from the Septuagint, which includes the phrase “make straight paths for our God.” All three synoptic gospels make the exact same alteration to that phrase, changing it to “make straight paths for him .”

It’s pretty hard to argue that all three writers made the same changes to the same Old Testament quote in the same context completely independently. At some point you have to ask, how many coincidences does it take to equal proof? When the same material is shared with the same words, in the same order, with the same side comments, and the same altered quotes, most scholars agree: one of these gospels was a source for the others—so which is it?

The first solution to the synoptic problem was proposed more than a millennium ago, when St. Augustine of Hippo first noticed the signs suggesting the gospels weren’t written independently.

Learn more about the Gospels

Take the online course

Augustine's solution: Mark and Luke borrow from Matthew

Despite all the writings we have from the early church fathers, we don’t have an extensive exploration of the synoptic problem. In fact, what we do have seems to suggest that the early church fathers didn’t see a problem at all. The second-century church father Papias claimed Mark wrote Peter’s version of the gospel, and that Matthew wrote a collection of ta logia —literally, “the oracles”—of Jesus, meaning a collection of his sayings (which may or may not have been the Gospel of Matthew).

It seems that Augustine first identified and focused on the apparent relationship between the synoptic gospels. He believed Matthew wrote first and that Mark took Matthew’s account and abbreviated it. Luke then wrote his gospel using both Matthew and Mark’s gospels as sources.

In the video at the top of this post, Dr. Mark Strauss suggests “[Augustine] probably drew this conclusion based on their canonical order: that Matthew was first, Mark was second, and Luke was third.” Since Augustine’s first keen observations, scholars have found other reasons to support the notion that Matthew wrote first.

Are the synoptic gospels actually based on Matthew?

One of the two major solutions to the synoptic problem is known as Matthean priority, which claims Matthew came first. Unlike Augustine, modern proponents of Matthean priority believe that Luke used Matthew as a source, and then Mark used both, abbreviating them throughout his own gospel.

This is known as the Griesbach hypothesis (named after an influential eighteenth-century scholar who supported it), or the two-gospel hypothesis, since it claims Matthew and Luke were the source for Mark.

There are three main reasons many Bible scholars hold this view:

1. Church tradition supports a Matthew-first view.

Early Christians were closest to the original sources, and until the nineteenth century the church largely assumed that Matthew came first. Church tradition seems to support Matthean priority.

2. Matthew and Luke occasionally agree against Mark.

The strongest argument for Matthean priority is that there are instances in which Matthew and Luke agree, and Mark does not. This view assumes that Mark’s departure from Matthew and Luke is due to Mark abridging the two longer gospels.

3. There is no physical evidence for additional sources.

Proponents of Matthean priority argue that other views (such as Markan priority, discussed below) rely on additional sources, despite no physical evidence that such sources exist. The difference between this theory and Augustine’s solution is simply a matter of who wrote second (Mark or Luke), and who wrote third, using the other two as sources. Both of these Matthean priority theories solve the synoptic problem without the need for additional sources.

The problem with this argument is that Matthew and Luke both contain unique material we don’t see in any of the other synoptic gospels. That material had to come from somewhere, and while an additional source currently only exists in theory, it’s one of the main reasons most scholars instead believe Mark came first.

Are the other synoptics based on Mark?

Most scholars find the Matthean priority argument less convincing than the evidence for Markan priority: the idea that Mark came first. There are several significant reasons to support this view:

1. Most of Mark is included in Matthew and Luke.

About 93% of the material in Mark is in found in either Matthew or Luke. So did Mark take material from both, or did Matthew and Luke take material from Mark?

While some have argued that Mark is an abridged version of the other Synoptics, comparing accounts from Mark to their parallel passages appears to suggest otherwise. For example:

• The account of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5:1–20 has 325 words
• Whereas the parallel passage in Matthew 8:28–34 only has 135 words.

If Mark is using Matthew as his main source for this story, why does he have significantly more detail? If anything, it seems more likely that Matthew and Luke are providing abbreviated versions of the accounts in Mark.

2. Mark occasionally uses Aramaic words.

Whereas Mark retains some of the words from Jesus’ native tongue , Aramaic—such as talitha koum in Mark 5:41 and abba in Mark 14:36—Matthew and Luke consistently provide the Greek translations. If Mark got this material from Matthew or Luke, why would he translate it out of Greek and back into Jesus’ native tongue?

Furthermore, Mark’s Greek isn’t polished in some areas, and Matthew and Luke both appear to smooth over Jesus’ language when there is shared material.

It seems likely that Matthew and Luke would have encountered Aramaic words in Mark’s gospel and translated them into Greek, knowing the words would be unfamiliar to their audiences.

2. If Mark is copying Luke or Matthew, why does he leave so much out?

While there’s a lot of overlap in the stories and accounts found in the Synoptics, Mark is missing some great materials found in Matthew and Luke. If he were working from their material, why would he leave out the Sermon on the Mount?

3. The Synoptics generally follow Mark’s order of events.

As we said earlier, many of the major accounts in the Synoptics appear in the same order in all three gospels. But when Matthew presents events in a different order than Mark, Luke follows Mark’s order. And when Luke presents events in a different order than Mark, Matthew follows Mark’s order.

It appears that Mark’s order is the original, and the other two are trying to follow it. Most scholars would suggest that the deviations occur when Matthew and Luke choose to follow another source besides Mark.

Mark may not be the only source of the other synoptics

While almost all of Mark appears in either Matthew or Luke, there’s a lot of material in those two gospels that isn’t in Mark. If Mark was the only source, where did the other writers get important teachings of Jesus, like the Sermon on the Mount?

And we’re not just talking about accounts that are unique to each gospel—Matthew and Luke share material not found in Mark, sometimes with nearly the same wording, such as in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13.

Mark alone can’t account for all of the material in the synoptic gospels, so in order for Markan priority to hold water, scholars had to propose additional sources.

As we discussed earlier, there’s no physical evidence of an additional source beyond the three synoptic gospels. However, after analyzing the similarities and differences between the three texts, most scholars believe that there was at least one other major source that the gospel writers relied on. This is why scholars have expanded on Markan priority with the two-source theory and the four-source theory .

The two-source theory: The synoptics borrow from Mark & “Q”

Since no additional text has been discovered, scholars dubbed the unknown text source “Q” (probably an abbreviation of quelle , the German word for “source”). It’s also referred to as the “Synoptic Sayings Source.”

Since most of the material exclusive to Matthew and Luke is sayings of Jesus with a few narratives, the two-source theory suggests that one additional source is enough to account for the differences between the Synoptics.

At this point, you may be thinking, “wait—what is this ‘Q’?”

If one of the most widely-accepted solutions to the synoptic problem hinges on a source that only exists in theory, how do scholars explain this source?

Q could be a figment of scholarly imagination

Scholars who don’t support Markan priority argue that “Q” isn’t necessary. To them, the overlap between Matthew and Luke is simply the material Luke borrowed from Matthew. However, this doesn’t explain the material unique to Luke, such as the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son.

Q could be a variety of sources, written and oral

To some scholars, the exact nature of “Q” is less important—it could be a body of literature or a variety of oral accounts of Christ not recorded anywhere else.

Q could be a single written source

Since Matthew and Luke frequently use the exact same language to describe events or teachings not recorded in Mark, and they often present them in the same order, many scholars believe “Q” to be a single written source.

Q represents a heterodox community of Christians

Other scholars believe that “Q” goes beyond a single written source, and that it actually represents the core beliefs of a specific group of Christians with their own theology. While the four main views of “Q” are all theories, this one reaches farthest beyond the available evidence.

But Q may not be enough

Some scholars have a problem with the two-source theory: there’s material that appears exclusively in Matthew, and other material that appears exclusively in Luke. It’s possible that each writer simply omitted some of the second source that the other included, and visa versa.

Or maybe two sources aren’t enough to account for the unique material.

The four-source theory: Mark, Q, M, and L

In addition to Q, the four-source theory claims that the unique material in Matthew and unique material in Luke must have come from additional sources, dubbed M (Matthew’s other source) and L (Luke’s other source).

While other Markan priority theories exist, most modern New Testament scholars support some form of the four-source theory . Despite the lack of physical evidence, the literary evidence in the texts themselves makes a strong case that the gospel writers had additional sources, either text-based or oral.

IBDP Geography

Website by Paul Christmas

Updated 17 May 2024

InThinking Subject Sites

Subscription websites for IB teachers & their classes

Find out more

• thinkib.net
• IBDP Biology
• IBDP Business Management
• IBDP Chemistry
• IBDP Economics
• IBDP English A Literature
• IBDP English A: Language & Literature
• IBDP English B
• IBDP Environmental Systems & Societies
• IBDP French B
• IBDP German A: Language & Literature
• IBDP History
• IBDP Maths: Analysis & Approaches
• IBDP Maths: Applications & Interpretation
• IBDP Physics
• IBDP Psychology
• IBDP Spanish A
• IBDP Spanish Ab Initio
• IBDP Spanish B
• IBDP Visual Arts
• IBMYP English Language & Literature
• IBMYP Resources
• IBMYP Spanish Language Acquisition
• IB Career-related Programme
• IB School Leadership

Disclaimer : InThinking subject sites are neither endorsed by nor connected with the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

InThinking Subject Sites for IB Teachers and their Classes

Supporting ib educators.

• Comprehensive help & advice on teaching the IB diploma.
• Written by experts with vast subject knowledge.
• Innovative ideas on ATL & pedagogy.
• Detailed guidance on all aspects of assessment.

Developing great materials

• More than 14 million words across 24 sites.
• Masses of ready-to-go resources for the classroom.
• Dynamic links to current affairs & real world issues.
• Updates every week 52 weeks a year.

Integrating student access

• Give your students direct access to relevant site pages.
• Single student login for all of your school’s subscriptions.
• Create reading, writing, discussion, and quiz tasks.
• Monitor student progress & collate in online gradebook.

Meeting schools' needs

• Global reach with more than 200,000 users worldwide.
• Use our materials to create compelling unit plans.
• Save time & effort which you can reinvest elsewhere.
• Consistently good feedback from subscribers.

For information about pricing, click here

Download brochure

See what users are saying about our Subject Sites:

Find out more about our Student Access feature:

• Preparing Students for the Synoptic Essay
• Understanding Assessment - Paper 3

This page sets up and introduction to Paper 3 and the synoptic essay. It provides some clear teaching ideas to get your students thinking synoptically. It works with essay examples, mark schemes and exercise to help prepare your students with more complex synoptic thinking.

To access the entire contents of this site, you need to log in or subscribe to it.

Alternatively, you can request a one month free trial .

• International
• Schools directory
• Resources Jobs Schools directory News Search

Russia and its Rulers 1855-1964 Exemplar Thematic and Synthetic (Synthesis) Essays

Subject: History

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

19 April 2024

• Share through email
• Share through twitter
• Share through linkedin
• Share through facebook
• Share through pinterest

Russia and its Rulers 1855-1964 Exemplar Thematic and Synthetic Essays.

A series of entire exemplar essays for past paper questions (and a few made-up questions) that achieved full-marks for the A-Level OCR History course. These essays will hopefully, in full, show you have to tackle a question, the ‘formular’ that is required of you, and the level of detail involved in the time limit. Hopefully you will see through these essays, the criteria that needs to be established, synthesis used to come to an interim judgement, and then an overall judgement at the end.

20 pages of detailed FULL essays - roughly 1.5 pages per thematic essay.

Do not hesitate to email [email protected] should you have any questions regarding these essays or the course in general. If you do benefit from this resource, it would be much appreciated to give this resource a review.

Highly recommended to have a look at the exam markscheme alongside these essays. Included in this bundle are the essays (PDF and Word form) and a markscheme.

Tes paid licence How can I reuse this?

Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.

It's good to leave some feedback.

Something went wrong, please try again later.

This resource hasn't been reviewed yet

To ensure quality for our reviews, only customers who have purchased this resource can review it

Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.

Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource:

Live revision! Join us for our free exam revision livestreams Watch now →

Reference Library

Collections

• See what's new
• All Resources
• Student Resources
• Assessment Resources
• Teaching Resources
• CPD Courses
• Livestreams

Study notes, videos, interactive activities and more!

Economics news, insights and enrichment

Currated collections of free resources

Browse resources by topic

• All Economics Resources

Resource Selections

Currated lists of resources

Exam Support

Preparing for the Synoptic Economics Exam

Last updated 4 Jul 2018

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share by Email

The synoptic paper tests your understanding of both micro and macroeconomic theories and concepts . The content you have revised for the first two papers remains the same but now questions will range across the specification and in some cases will make it clear that you need to bring both micro and macroeconomic aspects into your answer.

Check carefully across the first two papers that your exam board has set for this year and think about which main areas of the specification (micro and macro) have not yet been covered. This might help you narrow down a little the areas for renews focus in the 24-36 hours before the paper.

Synoptic reminders

Try POPSICLE for micro aspects

• Prices: Prices for consumers, paid to growers
• Output: Production for individual firms / sectors
• Profits: Supernormal, normal, subnormal
• Structure of Market: Oligopoly, monopoly, contestable market
• Inefficiency: Allocative, productive, dynamic, X-inefficiency
• Competition: Price and non-price competition in markets
• Labour Market : Impact on levels / pattern of jobs, real wages
• Externalities: Effects on social costs and benefits

Remember that markets and market failure and theory of the firm / market structures usually figure highly in the micro questions.

Try DIGESTIF for macro aspects:

• Development: Human development, sustainability
• Inflation: Cost push / demand pull factors, expectations
• Growth: Impact on short run / long run growth paths
• Employment: Jobs, natural rate of unemployment
• Structure of Economy: Pattern of GDP, jobs, investment, incomes
• Trade: Trade balance, current account, capital flows
• Inequality: Effects on income and wealth inequality
• Fiscal Balance: Impact on state borrowing, debt, tax burdens

View our comprehensive playlist of SYNOPTIC ESSAY VIDEO GUIDES over on the Tutor2u Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playli...

You might also like

Confidence in handling economic data in exam papers, answering the 12 mark edexcel as macro question, terms of trade (chain of analysis), competition and consumer welfare (essay technique video), essay on advertising and economic welfare, edexcel paper 3 for 2019 – synoptic economics, edexcel paper 3: synoptic essays on economic development in ghana, aqa a-level economics - year 12 macro knowledge organisers, our subjects.

• › Criminology
• › Economics
• › Geography
• › Health & Social Care
• › Psychology
• › Sociology
• › Teaching & learning resources
• › Student revision workshops
• › Online student courses
• › CPD for teachers
• › Livestreams
• › Teaching jobs

Boston House, 214 High Street, Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, LS23 6AD Tel: 01937 848885

• › Contact us
• › Terms of use
• › Privacy & cookies

© 2002-2024 Tutor2u Limited. Company Reg no: 04489574. VAT reg no 816865400.

• Start Today! Drop-in

History of Art – Advanced Academic Preparation

€ 203.00 – € 324.00

History of Art

This course will aid the student in developing a critical approach to the analyses of works of art within their historical context. Using specific works of art as primary source, these classes will approach the study of art history reflectively and analytically. Furthermore, enhancing the knowledge of the student vastly while supplying an appropriate use of artistic terminology.

Download Syllabus

Upcoming commencement date: 15th November 2019 – April 2020 *Extended Enrollment Deadline ends this October 20th

Sessions and times: Friday between 6-8PM

Duration : 2 semesters (54 hrs)  | Fee:   203eu/per semester or 324eu in Full

Report an abuse for product History of Art – Advanced Academic Preparation

Course description.

• Reviews (0)
• Course Content
• Student Plan
• Application

Course Overview

This course will aid the student in developing a critical approach to the analysis of works of art within their historical context. Using specific works of art as primary source, these sessions will approach the study of art history reflectively and analytically.

Furthermore, enhancing the knowledge of the student vastly, while supplying an appropriate use of artistic terminology. The Programme of this course will be directly focused on achieving the respective knowledge requested by the Advanced level Syllabus (Paper III only)

Paper 3 – three (3) hours (25%)

History of art written examination paper divided into 3 sections: Section i: Critical analysis (7.5%) Section ii: Comparative essay (8.75%) Section iii: Synoptic essay (8.75%)

P.S. Students undertaking the History of Art Advanced Level are also eligible to a further 20% Academic Student Membership discount on any practice programme or course.

Jessica Muscat read for a First Class Bachelor of Arts degree with honours at the University of Malta. During the course of her studies in Art History, Muscat was honoured with a Dean’s List Award for her exceptional work.

She is now researching the field of the Decorative Arts in nineteenth century colonial Malta and finishing off her Master of Arts degree in the subject. Muscat is driven with a passion for the subject of Art History and believes that art is crucial as it defines our identity and acts as our collective memory.

Class Presentations and student notes will be made available in class.

All students undertaking the Art history preparation course who wish to further their studies and development in drawing and painting (for Paper I & II) qualify for a further 20% Student Discount on Practice Courses.

Depending on the desired interest and skill level the student may choose from 2 practice programmes: 1. The Beginner Programme in Drawing and Watercolour Painting or 2. The Intermediate to Advanced programme in Intensive Drawing and Classical Oil Painting (Classical Realism)

Divided into 2 components. First the Beginner Drawing in pencils and charcoal and secondly the painting component made up of a watercolour workshop followed by an acrylics workshop is aimed to supply the student with a comprehensive worldview of representational art together with training the student in various methods and techniques resulting in a versatile art portfolio.

Discover the classical masters’ sophisticated approach to life-like Realism during an intensive introduction into academic art in the tradition of L’Académie des beaux-arts and modern schools of realism.

During this intensive Classical Realism programme the student’s main focus will be devoted first towards Intensive Drawing followed by the Classical Painting course.

Register Your Interest

Stay tuned about upcoming course commencements and get access to the full course syllabus.

What our students are saying

“ Its a very interesting seminar, and the way it was explained the Golden Ratio it looks very simple and very important. ” After attending the Golden Ratio course with Stefan Priehyba Charles Zammit

“ Amazing seminar and workshop on the Golden Ratio with Stefan Priehyba. Well done to the team for your professionalism. It was highly enlightening and i thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking forward to more. ” Sonia Borg After attending the Golden Proportions

“ I'm enjoying the Interior Design class! Ritianne is great, and very sweet! Thank you! ” Maria Maurizi After attending the Interior Design Introductory course | 27/03/19

“ Thank you AKartistry for the professional organisation. The topic was inspiring and truly interesting, we had a pleasant time. ” Gabriella Mallia After attending the Golden Proportions

“ Very Well Done. Top is the best word i can find. Something special. ” Aaron Lu After attending the Golden Proportions

“ “ I truly recommend Art Classes. Kurt Bullock is an excellent teacher. Enjoyed every second of the course. Highly recommended. ” Krista Bugeja After attending the Calligraphy & Lettering course | 01/03/19

“ For those art lovers out there, Art Classes provides the right environment where you can indulge in learning about real art. If you’re hooked on classical and fine art, this is the place to be. ” Paul Farrugia After attending the Classical Realism Introductory course and the Life Portrait Painting specialization course

“ It was an amazing workshop! looking forward to the next 🙂 ” Sephora Baldacchino After attending the Golden Proportions

“ Thank you 😊 Great opportunity. Loved every moment. 💚Ready for more😊😊 hope to work with you all very soon. Xxx ” Stephanie Calascione After attending the Golden Proportions

“ Thanks a lot, I'm very grateful for attending your workshps Štefan Priehyba Camilleri, was a great experience and very interesting. You really have a good way of explaining and delivering such knowledge. And also a big thanks to Kelsey and Andrei of Art Classes Malta too for making it happen. 🙂 ” Raisa Busuttil After attending the Golden Proportions course

“ “ Kelsey May Connor was an Excellent Teacher....Highly Recommended !! ” Sandrina England After attending the Classical Realism course | 07/04/19

“ Art Classes Malta is a very good and professional school in Malta. I loved the courses of Painting and Classical Realism. The tutors were amazing and the level and depth of these courses is unparalleled locally. I have enrolled for another course in Interior Design.. looking forward for this new experience as well! ” Eman Busuttil After attending the Beginner Art programme and Classical Realism course

“ I am truly enjoying coming to the course , I adore your work ! 😍Thank you for the experience you share with us!. Many thanks 😘 ” Gina Laura Saliba After attending the Watercolour beginner's course

“ My daughter really loves attending her lessons with ms Kelsey. I also attended 2 adult courses one with Kelsey and with Stefan.Great tutors I am very happy and thankful for offering us with such great courses! ” Carmen Agius After attending the Beginner Art programme

“ Great tutors, would recommend to anyone that wants to develop their drawing and painting skills or just spend some time doing what they enjoy. ” Alison Rogers After attending the Classical Realism and Big Scale Anatomy courses

“ Loved every second going to these lessons. Its hard to find such intelligent and skilled teachers here in Malta! Please keep organizing more courses for us adults. ” Raymond Borg After attending the Beginner Art programme and Big Scale Anatomy course

“ “ Nice environment, smiling people, valuable teaching. Lovely!! ” Roberto Prestigiacomo After attending the Classical Realism programme | 28/03/19

“ “ I never drew anything in my life, but after some lessons, I drew still life and faces. Also you learn how to look at things like never before Thanks only goes to Kelsey. ” Charles Demanuele After attending the Beginner Realist Drawing course | 09/05/19

72, Spiteri Fremond Street, Qormi.  Get Directions

(Upon booking you are automatically agreeing to our  Terms & Conditions )

There are no reviews yet.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Your review  *

Name  *

Email  *

Please enter an answer in digits: 8 − four =

Other courses recommended for you

Academic Preparation

In response to COVID-19 most of our Art and Design courses are now being offered online.

ART CLASSES MALTA

Art Classes Malta provides unique Learning Experiences, by partnering with the best organisations and industry professionals.

• Funding & Schemes
• Open Positions

Community and Social

• Student Reviews
• Get listed / Become a Partner!
• Terms and Conditions
• Art studio hire
• Student Vouchers
• Creative Team building

© 2024 Art Classes Malta | Learn from the best.

• tripadvisor
• Winter Art Course
• Summer Art Course
• Sculpting, Pottery & Creative Crafts
• Comic, Film-making and Digital Animation
• Game Design and Technology
• Creative Photography
• Toy Production (Engineering)
• MuZiKa – From Sound to Music!
• Naughty Scientists
• EXPLORERS (S.T.E.A.M program)
• InnovativeKids Summer School
• Art O’level Preparation
• History of Art – Advanced & Intermediate Preparation
• Drawing and Painting for Beginners
• Classical Realism (Figure Drawing & Oil Painting)
• Beginner’s Handcraft: Sculpting & Pottery
• Calligraphy and Lettering
• Fashion Illustration
• Graphic Design
• Art Club (OpenClass)
• Figure Drawing & Painting from Life MasterClass
• Portrait Painting from Life MasterClass
• The Golden Proportions
• Big Scale Anatomy MasterClass
• Still Life Painting
• Floral still life Painting
• Pen and Watercolour
• Landscape Watercolour painting
• Award MQF 5 in Classical Realism: Fine Art (Drawing and Painting)
• Award MQF 4-5 Game Design and Development using Unity
• Award MQF 5 Introduction to Interior Design & Architecture
• Experiences
• Work with us

Recent Posts

• InnovativeKids Summer School and courses 2024 – Summer Applications March 2, 2024
• Get Qualified scheme has been extended until 2024! November 21, 2023
• 2024 Winter Applications OPEN- Early Enrolment until 25th November! November 19, 2023
• 2024 Summer Applications CLOSING this 1st May!  A 15eu late admission fee applies on last-minute applications. Apply Today
• In response to COVID-19 most of our Art and Design courses are now offered both Online  [Live Streamed] and/or class-based .   View all courses

The Shenandoah County School Board’s Terrible History Lesson

O n May 10, 2024, 161 years to the day after General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s last breath fighting for the Confederate insurrection intended to continue enslavement of human beings in America, the Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 to restore his name on a high school in rural Virginia.

More than 50 concerned community members, students, and parents, including one of the first African Americans to integrate Stonewall Jackson High School in 1963, and hundreds of their supporters, continued to advocate a new reckoning of the county’s heritage of enslavement, segregation, and racial injustice. They affirmed the names a community committee selected in 2021 renaming the school as Mountain View High and another school named after Confederate generals Turner Ashby and Robert E. Lee as Honey Run Elementary.

But the school board heard none of it. Instead, the board sided with those idolizing the faith and loyalty of “heroes” like Jackson, condemning pandemic-related processes that did not take into account the voices of “we the people,” and complaining about “woke outsiders.” At the end of the board meeting, the board had delivered a disgraceful new chapter in our community’s history and a terrible lesson for the children they are sworn to educate.

Historians will debate the consequences of the board’s vote and perhaps whether the nation’s current political mood has rekindled racial tensions. But the school board members and their embittered supporters made it clear that the shadows of our segregated past still loom large.

For context, we should look at 2020, particularly the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of video that emblazoned the truth of racial injustice in America. After George Floyd’s murder by police in May of that year, national, state, and local leaders across the nation took up resolutions against racism, including Shenandoah County’s Board of Supervisors and the county School Board.

At around the same time in our mountain-cradled county, another incident reminded us of America’s lingering racial unrest: an encounter between a white mob and a black pastor in Edinburg, Va. On June 1, 2020, Pastor McCray approached a couple illegally dumping a refrigerator on his property, asking them to leave. They left, returned with three more people and began “attacking him physically, saying ‘they don’t give a darn’ about ‘my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff,’ and telling him they would ‘kill’ him,” according to Associated Press reports. McCray put distance between himself and the mob by brandishing a gun that he was legally licensed to carry. When the police arrived, they arrested the Black man with the gun.

The Shenandoah County Sheriff later apologized for the incident, but it reinforces the need for formal resolutions against racism and leaders willing to make difficult decisions for a more inclusive community. The Shenandoah County School Board at the time agreed. They chose action, encouraged by then-Department of Education secretary Atif Qarni and then-Governor Ralph Northam, both of whom supported statewide removal of Confederate leaders’ names of public schools.

The 2020 school board, tying in as the next step to its June “Resolution condemning racism and affirming the division’s commitment to an inclusive school environment for all,” retired the names of Confederate leaders, and developed a process for community and student input into choosing more unifying public school names. On September 10, 2020, the then school board reaffirmed the foregoing motion, as well as moving forward with renaming the schools on southern campus. Community committees met during the next three months, with new names chosen at the January 14, 2021 meeting, after seven months of public input.

By 2024, recently elected school board members focused their arguments for restoration on the former board’s “secret” process during the COVID “plan-demic,” stating that community input was not taken into account at the time. Two years before, three current school board members ran on a campaign to restore the school’s Confederate leader names, an attempt that ended at the June 9, 2022 school board meeting with a 3-3 stalemate. The current board consists of three more new school board members, elected in the fall of 2023. Like many school boards around the nation, ours has committed to reversing civil rights often under the lost-cause banner of Confederate pride.

The memory of Stonewall Jackson High School as a whites-only public institution until its integration in 1963 is not a distant echo of history but an agonizing experience for many Black residents of Shenandoah County. These individuals are not just statistics in history books; they are our neighbors, friends, and family—and they were intentionally harmed in Shenandoah County as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum in the 1950s.

Read More: Confederate Monuments and Other Disputed Memorials Have Come Down in Cities Across America. What Should Take Their Place?

And now again in 2024. Dozens of citizens, alum, parents, and current students of the schools addressed the board, offering poignant testimony about lived experiences with institutionalized discrimination or in support of others who had. Approximately two-thirds of the speakers opposed back-naming the schools. For them, returning to Confederate leader names makes the damage linger.

Aliyah Ogle, a student who represented her school in three sports this year and would be attending the renamed high school next year, said it best: “I'm a black student and if the name is restored, I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves. That makes me feel like I'm disrespecting my ancestors and going against what my family and I believe, which is that we should all be treated equally, and that slavery was a cruel and awful thing.”

Most of the board members could not have cared less about the county’s 252 year history. They were more concerned for judging the 2020 school board’s actions and recognizing the Confederate heritage of the county. Their brand of leadership consisted of telling the people they represent that we all have problems of one kind or another; it’s time to move on. “War is hell,” said Dennis Barlow, chairman of the Shenandoah County School Board. They were joined by two dozen pro-Confederacy speakers, claiming there is no evident racism in Shenandoah County, and never has been.

Board member Tom Streett used his decision to discuss pro-slavery General Jackson. “When you read about this man — who he was, what he stood for, his character, his loyalty, his leadership, how Godly a man he was — those standards that he had were much higher than any leadership of the school system in 2020,” Streett said.

Streett, however, neglected to mention that even Jackson’s descendants have weighed in on this legacy issue. For the past seven years, the general’s great-great grandsons, William Jackson Christian and Warren Edmund Christian, have said they support removing Confederate statues and other monuments—including in Shenandoah County this week—as “part of a larger project of actively mending the racial disparities that hundreds of years of white supremacy have wrought.” They added that they were “ashamed to benefit from white supremacy while our black family and friends suffer.”

Yet Shenandoah County’s school board and its grievance agenda does nothing to provide historical context, advance dialogue, or heal the feelings of well-meaning citizens. Using the same policy the 2021 school board used to name Mountain View and Honey Run, the 2024 board defiantly focused on undoing the decision and giving voice to the people they wanted to hear. The decision unfairly places our children as pawns on a rhetorical battlefield, keeping the board’s focus on vengeance and political control—not due process or heritage. But it’s more dangerous than just talk and hard feelings: The county remains on the radar of the Southern Poverty Law Center , which tracks white supremacists, including ongoing activity by the Patriot Front. To address this reality, we need better, sensible leadership from our school board. But for now, we must live with a stark reminder that elections have consequences.

Looking ahead, the many good people of our county will strive to ensure that our complete history, good and bad, remains available to students and the public. We must find a way to truly honor our whole heritage without insisting that students salute pro-slavery traitors or the treatment of their ancestors as subhuman property for almost 400 years.

If the U.S. Department of Defense can rename military bases once emblazoned with Confederate leaders’ names, then our public schools can do the same. After all, these are the spaces where the first lessons of civic duties are learned. History is complicated, no doubt, but there’s no better place to examine complex issues than in a good school. Other nations and communities reckon with difficult pasts. In Germany, for example, students still learn about Adolf Hitler, but they are not forced to wear sports jerseys and school-pride t-shirts that glorify symbols or names associated with murderous war crimes.

Our fight for what’s right in Shenandoah County is not over. We will continue to oppose historical injustices and help all constituencies in our community learn from the lessons of our past. As it has throughout our nation’s history, the work of decent people striving for a better, more united America will go on. We hope the school board here can find a way to join us along the way.

More Must-Reads from TIME

• Javier Milei’s Radical Plan to Transform Argentina
• The New Face of Doctor Who
• How Private Donors Shape Birth-Control Choices
• What Happens if Trump Is Convicted ? Your Questions, Answered
• The Deadly Digital Frontiers at the Border
• Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
• The 31 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

guest essay

Is There a Constitutional Right to Talk About Abortion?

By Linda Greenhouse

Ms. Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.

There has hardly ever been as fierce a defender of free speech as the current Supreme Court.

Since John Roberts became chief justice almost 19 years ago, the court has expanded the protective net of the First Amendment to cover such activities as selling videos depicting animal torture, spending unlimited amounts of money in support of political candidates and refusing to pay dues (or a dues-like fee) to a public employee union.

This last decision, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31, overturned a 41-year-old precedent and led a dissenting justice, Elena Kagan, to accuse the majority of “weaponizing the First Amendment.” In the 303 Creative case last year, the court gave a Christian web designer the First Amendment right not to do business with would-be customers whose same-sex wedding websites would violate her views about marriage.

The court’s version of free speech has become a powerful tool against government regulation. Six years ago, effectively striking down a California law, the court gave so-called crisis pregnancy centers — offices that try to imitate abortion clinics but strive to persuade women to continue their pregnancies — a First Amendment right not to provide information on where a woman could actually get an abortion. The state said the notice was needed to help women who came to such centers under the false impression that they provided abortions. In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the “unduly burdensome” requirement amounted to unconstitutionally compelled speech.

Now the question is whether the court’s solicitude toward those who would rather not talk about abortion extends in the other direction. What about state laws that prohibit rather than require offering information about where to get an abortion?

While there is not yet such a case on the Supreme Court’s docket, lower courts have been tightening a First Amendment noose around efforts by anti-abortion states to curb the flow of information about how to obtain legal abortion care across state lines. Federal District Courts in Indiana and Alabama both ruled this month that while states in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise can ban abortion, they cannot make it illegal to give abortion-related advice, including advice to minors seeking abortions without parental consent.

A federal magistrate judge issued a similar ruling last November on Idaho’s abortion law, one of the most extreme in the country, which makes it a crime to assist a minor in obtaining an abortion in any state without a parent’s consent. Idaho could criminalize abortion, the judge, Debora Grasham, wrote. “What the state cannot do,” she went on, “is craft a statute muzzling the speech and expressive activities of a particular viewpoint with which the state disagrees under the guise of parental rights.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard Idaho’s appeal on May 7.

With the Supreme Court extremely unlikely to revisit its decision 23 months ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eradicated the constitutional right to abortion, the question of how far states can go to prevent their citizens from finding alternative ways to terminate a pregnancy will become increasingly urgent. In his concurring opinion in the Dobbs case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised the question of whether a state could now “bar a resident of that state from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion.” The answer was “no,” he continued, “based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.” It is worth noting that Justice Kavanaugh wrote only for himself; none of the other conservatives who made up the Dobbs majority joined him. “Other abortion-related legal questions may emerge in the future,” Justice Kavanaugh offered noncommittally.

The future arrived quickly enough in the form of the two abortion-related cases awaiting decision before the court’s current term, which concludes at the end of June or in early July. Both are anomalous in that they involve questions of federal rather than state authority.

One, Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , concerns the government’s approval of the expanded use of the medication that first received F.D.A. approval 24 years ago. Medication abortion now accounts for more than half of abortions in the United States. The case contains an off-ramp for the court that, based on the argument in March, the justices appear likely to take: Because the anti-abortion doctors, dentists and medical groups who challenged the F.D.A. suffered no harm from the availability of the medication, and are unlikely to suffer harm in the future, they never had standing to bring the case in the first place.

The other, Moyle v. United States, results from a clash between the federal government and Idaho over whether federal law requires the state to provide emergency abortion care in its hospitals. The outcome largely depends on whether the court accepts the Biden administration’s view that there is no abortion exception to the law at issue, which prohibits hospitals from turning away people who need emergency care.

In the abortion cases in Indiana, Idaho and Alabama that may yet find their way to the Supreme Court, the justices would face the acute dilemma of reconciling their fealty to the First Amendment with the profound anti-abortion sentiment the Dobbs majority opinion displayed.

In defending their laws, the states argue that what they are prohibiting is not actually speech but conduct, namely inducing criminal activity. Rejecting this argument in the Indiana case, Judge Sarah Evans Barker of Federal District Court wrote that the Planned Parenthood affiliate that challenged the law simply “seeks to provide truthful information to clients regarding out-of-state options and medical referrals to out-of-state providers for abortion services that are legal in those states.” A prohibition on providing such information, the judge said, “does not further any interest Indiana may have in investigating criminal conduct within its borders.” In the Alabama case, another Federal District Court judge, Myron Thompson, observed that “unable to proscribe out-of-state abortions, the attorney general interprets state law as punishing the speech necessary to obtain them.”

From the cases they are in the process of deciding this term, the justices are well aware that their effort to wash their hands of the nettlesome business of abortion has failed. One or more of the First Amendment cases is likely to reach the court during its next term. I wonder if the justices have a clue about how much pain lies ahead when they have to decide whether the right to speak inevitably encompasses the right to choose.

Linda Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .