V. The theory of a common Oral Tradition (Traditionshypothese). Herder (1796), Gieseler
(who first fully developed it, 1818), Schulz (1829), Credner, Lange, Ebrard (1868), Thiersch (1845,
1852), Norton, Alford, Westcott (1860, 6th ed., 1881), Godet (1873), Keil (1877), and others. The
Gospel story by constant repetition assumed or rather had from the beginning a uniform shape,
even in minute particulars, especially in the words of Christ. True, as far as it goes, but must be
supplemented, at least in the case of Luke, by pre-canonical, fragmentary documents or memoranda
(διηγήσεις). See the text.
VI. The Tendency hypothesis (Tendenzhypothese), or the theory of Doctrinal Adaptation.
Baur (1847) and the Tübingen school (Schwegler, Ritschl, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Köstlin), followed
in England by Samuel Davidson (in his Introd. to the New Test., 1868, revised ed., 1882). Each
Evangelist modified the Gospel history in the interest of the religious school or party to which he
belonged. Matthew represents the Jewish Christian, Luke the Pauline or Gentile Christian tendency,
Mark obliterates the difference, or prepares the way from the first to the second. Every individual
trait or characteristic feature of a Gospel is connected with the dogmatic antithesis between Petrinism
and Paulinism. Baur regarded Matthew as relatively the most primitive and credible Gospel, but it
is itself a free reproduction of a still older Aramaic Gospel "according to the Hebrews." He was
followed by an Urlukas, a purely Pauline tendency Gospel. Mark is compiled from our Matthew
and the Urlukas in the interest of neutrality. Then followed the present Luke with an irenical Catholic
tendency. Baur overstrained the difference between Petrinism and Paulinism far beyond the limits
of historic truth, transformed the sacred writers into a set of partisans and fighting theologians after
modem fashion, set aside the fourth Gospel as a purely ideal fiction, and put all the Gospels about
seventy years too far down (130–170), when they were already generally used in the Christian
church—according to the concurrent testimonies of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.
Volkmar went even beyond Baur in reckless radicalism, although he qualified it in other respects,
as regards the priority of Mark, the originality of Luke (as compared with Marcion), and the date
of Matthew which he put back to about 110. See a summary of his views in Hilgenfeld’s Einleitung,
pp. 199–202. But Ritschl and Hilgenfeld have considerably moderated the Tübingen extravagancies.
Ritschl puts Mark first, and herein Volkmar agrees. Hilgenfeld assigns the composition of Matthew
to the sixth decade of the first century (though he thinks it was somewhat changed soon after the
destruction of Jerusalem), then followed Mark and paved the way from Petrinism to Paulinism,
and Luke wrote last before the close of the first century. He ably maintained his theory in a five
years’ conflict with the Tübingen master (1850–1855) and reasserts it in his Einleitung (1875). So
he brings us back to the traditional order. As to the time of composition, the internal evidence
strongly supports the historical tradition that the Synoptists wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem.§ 80. Matthew.
Critical.
Bernh. Weiss: Das Matthäusevangelium und seine Lucas-Parallelen erklärt. Halle, 1876. Exceedingly
elaborate.
Edw. Byron Nicholson: The Gospel according to the Hebrews. Its Fragments translated and
annotated. Lond., 1879.
ExegeticalA.D. 1-100.