Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
I'm continuing a series documenting, step by step, just *how wrong* the thesis is that Matthew "engages with Pharisaism" more than Mark and Luke and that John does so more than Matthew, allegedly to make their Gospels more relevant to their audiences, even at times going so far as to attribute non-historical actions to the Pharisees.
How wrong is it? It's *so wrong* that it doesn't even describe the data correctly! It's not just that it's a dubious theory (though it is that for sure); it's also just a completely false description to begin with. Matthew doesn't engage with hostile Pharisees more than Mark and Luke. If anything, Luke contains slightly more negative portrayals and commentary about the Pharisees than Matthew. Sometimes Luke even has more negative comments about Pharisees in passages that he shares with Matthew that are not found in Mark (so-called "Q material").
John *certainly* doesn't focus more on the hostile Pharisees than Matthew or Luke. In fact, Matthew and the other Synoptics contain *much* more negative material about the Pharisees than John does.
The theory is *so bad* when one looks at the evidence that it's difficult to figure out why anyone, especially so learned at scholar as Dr. Craig Keener, accepts it.
In order to show that I am not cherry picking data, I am going through category after category of negative stories about Pharisees and negative comments about Pharisees in the Gospels.
Last time we saw that the number of stories in which Jesus comes into conflict with the Pharisees due to their man-made rules is slightly greater in Luke than in Matthew (though many stories are found in both and some in all three Synoptic Gospels) and quite a lot greater in the Synoptics than in John. This is exactly the opposite of what the development thesis claims.
This week we'll be covering what I call "rants"--directly negative words about the Pharisees from Jesus, the narrator(s), or (in one case) John the Baptist. We'll see the same thing. The development theory (Mark and Luke allegedly the least, Matthew allegedly more, John allegedly the most) fails even to describe the data accurately. Some such "rants" are found in Matthew and Luke, some in Matthew and Mark, several in Luke alone, one comment uniquely in Mark, one negative reference in Matthew, and some in all three Synoptics. Only two explicitly negative comments by Jesus about the Pharisees are found anywhere in John, and none by the narrator.
I'm continuing a series documenting, step by step, just *how wrong* the thesis is that Matthew "engages with Pharisaism" more than Mark and Luke and that John does so more than Matthew, allegedly to make their Gospels more relevant to their audiences, even at times going so far as to attribute non-historical actions to the Pharisees.
How wrong is it? It's *so wrong* that it doesn't even describe the data correctly! It's not just that it's a dubious theory (though it is that for sure); it's also just a completely false description to begin with. Matthew doesn't engage with hostile Pharisees more than Mark and Luke. If anything, Luke contains slightly more negative portrayals and commentary about the Pharisees than Matthew. Sometimes Luke even has more negative comments about Pharisees in passages that he shares with Matthew that are not found in Mark (so-called "Q material").
John *certainly* doesn't focus more on the hostile Pharisees than Matthew or Luke. In fact, Matthew and the other Synoptics contain *much* more negative material about the Pharisees than John does.
The theory is *so bad* when one looks at the evidence that it's difficult to figure out why anyone, especially so learned at scholar as Dr. Craig Keener, accepts it.
In order to show that I am not cherry picking data, I am going through category after category of negative stories about Pharisees and negative comments about Pharisees in the Gospels.
Last time we saw that the number of stories in which Jesus comes into conflict with the Pharisees due to their man-made rules is slightly greater in Luke than in Matthew (though many stories are found in both and some in all three Synoptic Gospels) and quite a lot greater in the Synoptics than in John. This is exactly the opposite of what the development thesis claims.
This week we'll be covering what I call "rants"--directly negative words about the Pharisees from Jesus, the narrator(s), or (in one case) John the Baptist. We'll see the same thing. The development theory (Mark and Luke allegedly the least, Matthew allegedly more, John allegedly the most) fails even to describe the data accurately. Some such "rants" are found in Matthew and Luke, some in Matthew and Mark, several in Luke alone, one comment uniquely in Mark, one negative reference in Matthew, and some in all three Synoptics. Only two explicitly negative comments by Jesus about the Pharisees are found anywhere in John, and none by the narrator.
