The question whether or not the Fourth Gospel is based upon the Synoptic Gospels has been discussed endlessly, and will no doubt continue to be discussed. The divergent conclusions which different critics draw from the same body of evidence (for it is seldom that really fresh evidence can be adduced) largely depend on their presuppositions. In particular, if the critic takes the view that the writings of the New Testament form a series of literary works in an orderly sequence of development, each depending on its predecessors and influencing its successors, even though some links in the chain may be lost, then wherever the contents of the Fourth Gospel coincide more or less with those of the Synoptic Gospels, he will be disposed, prima facie at least, to see an instance of a writer's use of written sources. Such was, in the main, the presupposition, even if not always the avowed presupposition, of nineteenth-century criticism of the Gospels, and it is by no means entirely abandoned. But the whole course which the investigation of the history and literature of primitive Christianity has followed in the period since the first world war has tended to weaken this presupposition. It suggests that the early Church was not as bookish a community as that, and it tends to emphasize the importance of oral tradition, not only in the dark years before any of the extant Christian writings appeared, but all through the New Testament period. It is not denied that in some cases New Testament writers were probably dependent on written sources, extant or lost, but it is no longer safe to entertain a general presumption that any coincidence of content is due to literary dependence. To prove such dependence some specific evidence is required—some striking or unexpected identity of language, for example, or some agreement in an apparently arbitrary arrangement of material. The question of the relation of John to the Synoptics needs to be closely re-examined from this point of view. In this article I propose to take, as specimens, four dominical sayings in the Fourth Gospel which have parallels in the Synoptics, and to ask whether, if there is no general presumption of literary indebtedness, the phenomena are such as to suggest indebtedness, or whether they rather point to independent use of a common oral tradition.

The Church to which we are permitted to proclaim the Gospel is no longer the Palestinian Church of the time of Jesus, for whom the real goal of life was to pass safely through the judgement of God. Neither is the Church any longer that of the time of Luther, weighed down by its consciousness of sin and the medieval fear of judgement. Today the message of forgiveness of sins answers a question which, to a large extent, has disappeared from the consciousness of modern man. The modern world is, however, similar in many ways to the Hellenistic world into which the Christian message entered with the proclamation of Paul. The unity of heaven and earth, as it had been perceived in the classic period, is destroyed for the Hellenistic man. The world for him is controlled by powers and forces to which he has been handed over helpless. Ananke or Heimarmene (Fate or Destiny) determines everything and the action of the individual is incapable of altering their established course. The ever-repeated movement of the heavenly bodies, once conceived as the expression of divine harmony, awakens now the concept of a giant machine which mercilessly completes its revolution, deaf to the cries of men. Of course, the Stoic seeks to flee back into the old harmony between God and the world and for that reason declares the whole world to be his polis. But even he knows that everything in this polis is determined by the great powers, their mighty armies, and their modern weapons and no longer by his individual decision. Thus the desires and longings of the Hellenistic man are concentrated upon liberation from the demonic powers of this world and upon participation in the upper, godly world.

In his recent article, ‘The Birth and Infancy Stories of the Third Gospel’ (New Testament Studies, Vol. i, No. 2, pp. 111–21) Dr Paul Winter adheres to the Semitic source hypothesis for Luke i, ii and one Hebrew document is apparently envisaged (‘a document written in Hebrew formed the basis of this part of the Third Gospel’ (p. 113)). Moreover, he maintains that ‘the theory that the editor…was the author of the first two chapters…and that he wrote these chapters in Greek whilst intentionally adopting a Hebraizing style is untenable’ (p. 121). The article does not allow the possibility that the use of Hebrew sources went hand in hand with consultation of the LXX, nor consider the question whether the evangelist himself translated the Hebrew or whether he found the document in its present Hebraized Greek form. Such questions are fundamental to the problem posed by the article, namely the reason for the ‘barbarous’ language. Thus, in a brief summary of this question, Professor Matthew Black gives due weight to the possibility of the evangelist's indebtedness to the LXX, and suggests that the LXX was an ‘aid’.