On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision

by William Lane Craig

Straight to the Source The gospel writers used sources for the life of Jesus, as they themselves tell us. Much of New Testament studies is devoted to detecting those sources, for they will drive you back very close to the events themselves, thereby reducing the probability of legend or alteration. Mark, for example, was likely one of the sources used by Matthew and Luke. Mark evidently had a source for the passion story, since it stands out in his gospel as a connected narrative. Matthew and Luke also had other sources than Mark; some think they had a collection of Jesus’ sayings to which scholars have assigned the arbitrary name “Q.” By contrast John is usually thought to be independent of the other three gospels. Paul says explicitly that in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 he is handing on prior tradition about Jesus, a fact confirmed by the many non-Pauline traits in the writing. Many scholars think that behind the sermons in Acts lie sources for early Christian preaching that Luke used. These are just a few of the principal sources that lie behind the New Testament documents.