Source Criticism

The different ways in which an author may arrive at the events which he describes may be summarised as follows:

(1)  Author observed the events himself: EYEWITNESS

(2)  Author heard about the events from someone else: ORAL TRADITION

(3)  Author read about the events in something someone else had written: WRITTEN TRADITION

(4)  Author made it all up: FABRICATION

According to the assured results of modern scholarship, our four evangelists may then be classified by the way in which they exemplify the above schema, as:

(1) Matthew        (2) Mark         (3) Luke         (4) John.

MBM,

B/W 6.12.02, am.

.