One of our priests is going to be speaking on one of the most puzzling literary enigmas in history at an international conference in the coming weeks.
The Revd Alan Garrow, Vicar at St Peter’s Harrogate, has been studying the Synoptic Problem, the issue of who copied whom out of the gospel writers, for some time, and is now one of the leading proponents of the Matthew Posteriority hypothesis.
Revd Alan said: “The puzzle matters because different solutions impact our understanding of the historical Jesus, the reliability of the Gospels, and the development of the early Church.
“Over the past fifty years this debate has come to be dominated by two possible solutions, the Two Document Hypothesis (2DH) and the Farrer Hypothesis (FH).
“Since 2015, however, a third solution, the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH), has become a particular focus of interest.
“In 2018 this hypothesis became the subject of 'The $1,000 Challenge' in which Professor Bart Ehrman was offered $1,000 if he could find a flaw in the solution.
“Looking ahead to 2021, the MPH is due to be debated at Loyola University Chicago and the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio.”
You can find out more about what Revd Alan is up to, and his cutting edge research, by clicking here.