The Earliest References to Matthew’s Gospel: John?

For a recent case that the author of John’s Gospel was dependent on Matthew’s Gospel, see James W. Barker, John’s Use of Matthew (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). As a revised PhD thesis, it has a helpful survey of the discussions of John’s relationship with the Synoptic tradition from the Patristic period to modern scholarship. While the debate has focused on whether John’s similarities to the Synoptic Gospels is based on common traditions (e.g., oral traditions, shared passion narrative) or whether John knew one or more of the Synoptic Gospels (usually Mark and Luke), fewer scholars have defended John’s dependence on Matthew’s Gospel. The chapter ends on page 14 with a list of 16 parallels that are commonly noted:

• Simon Peter as the son of Jonah (John 1:42; Matt 16:17)
• light of the world (John 8:12; Matt 5:14)
• citation of Zechariah 9:9 in the triumphal entry (John 12:15; Matt 21:5)
• slaves and masters (John 13:16; Matt 10:24)
• put away swords (John 18:11; Matt 26:52)
• high priest named Caiaphas (John 18:13, 24; Matt 26:3, 57)
• releasing a prisoner at Passover is customary (John 18:39; Matt 27:15)
• crown of thorns (John 19:2; Matt 27:29)
• Pilate sits on the judgment seat (John 19:13; Matt 27:19)
• Jesus’s name on the titulus (John 19:19; Matt 27:37)
• Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple (John 19:38; Matt 27:57)
• burial of Jesus in a new tomb (John 19:41; Matt 27:60)
• lack of specification that Mary Magdalene went to anoint the corpse (John 20:1; Matt 28:1)
• appearance of angel(s) to Mary Magdalene (John 20:12; Matt 28:2-3, 5)
• Mary Magdalene sent to the “brothers” (John 20:17; Matt 28:10)
• forgive and retain/bind and loose (John 20:23; Matt 18:18; cf. 16:9).

The burden of his case is to highlight traces of Matthew’s redactional activity that have been reproduced in John’s Gospel (18-19). His first case study is that Jesus grants Peter the authority to bind and loose in Matthew 16:19 and the disciples that authority in 18:18, which may mean that they can determine what behaviours are prohibited or permissible in the context of the congregation, but the latter saying is part of a redactional transition leading to a discussion about forgiveness in 18:21-25 (49-53). John may know the saying in its wider literary context in Matthew’s Gospel and qualifies it in 20:23 with another saying that grants the disciples the authority to either forgive or withhold forgiveness (53-56). His second case study is that John depends on Matthew for the specification that Jesus rode a “donkey” into Jerusalem rather than just a “young animal” (pōlos) (64-76) and for connecting this to the prophesy in Zechariah 9:9, even though his citation of the text diverges from Matthew’s to some extent and he does not follow Matthew in placing two animals in the scene (84-90). In his last case study, he notes that Matthew 10:5 distinctly prohibited the disciples from entering a Samaritan village while John 4:1-42 narrates Jesus’s own ministry in Samaria, but argues that John may have assumed that Jesus directed the disciples to go elsewhere because he himself was already reaping a harvest in Samaria (98-104). Barker describes John’s method as “opposition in imitation,” meaning that John imitated and reinterpreted the preceding Synoptic texts, but did not intend to replace them (35).

The view that John knew all three Synoptic Gospels and intended to supplement them with his own account was widely held during the Patristic period (e.g., Muratorian Canon 9-33; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.24.7, 11-13; 6.14.7). I still lean towards the view of many twentieth century scholars that John was largely drawing on traditions that were independent of the Synoptic tradition, but I recognize that the pendulum has swung towards the position that John at least knew the Gospel of Mark and there are also striking parallels between the Gospels of John and Luke that need an explanation (e.g., John’s dependence on Luke, Luke’s dependence on John, or common oral traditions). Barker has presented a strong case for John’s dependence on Matthew and readers should check out his book to see all the arguments that he adduces in support of it, but I am not sure I am yet persuaded. I wonder if Matthew 18:18 and John 20:23 are just two independent sayings, if Matthew and John could have understood Mark’s Greek term to refer to a donkey and independently connected it to Zechariah’s prophecy, if the evangelists just had varying perspectives on the Samaritans, and if the small handful of other parallels could be accounted for on the basis of common oral traditions. If you are convinced that John depended on Matthew’s Gospel, however, that would set another limit for dating the latter Gospel. I have briefly summarized some of the points that scholars look at when they try to date the fourth canonical Gospel in its final form (see here).