Abstract
Two recently published books by James Dunn and Delbert Burkett, Jesus Remembered and Rethinking the Gospel Sources, pose critical challenges to the two-document hypothesis. Dunn's advocacy of oral tradition(s) to account for a significant proportion of the synoptic tradition militates against the two-document hypothesis, despite his continuing adherence to it. Burkett's arguments against direct literary relations between any of the synoptic gospels and his hypothetical reconstruction of a number of pre-canonical gospel sources, including three separate written versions of Proto-Mark, constitute a direct assault on the two-document hypothesis. Despite significant differences between Dunn and Burkett, the combined effect of their respective challenges to re-conceive the interrelations between the synoptic gospels is the inadequacy of the two-document hypothesis as traditionally understood and taught.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.