The following is excerpted from The Doctrine Which Ye Have Learned, 503 pages, available from the Books or the Courses section of wayoflife.org.

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Form criticism or redaction criticism are modernistic theories about the formation of the Gospels. 

Major Principles of Form Criticism

The Gospel writers used a common oral tradition that was circulated among the Christians for some time before anything was written down. Textual critics Alford (1849) and Westcott (1860) promoted this view.

The Gospel writers used other sources. One supposed source is the “Q” document. Though no such document exists, many false teachers believe this mythical writing was the source of some or all of the four gospels. 

The Gospel writers copied from one another. One theory is that Matthew was first written and Mark and Luke were based on Matthew. This was the view of textual critics Griesbach (1783) and Hug (1808). It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church (decreed by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1912). Another theory is that Mark was first written and that Matthew and Luke are based on Mark plus the mythical Q document. There are endless permeations of these theories. Prominent form critics strive to make a name for themselves by inventing a new twist to this approach.

The gospel writers modified things that Jesus did and said. They added to, subtracted from, contracted, and otherwise changed the account. 

Evangelicals and Form Criticism 

It is not only out-and-out modernists who are entertaining unscriptural views of the Gospels. 

The following amazing excerpt from The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship by Robert Thomas and David Farnell (Kregel, 1998) reveals how deeply evangelicals have been infected with the modernistic thinking of form criticism: 

“Outspoken evangelical critics have engaged in the same type of dehistoricizing activity as the Jesus Seminar people with whom they differ. If they were to organize among themselves their own evangelical ‘Jesus Seminar,’ the following is a sampling of the issues they would vote on, most of which they would probably pass:

- The author of Matthew, not Jesus, created the Sermon on the Mount. 

- The commissioning of the Twelve in Matthew 10 is a group of instructions compiled and organized by the author of the first gospel, not spoken by Jesus on a single occasion.

- The parable accounts of Matthew 13 and Mark 4 are anthologies of parables that Jesus uttered on separate occasions.

- Jesus did not preach the Olivet Discourse in its entirety, as found in three of the gospel accounts.

- Jesus gave His teaching on divorce and remarriage without the exception clauses found in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9.

- In Matthew 19:16-17, the writer changed the words of Jesus and the rich man either to obtain a different emphasis or to avoid a theological problem involved in the wording of Mark’s and Luke’s accounts of the same event.

- The scribes and Pharisees were in reality decent people whom Matthew painted in an entirely negative light because of his personal bias against them.

- The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are figures of speech and not accurate records of Jesus’ physical and/or legal lineage.

- The magi who, according to Matthew 2, visited the child Jesus after His birth are fictional, not real, characters.

- Jesus uttered only three or four of the eight or nine beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12.

“Recognizably, the listed conclusions impinge upon the historical accuracy of the gospel records. Various evangelicals have opted for the stated unhistorical choice in each of the suggested instances. Granted, their reduction of historical precision in the Gospels is not the wholesale repudiation of historical data as is that of the original Jesus Seminar, but that it is a repudiation is undeniable. An acceptance of imprecision is even more noticeable in light of the fact that the above questions are only the tip of the iceberg. An exhaustive list would reach staggering proportions” (Thomas and Farnell, The Jesus Crisis, pp. 14, 15).

An example of form criticism among evangelicals is found in a report posted to the internet by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, Associate Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary. In a 35-page report entitled The Synoptic Problem, Wallace supports the redaction approach to the Gospels. He holds that the Gospels were produced by copying material from secondary sources. Wallace’s report is largely a review of Robert H. Stein’s The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. (Stein is a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.) Wallace says: “Indeed, I have found Stein’s book so helpful a synthesis of the issues involved, that to some degree our comments here will be merely a distillation of his work.” 

Note carefully the following excerpts from Wallace’s report: 

“It is quite impossible to hold that the three synoptic gospels were completely independent from each other. In the least, they had to have shared a common oral tradition. But the vast bulk of NT scholars today would argue for much more than that” (The Synoptic Problem, p. 1).

“We shall see later that before the Gospels were written there did exist a period in which the gospel materials were passed on orally, and it is clear that this oral tradition influenced not only the first of our synoptic Gospels but the subsequent ones as well” (The Synoptic Problem, p. 4). 

“The majority of NT scholars hold to Markan priority [Mark was written first and then Matthew and Luke based their gospels upon it] (either the two-source hypothesis of Holtzmann or the four-source hypothesis of Streeter). This is the view adopted in this paper as well” (The Synoptic Problem, p. 6). 

“One argument concerning Mark’s harder readings which has been (as far as I can tell) completely overlooked is the probability that neither Luke nor Matthew had pristine copies of Mark at their disposal. ... An intermediate scribe is probably responsible--either intentionally or unintentionally--for more than a few of the changes which ended up in Luke and Matthew” (The Synoptic Problem, footnote 49).

“Matthew and Luke have in common about 235 verses not found in Mark. ... Only two viable reasons for such parallels can be given: either one gospel writer knew and used the gospel of the other, or both used a common source” (The Synoptic Problem, p. 19). [Wallace fails even to acknowledge a third viable reason, which is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.]

Another example of the evangelical use of form criticism is An Introduction to the New Testament (Zondervan, 1992) by D.A. Carson, Douglas Moo, and Leon Morris. When discussing the origin of the Gospels, these men make NO MENTION OF DIVINE INSPIRATION and instead buy into the unbelieving theories of form criticism. Consider this statement: 

“Moreover, many of the assumptions on which form criticism is based appear to be valid: there was indeed a period of mainly oral transmission of the gospel materials; much of it was probably in small units; there probably was a tendency for this material to take on certain standard forms; and the early church has undoubtedly influenced the way in which this material was handed down. Defined narrowly in this way, there is undoubtedly a place for form criticism in the study of the Gospels” (An Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 23, 24). 

In fact, there is no scriptural validity for any of these assumptions, and all of them fly in the face of divine inspiration. To say that the “early church has undoubtedly influenced the way in which this material was handed down” is a plain rejection of the cardinal doctrines of the divine inspiration and preservation of Scripture.

Refutation of Form Criticism 

1. Form criticism is contrary to the doctrine of divine inspiration. 

The crux of this matter is the divine inspiration of Scripture. Either the Gospels are infallible Scripture, or they are the fallible work of men. There is no middle ground here, and we have no difficulty whatsoever in rejecting all form criticism theories (AND those who hold such theories) and accepting the Bible’s testimony about itself in simple faith.

The Lord Jesus Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the disciples into all truth and would remind them of past events concerning Himself (Joh. 14:26; 16:13-15). Further, the Gospels are Scripture (compare 1 Ti. 5:18 and Mt. 10:10; also see Heb. 2:3) and are therefore given by inspiration of God (2 Ti. 3:16). Nothing in the Scripture is there by happenstance or because of man’s will (2 Pe. 1:21). Even Paul, though he was not an eyewitness of the events of Christ’s life, when writing about those things, was taught them directly by the resurrected Christ (“For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you,” 1 Co. 11:23). 

Thus, the apostles were not dependent upon their own fallible memories in recording the Gospel accounts. They were not dependent upon their own thinking to select which material to present and how to present it. They did not need secondary sources. The Holy Spirit guided each Gospel writer to portray Christ in a special way via the manner in which the material is presented. 

To make room for form criticism, D.A. Carson and his fellow evangelical authors of An Introduction to the New Testament reject the verbal inspiration of the Gospels and replace it with a more vague “voice inspiration.” They say, “But their failure to preserve the ipsissima verba Jesu (the authentic words of Jesus) does not mean that they have tampered with the ipsisima vox Jesu (the authentic voice of Jesus)” (p. 44). This is the old modernistic argument that the Gospels give only a semblance of what Christ said rather than His actual words. And it is a repetition of the modernistic mumbo-jumbo that the Bible is somehow authoritative even though it is not verbally inerrant. 

2, Form Criticism was unknown until the age of skepticism. 

The following is excerpted from Thomas Ross, Evangelical Modernism: A Comparison of Scriptural or Fundamentalist Analysis of the Synoptic Gospels with that of the Majority of Modern Evangelicalism, faithsaves.net: 

“God’s people through the centuries, as well as Christiandom in general that has sought the truth as it is in Jesus about the origin of the gospels, have concluded that they were independent, inspired literary productions either composed by an apostle (Matthew and John) or with apostolic authority (Peter with Mark;  Paul with Luke).  In the early centuries theories of literary dependence were unknown. [See ‘The Synoptic Gospels in the Ancient Church,’ pgs. 37-84 of The Jesus Crisis, Thomas & Farnell. Documentation justifying statements about the views of early Christiandom in the rest of this paragraph of the paper is found in this source.] Explicit testimony of Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, and others is consistent with the traditional fundamental and evangelical view that the gospels are independent accounts. The early leaders employed traditional harmonization to reconcile apparent difficulties; proposals of different instances with similar circumstances, or repeated utterances of the same words, were given in defense, and nothing similar to modern redaction is found.  That the gospels were independent eyewitness testimonies was used for apologetic purposes, something entirely impossible upon the anti-historical presuppositions of HC. [The debilitating affect evangelical HC has on apologetics is demonstrated in ‘Impact of Historical Criticism on Theology and Apologetics,’ Robert L. Thomas, pgs. 356-377 of The Jesus Crisis.] The Patristics were unanimous in their affirmation that none of the synoptic writers had a copy of another canonical gospel before him.  Furthermore, in contrast to the evolutionary philosophy which undergirds the widespread affirmation of Markan priority, early Christiandom was absolutely unified in its affirmation of Matthean priority, and the great body of early leaders believed Mark was the last of the Synoptic gospels to be given by inspiration.  Those who were contemporaries of the apostles,  all the generations of the ante-Nicene era, and, indeed, the united voice of Christiandom from the beginning until the rise of Rationalism and Enlightenment philosophy proclaimed the independence of the synoptic accounts, their apostolic roots, and their inspiration.  [See ‘Philosophical and Theological Bent of Historical Criticism,’ pgs. 85-131 of The Jesus Crisis, as well as pgs. 19-42, Is There A Synoptic Problem? Eta Linnemann, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1992, for an examination of the war against God evident in the development of historical-critical theology.] No new facts arose a millennium and a half into the church age to justify the development of literary dependence theories and the rejection of the real historicity of the gospel accounts associated with them;  it was simply the zeitgeist  which the unconverted, professing themselves wise and yet fools, valued above the testimony of God and those who lived in a day when firsthand investigation of the facts was possible to evolve monstrous and mythological revisions of early Christian history.  These scholarly fancies became the cordial to wipe the claims of the Lord Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, from His holy and urgent demands upon the conscience of those in the intelligencia that adopted them--in contrast with the fairy-tales of their tender years, Geschichte became the entity of choice for fantasmagorical myth-making by mature skeptics.

“Honest historical scholarship among those that remembered that the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom rejected rationalistic speculations to maintain an affirmation of apostolicity and literary independence for the Synoptics;  the Patristic position remained the old-line evangelical opinion. For example, among New World Baptists, the American Commentary on the New Testament, general editor, Alvah Hovey, affirmed the traditional view of the synoptics in the 1880’s--a sad contrast with the views expressed in The New American Commentary series of today, published by affiliates of the neo-evangelical Southern Baptist Convention, which claims to ‘represent[] the continuation of a heritage rich in biblical and theological exposition ... [in] continuity ... with an important commentary project published at the end of the nineteenth century called An American Commentary.’ [Quoted from the Editor’s Preface to a volume of The New American Commentary; it is taken from volume 5, the volume on Joshua by David M. Howard, Jr., but appears in the other volumes as well.] In the volume on Mark in the American Commentary, W. N. Clarke states ‘[t]hat each Gospel is independent of the others is certain.’ Similarly, George R. Bliss affirms in the volume on Luke that he ‘probably knew nothing of the writing of Matthew, or of Mark.’ Later believers defending the faith in the era of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, such as B. B. Warfield, also affirmed literary independence. [Ned Stonehouse, possibly the earliest prominent evangelical departure from literary independence, attempted to find support for his fall away from the traditional standard in Warfield.  However, this required misrepresentation of his position. See, e.g., pgs. 24, 357-360, The Jesus Crisis.] Many modern fundamentalists still defend the historic believing position, [For example, Dr. Aaron Strouse, former professor at Tabernacle Baptist Theological Seminary when it stood for the verbal preservation of Scripture, stated ‘There are several strong arguments why this author believes that Mark was not the first Gospel written’ (pg. 19, The Lord Added to the Church:  The Theology of Acts, Virginia Beach, VA:  Tabernacle Baptist Theological Press, 1998). Emmanuel Baptist Theological Seminary in Newington, CT defends the historic orthodox view of gospel origins, as do Bible colleges such as the author’s alma mater, Fairhaven Baptist College in Chesterton, IN.] but the general body of evangelicalism has utterly capitulated to historical criticism, declaring much of its methodology benign, and (hopefully) still affirming verbal inspiration while rejecting only the grosser conclusions of modernist historical critics.”

“Frighteningly, many neo-fundamentalist Baptist institutions, such as Bible Baptist Seminary in Clarks Summit, PA, which is close to the G.A.R.B.C., and strong fundamental schools that reject the verbal, plenary preservation of Scripture, like Bob Jones University, have adopted literary dependence theories in their New Testament faculties. In a phone conversation with Rod Decker, part of the NT faculty associated with the PhD program of Baptist Bible Seminary in PA, he expressed belief in Markan priority, stated that Robert Stein’s work on the Synoptic problem was the best discussion of the issue, and declared that he thought Robert Thomas’ view in The Jesus Crisis was an overreaction. In an e-mail of March 6, 2002 from Steve Hankins, dean of the Seminary and Graduate School of Religion at Bob Jones University, to answer the author of this paper’s query on the matter, he states ‘There are a variety of views among our men without a general consensus, but virtually all of our New Testament professors would argue that their (sic) was literary dependence among the gospel writers.’ This acceptance of the leaven of literary dependence is seeping into fundamentalism from evangelicalism. Charity would hope that strong fundamental seminaries that have brethren on their faculty which hold to literary dependence do not recognize the presuppositions against inerrancy they are adopting: Steve Hankins, for example, in another e-mail to the author of this paper in relation to BJU’s position on these matters, stated that ‘[u]nlike most seminaries, we de-emphasize discussions of source, form, and redaction criticism. Much of the discussion (sic) agenda surrounding these theories is set by protestant liberalism and followed by new evangelicalism, positions on the theological spectrum we reject. While informing our students in these areas so they are conversant about them, our focus is on the preserved text of Scripture and understanding it from an exegetical perspective for the sake of preaching rather than for the sake of purely academic discussion.’ Nevertheless, this acceptance of literary dependence displays a dangerous naiveté and a lack of discernment about the eventualities of such presuppositions” (Thomas Ross, Evangelical Modernism: A Comparison of Scriptural or Fundamentalist Analysis of the Synoptic Gospels with that of the Majority of Modern Evangelicalism, faithsaves.net).

3. The Gospels are miraculous upon their very face. 

They contain not merely eyewitness accounts that could have been produced by men, but many things that could not have been produced by even the closest human observer. They describe the thoughts and motives of men’s hearts, for example. How can that be accounted for on any naturalistic basis? The disciples could hear what Jesus said and see what He did, but they could not reach into His very mind to see, for instance, that He knew the thoughts of men’s hearts (i.e., Mt. 9:4; Lu. 5:22; 6:8; 9:47; 11:17). And they could not discern the actual motives of men such as Pilate (i.e., Mr. 15:15). Only God the Holy Spirit could have produced the Gospels. It is foolish and unbelieving to attempt to look for any other explanation. 

4. If form criticism is true, we will never know for sure what part of the Gospels contains the fallible words of men and what part contains the infallible Word of God. 

If, as Dallas Seminary professor Daniel Wallace implies, there was a mysterious “Q” document from which some of the Gospel writers drew their information, it will never be known because no such document exists. Dr. Wallace admits that there are dozens of theories within the broad scope of reductionism or form criticism. If redaction theories of the Gospels are true, we are not left with established and settled truth; instead, we are left with endless theorizing. 

5. The theories of form criticism are contrary even to common sense. 

To think that Matthew and John, who were apostles and who were intimate eyewitnesses to the Gospel events, would depend upon Mark or Luke, who were not eyewitnesses, or upon some mysterious “Q” document, makes no sense. 

6. If form criticism is true, there are errors in the Bible. Modernists have no problem with this conclusion, of course, but even the evangelicals who are dabbling in form criticism make this unbelieving conclusion. But if there are errors in the Bible, Jesus was wrong when He promised that the Scripture cannot be broken (Joh. 10:35), which means that it is infallible; that every part is the perfect Word of God. 

7. Form criticism does not edify the flock; it entertains the scholars. 

Only someone trained in the finer nuances of modern textual criticism could even understand the reports written by redaction scholars. Ordinarily they do not contain one word of doctrine, reproof, correction, or instruction in righteousness, yet those are the very purposes for which the Holy Scriptures were given (2 Ti. 3:16-17). 

8. The alleged contradictions and problems within the Gospels that are raised by those who promote form criticism have been answered satisfactorily without resorting to modernistic theories. 

For one thing, form criticism ignores the traditional approach to the Gospels, which says the Holy Spirit gave a supernatural four-fold portrait of Christ and that the material in each Gospel was divinely selected from the events of Christ’s life to contribute to the individual portraits. 

Form criticism also ignores the traditional approach that explains the apparent contradictions between parallel accounts in the Gospels. Evangelicals who follow form criticism claim that the only satisfactory answer to these is some sort of naturalistic redaction view. D.A. Carson and his co-authors state, “Only a theory that includes as a major component literary interdependence among the Synoptic Gospels is capable of explaining the data” (p. 29). And Daniel Wallace says, “When one compares the synoptic materials with John’s Gospel, why are there so few verbal similarities? On an independent hypothesis, either John or the synoptics are wrong, or else John does not record the same events at all in the life of Jesus.” In fact, the differences and apparent contradictions between the Gospels have been analyzed carefully by men of God through the centuries and satisfactory answers have been given without resorting to fanciful textual criticism. I built a large collection of books dealing with the alleged contradictions in the Bible, including many volumes from the 18th and 19th centuries. The problems raised by redaction critics have been answered to the satisfaction of many godly minds. Many of the “problems” in the Gospels are dealt with in Things Hard to Be Understood: A Handbook of Biblical Difficulties, available at the Books section of www.wayoflife.org.

And though we cannot answer every problem that arises when comparing parallel passages in the four Gospels, the solution for a believer is not to give up the doctrine of verbal inspiration or to think that the Gospels do not give us a verbally accurate transmission of Christ’s actual words and deeds. The solution is to walk by faith, not by sight, for “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb. 11:6).

9. Form criticism focuses on the method of inspiration rather than the product. 

We know there is a human element in the Scripture in the sense that men wrote the Bible, but the Bible itself doesn’t focus on the human element. We are given brief glimpses of some of the mechanics of the giving of Scripture, such as God speaking face to face with Moses and angels speaking to some of the prophets, but for the most part we do not know the mechanics of inspiration and we are not instructed to try to figure it out. “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (De. 29:29). The crucial fact is that “ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God.” That is all we need to know, and it is a fact that can be accepted ONLY by faith. It can never be understood by scholarship. “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6). 

10. Form criticism is of the devil. 

It is the devil who loves to cast doubt upon the Word of God. He has been doing this since his conversation with Eve in the garden of Eden (Ge. 3:1). He is doing it today through “evangelical” scholars who are trained at the feet of modernists (either directly or through their writings or through other evangelical scholars who are influenced by modernists). This is the root problem with men such as Daniel Wallace, Robert Stein, and D.A. Carson. They are leaning on the research of modernists and are trying to impress the modernists that they, though “evangelicals,” are serious scholars. They are trying to adapt the scholarship of unbelievers to a position of faith, and it is an impossible task. Does God not warn that “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Co. 15:33)? Does God not warn the believer not to sit in the seat of the scornful (Ps. 1:1)? Does God not warn that the words of false teachers eat like a canker and increase ungodliness and overthrow faith (2 Ti. 2:16-18)? Does God not warn that the words of false teachers deceive hearts (Ro. 16:17-18)? The Bible says that two cannot walk together except they be agreed (Am. 3:3), yet today’s “evangelical” scholar thinks he can walk together for years on end with unbelievers and not be harmed spiritually. It is a delusion.

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