The name given to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because they "look alike" (syn-optic) in that they share so much in common between them, especially when viewed against the Gospel of John.
The key question—what is often called the 'Synoptic Problem'—that occupies scholars is how to account for the similarities and differences between them, i.e., what is the relationship between the three Gospels.
The most widely held reconstruction holds that Mark was probably the earliest of the three. Matthew and Luke probably had Mark before them as they wrote their respective narratives; this accounts for the similarities between the three. Scholars suggest that both Matthew and Luke also had access to another document or compilation, which they call Q (short for Quelle, German for "source").
Whatever process may lie behind the composition of the three Synoptic Gospels, the important thing to note about them is that each of them provides us with different glimpses into the immeasurably and endlessly rich person that is our Lord Jesus that no number of Gospels can possibly capture entirely. As John says, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (21:25). The great surprise is not that we have four canonical gospels (instead of just one), but that we have only four.
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