In 1776 Johann Jakob Griesbach of Jena published as a separate volume his Greek Synopsis of Matthew, Mark and Luke, previously issued as part of his critical edition of the Greek New Testament. He was in fact the first to establish the Synopsis as a fundamental tool of New Testament research. He was perhaps even more important for his text-critical studies, and for what is still called the Griesbach Hypothesis of the literary dependence of Mark on both Matthew and Luke. The editors of this volume have brought together a selection of the papers presented by a distinguished international group of biblical scholars at the Griesbach Bicentenary Colloquium held in Munster (Westphalia) in 1976. This collection provides an authoritative account of the life of Griesbach, and of his work and its continuing influence in the fields of the Greek Synopsis, the Synoptic Problem and text criticism of the New Testament.
