During my time as a part-time porter, one of the challenging tasks was folding aprons. After washing and drying dozens of aprons, their straps would become entangled with each other, forming a complex web which resembled tangled hair. Untangling these apron straps required a considerable amount of patience. Initially, I tried to untangle them forcefully, but that only exacerbated the situation, tightening the knots further. The approach I found was to take one strap at a time, carefully untangle the entwined sections, and gradually work my way through. With time and effort, gaps would form between the straps, and they would eventually unravel. This process reminds me of what I encountered while dealing with the so-called âSynoptic Problemâ in this monograph. This subject matter was so intricately interwoven, much like the tangled apron straps. Thus, my goal was not to resolve the broad issue but to focus on identifying and untangling a single strand, creating a small opening that may allow the release of subsequent strands.
This study attempts to analyze the Eucharist in the Synoptic Gospels including their co-texts (Matt 26:14â35; Mark 14:10â31; Luke 22:3â23, 31â34), via a Mode Register Analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics. The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to model a linguistic methodology and to apply it to each text of the Eucharist and its co-texts in the Synoptic Gospels, (2) to find meaningful linguistic characteristics of each designated text via a comparative analysis based on the preceding study, and finally (3) to suggest a balanced and plausible hypothesis which may offer convincing explanations of the Synoptic Gospelsâ construction process. The thesis of this study is as follows: in the Synoptic Gospelsâ construction process, each constructor reflected the oral Gospel tradition(s) significantly, as the one who had formed/contributed the tradition (probably Matthew), or the one who delivered it (probably Mark), or the one who preserved it (probably Luke), though there is also the possibility that each of them made use of written sources including the other Gospel(s).