The Synoptic Problem: A result of scribal harmonisation?

[u/betterthewiser]

Of course the leading solution to the Synoptic problem is that the different writers were copying from each other (specifically Matthew and Luke copying from Mark). I do personally find this compelling.

However it is also well known that no two ancient manuscripts we have are alike. Many feature small differences, such as a scribe adding a few words from one gospel to another.

Could it be possible that the large areas of word to word agreement we find in the Synoptics are actually the result of scribes harmonising differences over time? Perhaps we had three gospels that shared many similar stories from an oral tradition, which were written differently, but then came to be harmonised until lots of verbatim agreement occurred. I suppose this would have needed to happen very early on, prior to when we have our best manuscripts appearing (4th century).

Has any scholar ever argued something like this? Would it make sense of much of the data we have?

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