The synoptic gospels have a huge amount of overlapping text between them. Over three-quarters of Mark's content is found in both Matthew and Luke, and 97% of Mark is found in at least one of the other two synoptic gospels.
Either they were copying off each other, or were copying from some other source. That's the sense in which they were "synoptic".
John is a separate document. It does tell different stories, but more importantly, it has completely different text even when the stories do overlap.
It is widely thought that the writer of John had access to some of the other gospels. But he wrote his text from scratch.
Either they were copying off each other, or were copying from some other source. That's the sense in which they were "synoptic".
John is a separate document. It does tell different stories, but more importantly, it has completely different text even when the stories do overlap.
It is widely thought that the writer of John had access to some of the other gospels. But he wrote his text from scratch.