The Gospel of Mark is generally agreed to be the oldest of the three Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — and was used as one of the sources for each of the other two. The outline of events as they occur in Mark is followed by each of the other biographers, and about two thirds of the material found in Mark is also present in both Matthew and Luke. This similarity suggests very strongly, although it does not prove, that the authors of Matthew and Luke took their materials from Mark. There is also reason to believe that both Matthew and Luke had another source in common. Both of them report a considerable amount of Jesus' teachings in addition to what is contained in Mark. To account for this extra material, it is assumed that a document composed of Jesus' sayings was in existence and was another source for Matthew and Luke. Scholars refer to this other source with the letter Q, the first letter of the German word Quelle, which in English means source. Because there is some unique material in Matthew, possibly its author used still another source M, which was not used in any of the other Gospels. The same holds true for the Gospel of Luke, and scholars use the letter L to refer to his special source. This hypothesis concerning the origin of the Synoptic Gospels appears to be confirmed by the introductory paragraph found in the Gospel of Luke, which states that several lives of Jesus have been written and that Luke's author's purpose is to write a definitive biography about Jesus.
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