We should be driven back, indeed, upon all the impossibilities of the 'Benutzungs-hypothese.' On the one hand, the close resemblance between the three compels us to assume that the authors have either used each other's works or common documents; but the differences practically preclude the supposition that the later writer had before him the whole work of his predecessor.

If Luke had had before him the first two chapters of Matthew he could not have written his own first two chapters as he has done.
Again, the character of the narrative is such as to be inconsistent with the view that it proceeds from an eye-witness of the events.
Those graphic touches, which are so conspicuous in the fourth Gospel, and come out from time to time in the second, are entirely wanting in the first.

If parallel narratives, such as the healing of the paralytic, the cleansing of the Temple, or the feeding of the five thousand, are compared, this will be very clearly seen.

More; there are features in the first Gospel that are to all appearance unhistorical and due to the peculiar method of the writer.

He has a way of reduplicating, so to speak, the personages of one narrative in order to make up for the omission of another [Endnote 154:1].