[2] He was perhaps best known for his contributions to the Synoptic Problem, and specifically the Farrer hypothesis, which postulates Markan priority but dispenses with the Q document, suggesting instead that Luke knew the contents of Matthew.
His works in this area aimed among other things to discover the historical contexts in which individual psalms were used in worship, employing comparisons with the traditions behind other parts of the Hebrew Bible such as the Pentateuch.
[8] Educated at Eton followed by Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in classics, he was ordained in Hong Kong by Bishop Ronald Hall, having gone out there originally in pursuance of secular employment.
After a number of years of parochial ministry in Withington, Manchester he returned to Hong Kong as principal of the Union Theological College there before taking up a post at Birmingham University's Extra Mural Department.
Goulder was a Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) which is a division of the Council for Secular Humanism[9] and became President of Birmingham Humanists in 1993 shortly before retiring from academic life.