William Reuben Farmer (1921 – December 31, 2000) was an American New Testament scholar, professor of theology at Southern Methodist University, and advocate of ecumenism.
[3][1][4] After his retirement, he did occasional projects with the University of Dallas, such as editing a volume of Bible commentaries from a Catholic and ecumenical perspective.
[5] Farmer's most notable area of research was the synoptic problem, or the question of the nature of the connection between the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
In his 1964 book The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis, he disputes the two-source hypothesis that had generally become accepted in the 20th century, which suggests that Mark and an unknown tradition called "Q" were used to write Matthew and Luke.
[6] Farmer called his preferred version the two-gospel hypothesis, and suggests instead that Mark was the latest gospel that drew from both Matthew and Luke.