The Synoptic Gospels are the three Gospels that tell similar or even overlapping stories. These three Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These are synoptic because they involve many of the same stories and could even be put into columns and picked apart with similarities and differences. John, however, is not a Synoptic Gospel due to the fact that most of this Gospel does not line up with the other three Gospels.
With the Synoptic Gospels there are a couple of questions that come about. Which one came first? Which stories are taken from other stories? Let’s just say that if the three Gospels were turned in for a writing assignment in a class, then the teacher would suspect some form of plagiarism. Each of the Gospels tell very similar stories. It would be like if you read an essay online and wanted to copy it, you would change a couple of words and sum up a few statements to avoid copying the essay. The Gospels each have similar stories, but with different details. But this makes sense. If three people were to see a car crash happen, each of them might have similar stories, but none of them would tell the exact same story. That’s how the Gospels work, they give us different views on the same story, like when interviewing witnesses at a car crash. However, the stories have too many details that are similar. That is why it is believed that the authors were dependent of each other. Certain details were most likely borrowed and taken from others, but sometimes that is necessary to tell a full story.