Synoptic Gospels texts of the three synoptic gospels often agree very closely in wording and order, both in quotations and in narration. Most scholars ascribe this to "documentary dependence", direct or indirect, meaning the close agreements among synoptic gospels are due to one gospel's drawing from the text of another, or from some written source that another gospel also drew from. The synoptic problem hinges on several interrelated points of controversy: Furthermore, some theories try to explain the relation of the synoptic gospels to John; to non-canonical gospels such as Thomas, Peter, and Egerton; to the Didache; and to lost documents such
God Is Not Great conceive, and bear a son" (see ), pointing out where the stories converge, Old Testament to New. Comparing the Testaments, he considers the New Testament "also a work of crude carpentry, hammered together long after its purported events, and full of improvised attempts to make things come out right". He points out that, while H. L. Mencken considered some of the New Testament events to be historically verifiable, Mencken maintained that "most of them ... show unmistakable signs of having been tampered with". Hitchens also outlines the inaccuracy in Luke's attempt to triangulate three world events of the time with