One may subdivide redaction criticism into two complementary tasks: reading horizontally and reading vertically.71 Reading horizontally involves looking across a gospel synopsis to compare the differences among parallels and to determine how later writers altered their sources. Reading vertically refers to looking down the given column of a synopsis (and hence throughout the larger context of a specific Gospel) to see what themes and other editorial distinctives repeatedly recur and whether or not they are paralleled in the other Gospels.
