Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul: The Influence of the Epistles on the Synoptic Gospels

Foreword

All agree that the New Testament writers make numerous references to the Old Testament, both allusions and direct quotations. A smaller but growing number of scholars have detected a deeper and more profound New Testament use of the Old, namely instances where gospel writers seem to have chosen certain Old Testament texts and, with no historical basis, rewritten them as stories about Jesus. These scholars include John Dominic Crossan (who speaks of prophecy historicized), Randel Helms (who demonstrates Gospel fictions), Thomas L. Brodie (creative rewriting), and Earl Doherty, who has suggested that, when early Christians said this or that gospel event happened according to the scriptures, they were not supplying proof-texts after the fact for known events in the life of Jesus; rather, they first discovered that Jesus had done so and so by combing the scriptures for certain key words (the son, that day, etc.) thought to point to certain stories that could be read almost kabbalistically to yield whole new stories, stories of what Jesus must have done, or else how should the scriptures be fulfilled , that say it must be so? (Matt 26:54). The number of such studies has grown and grown, till finally what I consider compelling arguments have been offered for virtually every gospel story (and many in Acts) being a rewrite of some Old Testament story, with plenty of sayings being scripturally derivative as well.

George A. Wells and others have demanded scholars (apologists) account for the astonishing fact that the New Testament epistles never once cite the supposedly authoritative teaching of Jesus to settle issues of concern, even when plenty of relevant sayings occur in the gospels. How can that be? Wells, followed by Doherty and others, point to a simple solution: when the epistolarians wrote, there was no such body of sayings attributed to Jesus because Jesus was not yet understood as a historical figure, but as a celestial savior whose death in the remote past (like the Vedic Purusha) or in some heavenly never-never land (like the Gnostic Man of Light) had wrought salvation for the initiates. It was only in the course of historicizing the Jesus figure (something deemed advisable to secure emerging Catholic Orthodoxy’s trademark by allowing the bishops to claim descent from a recent founder) that various sayings got ascribed to an earthly, historical Jesus.

Apologists have nominated 1 Cor 7:10 (cf 7:25) as a sample of just such a Jesus citation as Wells denies occurs, but this is desperate: surely in light of 1 Cor 14:37 we are to take such language as denoting decrees the apostle himself issued under perceived inspiration from the heavenly Christ. Of course the Epistle of James and Romans chapter 12 are filled with sayings that sound rather like gospel sayings, and apologists want us to believe that these are Jesus quotes, albeit unattributed. The writers supposedly thought it would somehow lend gravity to the assertions if they left the attribution implied (Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). Well, that is about as low as apologetics can sink. It seems far more likely to anyone not trying frantically to get out of a jam that these wise sayings were truisms later ascribed to Jesus, as when I once heard a caller ask a radio host where in the Bible it says, Neither borrower nor lender be!

What has David Oliver Smith to contribute to this inquiry? He has compiled numerous parallel texts, first between Old Testament and gospel passages suggesting that the latter are based on the former; and, second, between broader sections of the Pauline epistles and the gospels, suggesting that more than just isolated pithy sayings (paralleled by or derived from the epistles) were incorporated into the gospels and ascribed to Jesus. If Smith is right, the gospel writers were employing finished versions of Pauline letters as gospel source material. This takes the whole business a significant step further.

Some will cry foul, charging Smith with parallelomania! And indeed one must guard against jumping the gun and concluding that parallelism demands dependence. But it is a fairly simple pitfall to avoid, and you will see that Smith is ever on guard against it. He is careful to count significant numbers of striking textual parallels between two passages, then to ask if the parallel items are distinctive and what are the chances of such chains of argument or allusion occurring spontaneously. I will not seek to prejudice your necessary weighing of the probabilities for yourself. You are in for a fascinating tour through biblical territory you may have thought you knew rather too well already. But with David Oliver Smith as your guide, I believe you will find yourself gasping at features of this terrain as if you had never beheld them before.

Robert M. Price

February 12, 2011

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Gary McLaughlin, who got me started down this path, Steve Smith, Bob Shepherd, and Frank McMordie, who kept me going, and Bob Price who helped me to get to the end. Special thanks to Jan Moore who caught my drafting errors.

Abbreviations

IQP International Q Project

HCGM Historical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark

JNGM Jesus Neither God Nor Man

KJV King James Version

LXX Septuagint

MLM Midrash and Lection in Matthew

NIV New International Version

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

PJJ Paul, James, and John

YLT Young’s Literal Translation

1

Introduction

Did Matthew, Mark, and Luke use Paul’s Epistles in writing their Gospels? I think they did, and this book shows why I think so. An investigation of the literary background of the Synoptic Gospels shows that Paul’s Epistles and Hebrews, which most scholars believe was not written by Paul, influenced the stories that the synoptic evangelists told about Jesus.

Christian laymen do not spend time studying the literary aspects of the Bible. For the most part they do not consider books of the Bible as literature. They think of them more as history. Christians who engage in regular study of the Bible, study the NT from the standpoint of how it can assist them in their daily lives. They do not have the time or inclination to ponder the questions that are presented by the literary relationships. These are questions left to professional NT scholars.

I find that the similarities and differences among the Synoptic Gospels present fascinating literary puzzles. Why is Mark’s Gospel so short? What is he saying in his many enigmatic statements? Why did Matthew add so much Jewish law to Mark’s Gospel? Why did Luke follow Mark more often than he followed Matthew? Or did he? Paul’s Epistles seem to make similar points to those made by Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. Did these evangelists know the Epistles?

In my study I have identified seventy-three passages found in the Gospel of Mark that I believe were derived from Paul’s Epistles and/or Hebrews. Matthew and Luke copied the vast majority of these Markan passages into their Gospels. An additional twenty-seven passages of Matthew were derived from the Epistles and copied by Luke. Sixteen other passages of Matthew were derived from Paul and not copied by Luke. Four other passages of Luke were derived from Paul. All totaled, I have identified one hundred nineteen passages in the Synoptic Gospels that were based upon ideas and concepts initially found in Paul’s Epistles and/or Hebrews.

The Christian layman may be surprised that I have alleged that Matthew and Luke copied Mark; however, this is the overwhelming opinion of NT scholars. In the pages that follow I will go into detail about the reasons behind this conclusion, the Synoptic Problem, Markan Priority, and the literary sources of the Synoptic Gospels. Over the centuries NT scholars have noted that similar ideas are reflected in the gospels and the Epistles, but few (Gustav Volkmar and Michael D. Goulder were exceptions) have ventured to opine that various passages found in the Synoptics were based on or derived from the Epistles.

Much of The Gospel of Mark was based upon the OT and the writer assuredly wove OT stories into his Gospel. I believe that he was further influenced by a number of NT Epistles, namely, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews. The second gospel to be written was The Gospel of Matthew. When Matthew was writing his Gospel I believe he had at hand Mark’s Gospel, the OT, and those same Epistles. When Luke wrote the third Gospel, I believe he had the same material as Matthew plus Matthew’s Gospel. Most NT scholars do not agree with this. They are of the opinion that Matthew and Luke independently used a now-lost written source called Q. I discuss this in Chapter 2.

It is well documented that there are many OT references in the Synoptic Gospels. Many Bible translations contain footnotes and cross references to OT passages to which the synoptic evangelists referred. It has also been well documented that the Synoptic Gospels contain passages that parallel many passages in Paul’s Epistles and Hebrews. However, the fact that there are parallels is typically explained by assuming that Paul and the synoptic evangelists were privy to an oral tradition circulating in the mid-first century. Is that the most probable explanation? Is it not more likely that the reason so many of the same concepts are expressed by Paul and by the Synoptic evangelists is that the writers of the Synoptic Gospels had at hand Paul’s Epistles and Hebrews? At the very least it is a possibility. Few NT scholars believe that the gospels were written prior to Paul’s Epistles, but the historical evidence is such that it is not certain. It is crucial to my theory that the epistles I listed above were, in fact, written before the Synoptic Gospels were written. In Chapter 4 I present clear and convincing evidence that Mark used Romans and 1 Corinthians in constructing the first gospel to be written, proving that Paul’s Epistles were written prior to Mark’s Gospel. If the Epistles were written before the gospels, then it is possible that the synoptic evangelists used the Epistles in constructing their gospels.

Chapter 2 discusses the history of the Synoptic Problem, the solutions to that problem that have been offered by NT scholars, and the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels to each other. In Chapter 3 I demonstrate that Paul’s Epistles only relate seven facts about the life of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the gospels and that Paul more than likely discovered these few facts in the OT passages about the Messiah, not from first hand tales of an oral tradition. This implies that Paul had no knowledge of the man, Jesus, and the events in his life. This raises the possibility that if Paul had no knowledge of an oral tradition, perhaps the evangelists did not know of one, either. Chapter 4 begins the comparison of passages in the Synoptic Gospels with passages in the Epistles.

I begin the passage comparison with the very strong evidence discovered by Michael A. Turton that the Gospel of Mark was influenced by Paul’s Epistles.¹ In Chapters 5—18 I go through the rest of Mark through Mark 16:8 pointing out other passages that were likely influenced by Paul’s Epistles and Hebrews. I also show how Matthew and Luke handled those same passages, called Triple Tradition Material by NT scholars. The material found in the Gospel of Mark after 16:8 in today’s Bibles is not original to Mark’s Gospel, but was added later.² I further demonstrate that some supposed Q passages are actually Markan invention. Following the evidence of epistolary influence on the Triple Tradition, I show the influence of Paul and Hebrews on the Double Tradition material. Double Tradition is the name given to passages that are found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. Finally, I go through the material found only in Matthew, called Matthew Special material and the Luke Special material, demonstrating the influence of Hebrews and Paul’s Epistles on that material. If a particular passage has been identified by pro-Q scholars as being sourced from Q, I note that in the sub-heading by using the passage designation found in the Sayings Gospel as translated by the International Q Project.³ In some cases related passages in the Synoptic Gospels are listed as more than one passage in the IQP Sayings Gospel. In that case I have noted that situation in the sub-heading by separating the Q passages with a semi-colon and showing the Q chapter of the following passage.

The IQP lists eighty-nine sayings in their version of the Q Gospel. I identify fifty-seven of the eighty-nine, over 64 percent, as more properly sourced from Paul, Hebrews or Mark. Pro-Q scholars identify a Q-sourced passage by the chapter and verse of Luke in which the passage is found, and that is how the IQP has identified the different passages of the Sayings Gospel. The rationale for using Luke’s chapter and verse is based on the theory that Luke did not know Matthew’s Gospel and was unaware that Matthew collected much of the wisdom sayings into one sermon by Jesus—The Sermon on the Mount found in Matt 5—7. Since Matthew collected many of these sayings into one long sequence in his Gospel, scholars theorize that Matthew must have rearranged the Q material. The theory then goes that the Luke-Q passages were more in line with the order that actually occurred in Q. Further, it is obvious that Matthew was a better poet than Luke. So the reasoning goes that while both Matthew and Luke had the original Q document, Matthew took the raw collection and improved the sayings by reworking them into better poetry and reorganizing twenty-six of the eighty-nine into a single sermon.⁴ Luke, it is theorized, used the sayings in their more or less original form.

I also specifically note in the subheading for a particular passage any Mark-Q overlaps. Mark-Q overlaps are explained below in Chapter 2. I believe that this book demonstrates that it is more likely than not that a large part of what many NT scholars identify as sources from Q actually were sources from Paul and Hebrews.

In my analysis of epistolary influence on the synoptics I have not limited myself to direct quotes of the Epistles by the evangelists. Rather I have looked for theological and Christological concepts that appeared in the Epistles and also appeared in the Synoptic Gospels. This does not by any means prove that the evangelists used the epistles, but it is probative evidence that they did so. After all, it is widely accepted by NT scholars that Mark used the OT in crafting some of his pericopae.⁵ But it is clear that Mark did not quote the OT passages to a great extent, he merely used the OT stories as a foundation for his stories. To be sure, Mark did quote the OT passages when his Jesus was sparring with the Pharisees and/or scribes, but he did not quote OT passages when using OT stories as a source for plot points, such as modeling Jesus’ call of the disciples on Elijah’s call of Elisha in 1 Kings, or modeling Jesus’ arrest at Gethsemane on David’s flight from Absalom in 2 Samuel. Therefore, we should not expect Mark to have quoted the Epistles, but only to have used the concepts to express his theology and Christology found in his Gospel.

Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, did copy Mark verbatim in many spots, giving rise to the Synoptic Problem explained in Chapter 2. Like Mark, they did not quote verbatim passages from the OT in creating plot points, such as Matthew’s modeling the slaughter of innocents on Moses’ birth story in Exodus or Luke’s modeling part of the birth story of John the Baptist and Jesus on the birth of Esau and Jacob to Isaac and Rachel in Genesis. Consequently, we should not expect Matthew and Luke to have quoted Epistles directly in their narratives, either. It is more consistent with their use of the OT stories that they would weave theological and Christological points found in the Epistles into their narratives. But we can look at the language used by the evangelists and see if they have used some of the same words found in the Epistles in making their theological or Christological points.

1. Turton, HCGM, Ch. 10 Excursus.

2. Mark 16, Wikipedia.org.

3. IQP, Sayings Gospel.

4. Compare IQP, Sayings Gospel, with Miller, Complete Gospels, 249–300.

5. Price, New Testament Narrative; Helms, Gospel Fictions; Crossan, The Cross That Spoke; Turton, HCGM..

2

The Literary Relationship of the Synoptic Gospels

When Were the Synoptic Gospels and Pauline Epistles Written?

The overwhelming majority of NT scholars are in agreement that the Gospel of Mark was the first written gospel and became the basis for the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. This is known as Markan Priority. Later in this chapter I will demonstrate the reasons for this conclusion. The writers of Matthew and Luke added material and rearranged Mark’s Gospel and some times repeated it in developing their own Christologies. According to the principle of Markan Priority, Mark wrote his Gospel first and then Matthew and Luke used it as a major source for their Gospels. Eighty-nine percent of Mark is found in Matthew and 72 percent of Mark is found in Luke. ¹ Forty-five percent of Matthew and 41 percent of Luke are based on Mark. ² I will show in this work that over two-thirds of the pericopae in Mark have elements derived from Paul’s Epistles and from Hebrews. ³ Matthew and Luke copied the vast majority of this epistolary sourced Markan material. In addition some of the non-Markan material in Matthew and Luke was taken from these Epistles.

While Christian tradition holds that the Synoptic Gospels were written by men whose names appear on them today, the scholarly consensus is that the authors are unknown.⁴ The names were not attached to the Gospels until about 185 CE by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, France.⁵ The first mention of the gospels in Christian literature was sometime about 120 CE–150 CE. The Christian apologist Justin Martyr had no specific names for them and called them simply Memoirs of the Apostles.⁶

Christian apologists and most lay Christians assume, pursuant to fourth century Church teachings, that the gospels were written fairly early, 50 CE—65 CE, and were written by contemporaries of Jesus or his close associates. Mark is thought to have been a student/associate of Peter, named John Mark, who got the story from Peter.⁷ Matthew’s Gospel is thought to have been written by the disciple Matthew, one of the twelve as listed in the gospels. The third gospel was supposedly written by Luke, an associate of Paul. For the scholars and laymen who accept the traditional church teaching, transmission is no problem. The story came from eyewitnesses or associates of eyewitnesses. Since Luke is thought to have been an associate of Paul,⁸ he would have known at least Peter, James, and John of the Jerusalem church, whom Paul mentions in his Epistles. Therefore, Luke could have heard first hand the events of Jesus’ ministry from them. I think these Christian apologists and laymen are wrong. I will show why in the discussion of the Synoptic Problem below.

Modern NT scholars use the method of higher criticism developed in the last few centuries to discover the origins of the Bible.⁹ The conclusion of scholars using the higher criticism method is that the writers of the gospels are unknown and the gospels were written later than previously supposed, certainly after 70 CE and perhaps even later than that.¹⁰ One piece of evidence for the post-70 CE date is that the first written Gospel has Jesus in Mark 13 predicting that the Temple of Jerusalem would be completely destroyed. The Romans destroyed the temple in 70 CE. Whether one believes that Jesus was a historical person or not, a book describing his accurate prediction of the complete destruction of the huge Temple of Jerusalem must have been written later than such destruction. It is wildly improbable that any person could accurately predict the complete destruction of the huge Temple of Jerusalem some thirty-five years before the event. For example, would anyone believe that Henry IV, king of England, in 1405 predicted the invention of the printing press in 1440, starting the revolution of education, which virtually wiped out illiteracy in the Western World by 1900? Similarly, would anyone believe that Henry IV, king of Castile, would have predicted in 1457 that his half-sister Isabella, would become Queen on his death and finance Columbus’s voyage to America in 1492, starting the colonization of the New World? No. It is not a believable tale.

If one is given two choices, (1) did Jesus accurately prophesy the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem would occur some thirty-five years after his death or (2) was the story written after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, which one would a rational person choose? Obviously, in our normal every day world, we do not expect men to be able to foretell the future. By the principal of analogy we must conclude that it is improbable that Jesus, if he existed, was able to accurately foretell the destruction of the temple thirty-five years later.¹¹

Modern NT scholars who believe that the basic events related in the gospels are true assume that the events of Jesus’ ministry were preserved in an oral tradition of his disciples, presumably in the Christian church of Jerusalem, headed by Peter, James, and John.¹² There is another group of liberal modern NT scholars who do not accept the basic narrative of Jesus as presented in the gospels, but they do believe he was a historical person and his teachings and sermons were preserved in a now-lost document called Q. These scholars believe that Q was a major source for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

As I stated earlier scholars have demonstrated that Mark’s Gospel was written first, Matthew second, and Luke third.¹³ The conclusion by the vast majority of NT scholars is that Mark is a major source for Matthew and Luke. If true, this undermines the beliefs of the Christian apologists and lay men. Whoever wrote Matthew; it was not the disciple of that name. So even if a disciple named Matthew is assumed, he did not write the Gospel of Matthew, because whoever did write the Gospel of Matthew copied Mark. The disciple Matthew, if he existed, and if he were literate, would have written his own account of the events. He would not have copied second hand stories related by Peter to John Mark. This means that the writer of Matthew’s Gospel is unknown.

Mark was supposedly an associate of Peter. The schism between Paul and Peter is documented in Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. Of course, it tells Paul’s side of the dispute. If the writer of the Gospel of Mark was an associate of Peter, then why is the Gospel of Mark so Pauline in outlook? Peter, supposedly Mark’s mentor, comes off as a dunce in Mark’s Gospel. Matthew rehabilitates Peter in his version. It is simply not credible that Peter’s associate, John Mark, wrote the Gospel of Mark in which Peter is repeatedly derided. The conclusion must be that if Peter had an associate named John Mark he did not write the Gospel of Mark. Therefore, the writer of Mark’s Gospel is also unknown.

It is possible that Paul had an associate named Luke, since that was one of the most popular names in the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries CE. It is far from certain that such an associate of Paul wrote the third gospel, especially since the names were not given to the gospels until about 185 CE. Therefore, it is unknown who wrote any of the Synoptic Gospels. Be that as it may, I will identify the authors of the Synoptic Gospels as Matthew, Mark and Luke, since those names are as good as any.

In my analysis I have used Hebrews and the seven Epistles of Paul that scholarly opinion generally agrees were written by him: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon.¹⁴ I have limited myself to these Epistles because we can be relatively sure that they were written prior to the writing of the Gospels. This is critical. Epistles cannot be considered a source for the gospels unless they were written prior to the gospels. Hebrews is generally thought to have been written before 70 CE since it is so temple focused and yet does not mention the destruction of the temple in 70. The seven authentic Epistles of Paul are generally thought to have been written between 48 CE and 60 CE.¹⁵ Many scholars are of the opinion that Colossians was written by Paul, but about 60 percent do not, so the there is no general agreement as to the date of its composition. Some scholars think that Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians were written as late as 100 CE; if so, they could not possibly be written by Paul and may post date the gospels. The Pastoral Epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are almost certainly second century compositions and probably postdate the gospels. Therefore, I have limited my analysis to the eight mentioned epistles.

The Synoptic Problem

History

New Testament scholarship identified the Synoptic Problem in the late eighteenth century. The nature of the problem has been described by Mark Goodacre as: The study of the similarities and differences of the Synoptic Gospels in an attempt to explain their literary relationship.¹⁶ The problem was first identified by Johann Jakob Griesbach, a German theologian.¹⁷ In 1776 Griesbach published the first side-by-side synopsis of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that illuminated the problem.¹⁸ Simply stated, the problem is that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke have too many passages that are worded exactly the same.¹⁹ Early Christian history as promulgated by the church, and currently accepted by many Christian apologists and many in the laity, holds that the sources of the writers of the gospels were eyewitnesses to the events in Jesus’ life. Unfortunately, from a literary standpoint, the church’s position is belied by the wording of the Synoptic Gospels. The problem arises because separate witnesses to the same event will never use the same words to describe the event. Each of us has his own point of view, distinctive vocabulary and writing style. They are as distinctive as fingerprints, and scholars who specialize in literary criticism are able to distinguish these separate styles. It is clear from a literary-historical analysis that the three Synoptic Gospels are not three separate accounts of the same events.

Nature of Problem

One can well imagine that if there had been a historical Jesus of Nazareth who was an itinerant preacher, drawing crowds around the countryside, and if three disciples of Jesus decided to preserve his story in writing, then the words Jesus spoke according to all of the witnesses might well have been identical or almost identical. The problem comes in the narrative sections, describing action. No two persons are going to describe an event in exactly the same, or nearly the same manner. Each will have his own point of view. Here is one example:

Mark 10

46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, Son of David, have mercy on me!

Matthew 20

30 There were two blind men sitting by the roadside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David! 31 The crowd sternly ordered them to be quiet; but they shouted even more loudly, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!

Luke 18

35 As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. 36 When he heard a crowd going by, he asked what was happening. 37 They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. 38 Then he shouted, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! 39 Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet; but he shouted even more loudly, Son of David, have mercy on me!

I have put in italics those words in each version of the story that are the same. I have not put in italics words that were spoken, since if the story were true, the witnesses might well have agreed upon the words said, although it is doubtful unless the witnesses made notes at the time. It is beyond belief that three independent sources would describe the action in this pericope with exactly the same words. This is only one example of a myriad of such occurrences found throughout the Synoptic Gospels. The only rational conclusion is that there was a single source for major parts of the Synoptic Gospels.

Comparing the above passages from Mark, Matthew, and Luke gives one an insight into one of the aspects of NT study upon which I will be commenting in this book. Notice the inclination of Luke as a writer to insure that his characters have a logical motivation and that events happen in a logical order. Luke adds to the narrative of Mark and Matthew that the blind man is told that Jesus was passing by. He also adds that the people in front told the blind man to be quiet. Luke added details such as these to the stories written by Mark and/or Matthew to make them more real. We will see other instances of Luke adding logic and detail to Mark and Matthew.

Markan Priority

The concept of Markan Priority is a lynch pin of two of the proposed solutions to the Synoptic Problem. Markan Priority is the theory that The Gospel of Mark was written before The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke and that both Matthew and Luke used Mark’s Gospel in the creation of their own Gospels.²⁰ There are a number of reasons why NT scholars generally believe that Mark was the first written Gospel.

Content

Mark is a much simpler story beginning with Jesus’ baptism and ending with women discovering that his tomb is empty. There is no nativity story, genealogy, post resurrection appearances or extended sermons as found in Matthew and Luke. Since it is clear that the Synoptic Evangelists copied each other, it is unlikely that Mark would have copied Matthew or Luke and eliminated all of the material that is in those Gospels but not found in Mark. In addition Mark made a number of mistakes with history, Hebrew scripture, and Jewish law that Matthew and/or Luke corrected. The argument here is that it is unlikely that if Mark had the correct information before him that he would deliberately change the correct items to incorrect.

Wording

The Greek used by Matthew and Luke are more literary that Mark’s street’ Greek. Matthew is more poetical and Luke created memorable parables. The argument is that Mark would not have dumbed down" the more literary language of Matthew and Luke in creating his Gospel.

Length

In general when a story has been edited by subsequent authors, the story gets longer. Seldom do subsequent story tellers cut out wholesale parts of an already popular writing. Mark is the shortest of the Synoptic Gospels. The most reasonable theory is that Mark wrote a story of Jesus’ ministry from baptism to resurrection and then either Matthew or Luke added a nativity story, a genealogy, wisdom teachings (logia) and post resurrection sightings. Plus while Mark is shorter, in the pericopae or scenes that Mark has in common with Matthew and/or Luke the pericopae tend to be longer. If Mark copied either Matthew or Luke or both, it is unlikely that he would have shortened the entire Gospel, but added to the length of the individual pericopae. This is evidence that Mark was written first.

Editorial Fatigue

A clear indication of the priority of Mark’s Gospel is demonstrated by what has been called editorial fatigue.²¹ Editorial fatigue occurs when an author is using another work as a source for his own work. If his attitude about the subject is different from that of the source author, he will revise the passages he borrows from the source author. He will also correct perceived errors the source author has made. The borrowing author must be careful, however, to make all changes and correct all perceived errors of the same type. If he does not, he risks confusing his readers since the same subject will be treated differently in different passages.

For example, if, while writing his Gospel, Matthew copied a story or pericope from Mark’s Gospel, but made a slight change, he needed to consistently make that same change throughout his Gospel. A good example occurs in the differences in the story of the death of John the Baptist, found at Mark 6:14–29 and Matt 14:1–12.²² Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, reportedly killed John the Baptist. Josephus reports this in his history.²³ Herod Antipas was not a king, but a tetrarch, appointed by the Roman Emperor to rule only a portion of what had been the kingdom of Herod the Great. In his story of the death of John, Mark calls Herod king four times in vv. 22, 25, 26, and 27, an obvious error. Matthew corrects this mistake made by Mark at the beginning of the passage, calling Herod a tetrarch, but reverts to king at Matt 14:9.

Matthew made a more grievous error. In Mark’s version it is Herod’s wife, Herodias, who wants John dead.

Mark 6

19 And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, 20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.

In Matthew’s version of the story, it is not Herodias but Herod who wants John dead (Matt 14:5). Mark said at v. 26 that Herod was deeply grieved at the request for John’s head, which makes sense because Herodias’ daughter had requested something that Herod did not want to do. In Matthew’s version at v. 14:9 he also says that the king (not tetrarch) was grieved, but it makes no sense because Matthew had said earlier, that Herod wanted to put John to death (v. 14:5). It is clear that Matthew was working from Mark and failed to notice the inconsistency.

A side note at this point is that Matthew’s account that Herod wanted to kill John is consistent with Josephus’ version. In Josephus’ paragraph prior to the one in which Herod kills John, Josephus tells the story of Herod marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias, but Josephus never mentions that John disapproved of the marriage. It appears that Matthew was attempting to correct another Markan error, but failed to properly follow through. It also appears