Is Markan Priority Wrong?

[Furrowed Brow]

In forming a reply to ThatGirlAgain I took a look at Markan Priority and the accepted idea that the authors of Matthew and Luke had access to Mark. I am beginning to convince myself it was the author of Mark that had access to Matthew and Luke. Here is one argument I gave ThattheGirl

But lets look at the kind of thinking that leads to Markan Priority to test just how firm it really is and give you an idea of the kind of thing I am on about. Here is an argument given in favour of Markan priority I plucked from wiki

• 1/ the shortness of Mark and way it omits content that is in Matt and Luke. So Matt and Luke include stuff Mark leaves out which some argue is unlikely.
  2/ Most of Mark is found in Matthew or Luke. If mark was editing Matt and Luke he adds little.
  3/ What little Mark adds seems strange and ripe for editing out if Matt and Luke were editing Mark.

Seems logical and it supports the notion of the less elaborate Mark came first. OK as I write this I admit my ignorance and dont actually know how much of Mark is in Matt and how much is in Luke. But play along with me for a moment. What would be needed to make it plausible Mark was editing Matt and Luke? Lets assume the author of Mark has Luke and Matt in front of him. He samples some of each but not all. If Mark is using them as sources and they are largely his only source then it is guaranteed most of Mark will be found in Matt or Luke. We need no additional assumptions like Q and we get most of Mark in Matt and Luke without further effort. This scenario is logically simpler than a scenario that has to invent Q. Now go the next step. What if most of Mark is found in Matt and the most of Mark found in Luke. If that were true it would mean Mark was trying to form a synthesis of the two and note all the common elements. That is the only additional assumption you need. Moreover it has a compelling motivation. Mark was trying to find out what he could with confidence say was most likely true given his two sources. That is not much of an assumption.

Now go back to Markan priority. If Matt and Luke are editing Mark, to get most of Mark across both Matt and Luke they would have to have colluded to ensure the coverage or this is accidental, or far more likely one had access to the other. Say it is Luke that had had access to Matthew as you suggested earlier, then Luke edited Mark and Matthew, and Matthew edited Mark. If Q is on his desk as well that is another additional complication to the story. But it means for some reason Luke was less impressed with Matt or less willing to use Matt as a source as he was keen to use Mark. We have no clear motivation for this, and still the logically simplest solution is let Mark edit Matt and Luke

Question: Is Markan Priority wrong?

[ThatGirlAgain]

Jesus was starting his career by looking to impress synagogue leaders. But Matthew has a synagogue leader kneel to Jesus. To Matthew it is their synagogue. The only non-negative (actually neutral) things Matthew has to say about synagogues are copied from Mark.

If as you say Matthew has an anti Pharisee agenda but contains some neutral comments about synagogues and gets the neutral stuff from Mark this still does not explain why he left out Mark 1:21-28. This is obviously anti Pharisee or if it is not so obvious it is obvious how Matthew could spin it that way. But now you are saying his following Mark means he leaves in some neutral stuff, even more reason to explain why he leaves out Mark 1:21-28.

It is insufficiently anti-Pharisee. Matthew already has a church in opposition to their synagogues.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=NIV

Why does Mark not copy those negative things from Matthew?

Because these specific things is not what he heard Peter teach.

Did Peter not know about them? Or did Matthew make them up to make the new rabbinic Judaism look bad? I am not arguing against Mark having a source. I have already argued in favor of that. I am arguing that Mark came first.

And explain why Matthew is so obsessed with hating the Pharisees,

He is not so obsessed that he does not also have some neutral stuff. But if Matthew reflects a tradition that in making sense of Jesus execution it has vented resentment towards the Pharisees then that will tell in Matts account. Maybe Peter in Rome has been more cut off from that tradition.

The rancor against the Pharisees supposedly happened when Jesus was alive. Peter was not in Rome yet. The appearance of rabbinic Judaism and its migration to Syria happened after the revolt. Peter was dead and would know nothing of it. Matthew made it up. mark does not know about it because it had not happened yet when he wrote just after the destruction of Jerusalem.

]so much more than Mark or Luke, without having rabbinic Judaism encroaching on his territory.

Well who are you assuming wrote Matthew? We are each making assumptions here.

Matthew was written by someone representing the community of Jesus followers in Syria who were still observant Jews. He was writing in reaction to the incursion of the rabbinic Jewish movement created by the Pharisees, the last Jewish group left standing after the revolt due to their non-involvement.

]No, having Mark follow Matthew makes no sense.

That is not accurate. I think it makes no sense given your assumptions. That would be accurate. As a theory Mark following Matt might make less sense to you, but it would only make no sense if you cannot in any way entertain the alternative assumptions to those you are using.

I have presented an overall picture of what I think happened, tying the writing of the Synoptic Gospels to events in history. Can you offer an overall picture of equal or better explanatory value?

]If Mark got his info from Peter, how come Peter did not notice all that hatred?

How about he did as evidenced by Mark 1:21-28. Read it the way I suggested.

read what I wrote above about the synagogue representing the opposition and about matthew coming up with much better ways of conferring authority to Jesus and having him deliver his message to the people at large in a manner reminiscent of Moses. The synagogue story is not only unacceptable to Matthew, it is way obsolete.

It was the Sadducees (the priests) who had Jesus arrested and tried him, not the Pharisees, who had no such power. Jesus ticked off the Temple owning Sadducees by interfering with the profitable business of changing regular currency into Temple money necessary to pay for the mandatory Passover sacrifices. (Ever wonder why they needed Judas to find and identify Jesus? Another thread I have to start someday.)

Well the Pharisees had something to do with it according to Mark.

Mark 3:4-6 Then Jesus asked them, Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they remained silent.5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6 Then there is Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.[/quote]

Mark 8:11-15 11 The Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, to test Him. 12 Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. Leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side. 14 And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. 15 And He was giving orders to them, saying, Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

Here Jesus gives a warning against the Pharisees.

Mark 12:38-40 In His teaching He was saying: Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes, and like respectful greetings in the market places, 39 and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, 40 who devour widows houses, and for appearances sake offer long prayers; these will receive greater condemnation.

It is clear there is an anti Pharisee theme running through Mark. If Mark is a testament to Peter teachings then Peter had little liking of the Pharisees.

In Matthew 3, John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a brood of vipers. In Matthew 23 he has Jesus call the Pharisees a brood of vipers. Luke 3 only has John use the phrase. Luke is not so obsessed with hating Pharisees. Mark does not have it at all.

Mark is more understated but it is there. So if we can read into Matts use of language then that probably traces back to some anxiety in his sources or an anxiety in the author of Matt. This anxiety is not so acute in Mark. Whilst your explanation traces the anxiety back to the author of Matt if we read Matt as more a cipher for a collection of stories and a narrative that reflects what emerged from various sources in the early Christian heritage then that anxiety has emerged from the feeling of certain factions of the early Christian community. Matt is probably using the most vivid version of a story he has come across.[/quote]
If Jesus does good on the Sabbath the implication is that the Pharisees are doing evil. The irony is they immediately go hatch a plot to have Jesus killed. A pretty hard condemnation.[/quote]
The Pharisees wanted Jesus out of the way because he was trying to bring back the ways of Hillel. The Pharisees were dominated by the law-obsessed House of Shammai. Hillel preached following the spirit of the Law and not obsession with its letter. But the Pharisees in the end were not involved in the arrest and trial. It was the priests, who would have been too jealous of their power to involve their rivals.

Matthew has reason to write the vitriolic Chapter 23 based on known history. Inventing prior stories is adding an unjustified assumption. Remember my way does away with the need for Matthew to have anything but Mark and his (Matthew's) environmental circumstances.


Have to go to work. Dont know when I can deal with the rest.

[Mithrae]

I believe I have already made a pretty good case that the demons into swine pericope indicates that it was written not earlier than 67 CE. This pericope shows up in all three Synoptic Gospels. I believe that analysis of the different ways it is told indicates Markan Priority.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 7&start=23
See the two consecutive posts from me.

In summary: The story involves the presence of a herd of two thousand swine. The Roman Tenth Legion used a wild boar as its symbol in the timeframe of the First Revolt. Elements of that Legion, arguably two thousand in number, took part in the siege of a rebellious city in 67 CE. That siege ended with many of the Jewish defenders falling to their deaths trying to escape down a steep slope. Jesus tells this story in an area on the east side of the Sea of Galilee where there is a steep slope leading down to the water. Jesus casts two thousand demons whose name is Legion into pigs who run down that slope into the water. This is the way the story is told in Mark.

Matthew tells a shorter version than Mark or Luke, leaving out the name Legion and not mentioning the number.

Luke tells a story very similar to Mark, even with much common language, using the name Legion but leaving out the two thousand.

As described at length in my other posts, the name Legion and the number two thousand tie in well with a revenge fantasy based on a specific historical event. But only Mark has both and Matthew has neither. Why did Luke use the word Legion when Matthew did not? Why did Mark use the number two thousand? The most likely explanation I can see is that Mark wrote first and then Matthew and Luke used parts of his story comprehensible to them and their respective audiences. Again my belief is that Mark got his material about the Revolt from an eyewitness.

Hey ThatGirl, sorry for not replying to this in the other thread. Two obvious problems spring to mind here:
- Mark himself and his gentile (Roman?) audience probably wouldn't understand the reference in the first place
- Matthew and his Jewish audience (Galilean/Syrian, I believe you've said?) probably would get the reference, if such it was, yet he doesn't use it

Positing a Revolt eyewitness for Mark doesn't help much; presumably it'd still have to be Mark himself who decided that his audience really ought to see an obscure tale about demons called Legion taking a herd of swine into the lake at Gerasa. The perfect way to vent this (presumably) non-Galilean author's strong feelings about the fate of one small rebel town amongst the many at the time!

Furthermore, I think there's simply too little in the story to connect it to the siege of Gamala. It occurs near Gerasa instead of Gamala, and while I'm not familiar with Roman-era idioms I wouldn't be surprised if it was common to use 'legion' as we use 'army' - a synonym for a host or multitude. Mark certainly knew enough about Jewish culture to recognise that sending a herd of pigs into the lake would be poetic justice in a Jewish region, and what does it say about this Jesus that he shows that smidgeon of mercy even to demons who plead for it? The only small oddity is that the pigs (not the 'Legion') are actually numbered, and that connection to X Fretensis is somewhat dubious to us (and almost certainly unknown to Mark's readers).

I think what we've got here is simply coincidence; scholars finding an event which vaguely fits in with 'legion,' pigs and a steep slope.

Mark 13:14-17
14 When you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it does not belong"let the reader understand"then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!

This is a very interesting passage. The abomination that causes desolation is from Daniel chapters 9, 11 and 12.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abomination_of_Desolation

What Mark is referring to has been debated back and forth. It is usually taken to be something that happens in or to the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem. However note that Mark uses it as a sign of the bad times to come. By the siege it is too late to flee. Jerusalem is surrounded. What might Mark be referring to that comes before the siege. And why does Mark break the proscenium and speak directly to the reader about this?

An interesting point, and to my mind that suggests that the passage was written before the event. An abomination (which didn't actually come to pass) from over thirty years earlier is hardly a fair warning to "flee to the mountains" by any measure. Likewise, as you've pointed out, it'd be strange warning people to flee once they see that Jerusalem has fallen, the rebellion mostly crushed and tens of thousands of lives destroyed. Writing after the events, surely Mark would have put a more appropriate warning in Jesus' mouth?

Or from a different perspective, why does Mark (c71, 72 CE) want the Christians of Judea (should they ever read his work) to flee to the mountains now that they've seen the temple desolated?

On the contrary, this reads more like a genuine concern based on existing prophecy in the Tanakh. Wars and rumours of wars, nations, kingdoms and brothers rising against each other, persecution of believers and even famines and earthquakes are all rather general warnings, and in any case obviously accessible to a writer in the early or mid 60s CE. Rather than looking back to the Revolt history for a relevant warning bell, the author seems to be looking forward to prophecied events and notes the abomination as the biggie to watch for.



Apologies for neglecting this thread folks, and not really touching on the thread topic in this post. I'd meant to reply to more posts, but for now I think I'd better go to bed.

[ThatGirlAgain]

I believe I have already made a pretty good case that the demons into swine pericope indicates that it was written not earlier than 67 CE. This pericope shows up in all three Synoptic Gospels. I believe that analysis of the different ways it is told indicates Markan Priority.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 7&start=23
See the two consecutive posts from me.

In summary: The story involves the presence of a herd of two thousand swine. The Roman Tenth Legion used a wild boar as its symbol in the timeframe of the First Revolt. Elements of that Legion, arguably two thousand in number, took part in the siege of a rebellious city in 67 CE. That siege ended with many of the Jewish defenders falling to their deaths trying to escape down a steep slope. Jesus tells this story in an area on the east side of the Sea of Galilee where there is a steep slope leading down to the water. Jesus casts two thousand demons whose name is Legion into pigs who run down that slope into the water. This is the way the story is told in Mark.

Matthew tells a shorter version than Mark or Luke, leaving out the name Legion and not mentioning the number.

Luke tells a story very similar to Mark, even with much common language, using the name Legion but leaving out the two thousand.

As described at length in my other posts, the name Legion and the number two thousand tie in well with a revenge fantasy based on a specific historical event. But only Mark has both and Matthew has neither. Why did Luke use the word Legion when Matthew did not? Why did Mark use the number two thousand? The most likely explanation I can see is that Mark wrote first and then Matthew and Luke used parts of his story comprehensible to them and their respective audiences. Again my belief is that Mark got his material about the Revolt from an eyewitness.

Hey ThatGirl, sorry for not replying to this in the other thread. Two obvious problems spring to mind here:
- Mark himself and his gentile (Roman?) audience probably wouldn't understand the reference in the first place
- Matthew and his Jewish audience (Galilean/Syrian, I believe you've said?) probably would get the reference, if such it was, yet he doesn't use it

Positing a Revolt eyewitness for Mark doesn't help much; presumably it'd still have to be Mark himself who decided that his audience really ought to see an obscure tale about demons called Legion taking a herd of swine into the lake at Gerasa. The perfect way to vent this (presumably) non-Galilean author's strong feelings about the fate of one small rebel town amongst the many at the time!

Furthermore, I think there's simply too little in the story to connect it to the siege of Gamala. It occurs near Gerasa instead of Gamala, and while I'm not familiar with Roman-era idioms I wouldn't be surprised if it was common to use 'legion' as we use 'army' - a synonym for a host or multitude. Mark certainly knew enough about Jewish culture to recognise that sending a herd of pigs into the lake would be poetic justice in a Jewish region, and what does it say about this Jesus that he shows that smidgeon of mercy even to demons who plead for it? The only small oddity is that the pigs (not the 'Legion') are actually numbered, and that connection to X Fretensis is somewhat dubious to us (and almost certainly unknown to Mark's readers).

I think what we've got here is simply coincidence; scholars finding an event which vaguely fits in with 'legion,' pigs and a steep slope.

Mark 13:14-17
14 When you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it does not belong"let the reader understand"then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!

This is a very interesting passage. The abomination that causes desolation is from Daniel chapters 9, 11 and 12.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abomination_of_Desolation

What Mark is referring to has been debated back and forth. It is usually taken to be something that happens in or to the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem. However note that Mark uses it as a sign of the bad times to come. By the siege it is too late to flee. Jerusalem is surrounded. What might Mark be referring to that comes before the siege. And why does Mark break the proscenium and speak directly to the reader about this?

An interesting point, and to my mind that suggests that the passage was written before the event. An abomination (which didn't actually come to pass) from over thirty years earlier is hardly a fair warning to "flee to the mountains" by any measure. Likewise, as you've pointed out, it'd be strange warning people to flee once they see that Jerusalem has fallen, the rebellion mostly crushed and tens of thousands of lives destroyed. Writing after the events, surely Mark would have put a more appropriate warning in Jesus' mouth?

Or from a different perspective, why does Mark (c71, 72 CE) want the Christians of Judea (should they ever read his work) to flee to the mountains now that they've seen the temple desolated?

On the contrary, this reads more like a genuine concern based on existing prophecy in the Tanakh. Wars and rumours of wars, nations, kingdoms and brothers rising against each other, persecution of believers and even famines and earthquakes are all rather general warnings, and in any case obviously accessible to a writer in the early or mid 60s CE. Rather than looking back to the Revolt history for a relevant warning bell, the author seems to be looking forward to prophecied events and notes the abomination as the biggie to watch for.



Apologies for neglecting this thread folks, and not really touching on the thread topic in this post. I'd meant to reply to more posts, but for now I think I'd better go to bed.

Good stuff. But being at work and going to school in the evening makes it hard to respond properly. I will do so when I can.

[Furrowed Brow]

It is insufficiently anti-Pharisee. Matthew already has a church in opposition to their synagogues.

Insufficient? You said Mat gets his neutral comments from Mark, and Matt can just tweak the story to his own ends.

read what I wrote above about the synagogue representing the opposition and about matthew coming up with much better ways of conferring authority to Jesus and having him deliver his message to the people at large in a manner reminiscent of Moses. The synagogue story is not only unacceptable to Matthew, it is way obsolete.

Unacceptable? Hardly. That just looks like you are pushing your interpretation way too hard. Remember Matt if writing second has the advantage he can contour the material just as he wishes. This is not like Jesus family thinking he is mad. And while we are at it, if Matt wrote second he only needs tweak a word to get something like they came to support him. Mark 1:23-28 would have worked fine in Matt. By your lights he is quite prepared to add material and make stuff up, so there is no reason to think he cannot turn this passage to his own ends. I think if you look at Mark 1:21-28 long and hard you will eventually have to concede Matt just left it out for no overwhelmingly obvious reason which runs counter to the fact he otherwise uses 94% of Mark. Obsolete? Well how much else of the 94% was obsolete. To argue one section is obsolete is to argue that everything else Matt carried over was motivated and not obsolete. Maybe so, I dont feel in the mood to carry out that fine grained an analysis but on balance Id say the omission does not devastate your version but it does weaken it and expose a problem.

Did Peter not know about them?

Given the alternative assumptions Im using then the answer is the specific material in Matt not in Mark is material that does not feature in Peters teachings and thus it is likely he did not know about them. This answer is true for you interpretation if only that it applies to Mark, which there is some main player in all this that did not seem to know.

Or did Matthew make them up to make the new rabbinic Judaism look bad?

On your view Matt has political motivations to do with his local circumstance, and we get Matthew's personal concerns in the text. On my view Matt is writing for and reflecting the fears of the whole Christian community with less of Matthew in the text.

The rancor against the Pharisees supposedly happened when Jesus was alive. Peter was not in Rome yet.

And Marks account is anti Pharisee, but Matt has collated material that underlines the theme with a heavier pencil. This could just come down to the different personalities of the original witnesses. Maybe Peter aware of his own denial of Jesus is just a little more reticent. It maybe that the material in Matt reflects a hardening of tone of the early Christian community outside of Rome as they retell the stories and see that the Pharisees are still in place and still have the hegemony. There is no major assumption regarding Matt need be made to get these differences in tone and emphasis, and the assumptions just point to a realistic evolution of Christian lore. There are several ways that an oral tradition can diverge and material and tone of Peters teachings (which is probably the more constant) finds itself half a pace out of step with the attitudes and ideas of the community he left behind.

The appearance of rabbinic Judaism and its migration to Syria happened after the revolt. Peter was dead and would know nothing of it. Matthew made it up. Mark does not know about it because it had not happened yet when he wrote just after the destruction of Jerusalem.

Yes that is one way to rationalise the evidence based on different assumptions. Im not saying it does not make sense. I would agree with the thrust of Mithraes observations and add that you are stretching and over inflating points a tad more than you are letting on.

Matthew was written by someone representing the community of Jesus followers in Syria who were still observant Jews. He was writing in reaction to the incursion of the rabbinic Jewish movement created by the Pharisees, the last Jewish group left standing after the revolt due to their non-involvement.

I think this is your working assumption and what you are doing is bending the evidence to meet that assumption. We all do that and maybe overall your interpretation requires expending less energy, but to assess that clearly some hard headed objectivity would do your version a power of good.

Matthew has reason to write the vitriolic Chapter 23 based on known history. Inventing prior stories is adding an unjustified assumption. Remember my way does away with the need for Matthew to have anything but Mark and his (Matthew's) environmental circumstances.

Inventing? Unjustified? Yee josh with me. I am saying that Matt sounds the way he does because that is how the stories he is telling were told, and there is sufficient justification within that history to explain Matts tone. What I am also saying is the anti Pharisee rhetoric is more to do with where Matt got his stories than with Matt.

I have presented an overall picture of what I think happened, tying the writing of the Synoptic Gospels to events in history. Can you offer an overall picture of equal or better explanatory value?

My views are evolving as I read more and I am playing with dates at the moment to see how they pan out At the moment I am thinking the similarity between three synoptic Gospels indicates proximity of time and context. So they were written closer together within say a 10 year period, maybe within 5 years. They were written by contemporaries and it is possible the authors had met or knew of each other, though wrote alone. It is more like Luke and Mark met. All three gospels were written after the death of Peter and within a few years. Peters death is significant because it stimulates a burst of writing. The Jewish rebellion and memories of Neros persecution also may have spurred things on. There is panic in the air and all these events lead to Matt around 69 C.E.. And as Mythrae points out Matthew use of language emphasises the return of Christ and the prophets. Matthews gospel seeks reassurance in turbulent times when the last of the first generation of followers are old or dead or scattered, and the new crop of leaders were only young when Jesus lead the minsitry.

Matt reflects all the well known or widely distributed stories Matthew could find. Matthews project is to try and draw all the teachings attributed to Jesus held in oral tradition or scattered writings together to form a single cohesive reassuring narrative. There is no single large text detailing Jesus biography and teachings before Matt. There is no Q. There cant be. Matt is the first of its kind.

Matt may have visited Rome and saw Peter teach but is not close to Peter as is Mark. If Matt had not seen Peter his teachings would certainly have reached him maybe even copies of notes made by Mark. Matt is probably of higher status than Mark and better educated as he is tasked with or gives himself the task of pulling together Christian lore into a single document. He is either the Matthew described by Papias or someone like him. Matthew is not Aramaic. However he is most probably second (or maybe even third) generaton Christian. He sees himself as old blood. Much like some modern Americans trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower. In addition to his parents and older members of his famility it is likely he had not met another contemporary of Jesus. However he has been brought up with and imbibed all the old stories and is a true believer.

Matthews material would include Peters teachings which would be certainly part of the Christian lore he was drawing together. Matt is intending to write for the whole Christian community and so writes in Greek first which he translates into Hebrew. The Hebrew copy he sends back to the oldest communities (maybe even his familiy) for them to see first or ffor approval before disseminating the Greek version (the international lingua franca).

Matt by reaching out to other sources indicates that in some respects he found Peters teachings insufficient or incomplete. Matt reflects the concerns of the early Christian community because these are their words, stories, and ideas. Matt does not have much of an agenda himself other than to get it all down in writing and present it all as a single cohesive narrative that sets Jesus life in the context of the prophets and prophecy. He would most likely select versions of the material that was most vivid or struck a chord, or most apt for the times. Where he could he would tie Jesus life to prophecy and the words of the prophets. But that is different from Matt consciously writing to an agenda. For example Jesus genealogy tracing back to Abraham was not Matts invention. This genealogy would have had its roots in the some of the earliest Christian lore already in place as Matt writes. However if it was not a mainstream idea that does not mean Matthew would not have used it. He was trying to write a biography. If he had no other information about Jesus birth he would have used the stories he had available. If he had say a collection of sayings he would not be averse to spinning them into a single cohesive passage. On this view we get a reasonably reliably Matt as a witness to what a wider number of early Christians were saying and believing by around the middle to late middle of the 1st century. However the narrative is down to Matthew and he is not averse to marshalling material that is likely spurious if it aids the narrative. If some Christian somewhere said a something about Jesus and this gained even a little currency and Matt thought he could use it then he would use it.

Being of higher status Mathews gospel begins to be widely distributed throughout the Christian community. A copy reaches Mark and he is tasked or gives himself the task of validating Matt. Mark is also Papias Mark. The material collated in Matt that Mark cannot vouch for as Peters teachings he leaves out, and he adds a limited amount of material that reflects Peters voice and one story Matt leaves out. This explains why Mark covers 94% of the material found in Matt. The material Mark does not cover means he is unable to vouch for its provenance. The implication is that material such as the sermon on the mount, genealogy, nativity and resurrection narrative were not a feature of Christian lore when Peter first left Judea behind. This material had not yet emerged as part of the story. The sermon on the mount for example was probably synthesised by Matthew from Hebrew sayings attributed to Jesus by Matthew (as per Papias) i.e. the content of the sermon was not the record of a single event.

Mark writes around 70-71 C.E. Though he is Peters interpreter he is not so well educated as Matthew, a story teller. Certainly Marks Greek grammar and turn of phrase are not so refined. Given these dates it is likely that when Mark is writing he would have been aware of the poignancy of the destruction of the temple in light of Jesus prophecy, and maybe he would have felt the prophecy had been realised, but the material he keeps is true to Peters teachings, his voice, and the more personal Jesus shows through in Mark. So on this reading Mark is a reliable witness of Peters teachings and by implication our most reliable gospel to the oldest core teachings about Jesus. Problems with Galilean and Judean geography and Jewish custom in Mark stem from Mark being Roman.

Marks gospel is not distributed with anything like the penetration of Matt. This is because Mark is of lower status and because his account looks abridged when compared to Matt. This lack of distribution we see today in the lack of surviving papyrus, however it likely means Luke met or was close to Mark and also wrote in or around Rome around 71-75 C.E. Luke is likely to be the Luke traditionally associated as the companion of Paul. He is well educated and again of higher status than Mark. When Luke writes he has a copy of both Matt and Mark which explains how he is able to reference Mark 1: 23-28 when this material is not in Matt. Luke unlike Matthew and Mark is writing with a new audience in mind and he has a conscious agenda. Luke is thus a far less reliable witness as to earlier Christian lore, and is more likely to be manipulating material to manufacture a cosmic Jesus that appeals to the poor and working classes and the most open to superstition. Luke rewrites Matts genealogyto reflect his more cosmic Jesus. Luke also correct Marks poor grammar.

[Mithrae]

Howdy again folks. Finally got 'round to reading the rest of the thread, so I'll try to quickly share my thoughts on some main points. They're fairly general thoughts on the discussion, though I'll reference specific posts.

It is clear from this story that the author of Mark thought that Gerasa to be a town situated near the Sea of Galilee. Unfortunately Gerasa is more than 30 miles to the southeast of the Sea of Galilee, hardly the most convenient location for drowning the pigs.

(Matthew relocates the demoniac to Gadara, which is only six miles from the lakeshore but still a fair trot for your average pig.)

And given as you say Matt is hardly any better this suggest this story is more myth than fact. But the point is that Mark would not know that. Hes only got Peters word and a copy of Matt.

I'm not sure it's a problem in Matthew; the gospels put the incident in the country/region of the Gerasenes/Gadarenes, not necessarily in the actual towns. Student or ThatGirl are more likely to have genuine information on the subject, but the lakeshore six miles away wouldn't seem much of a stretch for 'region of the Gadarenes' to my mind.

But I think that overall this counts against the view that Matthew wrote first. There's four possibilities here:
1 - 'Peter' got the name wrong, and Matthew corrected Mark
2 - Mark remembered the name wrong, and Matthew corrected Mark
3 - 'Peter' got the name wrong, and Mark chose that over Matthew's version
4 - Mark misremembered, but was sure enough of himself to 'correct' Matthew

Since it involves correction or validation of parts of Matthew, your theory almost requires that Mark had an authoritative witness of Jesus' ministry (Peter being the obvious choice of course). It's unlikely that Mark's geographical errors can be blamed as failures of a witness who'd actually been there; not impossible, but quite improbable. Given the choice between #2 and #4, I think that #2 again seems more likely. Nothing conclusive of course, but I think Markan priority explains the scenario best.

Mark is resetting the clock to make the destruction of the Temple the real opening of the messianic age. He is simultaneously separating the Jesus movement from the recent and horrible war. Revolt was not the true messianic way no matter what people thought. This is why Mark has everyone constantly misunderstanding Jesus. The military messiah idea recently smashed down by the Romans is not where Jesus was at. Anyone who thought so was wrong. Why, Jesus even wanted his messiah status kept secret, not shouted from the rooftops to energize an army of rebels. That is what Mark is saying: Jesus is not a revolutionary messiah.

I've seen mention of Mark's 'messianic secret' several times before; but Wikipedia doesn't give a particularly promising overview of it (first proposed in 1901?) and it's never really sprung out at me as a reader. Is it a strong enough theme as to defy other explanations? For example Jesus' humility; or not wanting his followers associated too much with the enmities he was earning; or as you say, not wanting to appear a revolutionary figure, but in his own time, not as some anachronistic theme of Mark's. Maybe Jesus really did tell people not to talk about him too much early on.

I'd also question whether this isn't attributing too much of a purposeful agenda to a fellow who apparently wasn't none too bright at grammar or geography. His first task in composing a gospel would be collecting the stories he'd heard about Jesus, or invent some of his own. Secondly he'd have to structure them into a coherent narrative format. Did he also thirdly nuance those stories specifically to place subtle emphasis on current socio-political concerns? It's not impossible, but as I say when they're themes which don't exactly leap off the page I wonder if it's not attributing just a little bit too much guile to what seems on face value a relatively simple writer.

Off the top of my head there's only two stories in Mark which support your idea (in a 'leap off the page' kinda way); Peter's confession of Christ and paying taxes to Caesar. If the gospel were written around Rome in the mid- to late 60s CE, what are those stories saying to the immediate readers (if we read them that way)? Essentially keep your heads down and be good citizens; sound and simple advice in the years after Nero's use of Christians as scapegoats for the burning of Rome. Do we really need to postulate some grander anachronistic theme of distancing the Christ-movement from Jewish revolutionary-messiah movements, any more than Jesus himself may have done?

But does Matthew have a special reason for not using a synagogue? Yes indeed. Matthew is writing his Gospel in opposition to the Pharisees, the religious leaders migrating up from devastated Jerusalem and claiming to be the inheritors of mainstream Judaism. Matthews Jesus does not have to justify himself before the likes of these. Many of the references to synagogues in Matthew have a negative flavor.

A Matthew 6:2 So when you give to he needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues

A Matthew 6:5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues

B Matthew 9:18 While he was saying this a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live
Jesus is superior to the synagogue leader.

C Matthew 12:9-10 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
The synagogue authorities want to trap Jesus.

D Matthew 13:54-57 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? they asked. Isnt this the carpenters son? Isnt his mothers name Mary, and arent his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Arent all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offense at him.
Echoes of Mark 1:21-28 but turned around. The authority of Jesus does not come via the synagogue.

E Matthew 23:6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues

F Matthew 23:34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
The you is the Pharisees. This is the Chapter 23 diatribe.

Matthews omission of Mark 1:21-28 is intentional and in keeping with his overall agenda. The Gospels should not be viewed as a set of Legos, trying to see who put what pieces where. They should be viewed as separate works with each author addressing his own purposes with the freedom to include, omit or invent as he sees fit.

I've lettered those points for simplicity.
A - These are not so different from Mark 12:38-40; the negativity/condemnation is directed at hypocrisy or the love of praise from men, not against the synagogue itself.
B - This doesn't appear to specify a synagogue ruler (concordance). I swore off the most recent NIV when I saw they were using 'Jewish leaders' to accuse Jesus in John's trial scene; biblegateway.com still has the more reliable 1984 NIV available, fortunately. Interestingly, Mark does specify a synagogue ruler kneeling before Jesus (5:22), so Matthew's alteration counts against the view that he's anti-synagogue.
C - This also appears in Mark, so Matthew doesn't appear to have a specific agenda.
D - This also appears in Mark, so Matthew doesn't appear to have a specific agenda.
E and F - It's an expansion on Mark 12:38-40, but obviously does emphasise anti-Pharasaic sentiment considerably.

Overall I think Furrowed is correct in pointing out that Mark also portrays plenty of tension between Jesus and the Pharisees; Matthew expands/emphasises that somewhat, but not exceptionally so. Nor does he seem to have an anti-synagogue agenda (though as you note, Matthew's community has the 'church' instead); he omits the specificity of a synagogue ruler kneeling to Jesus, and as in Mark Jesus begins his ministry teaching in synagogues (Matt 4:23, repeated in 9:35).

Jesus was starting his career by looking to impress synagogue leaders. But Matthew has a synagogue leader kneel to Jesus. To Matthew it is their synagogue. The only non-negative (actually neutral) things Matthew has to say about synagogues are copied from Mark.

If as you say Matthew has an anti Pharisee agenda but contains some neutral comments about synagogues and gets the neutral stuff from Mark this still does not explain why he left out Mark 1:21-28. This is obviously anti Pharisee or if it is not so obvious it is obvious how Matthew could spin it that way. But now you are saying his following Mark means he leaves in some neutral stuff, even more reason to explain why he leaves out Mark 1:21-28.

Pending a convincing explanation, I agree that this is an oddity for Markan priority. Of course, it's always possible that Matthew simply slipped up and missed it; if that's the only unexplained omission, it's hardly a deathblow to the theory.

By contrast your theory has far, far more omissions by Mark. Papias says nothing about Mark correcting/validating what was written by Matthew against what Peter had taught - that's your own theory. However Papias does say that Mark sought to omit nothing that Peter had said. An interesting thought that, now that it occurs to me:

The logical basis with which you started your argument was a need to explain how/why Matthew (and Luke, initially) covered such a huge percentage of Mark's material. But given Papias' claim that Mark was Peter's interpreter and seeking to include everything he'd learned from him and nothing else, your argument turns on its head. How can you explain that 'Matthew' managed to cover such a huge percentage (some 94%) of the material which Peter's own interpreter had heard from him? It's really not that hard to imagine Matthew covering as much of Mark's written material as he felt appropriate; it's much harder to imagine that he, with no particular known connection to Peter (or an alternative source for Mark), would somehow manage to cover such a huge portion of what Mark himself had heard!

And in addition there's the problem of all the material Mark omitted, as I was going to write previously. Papias says nothing about Mark correcting/verifying some other gospel, so it's your own supposition that all the material Mark omits was on the basis that he hadn't heard it from his own source. Markan priority entails one single story about the Capernaum demoniac which I have not yet been convinced of a sound explanation - yet maybe ThatGirl is right, or we could easily suppose that Matthew simply missed it by accident. Your supposition is far greater, and on the basis of no better evidence.

However, I think that little epiphany about Matthew somehow covering so much of the material known to Peter's interpreter pretty much clinches the argument, as far as your specific theory goes Wish I'd thought of it earlier.

Matt by reaching out to other sources indicates that in some respects he found Peters teachings insufficient or incomplete. Matt reflects the concerns of the early Christian community because these are their words, stories, and ideas. Matt does not have much of an agenda himself other than to get it all down in writing and present it all as a single cohesive narrative that sets Jesus life in the context of the prophets and prophecy. He would most likely select versions of the material that was most vivid or struck a chord, or most apt for the times. Where he could he would tie Jesus life to prophecy and the words of the prophets. But that is different from Matt consciously writing to an agenda. For example Jesus genealogy tracing back to Abraham was not Matts invention. This genealogy would have had its roots in the some of the earliest Christian lore already in place as Matt writes.

I have to disagree with this. I think I more or less agree with ThatGirl's take on Matthew, except I understand that she'd have him writing 5-10 years later than my 70-74 date - thus she sees strong opposition to emerging rabbinic Judaism expressed in polemic against Pharasaic/synagogue institutions, whereas I see concern about where opposition from mainstream Judaism might come after the war and essential destruction of the Saducees.

What is clear is that Matthew definitely had an agenda rooted in Jewish concerns. I forget why, but I started noticing it six or seven years ago from his nativity story; possibly from discussing the very genealogy you mention. Comparing Matthew's genealogy with the one found in 1 Chronicles 3, we can see that Matthew removed three generations from Jesus' supposed ancestry to get his 14/14/14 pattern (and I think he's inconsistent in his measurement of the first two 14s, though I'm too lazy to check atm).

According to Matthew's tale, Jesus' mother acquired him without any sexual activity. While the Isaiah 7:14/Septuagint mistranslation is well-known, it's worth noting that Pharoah's daughter also acquired Moses without sexual activity. As a child Matthew's Jesus escaped being killed by a king by fleeing to a foreign land; Moses' homeland as it turns out. Moses also escaped Pharoah's wrath by fleeing to Midian. After that Pharoah had died Moses returned, and so did Matthew's Jesus once Herod was dead. Moses had Aaron as his spokesman, Jesus had John as his herald (though that's not a theme of Matthew alone). God initially gave Moses three signs for Pharoah (Exodus 4), while Jesus received three temptations.

(I actually think that the (Q) story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness after his baptism and proclamation by the Holy Spirit fits better with Elijah fleeing to the wilderness after his confrontation and the subsequent rains (1 Kings 18-19). For 40 days he traveled to Horeb, where on the mountainside he saw a great wind, an earthquake and a fire - but God was in none of these. Finally God appeared in a quiet whisper and told Elijah his mission. That comparison and the nature of his temptations tell a beautiful story about Jesus learning what the heck he's meant to be actually doing in his role as Messiah. But I'm not sure there's room for that in Matthew's high-and-mighty picture of Jesus, which could provide a good argument for the Q source.)

Regardless, it's clear that there's a specifically Jewish agenda shaping these early chapters of Matthew. Then we go on to read the Sermon on the Mount, where he says that he hasn't come to abolish the law and prophets but to fulfill them, and the claim that one's righteousness must exceed the teachers of the law and Pharisees. And then the repeated pattern "You have heard that it was said... / But I say to you..." always putting increased emphasis on the compassionate elements in Mosaic law and Jewish custom. No doubt there's a lot more to the Jewish themes of Matthew which ThatGirl could start another thread on, but I think this makes the point sufficiently. As a final note, Matthew is the only gospel to claim that the temple veil was torn in two at Jesus death (27:51), with obvious Jewish-symbolic meaning.



Anyways, it's time that I lay me down to sleep. Enjoy

[Student]

The poor grammar argument eventually just breaks down into personal opinion. Hardly holed.

The question of Marks poorer grammar is not a question of personal opinion. It is a matter of fact. You may try to ignore the problem but it is a fact that you have singularly failed to address.

Your scenario, regarding copying & spelling mistakes, does not provide a reasonable depiction of Marks grammatical errors, or anything like an adequate explanation of how those errors might have arisen. Let us be clear, we are not talking about spelling mistakes, we are talking about grammatical errors; spelling mistakes and grammatical errors are entirely different both in origination and replication.

Mark knows how to spell the words correctly, that isnt his problem. Rather, he chooses the wrong form of the word or an inappropriate word. These errors are only apparent in Greek and not in receptor languages e.g. English or Latin where translation [or indeed the lack of inflection in the receptor language] has smoothed out or obscured the problem.

Anyone acquainted with the demands of learning a foreign language will recognise the different levels of skill required a) to simply copy a passage out, b) to read a passage and comprehend its meaning and c) to compose something from scratch particularly if you are required to write without the aide of a grammar or lexicon.

To such a person it would be immediately apparent that the mistakes Mark made were the errors more closely associated with composition rather than those encountered when copying.

If Mark was making a prcis of Matthew he has before him an exemplar to copy. Mark doesnt need to search for the correct word or phrase. He wouldnt have to struggle for the correct word for bed or the particular form of accusative case, he would have them before him and he would have used them.

Presumably Mark would have recognised that in Matthews account Jesus commands the disciples to lead [] the ass and its colt to him. Or do we envisage Mark deliberately perpetrating a Pythonesque parody of Matthew by having Jesus instruct the disciples to carry [] the colt to him?

Put simply, the only feasible explanation for Marks grammatical errors is that Mark had nothing except his own capabilities and capacity in Greek with which to work. He wrote first.

Matthew and Luke subsequently use Mark and correct his poorer Greek.

However, Matthew and Luke dont always correct Mark in exactly the same way, for example they dont always use the same word or words, but they do improve the general quality of Marks grammar as well as improving the literary quality of the text by removing many of his colloquialisms.

But if we compare in particular the linguistic usage of Matthew and Luke with that of Mark, we see Matthew and Luke often change, in similar or different manner, the folk and Semitically coloured text of Mark to better Greek, or also that only Matthew or Luke undertakes such a change. [W.G. Kmmel; Introduction to the New Testament; p48]

Sometimes Matthew makes changes to Marks text but loses site of Marks subject. Consequently Matthews narrative makes little sense unless you read the parallel story in Mark. For example in Mt 3:16 the immediately before he stepped up from the water is slightly ridiculous ~ perhaps the Jordan was cold and Jesus couldnt wait to get out! However the immediately is easily explained by Mk 1:10 where immediately refers to Jesus perception of the heavens dividing, after he had been baptised.

In Mt 9:2 there is little reason to merit the comment, Jesus seeing their faith; fair enough, the men had carried the paralytic on his bed but that was hardly a remarkable demonstration of faith. However Mk 2:4 reports that they resorted to getting the sick man to Jesus by breaking through the roof and lowering the man on his pallet [Mark uses a slang word for bed]. Such an unusual demonstration of faith was worthy of the comment.

In these examples it is easy to see how Matthews changes might result in the loss of meaning. The converse is much more difficult to comprehend. How could Mark, with his poorer command of Greek, so manipulate Matthews text as to produce the more coherent narrative?

The logical answer, Mark didn't manipulate Matthew's text; Mark wrote first.

[Furrowed Brow]

The poor grammar argument eventually just breaks down into personal opinion. Hardly holed.

The question of Marks poorer grammar is not a question of personal opinion. It is a matter of fact. You may try to ignore the problem but it is a fact that you have singularly failed to address.

Sorry you seem to misunderstand the point I was making. The opinion lies in how to interpret the data. You are using the poor grammar argument to suggest that Matthew and Luke followed Mark. This seems to be a standard argument for Markan Priority. I am pointing out the logic is flawed if it is thought this is an argument that supports that Priority, for the reason poor grammar can also be used to support an alternative priority. The problem then breaks down into a matter of opinions as to what the data is telling us.

Your scenario, regarding copying & spelling mistakes, does not provide a reasonable depiction of Marks grammatical errors, or anything like an adequate explanation of how those errors might have arisen.

The counterfactuals I provided were to show that the logic employed by Markan Prioirty is fundamentally faulty. But lets deal with the facts then. Two things we know for sure are:

• 1/ the author of Mark has less than perfect Greek grammar and his Greek is more vulgar.
  2/ the authors of Matt and Luke have a polished Greek.

Markan Prioirity says that it makes more sense for Mark to be more polished if he followed Matt or Luke and that it makes less sense to argue otherwise.

Let us be clear, we are not talking about spelling mistakes, we are talking about grammatical errors; spelling mistakes and grammatical errors are entirely different both in origination and replication.

OK.

Mark knows how to spell the words correctly, that isnt his problem. Rather, he chooses the wrong form of the word or an inappropriate word. These errors are only apparent in Greek and not in receptor languages e.g. English or Latin where translation [or indeed the lack of inflection in the receptor language] has smoothed out or obscured the problem.

Given that Mark has rough Greek Grammar this suggests that his first language was not Greek, and that he has learnt a vulgar form of Greek and not the polished form. I am suggesting Marks first language will probably be Latin and he has first learnt his grammar from the street or a casual setting.

Anyone acquainted with the demands of learning a foreign language will recognise the different levels of skill required a) to simply copy a passage out, b) to read a passage and comprehend its meaning and c) to compose something from scratch particularly if you are required to write without the aide of a grammar or lexicon.

OK. But I am not saying Mark is just copying Matthew. More like he is sitting down to record the teaching of Peter and he is using Matthew as an aid, and in doing that he is validating material use by Matthew. Mark can only use what he heard Peter teach and he writes it in the way he heard it or first translated himself. If he fails to polish his Greek this means his competency is not sufficient to recognise the difference between polished and vulgar, and the occasional poor grammatical errors to which he is prone. He does not use Matthews wording when his own memories and proximity to Peter are a stronger influence. I do not think Mark is writing from scratch and do not know what his error rate would be like if he did.

To such a person it would be immediately apparent that the mistakes Mark made were the errors more closely associated with composition rather than those encountered when copying.

If this is true and then it would certainly work as an argument to support Markan Priority. But as I point before this kind of analysis is lacking a base line. We have no document written by Mark that we can definitively state is his own composition and with which to compare the rate of errors and vulgarities. Without that an expert on Greek grammar can state the dozen or so errors in Mark look like composition errors, but until we have a base line for Mark and we know just how good or bad is his error rate then this remains a guess. Not recognising the need for a test document to form a base line is an example of faulty logic.

If Mark was making a prcis of Matthew he has before him an exemplar to copy. Mark doesnt need to search for the correct word or phrase. He wouldnt have to struggle for the correct word for bed or the particular form of accusative case, he would have them before him and he would have used them.

The explanation is that Mark is using Matthew and he is validating what he can based on what he has been taught. In this sense he is not copying Matthew. Mark is working from his own privileged information. So if Mark deliberately adds or changes material when he thinks Matthew is moving away from how Peter taught it or phrased it.

Lets take an example of incorrect grammar provided by Styler. Matthews correct grammar at Mt. 19:20 is shorter and more polished than Marks incorrect Mk. 10:20 - . If as you say Matthew followed Mark then clearly Marks grammar is less than perfect, and it is easy to see how and why Matthew would want to correct Marks poor grammar. I accept that point. So if Mark follows Matthew your argument means Mark would have been more likely followed Matthew and polished his grammar in line with Matthew and so there would not be evidence of rough grammar in Mark. So I get that too. But here is the thing Stephens 1550 Textus Receptus, Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority all prefer to translate Matthew 19:20 with the longer and construction - - . Reference. Ok all these version are much later but it clearly shows a tradition of associating the longer construction with Matthew 19.20. And these guys were in a position to copy or at least carefully assess their grammar. Only the Alexandrian and Hort and Westcott provide the shorter polished construction. And Alexandrian type texts prefer polished Greek.

So whilst I accept Matthew corrects Mark is one way to rationalises the data I do not think that it follows that Mark would have polished up his act if he was following Matthew (at least as far as this one verse goes).

Lets take Kummels point and the difficult construction (Mk. 2:7) which is changed in different ways by Matthew and Luke. If Kummel is correct then Matt and Luke are trying to iron out Marks grammar. But if Mark wrote second and was say following Matthew then in this passage Mark reverting to a more difficult construction indicates he is not simply copying Matthew but is referencing original conversations and translations of Peter. Where Mark or Luke use a Latinism rather than a vulgar Greek word this would be explained by Mark reverting to how he heard and first translated the story through Peter. If Matthew introduced words that do not sound right as coming from Peter then Mark would want to correct this, Just as he would be inclined to change Matt back to wording that reflects the Aramaic speaker Mark is closer too.

Really this all comes down to how much Mark would be influenced by Matthew. The Markan Priority argument needs to insist that Mark would have followed the polishes in Matthew. But the logic is not sound, and amounts to an educated opinion. I am also giving a scenario and less educated opinion that explains why he wouldn't.

Presumably Mark would have recognised that in Matthews account Jesus commands the disciples to lead [] the ass and its colt to him. Or do we envisage Mark deliberately perpetrating a Pythonesque parody of Matthew by having Jesus instruct the disciples to carry [] the colt to him?

No deliberate parody. Exposing himself to potential parody would have been unwitting. The point is lost on Mark. It is lost on him if he writes first, and it is lost on him if he writes second. If the point is lost on him there is no pressing need to think he might correct himself if he gets to see how Matthew writes it. So Mark writes it as he as he heard it from Peter.

Put simply, the only feasible explanation for Marks grammatical errors is that Mark had nothing except his own capabilities and capacity in Greek with which to work.

Please quantify that capacity? How do you assess Marks capabilities? What base line are you using to make that measure?

He wrote first.

Yes. It is possible to reach that conclusion if ignores the need for a base line.

However, Matthew and Luke dont always correct Mark in exactly the same way, for example they dont always use the same word or words, but they do improve the general quality of Marks grammar as well as improving the literary quality of the text by removing many of his colloquialisms.

Again why would we presume that if Mark followed Matt or Luke he would use polished Greek he gleans from them in favour of colloquialisms? That is not the picture of Mark I am working with.

But if we compare in particular the linguistic usage of Matthew and Luke with that of Mark, we see Matthew and Luke often change, in similar or different manner, the folk and Semitically coloured text of Mark to better Greek, or also that only Matthew or Luke undertakes such a change. [W.G. Kmmel; Introduction to the New Testament; p48]

Again. It is just as easily explained if Mark writes second and writes in his usual style following the language in which he heard Peters teachings, and Marks resistance to polished Greek and Latinisms is explained by the influence of being closer to an actual eye witness , spending plenty of time with that witness, and a level of competency in Greek that at times means he misses the need to make a change. As in the example you gave of carrying the colt.

Sometimes Matthew makes changes to Marks text but loses site of Marks subject. Consequently Matthews narrative makes little sense unless you read the parallel story in Mark. For example in Mt 3:16 the immediately before he stepped up from the water is slightly ridiculous ~ perhaps the Jordan was cold and Jesus couldnt wait to get out! However the immediately is easily explained by Mk 1:10 where immediately refers to Jesus perception of the heavens dividing, after he had been baptised.

And so this makes it look like Matt is getting his information second hand and maybe misunderstanding what he is reading. This would be true if Matthew wrote first and got his material from other sources, or if he gets his material from Mark. If Matthew makes less sense this does not mean Matthew accesses Mark. I have been arguing Mark is much closer to an eye witness than Matthew. So it makes sense the material in Mark would at times make more sense than Matthew.

VIn Mt 9:2 there is little reason to merit the comment, Jesus seeing their faith; fair enough, the men had carried the paralytic on his bed but that was hardly a remarkable demonstration of faith. However Mk 2:4 reports that they resorted to getting the sick man to Jesus by breaking through the roof and lowering the man on his pallet [Mark uses a slang word for bed]. Such an unusual demonstration of faith was worthy of the comment.

Yes. And hopefully you can concede that it would make sense for Mark to add that if that was how he was taught it by Peter. Matthew would be missing an important aspect of the story that needed to be included so Mark makes sure it is.

In these examples it is easy to see how Matthews changes might result in the loss of meaning. The converse is much more difficult to comprehend.

No it is not. Im finding it very easy to comprehend. Mark is much closer to Peter. He has a more intimate knowledge of Peters teachings and had privileged knowledge not available to Matthew. Where and when Mark elaborates or adds stuff he is doing so to preserve the story as it was taught by Peter. It is a simple premise and works quite well I think.

How could Mark, with his poorer command of Greek, so manipulate Matthews text as to produce the more coherent narrative?

Because Mark is just following the narrative provided by Peter. At no point am I saying Mark is composing his own narrative.

The logical answer, Mark didn't manipulate Matthew's text; Mark wrote first.

Ill repeat my general complaint against the Markan priority. It is starting with the premise Mark wrote first and rationalising the data to fit that premise and it requires making additional assumptions about Mark. That is Ok so long as everyone keeps that in clear sight. As I say maybe this is the strongest interpretation, but my point has been that if it is it is still thin stuff based on some faulty logic that folk often times fails to notice can swing both ways.

[ThatGirlAgain]

It is insufficiently anti-Pharisee. Matthew already has a church in opposition to their synagogues.

Insufficient? You said Mat gets his neutral comments from Mark, and Matt can just tweak the story to his own ends.

Matthew tweaks the story by not having Jesus introduce himself in a synagogue, which would imply that he needed to prove himself to the Jewish establishment. At the time Matthew is writing, the only remaining Jewish establishment of any consequence is the Pharisees and they are encroaching on Matthews territory. Read Matthew 23 again and see how Jesus feels about the Jewish establishment in Matthews version. Mark wanted to establish the authority of Jesus by impressing the establishment. To Matthew the establishment is the enemy. Jesus going to their place of power and authority to impress them is unacceptable to Matthew.

read what I wrote above about the synagogue representing the opposition and about Matthew coming up with much better ways of conferring authority to Jesus and having him deliver his message to the people at large in a manner reminiscent of Moses. The synagogue story is not only unacceptable to Matthew, it is way obsolete.

Unacceptable? Hardly. That just looks like you are pushing your interpretation way too hard. Remember Matt if writing second has the advantage he can contour the material just as he wishes. This is not like Jesus family thinking he is mad. And while we are at it, if Matt wrote second he only needs tweak a word to get something like they came to support him. Mark 1:23-28 would have worked fine in Matt. By your lights he is quite prepared to add material and make stuff up, so there is no reason to think he cannot turn this passage to his own ends. I think if you look at Mark 1:21-28 long and hard you will eventually have to concede Matt just left it out for no overwhelmingly obvious reason which runs counter to the fact he otherwise uses 94% of Mark. Obsolete? Well how much else of the 94% was obsolete. To argue one section is obsolete is to argue that everything else Matt carried over was motivated and not obsolete. Maybe so, I dont feel in the mood to carry out that fine grained an analysis but on balance Id say the omission does not devastate your version but it does weaken it and expose a problem.

The synagogue section is obsolete because Matthew has provided much more compelling and acceptable source of authority. He needs to make that substitution because, as I have explained several times but you do not seem to want to address, the synagogue scene makes Jesus want to impress the Jewish establishment. Matthew is telling a much bigger story with much more inherent authority. If Matthew wrote first and Mark is taking only the things that jibe with Peter, then Peter does not know the Genealogy, the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the rabid diatribe against the Pharisees among other things. But Matthew, supposedly an Apostle, does know about them. How come? But if Mark wrote first and Matthew expanded Marks story to address the rabbinic Judaism crisis in his community, then it all makes sense.

Got work to do. Be back when I can.

[Furrowed Brow]

But I think that overall this counts against the view that Matthew wrote first. There's four possibilities here:
1 - 'Peter' got the name wrong, and Matthew corrected Mark
2 - Mark remembered the name wrong, and Matthew corrected Mark
3 - 'Peter' got the name wrong, and Mark chose that over Matthew's version
4 - Mark misremembered, but was sure enough of himself to 'correct' Matthew

It's unlikely that Mark's geographical errors can be blamed as failures of a witness who'd actually been there; not impossible, but quite improbable.

Lets play with the crazy idea no pigs ever got drowned anywhere and certainly not at Gerasa, thus there is no actual eye witness to this event and someone made it up. In which case Peter was not there to see it and is making the story up or embellishing some older folklore or he got it from another disciple. If the story is not based on a real event we do not have a pressing reason to give Peter local knowledge of the proximity of Gerasa to the sea of Galilee. Peter does not get the name wrong in one sense because the event is not real, however it makes it very likely he never visited the location in the story. And to labour the point - we do not need to place him there if the event is not real. If Peters version is the original and it is his invention it would be more likely the greatest error of geography is found in his account as there would have been a tendency of other contemporaries and those who later retold story to change location to fit a better sense of local geography, or to brush over the geography; especially if the geography has been challenged . Peter goes to Rome where there is less chance of the challenges. Matthews gospel then draws on several sources each with competing versions of the story. But Matthew has no detailed knowledge so he manages the dissonance by generalising [redacting] the details of the geography. So Id add a fifth point.

• 5- Matthew generalises [redacts] the story from several sources, Mark remembers Peter was more specific and corrects Matthew accordingly.

Now it does not really matter if Mark remembers Peter right or wrong because the move from general to specific is motivated to remove Matthews redaction. Though to be true Mark would be more likely to change Matthew where he strongly felt he remembered Peter right. This does not mean Mark gets it right but it is more likely.

Since it involves correction or validation of parts of Matthew, your theory almost requires that Mark had an authoritative witness of Jesus' ministry (Peter being the obvious choice of course).

Mark has access to someone he regards as an authoritative witness. This does not mean Peter is completely reliable. Maybe its me but it seems likely Peter taught Jesus walked on water. If so Im struggling to find his account 100% reliable. However on my interpretation we find Mark an honest reporter and can take him as being reasonably reliable.

Pending a convincing explanation, I agree that this is an oddity for Markan priority. Of course, it's always possible that Matthew simply slipped up and missed it; if that's the only unexplained omission, it's hardly a deathblow to the theory.

Agreed.

By contrast your theory has far, far more omissions by Mark. Papias says nothing about Mark correcting/validating what was written by Matthew against what Peter had taught - that's your own theory.

Well I was being asked to explain how Marked did not have priority. Clearly Mark is shorter and leaves some major stuff out. I get to a validating Mark by inference from the assumptions he did not write first, and the observation Mark contains 94% of Matt but is still considerably shorter. I dont think we have to presume Mark is deliberately trying to validate Matt, we only have to assume he is accessing Matt with privileged knowledge and that the author is not about to include material he cannot vouch for or does not trust. This seemed to me the only plausible explanation of Mark following in priority. I had deduced this before I had looked at the Papias quote, which when I read it put a smile on my face because Papias Mark fitted the bill.

However Papias does say that Mark sought to omit nothing that Peter had said. An interesting thought that, now that it occurs to me:

Yes I am thinking so. He also said he would not add anything fictitious.

The logical basis with which you started your argument was a need to explain how/why Matthew (and Luke, initially) covered such a huge percentage of Mark's material. But given Papias' claim that Mark was Peter's interpreter and seeking to include everything he'd learned from him and nothing else, your argument turns on its head. How can you explain that 'Matthew' managed to cover such a huge percentage (some 94%) of the material which Peter's own interpreter had heard from him?

Matthew was drawing on a wider number of sources that included nearly all Peters material. Matthew is trying to marshal all Jesus heritage (as he finds it) into one document. He would have included as much of Peter as he could access, and those other sources would also cover much of Peters material if they traced back to a common source. A point which underlines what we find in Mark is the material more likely to come closer to the very first teachings about Jesus.

It's really not that hard to imagine Matthew covering as much of Mark's written material as he felt appropriate;

Well that was 94% of Mark then.

it's much harder to imagine that he, with no particular known connection to Peter (or an alternative source for Mark), would somehow manage to cover such a huge portion of what Mark himself had heard!

All we need to presume is that material that forms Peter s teachings are fully a part of very earliest Jesus lore. If Matthew is doing a collation exercise he is only likely to miss the stuff it would take someone very closer to Peter to pick up on.

And in addition there's the problem of all the material Mark omitted, as I was going to write previously. Papias says nothing about Mark correcting/verifying some other gospel, so it's your own supposition that all the material Mark omits was on the basis that he hadn't heard it from his own source. Markan priority entails one single story about the Capernaum demoniac which I have not yet been convinced of a sound explanation - yet maybe ThatGirl is right, or we could easily suppose that Matthew simply missed it by accident.

If Matt just missed it then he just missed it, but the point is that one argument for Markan priority rests on the fact that Matt and Luke include nearly all Mark. They provide an explanation for the weakened Jesus material and other material deemed awkward. But they do not have an explanation for the Capernaum scene other than a dunno. Which as you point out is not fatal. But when the Markan crowd criticise an alternative position they cant set the bar higher than they set it for themselves.

Your supposition is far greater, and on the basis of no better evidence.

My supposition is this. The vast majority of the material in Mark being also found in Matt and Luke tells me Mark does not have priority. All the rest rationalises that basic observation. And what else am I assuming? Mark is an honest and fairly reliable source with access to or closer proximity to an eyewitness. I assumed this way before I found Papias Mark, and I have been running with that Mark ever since because it fits the bill of the kind of Mark needed to explain how Mark does not have priority yet manages to write a shorter gospel leaving out stuff like genealogy and nativity and full resurrection. Whilst I assume Peter is an eye witness I do not assume his material is reliable or literally true. What emerges is a more traditional Matthew, Mark, Luke in that order with Luke accessing both Matt and Mark. A position not that different from the Two Gospel hypothesis. A hypothesis that has gone out of favour mostly because of the kinds of textual arguments I have been gently pointing out are based on some bias logic.

However, I think that little epiphany about Matthew somehow covering so much of the material known to Peter's interpreter pretty much clinches the argument, as far as your specific theory goes Wish I'd thought of it earlier.

If Matt was near completely dependent on the material in Mark for the stuff Mark covers then this would explain Matts preoccupation with Mark and we just have to put Mark 1:23-28 down as a slip by Matthew. If Mark followed Matt we have a clear and equally powerful reason why 94% of Mark is in Matt, and we explain all the missing 6% and we do not have a slip and a missing 3%. there is no slam dunk winner here, but I'd give the idea Mark followed Matt a 3% edge.

What is clear is that Matthew definitely had an agenda rooted in Jewish concerns. I forget why, but I started noticing it six or seven years ago from his nativity story; possibly from discussing the very genealogy you mention. Comparing Matthew's genealogy with the one found in 1 Chronicles 3, we can see that Matthew removed three generations from Jesus' supposed ancestry to get his 14/14/14 pattern (and I think he's inconsistent in his measurement of the first two 14s, though I'm too lazy to check atm).

Thats interesting. Thank you for that. I dont think that means a major shift in the Matthew Im envisaging which is basically a backward looking Matthew or as you say he is rooted in Jewish concerns. Do Matthews roots not hint to you he wrote first, Mark writing second vouching for what he can, and Luke writing to a whole new agenda.

[ThatGirlAgain]

Or did Matthew make them up to make the new rabbinic Judaism look bad?

On your view Matt has political motivations to do with his local circumstance, and we get Matthew's personal concerns in the text. On my view Matt is writing for and reflecting the fears of the whole Christian community with less of Matthew in the text.

Matthews community believes in strict adherence to Jewish law and strongly emphasize that the Jesus movement is Jewish to the core yet accepts Pauline theology. Paul rejects Jewish Law as inapplicable to gentiles. Luke emphasizes the universality of the Jesus message. Rabbinic Judaism did not exist until sometime after the First Revolt. It was no threat to the already widespread Christian community. Matthews community comes nowhere near to reflecting the beliefs and fears of the whole Christian community. In fact there does not seem to be any trace of a strongly Jewish yet also theologically Pauline Jesus movement after Matthew. It would appear that Matthew failed in his mission of preserving his community, although he did contribute much to the mythology of Jesus.

The rancor against the Pharisees supposedly happened when Jesus was alive. Peter was not in Rome yet.

Then why does not Mark emphasize it like Matthew does if Peter knew about it?

In the days of Jesus, the Pharisees were dominated by the House of Shammai, which emphasized rigorous and rigid obedience to the letter of the law. The clashes between Jesus and the Pharisees are about the spirit of the Law being greater than the letter. This is the perspective that Mark presents and it sound like a very believable one for a preacher seeking to restore true righteousness in the manner the Prophets prescribe and so make the people worthy of judgment.

Matthew is writing perhaps a decade or so after the Revolt. The rabbinic movement has been invented by the Pharisees (last Jews standing) to salvage Judaism from the loss of the Temple, the center of Jewish religious life, and even the loss of Jerusalem, the center of Jewish intellectual life. It is now spreading outside of Palestine and threatening the religious integrity of Matthews community. Perfect reason to attack the Pharisees. And Marks material is the perfect starting point. This is why Matthew preserves so much of Mark. Oh, except for that part where Jesus needs to prove himself in a synagogue. In Matthews day, synagogue meant Pharisee and was the abode of the enemy. Matthews community referred to themselves as a church. Already documented this attitude in Matthew upstream.

And Marks account is anti Pharisee, but Matt has collated material that underlines the theme with a heavier pencil. This could just come down to the different personalities of the original witnesses. Maybe Peter aware of his own denial of Jesus is just a little more reticent. It maybe that the material in Matt reflects a hardening of tone of the early Christian community outside of Rome as they retell the stories and see that the Pharisees are still in place and still have the hegemony. There is no major assumption regarding Matt need be made to get these differences in tone and emphasis, and the assumptions just point to a realistic evolution of Christian lore. There are several ways that an oral tradition can diverge and material and tone of Peters teachings (which is probably the more constant) finds itself half a pace out of step with the attitudes and ideas of the community he left behind.

Sorry, but this sounds like rationalisation. It also sounds like an argument for Markan Priority.

The appearance of rabbinic Judaism and its migration to Syria happened after the revolt. Peter was dead and would know nothing of it. Matthew made it up. Mark does not know about it because it had not happened yet when he wrote just after the destruction of Jerusalem.

Yes that is one way to rationalise the evidence based on different assumptions. Im not saying it does not make sense. I would agree with the thrust of Mithraes observations and add that you are stretching and over inflating points a tad more than you are letting on.

I have presented a single coherent story about how the three Synoptic Gospels came about.

Mark has two concerns: the worrisome delay of the expected eschaton and the bad reputation that messianic movements got after the Revolt. He has available to him oral traditions about Jesus, the Pauline theology and a source of seemingly eyewitness information about the Revolt. He writes a Gospel resetting the eschatological clock to have the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem as the opening of the messianic age and separating Jesus from the violent aspects of recent messianic movements.

In the wake of the Revolt, rabbinic Judaism appears and spreads northward, threatening the ideological identity of Matthews community. Matthew takes Mark and adds much new material emphasizing the Jesus movement, and no the rabbinic movement, as the true heir of Jewish history and tradition and attacking his rivals.

Luke is concerned that Matthew has associated the Jesus movement too closely with Judaism, as Matthews Gospel would be perceived outside of his community. Luke takes Matthew and inverts several of the major Jewish-emphasizing themes. Matthews genealogy emphasizes the Jewish character of Jesus. Lukes entirely different genealogy emphasizes a universal Jesus. Matthews nativity associates Jesus with Moses the Lawgiver and also takes a swipe at establishment Judaism in the person of the infamous Herod. Lukes very different nativity explicitly disassociates Jesus from violent movements. Matthew has Jesus deliver the bulk of his very Jewish message from a Mount, like Moses bringing down the Law. Luke has Jesus deliver a much less Jewish message on a Plain. Luke also expands the message to include everyone, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The only assumptions I need are the few ones I listed for Mark " and already explained at length above " and actual historical circumstances, most importantly the Revolt and its aftermath. Nothing else is needed. In particular there is no Q.

You gave your version. It seems to not be as fully explanatory as mine and to need considerably more assumptions. (To me anyway.) And perhaps it could use more hard headed objectivity. I do agree with it in a number of areas. However I unfortunately do not have the time to analyze it in depth. When I win the lottery I will make up for it.

Just a couple of brief comments. You said:

This explains why Mark covers 94% of the material found in Matt. The material Mark does not cover means he is unable to vouch for its provenance. The implication is that material such as the sermon on the mount, genealogy, nativity and resurrection narrative were not a feature of Christian lore when Peter first left Judea behind.

Matthew covers 94% of the material in Mark, not the other way around. Matthew contains much that is not in Mark. Did you just accidentally reverse the proper nouns?

The resurrection narrative would appear to have been a very early part of Christian lore since Paul references it. In my scenario "the sermon on the mount, genealogy, nativity" were invented by Matthew for the reasons stated above.

Back to work. And I do not know when I can return.