Markan priority - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Markan priority is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

was the first written of the three Synoptic Gospels

Synoptic Gospels

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...

, and that the two other synoptic evangelists, Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

and Luke

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

, used Mark's Gospel as one of their sources. The theory of Markan priority is today accepted by the majority of New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

scholars who also hold that Matthew and Luke used a lost source of Jesus's sayings called Q

Q source

The Q source is a hypothetical written source for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke. Q is defined as the "common" material found in Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark...

. Their conclusion is largely based upon an analysis of the language and content relationship between the various books. The understanding that Mark was the first of the canonical gospels and that it served as a source for Matthew and Luke is foundational to modern critical scholarship.

A minority of scholars accept Markan priority but reject Q; the Farrer hypothesis

Farrer hypothesis

The Farrer theory is a possible solution to the synoptic problem. The theory is that the Gospel of Mark was written first, followed by the Gospel of Matthew and then by the Gospel of Luke.It has mainly been advocated by English biblical scholars...

, whose chief proponents are Michael Goulder

Michael Goulder

Michael Douglas Goulder was a British Biblical scholar who spent most of his academic life at the University of Birmingham where he retired as Professor of Biblical Studies in 1994...

and Mark Goodacre

Mark Goodacre

Mark Goodacre is a New Testament scholar and Professor at Duke University's Department of Religion. He has written extensively on the Synoptic Problem; that is, the origins of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke...

, is the best-known theory that does this. Some Jewish/Christian scholars such as Robert Lindsey

Robert Lisle Lindsey

Robert Lisle Lindsey, also known as Bob Lindsey , founded together with David Flusser the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research.He spend most of his adult life as pastor in the Holy Land. He is especially known for pastoring the Narkis Street Baptist Church in Jerusalem...

, David Flusser

David Flusser

David Flusser was a professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.- Biography :...

, Shmuel Safrai, and David Bivin

David Bivin

David Bivin is a biblical scholar, member of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research and author of New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus: Insights from His Jewish Context...

have proposed that there was a Hebrew version of the Gospel before it was transcribed into Greek and that this necessitates Lukan Priority.

The Augustinian hypothesis

Augustinian hypothesis

The Augustinian hypothesis is a solution to the synoptic problem, which concerns the origin of the Gospels of the New Testament. The hypothesis holds that Matthew was written first, by Matthew the Evangelist...

is for Matthean priority. A former student of Bultmann, Eta Linnemann

Eta Linnemann

Eta Linnemann was a German Protestant theologian. In her last years, she broke completely with the theology of her teacher Rudolf Bultmann.-Life:...

, followed by F. David Farnell, is the best known proponent of a simultaneous priority of Matthew and Mark under the Mosaic requirement that "on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed" (Deuteronomy 19:5).

History

This subject is closely related to the topic of synoptic gospels
Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...

, so it may be useful to review that article before reading the following text

Before the 18th century, the belief of many, including the Church Fathers

Church Fathers

The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...

Papias

Papias was a bishop of the early Church, canonized as a saint. Eusebius of Caesarea calls him "Bishop of Hierapolis" which is 22 km from Laodicea and near Colossae Papias (writing in the first third of the 2nd century) was a bishop of the early Church, canonized as a saint. Eusebius of...

(c. 60-130), Irenaeus

Irenaeus

Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...

(c. 130-200), Origen

Origen

Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

(c. 185-254), Eusebius (c. 260-340) Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

(c. 340-420), and Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

(c. 354-430), had been that Matthew was the first gospel to be written. Therefore, Matthew is the first gospel to appear in the chronological order of the four gospels in the Second, or New Testament. This traditional view of gospel origins, however, began to be challenged in the late 18th century, when Gottlob Christian Storr

Gottlob Christian Storr

Gottlob Christian Storr was a German Protestant theologian born in Stuttgart.He studied philosophy, theology and other subjects at the University of Tübingen, and following his theological examination in 1768, undertook an educational journey through Germany, Holland, England and France...

(1786) proposed that Mark was the first to be written.

Storr's idea met with little acceptance at the time, with most scholars favoring either Matthean priority, under the traditional Augustinian hypothesis

Augustinian hypothesis

, or the Griesbach hypothesis, or a fragmentary theory. In the fragmentary theory, it was believed that stories about Jesus were recorded in several smaller documents and notebooks and combined by the evangelists to create the synoptic gospels.

Working within the fragmentary theory, Karl Lachmann

Karl Lachmann

Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann was a German philologist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Brunswick, in what is now Lower Saxony....

(1835) compared the synoptic gospels in pairs and noted that while Matthew frequently agreed with Mark against Luke in the order of passages and Luke agreed frequently with Mark against Matthew, Matthew and Luke rarely agreed with each other against Mark. Lachmann inferred from this that Mark best preserved a relatively fixed order of episodes in Jesus's ministry.

In 1838, two theologians, Christian Gottlob Wilke

Christian Gottlob Wilke

Christian Gottlob Wilke was a German theologian born near Zeitz.He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Leipzig, and from 1814 to 1819 served as a minister to a Saxon Landwehr installation...

and Christian Hermann Weisse

Christian Hermann Weisse

Christian Hermann Weisse , was a German Protestant religious philosopher.- Philosophy :He was born at Leipzig, and studied at the university there, at first adhering to the Hegelian school of philosophy. In the course of time, his ideas changed, and became close to those of Schelling in his later...

, independently extended Lachmann's reasoning to conclude that Mark not only best represented Matthew and Luke's source but also that Mark was Matthew and Luke's source. Their ideas were not immediately accepted, but Heinrich Julius Holtzmann

Heinrich Julius Holtzmann

Heinrich Julius Holtzmann , German Protestant theologian, son of Karl Julius Holtzmann , was born at Karlsruhe, where his father ultimately became prelate and counsellor to the supreme consistory....

's endorsement in 1863 of a qualified form of Markan priority won general favor and is still the dominant hypothesis today.

Nevertheless, this line of reasoning is now widely seen as inconclusive. In particular, it is now accepted that although the contents of Mark lie logically between Matthew and Luke, this fact on its own has no definite chronological consequences, although combined with other facts could still support Markan priority.

Modern arguments for Markan priority

Modern scholars argue for the priority of Mark in a number of ways. Some argue directly for it, while others argue against Markan priority's main rivals, the Griesbach hypothesis and the Augustinian hypothesis

Augustinian hypothesis

, both of which claim (among other things) that Mark had access to Matthew's gospel.

Content not present in Mark

Mark's gospel is by far the shortest, and omits much that is in Matthew and Luke. It is argued that he would be unlikely to omit important events from Matthew and Luke, if he had access to their gospels.

Content only found in Mark

There are very few passages in Mark that are found in neither Matthew nor Luke, which makes them all the more significant. If Mark was editing Matthew and Luke, it is hard to see why he would add so little material, if he was going to add anything at all. The choice of additions is also very strange. On the other hand, if Mark wrote first, it is often the case that Matthew and Luke would have strong motives to remove these passages.

One example is , where we are told that Jesus' own family thought he was "out of his mind". Another is , an obscure incident with no obvious meaning, where a man with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane flees naked.

Significant too is , where Jesus has to try twice to heal a man, his first attempt not being entirely successful.

Alterations

Regarding verses where Mark differs from Matthew and/or Luke, it is often easier to see why Matthew or Luke would alter Mark than the reverse. For example, eliminates a criticism of the disciples found in and later verses. and both eliminate disrespect towards Jesus from the disciples in .

Mark's Jesus often seems more human than Matthew's. Davies and Allison list a number of passages where Mark but not Matthew portrays Jesus as emotional (e.g. , cf. ), ignorant of some fact (e.g. , cf. ), or incapable of some action (e.g. , cf. ).

It is argued that it is easier to see why Matthew would edit Mark to make Jesus more divine and more powerful, than why Mark would edit Matthew to weaken Jesus.

Primitive and unusual language in Mark

Mark's Greek is more primitive than the other Gospel writers. Often, Luke or Matthew will state a parallel Jesus quotation much more eloquently than Mark. In addition, Mark occasionally uses an unusual word or phrase where Matthew uses a common word. It is argued that this makes more sense if Matthew was revising Mark, rather than the reverse.

In addition, Mark is the only author who quotes Aramaic words and phrases which may have been the actual words of Jesus. He alone gives the words Boanerges (3:17), Ephphatha (7:34), Talitha cum (5:41), Abba (14:36) and the Aramaic form of Eli in the cry, Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani (15:34). It has been argued by Geza Vermes

Geza Vermes

Géza Vermes or Vermès is a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He is a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient works in Aramaic, and on the life and religion of Jesus...

that these quotations indicate a closeness to Jesus not shown in the other Gospels.

Vividness and verbosity of Mark

When Mark and Matthew agree, Mark often has a more vivid, verbose version. It is argued that it is unlikely that Mark was inserting details into many Matthean quotes while leaving out huge events such as the birth of Jesus. Rather, this verboseness is explained as nearness to actual eye-witness testimony.

Fatigue

Mark Goodacre lists a number of occasions where it appears that Matthew or Luke begin by altering Mark, but become fatigued and start to copy Mark directly, even when doing so is inconsistent with the changes they have already made. For example, Matthew is more precise than Mark in the titles he gives to rulers, and initially gives Herod Antipas

Herod Antipas

Herod Antipater , known by the nickname Antipas, was a 1st-century AD ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch...

the correct title of "tetrarch", yet he lapses into calling him "king" at a later verse , apparently because he was copying at that point.

Another example given by Goodacre is Luke's version of the feeding of the multitude. Luke apparently changed the setting of the story: whereas Mark placed it in a desert, Luke starts the story in "a town
There are variants in the surviving manuscripts that read "a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida", and this is found in the King James Version. However, no desert place is mentioned in the critical text (Nestle-Aland) that is the basis for most modern translations. It is believed that these variants were, in part, an attempt by later scribes to harmonize verses 10 and 12 (source: NET Bible, footnotes to Luke 9:10)
called Bethsaida

Bethsaida

Bethsaida is a place mentioned in the New Testament.- Bethsaida Julias :...

" . Yet later on, Luke is in agreement with Mark, that the events are indeed in a desert . Goodacre argues that Luke is here following Mark, not realising that it contradicts the change he made earlier.

External evidence

Early church writers appear to indicate that Matthew's gospel was written first. Irenaeus

Irenaeus

, in Against Heresies 3.1.1, says "Matthew also published a gospel in writing among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter & Paul were preaching the gospel and founding the church in Rome. But after their death, Mark, the disciple & interpreter of Peter, also transmitted to us in writing what Peter used to preach. And Luke, Paul's associate, also set down in a book the gospel that Paul used to preach. Later, John, the Lord's disciple --- the one who lay on his lap --- also set out the gospel while living at Ephesus in Asia Minor".

However, the gospel ascribed to Matthew here would appear to have been in Aramaic, while all known early copies of Matthew are in Greek. It has been argued that the gospel ascribed to Matthew here may be a different text from the Gospel according to Matthew, possibly even the Q document itself.

Minor agreements

Occasions where Luke and Matthew agree with each other against Mark suggest that Luke and Matthew were not independent of each other, and thus argue against certain versions of Markan priority (especially the two-source hypothesis

Two-source hypothesis

The Two-Source Hypothesis is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a lost, hypothetical sayings...

Redaction procedure

According to William R. Farmer, it is in many cases easy to see how Mark, if he had access to both Luke and Matthew, could have written the precise verses that he did. For example, mentions both that evening had come and that the sun was setting, while and each mention one of those.

Building upon Markan priority

For the majority of scholars who accept Markan priority, a further problem is explaining the "double tradition" material which is found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark. There are broadly two ways to explain this: by appealing to Q, a hypothesized document available to both Matthew and Luke; or by postulating that one of Matthew and Luke was familiar with the other's work as well as with Mark. The Farrer hypothesis

Farrer hypothesis

is such a theory.

History

Modern arguments for Markan priority

Content not present in Mark

Content only found in Mark

Alterations

Primitive and unusual language in Mark

Vividness and verbosity of Mark

Fatigue

External evidence

Minor agreements

Redaction procedure

Building upon Markan priority

See also