Studies in the Gospels (Part Three)

 

Let’s look at some differences in the way Mark, Matthew and Luke tell the same stories about Jesus.  This may help us determine if Mark’s gospel was written first or not. One interesting fact is that Matthew and Luke treat Jesus’ family as supportive toward him, but Mark shows that Jesus’ family is opposed to him, and in one story they even come to take him away, believing that he is insane (Mark 3:20-21).  Matthew and Luke both leave out this story.  If Mark was written after Matthew and Luke that means he left out all the positive stories about Jesus’ family included by Matthew and Luke. It’s more likely that Mark was written first and Matthew and Luke wanted to make Jesus’ family seem more supportive of him, so they included traditions which reinforced that, while leaving out the rather negative story in Mark 3:20-21.

Assuming that Mark was written first, we see that Matthew makes subtle theological changes to the content of Mark.  For example, in Mark 6:5-6 we read that Jesus could not perform any mighty deeds in a certain locale because of the unbelief of the people. Matthew improves this when he tells the exact same story by writing that “Jesus did not perform many mighty deeds there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58).  It is unlikely that Mark would have changed the “did not” to a “could not”, but it does make sense that Matthew would decide to change the “could not” to a “did not” to make Jesus seem more powerful.  Another possibility is that Matthew had two traditions at his disposal – one oral tradition that used the words “did not” in that section, and the other Mark’s literary tradition that used the words “could not.” Matthew decided to go with “did not.”

In Mark 3:1-6 we read the story of Jesus entering a synagogue on the Sabbath and healing a man with a withered hand. In Mark's account, Jesus "looked around at them [people in the synagogue] with anger, grieving at their hardness of heart..."  Jesus was angry that the people did not want him to heal someone on the Sabbath because it violated their religious traditions. This same story is repeated in Luke 6:6-11 and in Matthew 12:9-14 and the idea of Jesus looking at the crowd with anger is left out.  This appears to be a deliberate change by both Luke and Matthew to omit the idea that Jesus could be angry with the people in the synagogue.  All the other details are preserved by Luke and Matthew, but that one detail is left out.  If Mark were writing based an account from either Matthew or Luke, it's unlikely that he would have added the idea that Jesus was angry.

Next we have an example of Luke changing the text of Mark to make it more understandable.  In Mark 2:17 Jesus says, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  Luke changes this to, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). If Luke was written first it does not make sense that Mark would have taken out the explanation "to repentance." Luke also places a theological emphasis on prayer.  Luke takes Mark’s unembellished stories of Jesus' baptism,  Jesus' choosing of the disciples, Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the transfiguration, and the time in Gethsemane, and adds to those stories that Jesus is praying before or during each event.  

In addition, instead of having Jesus die after crying out that he has been forsaken by God (as in Mark 15:34), Luke’s version has him ask God for the forgiveness of his executioners and then die after praying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46). Both of those prayers are missing from Mark, and the cry of abandonment from the cross does not appear in Luke.  We see a development in theology here – the Jesus of Mark is crying out in a sense of abandonment on the cross before he dies, while the Jesus we see in Luke is thinking of others, praying for the forgiveness of his enemies, and then offering his spirit to God.  I believe that Mark’s gospel on this point is closer to reality and Luke’s version represents a later mythologizing tendency. Over time, our heroes become bigger than they were in real life. This is a human tendency, and we see it here in the development of the gospel tradition.

The treatment of the Eucharist also shows theological development as we move from Mark to Luke and then to Matthew.  In Mark 14:3 Jesus is speaking of the cup of wine, and he says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”  In Luke 22:30 the language is very similar, but the word “new” is added to signify a new covenant: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).  Matthew adds even more theological significance to Mark's original. In his account Jesus says these words: “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” (Matthew 26:28).  Again, it would be very unusual for Mark to omit the fact that Jesus said his blood was poured out for the purpose of forgiveness of sins.  Matthew added that phrase to the text he received from Mark. In my opinion that is a later theological addition which Jesus probably never said.  

The earliest historical document tends to be closest to the events as they really happened.  Later accounts tend to add myth to embellish what really happened. I believe that in Mark we have our earliest gospel, and it is more likely to be accurate simply for that reason.  Mark contains the raw events and things that the later church leaders might have been embarrassed about (Jesus' family thinking he was crazy, Jesus unable to perform miracles, Jesus being angry before healing someone, Jesus dying with a sense of abandonment from God). The later gospels contain much of the truth of Mark's gospel, but they also contain church doctrines and myths that had sprung up within Christian communities during the 20-30 years that separated the writing of Mark from the writing of Matthew and Luke.

Scholars tell us that Matthew and Luke use more sophisticated Greek than Mark does.  This helps their ideas to flow better in the text. For example, Mark overuses the Greek conjunction translated in English as “and” but instead of doing that Matthew and Luke use subordinating conjunctions, participial phrases, and other devices to produce a more readable style (see John S. Kloppenborg, Q, the Earliest Gospel, 2008:  Westminster John Knox Publishing, Louisville, KY, p. 11-12).  It's not likely that Mark took the polished writing style of Matthew and/or Luke and decided to make it worse.  He could have just copied their style.  It's much more likely that Matthew and Luke both improved on the style in Mark's original text.

With all this evidence I conclude that Mark was written first and Luke and Matthew came later, incorporating Mark’s material into their gospels, and slightly modifying it. In our next post we will look at the “Q” material, which forms most of the remaining content of Matthew and Luke.