p. 85-86 The New Testament: a Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings / Bart Ehrman
For the past century or so, three arguments have proved widely convincing for establishing Mark's priority to Matthew and Luke:
Patterns of Agreement. Since the main reason for thinking that the Gospels share a common source is their verbatim agreements, it makes sense to examine the nature of these agreements in order to decide which of the books was used by the other two. If you were to make a detailed comparison of the word-for-word agreements among these Gospels, an interesting pattern would emerge. Sometimes all three of the Gospels tell a story in precisely the same way. This can easily be accounted for; it would happen whenever two of the authors borrowed their account from the earliest one, and neither of them changed it. Sometimes all three Gospels differ. This would happen whenever the two authors who borrowed each changed it, in different ways. Finally, sometimes two of the three are exactly alike, but the third differs. This would occur when both of the later authors borrowed the story but only one of them changed it; in this case one of the redactors would agree with the wording of his source, and the other would not.
In this final kind of situation, certain patterns of agreement typically occur among the Synoptic Gospels. Sometimes Matthew and Mark share the wording of a story when Luke differs, and sometimes Mark and Luke share the wording when Matthews differs. But it is extremely rare to find Matthew and Luke sharing the wording of a story also found in Mark when Mark differs. Why would this be?
If Matthew were the source for Mark and Luke, or if Luke were the source for Matthew and Mark, you would probably not get this pattern. Consider these examples. If both Matthew and Luke used Mark, then sometimes they would both reproduce the same wording. That's why all three sometimes agree. Sometimes they would both change the wording for reasons of their own. That's why all three sometimes differ. Sometimes Matthew would change Mark's account when Luke left it the same. That's why Mark and Luke sometimes agree against Matthew. And sometimes Luke would change Mark's account when Matthew left it the same. That's why Matthew and Mark sometimes agree against Luke.
The reason then that Matthew and Luke rarely agree against Mark in the wording of stories found in all three is that Mark is the source for these stories. Unless Matthew and Luke accidentally happen to make precisely the same changes in their source (which does happen on occasion, but not commonly and not in major ways), they cannot both differ from the source and agree with one another. The fact that they rarely do differ from Mark while agreeing with one another indicates that Mark must have been their source.
More:
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Pastor Eman Laerton / Acts 9:10-30 v Galatians 1:15-18by EmanLaerton1,880 views
renassault:
There are assumptions on all sides. That Matthew and Luke wanted to copy everything as found in Mark rather than *using* Mark for rearrangement of their Gospels (Pluralism) isn't to be windowed. They didn't have to include everything they read in Mark. Must analyze all suggestions by scholars. Mark Goodacre has done a good analysis against the hypnotized "Q" source (See Mark Goodacre, the Case against Q, which I haven't started to read yet but followed up Goodacre's Blog about it)
gekksvide0 1 year ago
Markan priority does not explain many features, which ur-Mark more than adequately does. For example, a whole parable is missing from both Matthew and Luke, also the number of sentences that are actually ad verbatim are too few for Matthew and Luke to have copied canonical Mark
renassault 3 years ago
lol mr potato head
0wastedyouth0 3 years ago
ey man, I ain't sayin the dude doesn't have stowl, just that I don't get it :P
anexperimat 3 years ago
jacuzzi style
lehman 3 years ago
inexplicably indirect!
anexperimat 3 years ago