Markan Priority Among the Synoptic Gospels

For many centuries, students of the Bible have strived for an understanding of how the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament acquired their present form. While they all document the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, each is the product of a different author and varies in which events are recorded and how they are presented. Of the four accounts, the first three (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have been termed the "synoptic" Gospels because of their strikingly similar material. The term comes from the Greek word sunoptikoV, meaning "seeing the whole together" (Thiessen 101). While the book of John covers the same timeframe and shares some of the same events, the narrative lacks the similarity in form and closeness of dialogue found in the other three. The three synoptics maintain a general agreement on chronology, and the descriptions of individual events often closely mirror each other, even down to sentence structure. Of course, all of them include unique information, and the narratives often diverge, but they quickly resynchronize in a way that the book of John never does.

The literary relationship of the synoptic Gospels has been debated for centuries, and many theories for how they were constructed have been constructed, argued, and eventually discarded. While scholars are far from complete agreement on any given point, some arguments have withstood the test of time better than others, offering a more reliable basis for understanding the similarities of the synoptic Gospels. One crucial issue has been the question of precedence: which of the three books—if any—were used as a basis for the others. In the case of Luke, the prologue makes clear the author’s knowledge of other accounts, and his familiarity with information (written or oral) that had been handed down from eyewitnesses:

With the late date and differing material of John removing it from the equation, nearly twenty possible orders of dependency among the other three books remain. While choosing the correct one may seem a formidable task, little investigation is needed to discount most of them as implausible. The remaining solutions to the problem have been vigorously debated. The three major ones are presented by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary:

There are many reasons why early church leaders like Saint Augustine believed Matthew was written first, one of which was its placement as the first book in the New Testament. While variations in the order of the Gospel accounts have been discovered in early Bibles, Matthew has always been found in the foremost position. Some early church tradition (based on the account of Papias as preserved by Eusebius) also holds Matthew to have been penned first, but this anecdotal evidence is highly questionable (Stein 129). One explanation for the emphasis on Matthew’s book could be the fact that Matthew was an apostle, so his account was more highly regarded. Unlike Mark and Luke, John was also an apostle, and his book is sometimes found in the second position instead of the fourth. Regardless of the reason for this tradition, its acceptance caused problems for those like Saint Augustine who sought to construct a logical theory about the literary dependency of the accounts. The Griesbach hypothesis was founded on the same assumption, but made an important change concerning Mark. In this case, Mark was viewed as an abridgment of the other two—a belief that is still held by some today. Nevertheless, this theory still retained serious drawbacks inherited from Augustine’s hypothesis. It was not until the general acceptance of the Holtzmann theory that many long-standing problems were overcome. In the same manner that a shift away from an earth-centered universe simplified astronomy, a shift away from a Matthew-first basis simplified the synoptic equation. The belief that Mark was written first is dominant among scholars today. Even when other "lost documents" are relied upon as a part of the relationship, the book of Mark is still considered a source for Matthew and Luke. In this paper, I would like to present some of the more compelling arguments for Markan priority in the synoptic Gospel relationship.

First is the argument from length. Mark is by far the shortest book, containing approximately 11,000 words, while Matthew and Luke contain about 18,000 and 19,000 words, respectively. This relative shortness does not stem from more condensed speech, for Mark tends to be the wordiest of the three. Instead, it comes from the inclusion of fewer discrete events listed throughout the narrative. The majority of all three books is spent on the retelling of specific events, such as the Sermon on the Mount, the death of John the Baptist, or the parable of the Good Samaritan. These discrete events, termed pericopes, can be easily isolated and compared with parallel accounts in the other books. Nearly all of them exist in two or more books. Mark includes fewer pericopes than the other two. In fact, only 60% of Matthew’s material can be found in Mark, and only 47% of Luke is duplicated there (Stein 48). Thus it is hard to explain why—given the precedence of Matthew or Luke—the book of Mark would leave out so much information. One possibility might have been the need to leave room for its own unique material, given the physical limitation of scroll lengths, but Mark offers very little beyond what is already included in the other two books. In fact, 97% of Mark’s material can be found in Matthew, and 84% of it can be found in Luke (Stein 48). So what would be the purpose of writing yet another account if it added virtually no new material and, in fact, left out much of what its predecessors already offered? Some (like Griesbach) have argued that Mark was intended as an abridged version of Matthew and Luke—a way to present the Gospel message in a form that could be quickly read and (more importantly) quickly hand-copied. But this theory has a serious flaw. If the author intended this work to be an abridgment, one would expect the individual pericopes that were retained to also be condensed somewhat. However, even a quick comparison of the pericopes in common reveals a tendency on the part of Mark to not offer the shortest, but more frequently the longest account. This is inconsistent with an objective of producing a shorter account for the purposes of easier transmission. A far more likely scenario would have been the use of Mark by the authors of Matthew and Luke. In each case, the later author would have been both preserving (and refining) the information already in circulation, and adding to it a significant amount of material not previously documented. The slight shortening of the individual pericopes as well makes sense when one analyzes the style of Mark’s writing.

This issue of style is another major argument for the precedence of Mark and its use by the other two evangelists. As a general rule, the language of Mark shows none of the refinement found in the other accounts. The inclusion of colloquial terms, frequent redundancy, incorrect grammar, lingering Aramaicisms, and harder sayings makes it far more likely that Mark came earlier and served as a basis for the other two books. While any one example is insufficient grounds for determining precedence, the mass of evidence weighs heavily in favor of Mark as a source for Matthew and Luke.

On the whole, Mark’s narrative is rougher than the others, enumerating separate events with very little connective or introductory material between them. Likewise Mark’s language is more crudely constructed, and somewhat earthy in places. While the choppy nature of the writing is apparent even through translation from the Greek, the subtleties of word choice are more difficult for a modern reader to grasp. They would have been obvious to the writer’s contemporaries, though, especially to those with greater skill using the language. In Streeter’s The Four Gospels, he characterizes the situation this way:

One instance of this appears in the story of a lame man carried on his bed (or pallet) to Jesus. Mark 2:3, 4 read: "And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying." Mark uses the Greek word krabbatoV (krabbatos), which could be considered a rather coarse choice of terms. Vine’s An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words says this about the word: "a Macedonian word (Lat. grabatus), is ‘a somewhat mean bed, pallet, or mattress for the poor’" (55). However, Matthew 9:2 and Luke 5:18 alter it to klinh (kline) and its diminutive klinarion (klinarion), respectively. Vine’s description contains no implication of coarseness: "akin to klino, ‘to lean’ (Eng., ‘recline, incline’ etc.), ‘a bed,’… or a ‘couch’ for carrying the sick’" (55).

Another example of comparatively coarse speech used by Mark surfaces in the 40-day temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Mark 1:12 reads, "The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness." The Greek word ekballw (ekballo), rendered in English as "drove," is a rather harsh term, especially considering the fact that it describes the Holy Spirit acting upon Jesus. Vine has this to say: "denotes, lit., ‘to cast forth,’ with the suggestion of force (ek, ‘out,’ ballo, ‘to cast’); hence ‘to drive out or forth’"(185). It would seem that the authors of Matthew and Luke both realized this and chose to soften the tone. Matthew 4:1 reads, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil," and Luke 4:1 reads, "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit…" In each case, the Greek word used is anagw (anago): "‘to lead up’ (ana, ‘up’), is used of Christ being ‘led’ up by the Spirit into the wilderness" (Vine 359). Other examples are not difficult to find, and strongly support a consistent pattern of Matthew and Luke refining the text as it appeared in Mark.

In addition to questionable word choice, the general looseness of Mark’s prose and the relative tightness of that found in Matthew and Luke stand as another compelling reason for Markan priority. This is exhibited most readily in Mark’s frequent use of redundant phrasing. One example appears in a pericope concerning fasting. The Markan account reads:

Note that fasting is explicitly mentioned three times in this very short passage; this is typical of much of Mark’s writing. Matthew condenses this somewhat: "Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?’" (Matthew 9:14) The Matthian passage also avoids the redundancy involved in mentioning John the Baptist’s disciples and the Pharisees twice. Luke’s account eliminates all redundancies: "And they said to Him, ‘The disciples of John fast often, and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink’" (Luke 5:33). Clearly Matthew and Luke present more polished and efficient wordings of the same material, but a single example does not make a strong case. The careful judge must discern whether this is part of an overall pattern, and whether that pattern supports a consistent refinement on the parts of Matthew and Luke or a tendency on the part of Mark to expand upon what was found in one or both of the others.

An additional example in keeping with the pattern can be found in Mark 15:24: "And they crucified Him, and divided His garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take." In this sentence, the last clause serves no purpose, as it adds nothing that the reader would not have already understood from the information preceding it. Assuming, once again, that Mark came first, how would the writers of other two books most likely deal with this flaccid sentence? First, let’s look at Matthew 27:35: "And when they had crucified Him, they divided His garments among them, by casting lots." This account retains all of the important information, and with a savings of 5 words in English. The savings is Greek is even greater, as it shaves the sentence from 15 to only 9 words. Luke 23:34 includes a more streamlined account as well: "And they cast lots to divide His garments." This type of refinement in Matthew and Luke makes perfect sense. On the other hand, given the precedence of Matthew or Luke, how could anyone justify Mark’s alteration of a perfectly clear and succinct source? This pattern is indeed repeated again and again, and it remains for interested students to simply go through the material and verify this for themselves.

Another area in which the same type of argument applies concerns Mark’s inclusion of grammatical errors. While it may be suggested that such errors could have been introduced into the text by copyists, it is significant to note that no such errors exist in the other Gospel accounts. Yet Mark contains several. Koine (common) Greek is a complex language, most especially because it is so highly inflected. In fact, word order is almost irrelevant in many cases due to the strong reliance upon word endings. Its complexity surely stood as a challenge to those already required to know both Hebrew and Aramaic, so it is not surprising that even an intelligent person would make an occasional mistake.

In Mark 10:20, a rich young man replies to Jesus’ reminders about keeping the commandments: "And he said to Him, ‘Teacher, I have kept [efulaxamhn] all these things from my youth up.’" What escapes the English reader is the incorrect form of the verb, which is aorist middle instead of aorist active. Matthew 19:20 corrects this error: "The young man said to Him, ‘All these things I have kept [efulaxa]; what am I still lacking?" Luke 18:21 does the same: "And he said, ‘All these things I have kept [efulaxa] from my youth.’" Given the priority of Mark, it is perfectly understandable that both Matthew and Luke would correct this error. On the other hand, an intentional change by Mark from good grammar to bad defies reason. This is especially true if one takes the position that Mark is an abridgment of both Matthew and Luke, since two instances of correct grammar would have been discarded in favor of bad.

A second example can be found in Mark 4:41, when Jesus calms a storm: "And they became very much afraid and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey [upakouei] Him?’" Again Mark uses incorrect grammar, but this time it can be seen in English as well. The "wind and the sea" require the plural form of the verb, but Mark supplies the singular form, creating a strict English translation "that even the wind and the sea obeys Him." Both Matthew and Luke correct this error. Matthew 8:27 reads: "And the men marveled, saying, ‘What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey [upakouousin] Him?’" Luke 8:25 puts it this way: "And He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ And they were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey [upakouousin] Him?’"

Another example, including two grammatical errors, can be found in the scene in which an angel announces Christ’s resurrection to the women at the tomb. Mark 16:6 reads: "And he said to them, ‘Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold [ide] the place [‘o topoV] where they laid him.’" The first problem here lies in the form of the imperative behold, or see. The angel is speaking to two women, so the command should be plural—both of you, behold! Instead, it is in singular form, as if addressing an individual instead of more than one person. Naturally, this would never be seen in an English translation since English has only one verb ending for commands. But it is evident in Greek and, according to the pattern, Matthew 28:6 corrects it: "He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see [idete] the place[ton topon] where He was lying." (Although Luke contains the pericope, this phrase is omitted.) The second error in Mark’s account is the form of "the place." He inadvertently uses a case ending that would make it the subject of the sentence rather than the object. Again, Matthew corrects the error in his account.

In a final example, Mark makes an already confusing situation even more so. Jesus finds a man who is possessed by not one evil spirit, but by many. This leads to the problem of how the dialogue should be handled—is one person addressing Jesus, or are many people? Mark 5:9, 10 read: "And He was asking him, ‘What is your name?’ And he [singular] said to Him, ‘My name is Legion; for we [plural] are many.’ And he [singular] began to entreat Him earnestly not to send them [plural] out of the country." This inconsistency was recognized and smoothed out in Luke’s rendition: "And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. And they were entreating Him not to command them to depart into the abyss" (8:30, 31). Note that once the presence of multiple entities is revealed, the text consistently uses the plural. It also eases the transition by replacing the quote "for we are many" with the narrative "for many demons had entered him." Thus Luke’s version of this pericope avoids the awkwardness found in Mark. As in each case, it is worthwhile to analyze the two texts and determine which would be the most logical revision of the other. Would it make sense for Mark to take Matthew’s perfectly clear version of the story and unnecessarily complicate it by alternating between singular and plural? Obviously not. The more logical scenario remains Luke’s use and refinement of material he derived from the Gospel of Mark.

Another clue to the more primitive nature of Mark is its use of Aramaic words. Since Aramaic was the common tongue among Jews in Palestine during that time period, it is reasonable to presume that most of the dialogue recorded in the Gospel accounts was originally spoken in that language. Mark retains several traces of Aramaic, and occasionally makes translations for his Greek readers. For example, Mark 3:16, 17 read: "And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter), and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, ‘Sons of Thunder’)." Both Matthew and Luke omit the portion about the Aramaic word, Boanerges. In Mark 5:41, the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead also includes Aramaic dialogue: "And taking the child by the hand, He said to her, ‘Talitha kum!’ (which translated means, ‘Little girl, I say to your, arise!’)." Matthew omits the command from its account, while Luke simply records it in Greek: "He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Child, arise!" (8:54) Mark 7:11 reads: "but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, anything of mine you might have been helped by is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother." Like many of the other instances, the word "corban" in this pericope adds nothing to the narrative, so Matthew (the only parallel) omits it. In Mark 7:33-34, an unparalleled healing of a deaf man is recorded: "And He took him aside from the multitude by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva; and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ that is, ‘Be opened!’" Later, in Mark 14:35, 36, the Aramaic word "abba" is encountered: "And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground, and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, ‘Abba! Father! All things are possible for Thee; remove this cup from Me, yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt.’" Matthew 26:39 and Luke 22:42 read "My Father" and "Father" respectively. The one exception, in which both Matthew and Luke retain the Aramaic term, involves a place name: "And they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull" (Mark 15:22). The accounts in Matthew 27:33 and Luke 23:33 are nearly identical. The last example can be found in the pericope of the crucifixion. Mark 15:34, 35 read: "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?’ And when some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, ‘Behold, He is calling for Elijah.’" This is perhaps the most useful inclusion of Aramaic, as it explains why the bystanders misunderstood what Jesus said. Luke still omits it, though, and Matthew 27:46 instead records the original Hebrew quotation from Psalm 22:1. But in all the other accounts where Mark includes Aramaic words and they are not found in the other two synoptics, one must question why Mark would have added them to the source found in Matthew and Luke. The more likely scenario would be Matthew and Luke removing them from their Markan source because they were found unnecessary.

The last argument for Mark as a more primitive text involves its inclusion of harder readings, meaning passages that are more likely to elicit confusion or misunderstanding on the part of the reader. In most cases these harder readings are either clarified in, or eliminated from, Matthew and Luke, resulting in a text freer from distraction and incongruity. Most of these harder readings center around the nature of Jesus or the attitudes of His disciples—both important subjects since Jesus was the central figure of the faith, and many of the disciples were still alive at the time the first three Gospel accounts were written and circulated. Given the priority of Mark, it is understandable that the authors of the other two texts would rework hard passages when they felt offense or misunderstanding might otherwise arise. In one instance, Mark offers this account:

Beginning with a typical Markan redundancy, which both Matthew and Luke eliminate, this healing account includes another difficulty for the later Gospel writers. While the narrative indicates that all who were ill were brought to Jesus, it goes on to say that He healed many who were ill. Most likely the writer was trying to emphasize the great number of people healed, but it is possible for the reader to believe that many—but not all—of those who were brought were healed. Assuming that Matthew and Luke were written without the benefit of the other (which is the most common theory), each author had to decide in what way he should modify the account. Matthew’s account reads, "And when evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill…" (Matthew 8:16). First he eliminates the redundancy by retaining only the first half of it. Then he goes on to emphasize that Jesus healed all who were sick. Like Mark, he distinguishes between the sick and the demon-possessed, stating that a great number of demon-possessed people ("many") were brought to Jesus and were delivered. In this account, no question of success rate remains. As for Luke, the account reads as follows:

First Luke eliminates the redundancy by retaining its second half, then deals with the sick, followed by the demon-possessed. All who were sick were brought to Jesus, and He healed them. There were also those who were demon-possessed, and a great number of them ("many") were being delivered. Both of the revised accounts eliminate the more problematic wording found in Mark.

Another case of a hard reading can be found in the sixth chapter of Mark, the pericope of Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth:

One of the primary messages in the Gospel of Mark is the necessity of belief. The requirement for faith is heavily emphasized, and miracles are shown as a byproducts of that faith. Therefore this passage is in perfect keeping with Mark’s message, and doesn’t need much explanation—the people of Jesus’ hometown could not accept Him as a prophet, and their unbelief hindered the working of miracles there. The problem with Mark’s wording, though, is that it gives the impression that Jesus might have lacked sufficient power to perform miracles when it says He "could do no miracles there." The following sentence about unbelief contains the reason, but the link is not made strongly enough to avoid misinterpretation. This pericope is not found in Luke, but the parallel in Matthew reads this way:

Apparently the problem in Mark’s account was recognized during the writing of Matthew, and was eliminated. The two sentences in Mark are joined into one, with an obvious cause and effect relationship between unbelief and lack of miracles. The blame for this lack is placed squarely on the shoulders of the unbelievers rather than on Jesus. Thus Mark’s hard reading is refined and its message clarified.

Another example is found in the healing of the man with a withered hand. The religious leaders accuse Jesus of breaking Jewish law by performing work on the Sabbath, and He responds:

Mark records that, after the religious leaders give no reply to His question, Jesus looks at them with anger. It is not difficult to understand that a later writer might have concerns about including details about Jesus that some may consider harsh. Note how closely Luke’s account follows Mark’s, and how much more obvious that makes the omission:

Luke’s lock-step narrative differs at only one point, and that is where it simply omits the commentary on Jesus’ emotional response. In the case of Matthew, the same portion is removed. After Jesus’ dialogue concerning doing good on the Sabbath, it continues: "Then He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand!’ And he stretched it out, and it was restored to normal, like the other" (Matthew 12:13).

Though it is impossible to know with complete certainty which of the synoptic Gospels might have served as a source for the others, very strong arguments can be made from the internal evidence alone. None of the preceding examples provides irrefutable evidence for the view that Mark was used by Matthew and Luke; however, all of them together—along with dozens of similar examples—make a very strong case. It remains for the interested student or scholar to read all three synoptic Gospels (preferably Mark first) with these arguments in mind, and determine how well they hold up under sustained scrutiny.

Works Referenced