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Case for the Core New Testament
Overview01Introduction02Foundational Terminology03The Development of the New Testament Canon04The Synoptic Problem05The Case for Lukan Priority06Critiquing Arguments for Markan Priority07Assessing the Other Canonical Gospels08Luke-Acts and Paul as Foundational Authorities09The Kerygma: The Core Gospel Message10Classifying the New Testament Authorities11Scholarship and Deconstruction12Conclusion
Lukan Priority
OverviewProto-Luke and Lukan PriorityLukan Priority and the Jerusalem SchoolThe Hebrew Gospel and LukeValidation of Special Luke: SemitismsStatistical Validation of Lukan PriorityProgressive Embellishment, Luke→Mark→MatthewRefutation of The Farrer Hypothesis
Issues with Mark
OverviewMark the “Re-Write Man”Mark’s Rewriting of Jesus’ Last WeekEmbellishments of MarkList of Markan Stereotypes and Pick-upsMark Borrows From Luke-ActsCountering Arguments for Markan PriorityThe Spurious Emergence of Markan PriorityDeficiencies of MarkLuke over Mark PassagesThe Various Endings of MarkAuthorship and Dating of Mark
Issues with Matthew
OverviewMatthean Revision to MarkThe Sermon on the Mount : The Matthean Jesus Is Not the Historical JesusThe Many Embellishments of MatthewProphecy Conflations and Misquotes of MatthewDevised Literary Structure of MatthewMatthew is a Liturgical DocumentEvidence for Matthean PosterioritySurvey of Matthean Posteriority ScholarshipMatthean Inconsistencies with LukeMatthew is a Judaizing DocumentMatthean Revisionism: Women, Non-Jews, and WealthThe Origin, Authorship, and Community of MatthewMatthew 28:19Critical Scholarship of Matthew
Issues with John
OverviewJohn vs the SynopticsProgressive Embellishment of JohnLuke→John, Johannine Dependence on LukeEmbellishments of JohnContradictions of JohnDevised Literary Structure of JohnMisunderstanding of JohnJohn and PhilosophyDislocations of JohnAuthorship of JohnDating of JohnDating of John P52 ErrorIssues with Dating John Before 100 ADContested Status of JohnOrigen’s Commentary on JohnJustin Martyr Favored Luke over JohnCritical Scholarship of John
Luke Primacy
OverviewThe Prologue of LukePaul Attests to Luke-Acts PrimacyHistorical Reliability of Luke-ActsAnswering Luke-Acts ObjectionsOther Considerations for Luke Primacy
Other Issues
OverviewIssues with RevelationModern Critical Text FAQsAnswering Skeptics on Paul and ActsThe New Testament was written in Greek

Issues with Mark

Mark the “Re-Write Man”

Josiah E. Verkaik

Mark the “Re-write Man”

In his article, “My Search for the Synoptic Problem's Solution,” Hebrew scholar Robert Lindsey of the Jerusalem School makes the following statements regarding his findings:

As a consequence of my endeavor to produce a Modern Hebrew translation of the Gospel of Mark, however, I began to develop a different picture of the interrelationship of the Synoptic Gospels. This new picture began to emerge from my observation that whereas the portions of Matthew and Luke that have no parallel to Mark translate quite naturally into Hebrew, Mark’s Gospel (and Matthew’s parallel passages) presented certain difficulties. Although Mark also had many lines and phrases that translated easily into Hebrew, these were often interrupted with words and expressions that are nearly impossible to translate into Hebrew. Luke, on the other hand, even when in parallel to Mark, presented no such difficulties… I further came to the surprising conclusion that Mark was not the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, but that Mark followed Luke, rewriting and revising Luke’s wording, and that Matthew later followed Mark, but also had access to the earlier Hebraic-Greek account of the life of Jesus that was the basis of Luke’s Gospel. I realized that, if true, my theory would both explain Mark’s traditional unpopularity, and lead to a serious reassessment of the prevailing view of Mark’s position among the Gospels. The basic reason for Mark’s unpopularity is that it was written by an early Jewish Christian who rewrote the gospel story using the midrashic methods of early rabbis ... a rabbinic phrase which can be paraphrastically translated as “homilize it and bend it to apply to your need.” (Robert L. Lindsey, “My Search for the Synoptic Problem’s Solution,” Jerusalem Perspective (2013))

Rather than assuming that Luke used Mark as the basis of his Gospel, as is commonly held by most New Testament scholars, it appears that the opposite is true. Mark employed Luke’s Gospel, along with another early source, and the result is a Gospel that is almost as much annotation and comment as original story. Mark’s principal method was to replace about half of Luke’s earlier and more authentic wording with a variety of synonyms and expressions he culled from certain Old and New Testament books that, today, we can identify usually simply by consulting Greek and Hebrew concordances of the Bible... Like the rabbis, Mark loved to find linguistic parallels to the text he was copying in other, often unrelated, books, and then mix words and phrases taken from these parallels with others of his sources. This method resulted in an amplified text that many scholars had thought gave an authenticity to Mark’s work, but which, in reality, should be described as a fascinating but rather inauthentic dramatization of the Gospel story. Due to Mark’s quite normal midrashic and aggadic Jewish methods, his Gospel is the “first cartoon life of Christ.” Mark was a “re-write man.” (Robert L. Lindsey, “My Search for the Synoptic Problem’s Solution,” Jerusalem Perspective (2013))

Mark as a Dramatizer

After conducting a four-part analysis of taking a statistical approach to solving the Synoptic problem, Halvor Ronning concluded that the Lukan Priority theory was the best solution that fit the empirical evidence (See Statistical Validation of Lukan Priority). In the last article of the series, Ronning follows up his conclusion with an assessment of Mark.

“In relation to … Jewish writers, we can judge that Luke was more steady and less innovative in relation to his sources. Even though we do not have copies of Luke’s sources we can observe how Luke preserved whole blocks of material that are more consistently easy to translate into Hebrew than the parallel material in Mark or Matthew. Luke does not share the same degree of erratic character with respect to Hebrew retroversion as does Mark. Like Luke, Matthew is also generally easier to revert to Hebrew than Mark, except where Matthew has a Markan parallel. Where Matthew has a Markan parallel, Matthew is just as difficult to revert to Hebrew as Mark. These observations are the origin of Lindsey’s insights regarding the dependence of Matthew on Mark, and the independence of Luke from either. Mark’s Gospel, on the other hand, exhibits the expansionist characteristics of a Jewish midrashic or targumistic storyteller. Like a targumist, Mark absolutely refused to replicate the wording of Luke... Mark’s editorial activity is not a matter of high theological interference with his sources. As a Jewish author, Mark simply followed in the footsteps of good targumic style: he dramatized his source by substituting synonyms, adding words from elsewhere, and rearranging and reversing word orders; anything to hold the reader’s attention and fascination. (Mark also demonstrates that he had an intensely active associative mind by recalling of words and phrases and ideas from the Septuagint and the writings of Paul and working these words and ideas into his paraphrase of Luke’s text. (Halvor Ronning, “A Statistical Approach to the Synoptic Problem: Part 4—Non-Linear Hypotheses,” Jerusalem Perspective (2016))

Due to this ‘targumic’ activity the stories Mark told are almost always (literally 80% of the time) longer than the parallel accounts in Luke and Matthew. Mark is the longest Gospel, not the shortest in terms of the actual stories he decided to incorporate. Mark is shortest only in terms of overall length, but that is only because of the stories and sayings he chose to omit. Mark’s expansionist style fits his character as a sophisticated targumic story teller. (H. Meijboom A History and Critique of the Origin of the Marcan Hypothesis 1835-1866 (trans. John J. Kiwiet; Macon: Mercer, 1993; Dutch 1866), 105-115.) (Halvor Ronning, “A Statistical Approach to the Synoptic Problem: Part 4—Non-Linear Hypotheses,” Jerusalem Perspective (2016))

Mark's Editorial Changes

As Lindsey had concluded in the previous work, Mark was not interested in transmitting his sources as he had received them. Instead, Mark’s editorial style is characterized by creativity. Lindsey noted numerous characteristics in how Mark treated his sources.

  1. Relocation of parts from the Lukan order to a new context.
  2. Rewriting parts by substituting synonyms for the words Mark found in his source(s).
  3. Rewriting parts using vocabulary Mark had picked up from various later sources. These “Markan pick-ups” allowed Mark to show how the stories about Jesus resonated in the experiences of the later Church.
  4. Radical abbreviation in some places
  5. Expansion of parts by adding detail and duplicating phrases

By analyzing Lukan-Matthean minor agreements against Mark and by comparing Markan usage to the style of Luke (Mark’s main source), David Bivin provides an expanded list of examples of editorial changes that are evidenced in Mark under the categories of Grammar, Vocabulary and Literary Techniques. An outline is provided below. See the referenced article, David N. Bivin, “LOY Excursus: Mark’s Editorial Style," Jerusalem Perspective (2021) for more expansionary detail and examples.

LOY Excursus: Mark’s Editorial Style,

Grammar:

Vocabulary

Literary Techniques

By making alterations such as we have described above, the author of Mark expanded sayings and narratives. Partly as a result of the editorial techniques outlined above, Mark’s pericopae are generally longer than their Matthean and Lukan counterparts. Although Mark is the shortest Gospel, this is because the author of Mark elected to report fewer stories, not because he was given to brevity.

In conclusion of the article, Bivin states the following:

Scholars often refer to the editorial alterations of Mark (alterations often followed by Matthew) as “vivid detail” or “freshness,” assuming these “primitive” readings to be a sign of Mark’s originality. However, once Mark’s Gospel is recognized as dependent on Luke’s, Mark’s editorial style becomes unmistakable. (David N. Bivin, “LOY Excursus: Mark’s Editorial Style," Jerusalem Perspective (2021)

The author of Mark’s modus operandi was to make almost every kind of change to his text that an editor can make. Often his changes appear to be without purpose—simply change for the sake of change. Yet, although to post-Enlightenment western readers Mark’s treatment of his sources may seem arbitrary and even indefensible, there are ancient Jewish models for Mark’s editorial techniques in the later rabbinic aggadic midrashim and in the targumim. (David N. Bivin, “LOY Excursus: Mark’s Editorial Style," Jerusalem Perspective (2021)

Jerusalem School References