Justus

Such as .. ??? I would apperciate both your observations and any article / book references that you would consider helpful .... sorry I can be a pain but I see no reason not to use whatever resources present themselves ... The length and detail is more than adequate for a novice like myself...

Toto

Reasons to place Mark first: There are several instances where Mark refers to the Old Testament incorrectly, with no particular theological reason, and Matthew corrects Mark's language. It is hard to imagine that Mark would take Matthew and turn an accurate quote into an inaccurate one.

Randall Helms has written two books that I found helpful: Gospel Fictions and Who Wrote the Gospels, which discusses this issue.

[ October 01, 2001: Message edited by: Toto ]

Vorkosigan

Mark contains an account of the Baptism of Jesus by John. Matthew makes this less embarrassing for Jesus, and GosJohn eliminates it entirely. Obviously early Christians found the story embarrassing, and rewrote it to eliminate embarrassing aspects.

Mark contains no explicit reference to disposition of Jesus' body after the Resurrection, whereas the other three NT gospels definitely make it clear the risen Jesus has a physical body. Since, as time went on, the politics of orthodoxy supported
a physical resurrection, it is easy to see that Mark must predate the time when that became important. Lk and Mt are careful to establish that.

Mark is shortest gospel; it is considered that the shortest version of any story is likely the first.

Mark's christology is considered the most primitive.

It is clear from Luke's use of Mark that he probably did not have Matthew. When Mt and L present their stories in the same sequence, it is the sequence found in Mk. The obvious conclusion is that they got it from Mk. On wording issues, they almost never agree with each other against Mk.

Things that are awkward in Mark (whose greek is less than stellar) are smoothed out in Mt and Lk. It is difficult to understand why Mark would introduce roughness, but easy to see why Mt and Lk would eliminate it.

I personally find the thesis that Mark is first most compelling, and it is the mainstream of Biblical scholarship (in some cases even where Q is rejected).

Michael