The Evolution of Christs and Christianities, ISBN 1-4134-9791-8 (Softcover), p. 149:
"Mark has the stone being placed in front of Jesus' tomb, but does not have the spices being placed with Jesus. John has the spices being placed with Jesus but does not have the stone. It would seem that both would be necessary in both stories. Mark would not want us to think of Jesus' body stinking without spices and John needs the stone placed in front of the tomb so Mary can see it missing. There is one explanation for two such enormous lapses and for the pieces in Mark fitting so well into John. Originally the two texts were one and contained both bits of important information. We may may deduce that Mark was literally cutting out the text from a manuscript to create his new manuscript. Whoever published John must have had the very same manuscript with the holes that Mark had left in it..."
Our Highly Esteemed Contributor Jay has something of importance in his book beyond Jay's destruction of Eusebius. Jay points to a Linkage between Mark and John and it is important to see why. If the purpose of Criticism is to lay out a path to the worship of the Christian gods, then none of this makes any sense. Beyond this, an intermediate step falls as well. If the purpose of our Study is to end up with no allowable understanding of Plausibility except the elimination of the Jewish Culture and the Ascension of the Christian World on the debris of the dead Culture of the Jews then nothing will be acceptable to examine as well.
Jay is leading us somewhere and the above passage is startling. Mark is writing for a purpose as is John and the Support for this Purpose comes from a Source Document that is telling a different Tale. We know it is of a different story because individually the stories are not plausible in and of themselves. If there was a single story then we would have had the story in its original form. A hidden assumption here is that this original form in itself would have been plausible for its subject audience and it is not!
Jay looks at Mark and his requirement that Jesus die in fulfillment of some 3 day Symbolism:
Mark 14: 1 - 2 (RSV):
[1] It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him;
[2] for they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people."
"The writer of this text is aware of the story of Jesus dying on Passover. He is also aware of an objection to the story that the people would have rioted if Jesus was killed on Passover. The writer is explaining why Jesus died on the preparation day and not Passover. However, the writer of these lines cannot be Mark. Mark tells us the contrary - that Jesus does die on Passover Day. Mark must have copied this scene before he had decided to have Jesus die on Passover Day. If Mark had bothered to reread his work, he would have realized immediately that his pronouncement that Jesus was not to die on Passover day is pointless if Jesus does die on Passover. [[Jay here analyses several possible Document Forms that give Plausible Sequences to the events described.]]
...
"We know Mark did not write this, but only copied it, because he, in fact, does have Jesus dying on Passover, but does not show any riot by the people..."
One may argue with Jay on his interpretation of these verses and whether he has the correct interpretation. I believe, however, that he is correct here on a particular major point: If it is Plausible that Mark consciously changed his story to argue for another end that was not in the original document, then it is more fruitful to examine the Language in Use of the Gospels and worry about the Metaphysics later.
Jay has pointed to a Link between Mark and John. It is important to see what this link and other links are. We are leading to a different understanding of the Tomb Sequence and why it had to be altered.
CW