Possible textual evidence that Mark came after Matthew?

[davidmartin]

So in the Gospel of Mark there are hundreds of parallels to the Jewish scriptures, and nowhere else in Mark it is said that anything happened in order to fulfill the scriptures, even though the events of the scenes parallel the scriptures. But in Matthew, over and over again Matthew calls out these parallels and says that they happened in order to fulfill scripture

Very interesting observation. Thankyou for that
My thought would be when Mark was written the idea was to make clear the Jewish-positive atmosphere (contra Marcion in Ev priority) but they had not yet developed the scriptural fulfilment aspect - which is post-Markan.
The same thing is noticeable in the epistles, very little/no scriptural fulfilment (given the Marcion connection not a surprise)

So Mark just pre-dates the enthusaism the church later developed for these scriptural fulfilments - but are they entirely absent in Mark?
Incidently the 'Preaching of Peter' goes to show how keen some were on this maybe around the date of Matthew composition

Joseph:

But lets go back to ben Stada shall we?

I would take the accounts of Simon of Samaria with a large pinch of salt. They're surely garbled at best. I mean, the account of Hippolytus does have Simon making midrash on the Pentateuch. That's not the way to be an arch-heretic, I mean it sounds like he didn't study his "How to be a heretic" manual too deeply, and he forgets to mention the demiurge. I doubt the Simon we sort of "know" is anything more than a caricature!

You know, it never made sense to me why the Marcionites should repudiate the birth account of Jesus when Paul likewise undergoes a similar process. But if I am correct then Matthew's and Luke's inclusion of a birth narrative would mean that they are sourced from the Pauline tradition, only switching out Paul for Jesus, but keeping the same implication.

Not sure I follow. I think the theology of the epistles is geared to resurrection and averse to anything prior to the crucifixion being important. The Marcionites are following on from this big time. Not sure how the birth narratives could follow a Pauline tradition - I mean isn't that the 'human' tradition that everyone just gets born? Any human could serve as a model for Jesus being born.

[Joseph D. L.]

Joseph:

But lets go back to ben Stada shall we?

I would take the accounts of Simon of Samaria with a large pinch of salt. They're surely garbled at best. I mean, the account of Hippolytus does have Simon making midrash on the Pentateuch. That's not the way to be an arch-heretic, I mean it sounds like he didn't study his "How to be a heretic" manual too deeply, and he forgets to mention the demiurge. I doubt the Simon we sort of "know" is anything more than a caricature!

Garbled or not it would conform to the narrative established with ben Stada.

I am not saying these are two distinct histories, but that both are likely derived from one another.

You know, it never made sense to me why the Marcionites should repudiate the birth account of Jesus when Paul likewise undergoes a similar process. But if I am correct then Matthew's and Luke's inclusion of a birth narrative would mean that they are sourced from the Pauline tradition, only switching out Paul for Jesus, but keeping the same implication.

Not sure I follow. I think the theology of the epistles is geared to resurrection and averse to anything prior to the crucifixion being important. The Marcionites are following on from this big time. Not sure how the birth narratives could follow a Pauline tradition - I mean isn't that the 'human' tradition that everyone just gets born? Any human could serve as a model for Jesus being born.

The keyword here is human. Humans are born by the law and must subsequently die by. Paul makes a special consideration for this in Gal 4, between children of the Hagar and the children of Sarah. Those who have been purified by undertaking the symbolic crucifixion, death and resurrection by way of communion and baptism are reborn, that is, outside of the law. Paul applies this to himself, first in 1 Cor 15:8 by saying he was born out of time, and especially in Gal 1:15 when God "separated" him from his mother's womb. He was reborn outside of the law.

The Matthean author took this and literalized it. Jesus likewise is born outside of the law--his conception breaks the successive genealogical line that bounds everyone to the law according to Paul.

Why would Jesus tell his followers to hate their mothers and fathers? Why is Thomas against the idea of gender? Because these are laws put in place by Torah, and particularly Genesis 3. Paul's theology, and by consequence Jesus's conception, undoes that edict that woman shall have to bear children.

[Joseph D. L.]

Paul's theology is transhumanist. Everything human (carnal reproduction, sustenance, and death) are seen as weaknesses and sinful. Once you are reborn through Christ you are personally transformed into a new race, outside the jurisdiction of the law.

[davidmartin]

that's an interesting POV and suggestion for reading Matthew - which is for sure concerned with the law..

on the other hand its tempting to suspect an undercurrent of 'spiritualising the Torah' is at work to 'spiritually fulfill it', somewhere
some places in the tradition seem suggestive of that even if it clearly didn't get the official nod
yet this is a completely different thing from the idea of being outside the law of Paul even if the end result presumably would look similar
for example, the atonement isn't really needed if one can spiritually fulfill it.. it goes against the epistles, yet there's hints of it

The "hate of mothers and fathers" could be explained more in the light of Thomas something always visible in the gospels
Is Jesus using the "shocking statement" technique to get his listeners attention?
it could indicate a more passive real explanation, though the way the sayings are incorporated in Matthew might support your view here that something to do with the law was in the Matthean mind, yet that's not guaranteed to apply to the sayings in isolation which could have their own ideas

i wouldn't disagree with how you describe the transhumanist Paul, I see it as only 1 tradition though among many and not the only game in town for exerting influence on the gospels
but then i'm weird for thinking the epistles in large part existed prior to the epistles and only received a relatively light dusting of anything Pauline

well, so i'm not really disagreeing a whole lot, as regards Matthew you make an interesting observation

On Ben Stada i do find it hard to really accept this stuff for reasons of, well, if you were these Rabbi's and had your chance to vent against these Christians that from their perspective 'stole' their holy texts...
you get what you might expect - not much love to the founder and all sorts to dissuade conversion
ok, so perhaps a few grains are there that connect to Jesus or Simon maybe so
yet when we look at Simon he gets a raw deal as well from the Christians who seem to find it handy to have a sort of nemesis and make him out to be pretty awful.
i think its hard to know what he might have represented originally
a theory I have is, well take a look at the NHL.
a lot of early texts are not that dualistic. i see a trend toward greater dualism over time and actually some straight up non-dualism
it could be the more extreme Gnostic views (and Marcionite) don't make sense to attribute to this Simon but came along with the names we know, the Basilides, the Saturnils and these innovative folks, and I include the epistles in this time-frame or a little earlier but not much - with a bunch of earlier traditions forming the gospel base (the Chrestian phase)

[Sinouhe]

If Mark were retouched that much, im wondering why Joseph is completely absent from the story.

Yeah, I think that's the difficulty, is trying to understand or explain the entire editorial framework. Why would an editor do X but not Y? And this issue has caused many people to assume that because a single coherent editorial framework is difficult to explain, there must have been no editing at all. But this is clearly not true.

First of all, we can easily see one way that the Gospels were edited in the presence of one another: their titles - "The Gospel According to X". They all have the same exact format of their titles. This means that their titles were all created by the editor of the collection and assigned as a group.

So basically everyone agrees that the at the very least, each Gospel was modified to give it a title by someone who knew all of the Gospels and was editing the works together in a collection.

A fairly obvious place where Mark was edited to conform to Matthew is Mark 14:

Mark 14:48 And Jesus said to them, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me, as you would against a robber? 49 Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me; but this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures.”

Matthew 26:55 At that time Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as you would against a robber? Every day I used to sit in the temple teaching and you did not seize Me. 56 But all this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures of the prophets.”

Now, this is the one and only place in all of the Gospel of Mark that says anything about scriptures being fulfilled (except another instance in Mark 15 which is a widely acknowledged later modification because it is not in the earliest manuscripts).

So in the Gospel of Mark there are hundreds of parallels to the Jewish scriptures, and nowhere else in Mark it is said that anything happened in order to fulfill the scriptures, even though the events of the scenes parallel the scriptures. But in Matthew, over and over again Matthew calls out these parallels and says that they happened in order to fulfill scripture.

So this appears to be a fairly transparent case of Mark being conformed to Matthew by the original editor of the collection. We can ask, why only here and nowhere else? But we could ask teh same thing about the modification in Mark 15:27 They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left. 28 [And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And He was numbered with transgressors.”]

15:28 is a known later modification. Why only there?

I don't think that the fact that Mark specifies that this is a fulfillment of the Scriptures is enough to make this verse a late interpolation to follow Matthew's model. On the contrary, one could say that it was Mark's verse that inspired Matthew to add more throughout his text

[Joseph D. L.]

I don't think that the fact that Mark specifies that this is a fulfillment of the Scriptures is enough to make this verse a late interpolation to follow Matthew's model. On the contrary, one could say that it was Mark's verse that inspired Matthew to add more throughout his text

With Mark what is left unsaid is the indicator that there is more to the story he is leaving out. Mark is by far the most frustrating of the synoptics because of that fact.

Why include a scene where Jesus's mother and siblings are mentioned while saying nothing of Joseph? Meanwhile in Matthew Joseph is given due reason to be suspicious, and after their return from Egypt is absent for the rest of the story. What is the rationale behind including such a character just to satisfy what otherwise amounts to a throw away line in Mark? It's even more conspicuous that Matthew is linking Jesus to David by Joseph, only for Joseph to not really be Jesus's father. Mark would have a reason to delete this portion; and people would already know of it anyway.

[Joseph D. L.]

Mark 6:4 and Matt 13:57 when Jesus declares a prophet is hated in his hometown.

Matthew gives a reason for this, the question of Jesus's paternal legacy, while Mark leaves the question as to why hanging heavy in the air.

Wondering also if the story of Herod wasn't just used as a ploy to explain the carpenter family leaving Nazareth to escape such rumours.

[JarekS]

2 links:
https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/559582.pdf - for free
https://www.legimi.pl/ebook-panthera-oj ... 80417.html - for 21PLN/5EUR

Both publications can be easily and correctly translated using Google translate. I especially recommend the second one about Panther - it is the only scientific work comprehensively treating this topic over several hundred years from the Gospel to the 8th century inclusive. Contains criticism of the work of James Tabor.
You will learn from it how Christians turned the fathers of Joseph and Mary into brothers, one of whom was nicknamed Pandera, and how bad translations generate mockery

[Sinouhe]

I don't think that the fact that Mark specifies that this is a fulfillment of the Scriptures is enough to make this verse a late interpolation to follow Matthew's model. On the contrary, one could say that it was Mark's verse that inspired Matthew to add more throughout his text

With Mark what is left unsaid is the indicator that there is more to the story he is leaving out. Mark is by far the most frustrating of the synoptics because of that fact.

I would say subtle rather than frustrating, and more interesting to study than Matthew or Luke.

Why include a scene where Jesus's mother and siblings are mentioned while saying nothing of Joseph?

Because Jesus is the Son of God in Mark. Literally.

Meanwhile in Matthew Joseph is given due reason to be suspicious, and after their return from Egypt is absent for the rest of the story.What is the rationale behind including such a character just to satisfy what otherwise amounts to a throw away line in Mark?

That's what you can expect from a literary tool. Joseph is just here to play the role of the Davidic lineage.

It's even more conspicuous that Matthew is linking Jesus to David by Joseph, only for Joseph to not really be Jesus's father. Mark would have a reason to delete this portion; and people would already know of it anyway.

Matthew is unsubtle. That’s why he put Jesus on 2 donkeys.

[Joseph D. L.]

I don't want to get too caught up in the topic as it was a passing thought I had had while thinking about Matthew. I will probably start up a new thread and talk about it more there. For me Yeshu ben Stada can be fit into the Pauline cycle in the Marcionite canon. With him we have a good candidate for someone introducing the notion of another Christ sent by another god as a slight against the Jews who rejected him. No I do not think the rumour of his paternal father being Pantera holds up, but there might be a political dimension to that also.

If my hypothesis about Matthew does carry weight then Marcion is diminished in importance, becoming a compiler of pre-existing texts. It also makes Irenaeus and Tertullian's usage of Matthew to argue against Marcionites all the more appropriate. Still there's a lot of work I'll need to do before coming to that opinion. But my goal in this thread is to see if Matthean priority can be established over Mark, or if Mark knows of Matthew. Also it is not simply a matter of comparing verses, but where those verses fit contextually.

It could also explain why Papias believed Mark was written out of chronological order, because Matthew and Mark follow a variably different timeframe (Mark and Luke follow effectively the same timeframe, so without question they derive from the same source tradition.) Going back to my pet theory that the Marcan gospel Papias is referring to is actually Gospel of Peter which would make for an interesting comparison, but for now I'm sticking with our Mark.

The sticking point so far is Mark's mentioning of Jesus's familial matters, his mother and siblings but neglection of Joseph. If Mark has priority over Matthew than this point makes zero sense. It only makes sense in light of Matthew and Joseph's figuring out Mary's infidelity, which feeds back into the citizens of Nazareth being wise to him.

Right now I am following a trajectory of Matthew -> Galatians -> "Marcion" -> Mark -> Papias -> Luke-Acts

This will be updated as necessary.