Benjamin W. W. Fung, The Meaning of "Orderly" Account in Luke 1:3, pages 217-218: Moreover, I discovered that if Greco-Roman and Jewish historians do not mention in their prefaces what order they are going to write, they will write in chronological order, which gives further confirmation that Luke’s writing order is chronological. Therefore, the findings from chapter 2 lead to the conclusion that Luke likely writes both his gospel and the book of Acts in chronological order.
This conclusion seems quite consonant with my longstanding suspicion, voiced on another thread a few months ago, not only that the order meant by various writers is a literary order, but also that the default literary order for works involving history is chronological.
While canonical Mark is a jumbled mess, defying the attempts by NT scholars to tease out an organization, the original gospel as written by the author was tightly constructed and a unified whole until a redactor changed its Christology. I show in my book "Unlocking the Puzzle" that every pericopae in Mark has a chiastic structure as does the gospel as a whole. It is divided into 3 acts and it is also divided into 3 sections based upon source material. Each of those sections is divided into 3 sections based upon source material.
Using literary analysis tools I developed I was able to strip out interpolated passages and rearrange pericopae into their original order. One of the more drastic repairs consisted of realizing that original Mark only had one feeding miracle. The original feeding of the multitudes consists of the first half of the first feeding and the second half of the second feeding. Except for 7:1-23, everything in between the two feedings has been interpolated. Mark's Original Gospel was written as follows:
1:1 - Incipit
1:2- 3:35 - same as Canonical Mark
4:36-6:31 mostly the same as Canonical Mark except for interpolations at 6:14-15, 6:18-26, and 6:28
9:2-29 Transfiguration was much earlier in the Original Gospel
4:1-35 Parable Discourse is major division matching the Olivet discourse
6-32-37 First half of first feeding
8:5-9:1 Second half of second feeding and following same as Canonical Mark except for interpolations at 8:14 & 8:19
9:30-10:46a Same as Canonical Mark
7:1-23 Controversy on tradition takes place in Jericho. Moved by redactor to pad distance between feedings.
10:46b-16:8 From leaving Jericho to the empty tomb Original Mark is the same as Canonical Mark with the Olivet Discourse being the second major division.
Mark's Gospel is not a collection of notes or oral stories. It is a tightly woven narrative using OT sources for the events in Jesus's life and Paul's epistles for Jesus's teachings. It is organized OT - Paul - OT with the Parable Discourse and the Olivet Discourse being the division points. The first OT section is organized OT-Paul-OT. The Pauline section is organized Paul-OT-Paul. And the second OT section is organized OT-Paul-OT.
A redactor did not like Mark's adoptionistic gospel and the suggestion that Jesus did not know what his mission was until talking to Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration. The redactor jumbled the gospel to change the Christology.
