Mark used Q

[Giuseppe]

The earliest Gospel was not simply a collection of Jesus lore. It thus is not a window through which to observe traditions about Jesus, nor is it a quilt of earlier written collections stitched together. Rather, it is a tapestry skillfully woven from threads most often supplied by Jewish scriptures in Greek. To be sure, some of the threads may issue from oral/aural communications, but when textualized they are nearly indistinguishable from the author's originality. The Logoi of Jesus thus is a textus, "something woven", from the Latin verb texere, "to weave". Furthermore, Mark's extensive reliance on it for Jesus's teachings, and the obsession of Matthew, Papias and Luke with these two earlier Gospels greatly reduces the content attributable to oral tradition, to say nothing of their historical reliability. What Plato was to Socrates, the author of Logoi was to Jesus.

(Dennis R. MacDonald, From the Earliest Gospel (Q+) to the Gospel of Mark, p. 218)

The Appendix 5 is titled Scholars Who Argued that Mark Used Q (with James R. Van Dore).
They are Legion!

Van Dore concluded that even though, when compared in isolation, none of the units that comprise the clusters unambiguously reveals evidence of Mark's retention of Q's redaction, their similar combinations in Q and Mark require a literary nexus. Furthermore, wherever one can discern the primitivity of one version over another, Q is anterior to Mark.

(ibid., p. 280)

Now it becomes clear why, if Q is absorbed entirely in Mcn, then Mcn's priority over Luke implies virtually also Mcn's priority over Mark.

[Ken Olson]

Van Dore concluded that even though, when compared in isolation, none of the units that comprise the clusters unambiguously reveals evidence of Mark's retention of Q's redaction, their similar combinations in Q and Mark require a literary nexys. Furthermore, wherever one can discern the primitivity of one version over another, Q is anterior to Mark.

(ibid., p. 280)

Now it becomes clear why, if Q is absorbed entirely in Mcn, then Mcn's priority over Luke implies virtually also Mcn's priority over Mark.

Could you give, say, three examples where the primitivity of Q over Mark can be discerned? Or, failing that, just the single best example?

Best,

Ken

[Giuseppe]

Quoted very random from the book, p. 206:

The paralles also satisfy criterion 6, interpretability, insofar as they display several corrections to perceived shortcomings in the lost Gospel, the most important of which were Jesus' prophecy that he soon would return in judgement, destroy the Jerusalem temple, and build another. The author placed this description on the lips of Jesus's opponents, provided an alternative eschatological periodization in ch. 13, and deprived the disciples of a rendezvous with the risen Jesus in Galilee. He also objected to Logoi's restriction of the mission of the Twelve to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel". Repeatedly the Markan Evangelist omitted passages embarrassing to Jesus's morality and Torah observance, such as the pericope peccatorae, and the charge that Jesus was a "GLUTTON AND A DRUNKARD". He thus had several compelling reasons to rewrite the lost Gospel and imitated the Homeric epics to do so.
Finally, the parallels also satisfy criterion 7, ancient recognition. ...

What strikes is the trasversality of the Logoi of Jesus: it has items that may well be marcionite, for example the logion on Jesus bringing division and not peace, or the passages "embarrassing to Jesus's morality and Torah observance", and in the same time, it has Judaizing motives, as the Matthean xenophobic invitation to preach only to israelites.

So one may speculate about late evangelists taking what mattered to him from this lost gospel.

[schillingklaus]

Ronald McDonald fails to see that Mt and Lk do not depend on Mk but on other lost common sources.

The xenophobic rule not to teach to non-Israel is just Judaizing appropriation of the gnostic rule of not sharing knowledge (bread of teh eucharist) with the uninitialized (not baptized).

[Giuseppe]

Another strong clue of the Logoi's priority over Mark is that in the Logoi YHWH has abandoned his "house" because of Jerusalem's murder of prophets, already before the death of Jesus.

While in Mark YHWH abandoned the temple only in the precise moment when Jesus died on the cross.

In the Logoi, Jesus predicts that after his death, no one will see him. Mark introduces the prediction of false Christs resembling him.

[Giuseppe]

...Continuing about the prophecy of destruction and reconstruction found in the Logoi but put by Mark on the lips of false witnesses:

Mark's apparent addition of "after three days" suggests that even if Jesus had spoken this threat, he was referring not to the temple but to his body that would rise from the dead after three days, as predicted in 8:31, 9:31 and 10:34.

(ibid., p. 171)

[Giuseppe]

In addition: Mark 13 was designed to distance Jesus from the death of his followers in the fall of Jerusalem. The goal of these "prophecies" was to preserve precisely their lives before the disaster. For example:

Look out for yourselves. I have predicted everything for you.

(13:23)

No one can hold him responsible for the death of his followers in 70 C.E.

None of Mark's apologetics in 13:14-20 relies on the lost Gospel, which had been written before the War.

(ibid., p. 178)

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

...Continuing about the prophecy of destruction and reconstruction found in the Logoi but put by Mark on the lips of false witnesses:

Can you tell in which "logoi" this can be read? Is that just one of the usual fantastic assertions or is there at least some rational thought behind it?

[Giuseppe]

three examples where the primitivity of Q over Mark can be discerned? Or, failing that, just the single best example?

it is very hard to answer, because the book abounds of examples for any pericope, quasi to paraphrase the saying "the devil is in the details".
It seems in many examples that Mark is mitigating again and again the more radical tone of the Logoi. For example, a simple radical saying as "the last will be the first" becomes mitigated in Mark as "many of the last will be the first". This resembles the same logic used to argue that in the Beatitudes the "poors" precede "the poors in spirit".

[Giuseppe]

...Continuing about the prophecy of destruction and reconstruction found in the Logoi but put by Mark on the lips of false witnesses:

Can you tell in which "logoi" this can be read? Is that just one of the usual fantastic assertions or is there at least some rational thought behind it?

Logoi 7:22

"I will destroy thos sanctuary that is made with hands, and
I will build another that is not made with hands".

No mention of "after 3 days", which would be a Markan addition.