On the premise that Matthew was published coincident with the events in Acts 10–11 and Mark shortly thereafter, with full knowledge of Matthew’s Greek text, I have been evaluating the passages which Mark chose to resequence–from Matthew–into earlier settings within his own narrative. Refer to “Mark’s resequenced episodes, assuming Matthean priority” for a survey of these resequenced passages. At the same time I’ve also accepted, per a prior blog post (Recasting Mark’s kai euthys as “and then”), that when Mark uses kai euthys (καὶ εὐθύς) to carry forward a story he is often using it in the sense of a simple kai connective, without necessarily asserting brevity or even chronological order.
The purpose of this particular blog post is to demonstrate that when either Mark or Luke integrate a resequenced Matthean passage they consistently use transitional language which does not assert a chronology which competes with that presented by Matthew. Accordingly, Mark and Luke can both be understood as resequencing Matthew’s episodes for the sake of providing thematically organized narratives.
The following table identifies the transitional language found in Mark and Luke which introduces one or more displaced episodes from Matthew’s Gospel. As before, I am working off of a helpful synopsis published by Bernard Orchard, which uses diagonal lines to indicate the passages which have been resequenced.1 In this assessment, I am excluding some of the teaching events, such as the parables and the larger discourses, as Jesus may well have taught things at multiple times. Plus, the narrative summary statements are generally excluded.
As can be observed, neither Mark nor Luke use transitional language which necessarily asserts a chronology which competes with Matthew’s chronology.
| Teaching with Authority | Mk 1:21b. καὶ εὐθὺς τοῖς σάββασιν. | Lk 4:31b. καὶ … ἐν τοῖς σάββασιν. |
| Healing of Peter’s Mother-in-Law | Mk 1:29. καὶ εὐθὺς. | Lk 4:38. X δὲ. |
| Healing of a Paralytic | Mk 2:1. Καὶ εἰσελθὼν πάλιν. | Lk 5:17. Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν μιᾷ τῶν ἡμερῶν. |
| Plucking Grain on Sabbath | Mk 2:23. Καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτὸν ἐν τοῖς σάββασιν. | Lk 6:1. Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν σαββάτῳ |
| Jesus and Beelzebul | Mk 3:22. καὶ. | n/a |
| Anxiety of Mothers/Brothers | Mk 3:31. Καὶ ἔρχονται. | Lk 8:19. X δὲ. |
- Bernard Orchard, Matthew, Luke, and Mark (Manchester, England: Koinonia, 1976). ↩︎
NOTE: Comments and dialog are welcome. The “Leave a Reply” field will be accessible below for 10 days after this post was published. Afterwards, please feel free to continue to comment via the contact page. (This is my attempt to manage the spam bots.)
I have just discovered your website, and I am looking forward to exploring your research. As a Benedictine novice 20+ years ago, I had the privilege of getting to know Dom Bernard Orchard, and hearing at first hand his views on the early date of the gospel according to Matthew.
Welcome!
I have great respect for the writings of Dom Bernard Orchard—his desire to defend the integrity (historicity and authorship) of the Gospels, his willingness to take a contrary stand concerning their development, his detailed scholarship, and his willingness to collaborate in order to advance his perspectives are all admirable. To my knowledge, he was the last published Catholic scholar who affirmed that Matthew was published in Greek, as the first Gospel, within roughly a decade of the resurrection. Are you aware of any others? Did Orchard convince you of his views?
If I may suggest, my book offers a more methodical development of my arguments concerning the early date for Matthew than the web format fosters. It is available in print and ebook formats, and most schools/libraries (even in the UK!) have access to such via inter-library loan. However, my more recent work on Mark’s use of Matthew is presently only available here.
Am eager for comments, critiques, and suggestions.
Dan