Notes on Mark and the Synoptics

The Setting. In the nineteenth century and even later, it was fashionable to suppose that Christianity developed in a linear fashion, with a Jewish sect of Judaeo-Christians being transformed into a savior-cult by the Apostle Paul. It all looks more complicated now. The early Christians seem to have been a various lot, reflecting the diversity of the late Judaism in which they began. We can imagine many small communities of Christians scattered around the shores of the Mediterranean, having been converted and instructed by some itinerant preacher but then, perhaps, left on their own to answer further questions as they arose. Some felt moved to prophesy in the name of the Lord, or to interpret the words of others in that way, so that new sayings may have come into circulation in some churches. As they came to write down in gospels their understanding of Jesus and his teaching, the resulting gospels, both those eventually found canonical and others, reflected that diversity. Because the first three gospels share a good deal of material, and because we often read them, if at all, in weekly snippets we tend to have a vaguely homogenized image of their teaching. For those engaged in the quest for historical certainty, harmonizing their accounts can be important. In considering them as literary works, however, we need to give equal weight, even among the three Synoptic Gospels, to the ways in which the different writers shape their stories.
Sources. The first three gospels are called "synoptic" because of their shared material. Much of Mark appears in Matthew and Luke. In addition, Matthew and Luke share many sayings and parables not found in Mark, though the two gospels insert them at different places into the Markan narrative. The simplest explanation of these facts is generally taken to be that Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels later than Mark and drew upon both Mark and a sayings document known as Q (for Quellen, a German word), supplementing them with their own sources and insights. It should be noted, however, that this conflicts with the tradition of the early church, which held that Matthew was the first gospel to be written. There are serious scholars who accept the traditional order, arguing that Mark may be a redaction of an early version of Matthew.
Mark. Mark is the shortest and sparest of the gospels, but it has its own distinctive approach to the material. Its Jesus is a martyred prophet, and it is possible the narrative may have been affected by the desire to draw parallels with Old Testament prophets. When compared with Matthew and Luke, much less with the hypothesized Q community, Mark focusses much less on the teachings than on acts of saving power and on Jesus's example of obedience unto death. It may have been addressed to a church facing persecution.
- Sayings. Whether or not he had access to the hypothetical Q source, Mark obviously made use of some collection of sayings, particularly ones in which Jesus as a teacher is challenged for his apparent departure from custom and gives and authoritative response. A number of these "pronouncement stories" deal with issues that would have been important to the early church in terms of whether to maintain strict Jewish codes (2.17, 2.27, 7.15, 12.17).
- Miracles. Another possible source for Mark would be collections of miracle stories. One says collections in the plural because the gospel has two sets of miracle stories, one starting with Jesus stilling a storm (4.35-41) and ending with feeding 5000 (6.34-44), and the other (slightly over-lapping) beginning with Jesus walking on the sea (6.45-51) and including feeding the 4000 (8.1-10). The rest of each set is filled out with tales of exorcism and healing (5.1-43 and (7.24-27, 8.22-26), in which Jesus ministers to the outcasts of society. The stories place Jesus in the line of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha. For those who miss the point, Jesus appears with Moses and Elijah in the transfiguration (9.2-8). [Luke eliminates the first of these sets of stories.]
- The Disciples. Tradition has associated the author of this gospel with a companion of Peter in Rome, and the explanation of Jewish customs suggests that it was written for a Gentile audience. Mark also has some emphasis on Jesus giving secret instructions to his disciples, beyond his public teaching. A good bit has been written about the "Messianic secret" in Mark. On the other hand, the disciples, including Peter, consistently misunderstand the real nature of Jesus as a Messiah and the meaning of what he tells them. In 9.31-32, for example, he tells that he is to be killed and to rise again, but "they did not undersand what he was saying and ere afraid to ask him."
- The Last Supper. Mark also was familiar with traditions about the last supper. Paul's 1 Corinthians 11 is almost certainly earlier than this gospel and shows that ritual re-enactment of the supper was already common.
  -- Paul tells us: 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for* you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. These words are the earliest report of the supper, and they already have a liturgical ring.
  -- Mark's account is similar in wording: 22 While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ 23Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the* covenant, which is poured out for many. 25Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’ The last verse, however, may indicate that Mark's own group did not practice the regular re-enactment of the occasion.
- The Resurrection. The older manuscripts of Mark end in 16 with the women discovering the empty tomb and being told by the angel to go tell Peter and the disciples. Even if the post-resurrection appearances are a later addition, Mark was certainly familiar with the tradtion that there had been such appearances.
  -- Again, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.3-8 provids early testimony: 3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters* at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.* 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.
  -- Notice, though that neither the short nor the long version of Mark's gospel corresponds exactly to Paul's account--both give first place to women rather than Peter, for example. More importantly, the Pauline notion of the Passion as an atoning sacrifice is at least much less prominent in Mark--for some scholars, absent altogether.
Two Infancy Narratives: Even without the addition of Rudolph and Santa Claus, our usual sense of the Christmas story conflates two distinct accounts. From Matthew we get the visit of the wise men, the massacre of the innocents, and the flight to Egypt. Luke gives us the long parallel story of the birth of John the Baptist, the annunciation scene, the census, the shepherds hearing the angels, and later, the presentation in the Temple.
- Matthew 1.1-2.24. The most Jewish of the gospels, Matthew opens with a genealogy designed to stress the Davidic descent (but through Joseph) of Jesus. Its infancy stories echo the birth of Moses, with the wise men present to spur another massacre of children, and Jesus saved by a flight into, rather than out of Egypt. This is appropriate for a gospel which stresses fulfillment of the Law.
- Luke 1.1-3.28. Luke offers more miraculous details. His genealogy in 3.23-38 differs somewhat from that in Matthew. While including Joseph in the House of David, it goes all the way back to Adam. The Jesus of Luke/Acts is the Christ sent to all men, not just to Jews. Luke intermingles this story with what may have been a separate tradition about John the Baptist.
- Matthew vs. Luke. In Matthew, the annunciation is to Joseph; in Luke, to Mary. In Matthew (2:11), Joseph and Mary have a house in Bethlehem and have lived there long enough that Herod means to kill all children under two; in Luke, they go there only for a census and must lodge in a stable. This leads Matthew to the Flight to Egypt before getting the family to Nazareth, not part of Luke. The wise men are only in Matthew; Luke has the shepherds instead. They agree in affirming Davidic descent through Joseph (as does Paul in Romans 1:3-4) and in the birth at Bethlehem. They also seem to take the Isaiah prophecy (7:14) to refer to a virgin conceiving.
Sermons from Q: Mathew 5.1-7.29, Luke 6.17-49 If the Q source was a separate document, it is likely to have been at least as early in time as Mark and probably earlier. We know that collections of Jesus sayings circulated because we now have the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which may also be fairly early and which includes variations of some of the sayings which would have been in Q. If we may judge from those sayings, the groups in which such collections circulated may have put less stress on the resurrected savior of Paul or the prophet-martyr of Mark and more on Jesus's teaching on how to live now so as to attain the Kingdom of God. Many of the sayings are hard sayings, calling for a way of living radically different. With the sayings themselves come secondary elaborations.
- Matthew 5.43-48. Matthew takes some of the same material and uses it as part of his theme in which Jesus is seen as demanding a stricter and fuller form of obedience to the law.
Two Parables. The material common to Matthew and Luke includes parables as well as sayings, but they are not always used in the same way.
- The Lost Sheep, Matthew 18.10-14, Luke 15.3-7. In Matthew, the parable of the lost sheep is incorporated in one of the long discourses which structure his book; in this case, it is part of injunctions on how to treat new members of the church. One assumes that this issue arose in the community which produced Matthew, and that they found the parable relevant. In Luke, it is produced as an answer to the Pharisees complaint that Jesus and his disciples eat with sinners. It is possible that in the Q community, as in many a sermon since, the parable was taken to refer to God's desire that even sinners be brought into the Kingdom.
- The Reluctant Guests, Matthew 22.1-14, Luke 14.15-23. The story of the reluctant guests invited to a dinner or banquet seems aimed at those who let worldly preoccupations keep them from the Kingdom, which will therefore be filled up with outsiders. This sense survives in the Lukan version, though it is shoe-horned into his narrative as a response to a dinner guest. In Matthew's version, those invited kill the slaves sent to summon them, an unnecessary touch for the parable itself (declining the invitation would itself mark them as unworthy) but one which anticipates the persecution the Jesus and his followers will face. Matthew has appended an anecdote about someone who comes to a wedding without a proper robe--again, this makes no sense in context, since the guest was swept up off the street, though it does bear on who will win admission to the kingdom.
The Good Samaritan, Luke 10.25-37. The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of Luke's contributions to the story, and appropriately so. Luke/Acts is especially concerned with the mission to the Gentiles, and the story illustrates that right behavior is what is required for admission to eternal life and will save even a despised Samaritan.