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Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Why Matthew Would Use Mark's Gospel

I've written a lot about the evidence for the apostle Matthew's authorship of the gospel attributed to him. See here for a collection of some relevant posts. One of the most prominent objections to his authorship of the document is the notion that Matthew wouldn't have used the gospel of Mark as much as critics think the author of the gospel attributed to Matthew did. Somebody like Matthew shouldn't have been so dependent on Mark. I've addressed that objection before. I think the most likely scenario is that Matthew oversaw the production of his gospel, but delegated most of the work to one or more other individuals who composed the document under his supervision. But Lydia McGrew provides a good overview of another possible scenario, in which Matthew produced the gospel directly himself. This is from her recent book Testimonies To The Truth (Tampa, Florida: DeWard, 2023):

"Suppose that Mark wrote before Matthew, but that Matthew doesn't want to reinvent the wheel. There are no concerns about plagiarism in that time. It's perfectly fine for him to borrow some of Mark's wording. Mark has, let's suppose, already written a Gospel in Greek based on the memories of Peter, and Matthew decides to use it. It can help with parts of Jesus' ministry before he was personally called as a disciple. It can prompt his memory, and it can give him convenient wording to use, though of course he reserves the right to use his own words as well. So, he starts. But he finds in various places that he remembers or knows something that varies from the story as it is told in Mark. In these places he feels entirely free to supplement Mark from his own memories or from the memories of other people whom he spoke to about the events." (56-57)

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