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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
The main conclusions that were widely accepted at the close of the last century with reference to the origin of our first three gospels have been confirmed by the investigations of the first decade of the new century. Thoroughgoing re-examinations of the whole problem, such as those of Wellhausen, Burton, and Loisy, have resulted in the reaffirmation of the so-called Theory of Two Sources. According to this theory Mark is the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, and served, in some form, as a documentary source for each of the other two Synoptists, who had, besides Mark, another written source, made up to a large extent of the sayings and teachings of Jesus. The term Logia was formerly much used as a designation of this second source, on the supposition that it was to be identified with the writing to which the church father Papias applied that name, but there is now a general disposition to avoid this usage and to employ some more neutral symbol, like the letter Q (Quelle, “source”).
2 The principal reason for assuming the use of an earlier Mark, differing some what in form or extent from the present gospel, is the agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark in omissions, additions, and forms of expression. The omissions, estimated at about thirty verses, are particularly perplexing. Why, it is asked, should such a parable as that of the Seed Growing by Itself be omitted (4 26–29), and why the two miracles in 7 32–37 and 8 22–26? Why, in the narrative of the healing of the epileptic boy after the descent from the mount of transfiguration, should the striking conversation with the father of the child be found in Mark only? And why should the indications of chronological progress that stand out so prominently in Mark's account of the last week in Jerusalem be obliterated? Professor Johannes Weiss of Heidelberg feels that the hypothesis of a primitive Mark best accounts for these and like instances. On the other hand, Jülicher, Wernle, and Hawkins, not to mention others who are equally entitled to an opinion, think that the extended omissions can be accounted for more naturally on the ground of consolidation, transposition, or the substitution of other accounts. As for the agreements in expression between Matthew and Luke as over against Mark, they may in some cases be due to the tendency to assimilate one gospel to another.
There is a difference of view among those holding to a primitive Mark as to that gospel's original extent. A fuller text was formerly postulated, and is still contended for by some, but at present it is more usual to assume that Mark, as used by Matthew and Luke, was somewhat briefer than our canonical gospel. R. A. Hoffmann in a recent work (Das Marcusevangelium und seine Quellen, 1904) supposes that there were two differing forms of the primitive Mark in Aramaic.
3 For example, it is held that the incident of the healing of the demoniac in the synagogue in the original account of M1 has furnished the motive to M2 in the account of the stilling of the tempest (4 35–41) and also in that of the Gadarene demoniac (5 1–20), and supplied to the evangelist a motive for the story of the visit to Nazareth (6 1–6). This last-named paragraph contains, further, a duplication of 3 31 f., where there is a reference to Jesus' family. Evidence is also found that use has been made here of the Discourse-source (Q). At the same time the account is said to have upon it the impress of Paulinism. That, in spite of this, the whole trend of the incident seems to accord so poorly with the dogmatic tendencies of the evangelist is explained on the ground that the original saying implied Jesus' impotence to heal in a specific case. And, again, it is said that the writer does maintain his view by referring the lack of success to the people of Nazareth. Finally, it is asserted that the evangelist gives the incident as a particularly convincing example of the hardening of Israel. Such results do not commend the method.
4 Harvard Theological Review, vol. i, p. 65.