The literary relationship (if any) between Matthew and Luke continues to be debated, and so the relationship between the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain continues to be debated (with implications for how one reads both Matthew and Luke). This essay argues that the confluence of several facts – (1) obviously Matthean redaction is missing from Luke 6:21–49; (2) the more we subtract Matthean features from Matthew 5–7, the closer we get to the Sermon on the Plain; (3) 1 Clement 13:2, which seems to be independent of the synoptics, is closer at points to Luke 6:27–42 than it is to the Matthean parallels; (4) intertextual ties to Leviticus 19 are clustered in Luke 6:27–42 but separated in Matthew 5 and 7; and (5) in a number of instances, words and expressions in Luke 6:21–47 seem, by the standard tools of our trade, to be more original than their Matthean counterparts – adds up to a strong case that the Sermon on the Mount was not the source for the Sermon on the Plain. Luke is not a reader or an interpreter of Matthew’s Gospel. The data rather support the Q hypothesis or the theory that Matthew was a reader of Luke.

Mark opens his account of Jesus with “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus the Christ” (Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). Although modern readers often associate the term “gospel” here with the now long-established genre by the same name, Mark clearly elaborates what he means (at least in part) in what follows

This chapter considers the reception of Mark’s Gospel in John’s text with special reference to the feeding miracle in John chapter 6. The following topics are explored. The first concerns how John reads Mark. In other words, what potential did the Markan rendering of this miracle-story have to offer John that answered to his purposes at that point? The second and main section will then explore how John writes his account. Put otherwise, how did John renarrate the feeding miracle not only in light of its Markan pretext but also as integral to his development and interpretation of its meaning in the chapter as a whole? The final topic will be a brief treatment of the further renarration of the miracle in chapter 21.

In his Foreword to this volume, Kevin J. Vanhoozer has helpfully drawn attention to Francis Watson’savowedly theological work in the 1990s and 2000s. My aim here is to take up the story from there and focus in particular on his more recent work, on canonical and noncanonical Gospels. This field is evident most magnificently in his monograph Gospel Writing, but has continued to be discussed in a number of edited volumes and essays: a fascinating conference hosted by Francis in Durham, for example, produced the book Connecting Gospels.1 Its subtitle has been something of a motto for Francis’ recent work: Beyond the Canonical/Non-Canonical Divide. Francis’ comparative work on canonical and noncanonical Gospels can also be seen as a study of reception, as for example in his analysis of the Apocalypse of Peter’s rewriting and development of Matthew’s Olivet discourse.2 In that spirit, I will in this Afterword take the Gospel of Philip as a case study of Gospel reading – first, as a text that engages in Gospel reading; second, as it is read as Gospel in antiquity; and finally, how it might affect our reading of canonical Gospels.