Markan Priority

Overview

Markan priority is not a term found in the biblical text. It is a scholarly theory that seeks to explain the relationship among Matthew, Mark, and Luke by comparing them side by side. Because the three Gospels closely resemble one another in content, order, and even wording, they are called the Synoptic Gospels, from a term meaning "seen together." The question of why they are so similar is known as the Synoptic Problem. Markan priority answers this question by holding that the Gospel of Mark was written first and that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used Mark as a principal source. Luke 1:1-3, in which the author states that he had examined a number of earlier written accounts, is frequently cited as a passage indicating that the Gospel writers may have used sources.

Background

In the ancient church, the view held by figures such as Augustine was widely accepted: Matthew was regarded as the first Gospel, and Mark as an abridgment of Matthew. In the late eighteenth century the Griesbach hypothesis was proposed, holding that the Gospels were written in the order Matthew, Luke, Mark. In nineteenth-century German scholarship, Karl Lachmann, Christian Hermann Weisse, and others argued that Mark came first. Subsequently, the "two-source hypothesis," which combines Markan priority with an additional sayings source used by both Matthew and Luke (the Q source), became the dominant view in the field.

Principal Arguments

• Length: Mark is the shortest Gospel. Most of Mark's content (commonly estimated at about 90 percent) appears in Matthew, and a substantial portion appears in Luke. Proponents argue that it is more natural to suppose that material was added to a shorter book than that a longer book was abridged.
• Order: Although Matthew and Luke each depart from Mark's sequence of events in places, they rarely agree with each other against Mark's order.
• Refinement of expression: Mark 6:5 states that in his hometown Jesus "could there do no mighty work," whereas Matthew 13:58 states that "he did not many mighty works there." The difference between Mark 10:18 and Matthew 19:17 is cited as a similar example. Supporters regard such cases as evidence that Matthew refined Mark's wording.

Interpretation and Debate

Markan priority is today the most widely accepted view in New Testament scholarship, but there are dissenting positions. Scholars who have revived the Griesbach hypothesis hold that Matthew came first, while others accept Markan priority but maintain that Luke drew on Matthew without any Q source. Early church tradition holds that Matthew wrote first. In addition, the tradition that Mark was the interpreter of Peter is preserved in the words of the second-century writer Papias, as recorded in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. Some scholars read this tradition in conjunction with Markan priority, while others treat it as a separate question.

Within conservative Protestantism, there has been discussion of whether this hypothesis is compatible with biblical inerrancy. Many evangelical scholars accept Markan priority, holding that the Gospel writers' use of sources does not conflict with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Others, however, caution that the theory could undermine the authority of Scripture, or maintain that the three Gospels were written independently of one another. Markan priority is a hypothesis concerning the order of composition and the relationships among sources; it is a separate matter from any judgment that one Gospel is more accurate or authoritative than another.

In the Korean Church

In Korea, the topic is addressed mainly in seminary courses on New Testament introduction and the Synoptic Gospels, as well as in commentaries. It is rarely treated directly in church preaching or Bible study. It is, however, sometimes introduced as background when comparing passages in which two Gospels record the same event differently.