Reading the Gospels Vertically

Vertical reading reads each Gospel as a coherent work in its own right and also asks how the Gospel tradition developed from one Gospel to another. I take Mark as the earliest. Thus I would read Mark first, then Matthew and Luke in light of their likely use of Mark (and other sources), asking how each evangelist develops, expands, or reshapes the tradition.

Apostolic Oral Tradition

Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Gleerup, 1964).

Donald Hagner, “The Origin and Reliability of the Gospel Tradition,” pp. 105-16 in The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Baker Academic, 2012).

Brief historical sketch

• AD 27-30: Jesus was teaching his disciples

  • Matt 5:1-2: “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying …”

  • Matt 7:28-29: “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribe.”

  • Matt 10:24-25: “A disciple is not above his teacher … It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher.”

  • Matt 22:16: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully.”

  • Matt 23:8: “But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.”

  • Mark 9:31: “He was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered …’”

  • John 3:2: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.”

  • John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

• AD 30-60 (30 years): Memories of Jesus’s words and deeds circulated as oral tradition, supervised by the apostles. The apostles were custodians of the oral tradition.

• AD 60+: Oral tradition begins to be committed to writing, e.g., Gospel of Mark.

Can we be confident that it was reliably preserved for 30 years? Yes, because

• Memorization and passing on of oral tradition was a regular practice in the ancient world, far more than today.

• The first Christians had such high reverence for the traditions of the words and deeds of Jesus whom they worshipped as the Messiah.

• Jesus taught in a manner that was suited to memorization - poetic parallelism, parables, etc.

• Jesus was intentional about repeating his teachings and inculcating them in the minds of his disciples.

Oral tradition was cultivated among Jewish rabbis and their students in the time of Jesus.

• They claimed to have two Torahs: the written Torah and the oral Torah (m. Shabbat 31a:5).

• “Moses received the [oral] Torah from Sinai and committed it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets committed it to the men of the great synagogue” (m. Abot 1:1).

• “Rabbi Yohanan says: The majority of the Torah was transmitted orally, while the minority was transmitted in writing” (b. Gittin 60b:2).

• The Mishnah (c. AD 250) = the first writing down of older rabbinic oral traditions.

• “Given the Jewish context of Jesus, it is plausible to think that just as the later rabbis used memorization with their disciples, so too Jesus would have done so with his. Just as the Mishnah … reveals the use of mnemonic patterns and techniques, so too do the Gospels” (Hagner, 107).

Evidence of oral tradition in the NT and early church

• The terms “receive” and “deliver”

  • 1 Cor 15:1-3: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you– unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures …”

  • 1 Cor 11:23: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread …”

  • Gal 1:9: “As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

  • 1 Thess 2:13; 2 Thess 3:6: tradition received

• The term “remember”

  • John 2:22: “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

  • John 12:16: “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.”

  • John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

  • John 15:20: “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’”

  • Acts 11:16: “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said [Acts 1:5], ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’”

  • Acts 20:35: “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

  • 1 Cor 11:24: “And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

• The Apostolic Fathers (late 1st - early 2nd cent.)

  • 1 Clement 13:1: “most of all remembering the words of the Lord Jesus which He spoke, teaching forbearance and long-suffering.”

  • 1 Clement 46:8: “Remember the words of Jesus our Lord: for he said, Woe unto that man …”

  • Polycarp, Phil 2:3: “but remembering the words which the Lord spoke, as he taught: Judge not that you be not judged.”

  • Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 66:3: “The apostles, in the memoirs [apomnemoneumata] which have come from them, which are also called Gospels.”

  • Papias: “But I shall not hesitate also to put down for you along with my interpretations whatsoever things I have at any time learned carefully from the elders and carefully remembered, guaranteeing their truth … If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders - what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39.3-4).

The form of the sayings of Jesus (structure, patterns, repetition, parallelism, parable) facilitated committing them to memory.

Evidence of Literary Relationships

1. Synoptic Gospels = Matthew, Mark, Luke

   1. Term coined by Johann Jakob Griesbach in the 1780s
   2. From Gk synopsesthai - “to see together”

2. Examples of similar/identical wording, suggesting literary dependence

   1. Preaching of John the Baptist - same wording (Matt 3:7-12 / Luke 3:7-9, 16-17)
   2. Healing of the paralytic, same interruption: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralytic – “Rise, pick up your bed and go home” (Matt 9:6 / Mark 2:10-11 / Luke 5:24).
   3. Parable of the Sower and its interpretation (Matt 13:1-23 / Mark 4:1-20 / Luke 8:4-15)
   4. Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem - same wording (Matt 23:37-39 / Luke 13:34-35)
   5. Gospel writers’ parenthetical comments: “(let the reader understand)” (Matt 24:15 / Mark 13:14)
   6. Even the order of events is sometimes the same

The Synoptic Problem

Most scholars are convinced that the Synoptic Gospels are literarily related—that at least one evangelist used one or more of the others as a written source. The “Synoptic Problem” concerns explaining those literary relationships in the simplest and most historically plausible way.

Arguments for the Priority of Mark

1. Length comparisons

   • Mark = 661 verses / 11,025 words
   • Matthew = 1,068 verses / 18,293 words, of which 3,102 have no parallel in Mark
   • Luke = 1,149 verses / 19,376 words, of which 6,700 have no parallel in Matthew or Mark
   • 97% of Mark is contained in Matthew
   • 88% of Mark is contained in Luke

   It makes more sense to assume that Matthew and Luke added material to Mark’s skeletal outline than that Mark abridged Matthew. If Mark were abbreviating Matthew or Luke, it is difficult to explain why he would omit the birth narratives and so much of Jesus’ teaching, including the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer.

2. The relative length of individual pericopes

   If Mark intended to produce a condensed Gospel, it is striking that his individual pericopes are often longer than their parallels in Matthew and Luke:

   • The Calling of Levi: Mark 2:13-17 has 109 words; Matthew 9:9-13 has 71; Luke 5:27-32 has 94.
   • The Gerasene Demoniac: Mark 5:1-20 has 325 words; Matthew 8:28-34 has 135; Luke 8:26-39 has 293.

3. Mark’s Greek style

   • Mark’s vocabulary is more colloquial.
   • His grammar is the least smooth.
   • He uses more Aramaic expressions.
   • He has more parataxis (clauses linked by “and”) and less hypotaxis (subordinate clauses and participles).
   • In parallel pericopes, Matthew and Luke often appear to improve Mark’s Greek deliberately.

4. Harder readings

   Mark more frequently preserves statements that, at first glance, might appear to conflict with the church’s portrait of Christ. Matthew and Luke tend to soften them. For example:

   • Mark 6:5-6: “He could not do a mighty work there … because of their unbelief.”
   • Matthew 13:58: “And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.”

   Matthew softens Mark’s “could not do” to “did not do.”

5. Agreements in wording and narrative order

   • There is a general lack of Matthew-Luke verbal agreements against Mark. There are some, but far fewer than Mark-Luke agreements against Matthew and Mark-Matthew agreements against Luke. This suggests that Matthew and Luke independently edited Mark’s wording, either to improve his Greek or to make a theological point.
   • Matthew and Luke never agree in narrative order against Mark, although Mark and Matthew sometimes agree against Luke, and Mark and Luke sometimes agree against Matthew. This suggests that Matthew and Luke generally followed Mark’s order and departed from it independently.

6. Redaction

   In Gospel scholarship, redaction means an evangelist’s editorial activity in shaping, arranging, modifying, and interpreting traditions about Jesus to communicate particular theological emphases. If Matthew and Luke independently used Mark, consistent redactional patterns become visible. For example, Matthew often inserts “Son of David” where it is absent from the Markan and Lukan parallels. Many scholars consider this the weightiest argument for Markan priority.

Admittedly, Markan priority goes against the testimony of the church fathers that Matthew was written first. Two qualifications should be kept in mind. First, the fathers also claim that Matthew was composed in Hebrew, but no manuscript or fragment of a Hebrew Gospel has survived, and the Greek Matthew does not appear to be a translation from Hebrew. Second, the fathers do not claim that Mark was an abridged or condensed version of Matthew.

Four major theories have dominated the discussion.

1. Two-Source Hypothesis

The two sources are Mark and Q (from the German word Quelle, meaning “source”).

The Two-Source Hypothesis was developed by the Oxford scholars William Sanday and B. H. Streeter in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

Sequence

1. Mark writes first.
2. Matthew uses Mark and Q.
3. Luke independently uses Mark and Q.

This theory assumes Markan priority. Q was hypothesized to explain where Matthew and Luke got their common material assuming they did not know each other’s Gospels.

This theory is attractive because it explains:

• the fact that nearly all of Mark appears in Matthew and Luke;
• the approximately 230 verses shared by Matthew and Luke but absent from Mark;
• the unique material found only in Matthew and only in Luke.

It remains the standard position among NT scholars, because it explains a large amount of data with relatively few assumptions.

However, the greatest weakness of this view is Q. This hypothetical document is inferred entirely from the theory itself, having scarce independent confirmation of its existence.

2. The Farrer Hypothesis

Developed chiefly by Austin Farrer in an article titled “On Dispensing with Q” (1955). It was later defended by Michael Goulder and Mark Goodacre.

Sequence:

1. Mark writes first
2. Matthew uses Mark
3. Luke uses both Mark and Matthew

The key to this theory is the assumption that Luke relied on Matthew, making Q unnecessary.

The strengths of this view are that it

• dispenses with the hypothetical Q document;
• explains why Matthew and Luke sometimes agree against Mark.

The principal challenge is explaining why Luke frequently breaks apart Matthew’s long discourses (such as the Sermon on the Mount) if he had Matthew before him.

The Farrer theory has gained considerable support in recent decades.

3. The Griesbach (Two-Gospel) Hypothesis

Originally formulated by Johann Jakob Griesbach.

Sequence:

1. Matthew writes first
2. Luke uses Matthew
3. Mark abbreviates both

On this view, Mark is an intentional conflation and abbreviation of Matthew and Luke.

The strengths of this view are that it

• preserves Matthean priority;
• avoids Q;
• agrees better with the early Christian tradition that Matthew was the first Gospel.

Its weaknesses are

• difficult to explain why Mark would omit major teachings of Jesus like the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, and much resurrection material while retaining many narrative details;
• difficult to explain why Mark’s Greek is generally rougher than Matthew’s and Luke’s if Mark is writing last.

4. The Augustinian Hypothesis

This was the traditional Western view, deriving from Augustine of Hippo.

Sequence:

1. Matthew writes first
2. Mark abbreviates Matthew
3. Luke uses both Matthew and Mark

Similar to the Griesbach theory in affirming Matthean priority, but Luke is last rather than Mark.

This was the dominant view for over a thousand years.

Its principal strength is its agreement with ecclesiastical tradition, especially statements of Papias and Augustine, who assert that Matthew wrote first.

Its principal weakness is that modern literary analysis strongly favors Markan priority. Mark’s more primitive language and harder readings are easier to explain if Matthew and Luke expanded Mark rather than if Mark abbreviated Matthew.

Current State of Scholarship

• The Two-Source Hypothesis remains the dominant explanation in mainstream New Testament scholarship.

• The Farrer Hypothesis has become the strongest alternative for scholars who reject Q but retain Markan priority. I personally lean toward this view since I am convinced on internal literary grounds that Mark wrote first, but I am skeptical of Q and would prefer to avoid it if possible.

• The Griesbach and Augustinian Hypotheses are held by a small but dogged minority. These scholars are committed to the ecclesiastical tradition that Matthew wrote first—a tradition that is admittedly very early and widespread. That tradition should not be lightly set aside.

Estimated Dates of the Gospels

These dates all assume Markan priority.

	Bernier	Carson & Moo	Hagner	Brown
Mark	42-45	50s	c. 65	68-73
Matthew	45-59	60s	c. 69	80s
Luke	59	60s	70s	80s
John	60s	80-85	90s	80-110

• Jonathan Bernier, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament (Baker Academic, 2022)
• D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (Zondervan, 2005)
• Donald Hagner, The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Baker Academic, 2012) - I personally lean toward Hagner’s estimated dates.
• Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (Doubleday, 1997)

These dates are educated guesses based on historical probabilities. We know that the Gospels must postdate the events they narrate—Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection around AD 30—but it is difficult to determine how much later they were written. Scholars commonly begin with one of two chronological anchors.

Starting with AD 63

Bernier’s chain of reasoning runs as follows:

1. Acts ends with Paul in custody in Rome in AD 62. Acts 28:30-31 says that he lived there for two years, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”
2. It is unlikely that Acts was completed much later, or Luke would have reported the outcome of Paul’s appeal. This is the weak link in the argument, since Luke may have known the outcome but had theological reasons for ending his narrative where he did.
3. Acts may therefore be dated around AD 63.
4. Luke and Acts form a two-volume work, so the Gospel of Luke must have been written before Acts.
5. If Luke depended on Mark and Matthew, they must be earlier still.

This is the main argument for Bernier’s very early dates.

Starting with AD 70

Hagner’s chain of reasoning runs as follows, although variations are possible:

1. Mark was probably written before Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70.
   • Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s destruction in Mark 13:2 is general and does not read like a precise retrospective vaticinium ex eventu (“prophecy after the event”).
   • AD 70 was massively significant for the church and would likely have been mentioned if it were already past. Mark portrays the temple as still functioning and records Jesus’ judgment against it without noting that the prediction had been fulfilled. Compare the narrator’s retrospective comment in Mark 7:19: “Thus he declared all foods clean.”
   • Mark’s emphasis on a suffering Messiah and discipleship through suffering fits the persecution under Nero in AD 64-65. It also coheres with the tradition that Peter preached in Rome and was martyred there under Nero, and that Mark served as Peter’s interpreter.
2. If Matthew and Luke used Mark, they must be later than Mark.
   • Hagner thinks similar arguments place Matthew before AD 70; if it follows Mark around AD 65, that puts it shortly before Jerusalem’s destruction, perhaps around AD 69.
   • Luke’s redaction of the Olivet Discourse may imply knowledge of the destruction: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies” (Luke 21:20). This would place Luke after AD 70, probably in the 70s.

Informed speculation

Other scholars, represented here by Brown, think the evidence permits only informed speculation. They rely more heavily on reconstructions of theological development in the early church—for example, the judgment that a high Christology must be relatively late—and propose dates according to how strongly each Gospel appears to reflect later churchly understandings of Jesus.

Early Christian Traditions re. Authorship of the Gospels

1. Papias (ca. 130): “And the Presbyter used to say this: Mark indeed, since he was the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately, but not in order, the things either said or done by the Lord as much as he remembered. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed Him, but afterwards, as I have said, [heard and followed] Peter, who fitted his discourses to the needs [of his hearers] but not as if making a narrative of the Lord’s sayings; consequently, Mark, writing some things just as he remembered, erred in nothing; for he was careful of one thing – not to omit anything of the things he had heard or to falsify anything in them” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., 3.39.15-16).

2. Irenaeus (ca. 180): “Now Matthew published also a book of the Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the Church. After their death, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, he too handed down to us in writing the things preached by Peter. Luke also, the follower of Paul, put down in a book the Gospel preached by that one. Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord who also leaned upon his breast, he too published a Gospel while residing in Ephesus in Asia.”

3. Clement of Alexandria (ca. 180): “Again, in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances: ‘When Peter had preached the word publicly in Rome and had declared the Gospel by the Spirit, those who were present – they were many – besought Mark, since he had followed him (Peter) for a long time and remembered the things that had been spoken, to write out the things that had been said; and when he had done this, he gave the Gospel to those who had asked him. When Peter learned of it later, he neither obstructed nor commended it. Last of all, John, noticing that the physical things had been set forth in the [other] Gospels, being urged by his companions and inspired by the Spirit, wrote a spiritual Gospel’” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.14.5).

4. Jerome (ca. 400): “Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, when asked by the brethren at Rome, wrote a short Gospel according to what he had heard Peter reporting. When Peter had heard of this, he approved it and authorized it to be read in the churches … He (Mark) died in the eighth year of Nero (AD 62) and was buried at Alexandria.”

5. All four Gospels have apostolic authority

   1. Tertullian: “We maintain, first of all, that the Gospel writings have the apostles as their authors, for the Lord himself entrusted to them the task of proclaiming the gospel. There are also apostolic men, but they do not stand alone; they appear alongside the apostles and after the apostles …. Accordingly, Matthew and John, who were apostles, present the faith to us, while Luke and Mark, who were apostolic men, set it forth afresh” (Against Marcion 4.2).
   2. The Gospels of Matthew and John were authored by apostles
   3. The Gospels of Mark and Luke were authored by apostolic men
      1. Mark was Peter’s interpreter
      2. Luke was Paul’s companion