In The Modified Augustinian Hypothesis (MAH) regarding Gospel origins (July 2007), James Deardorff presents a modified form of the Augustinian Hypothesis, one of a number of hypotheses put forward as a solution to the Synoptic Problem. He presents some examples of “Fatigue in Mark relative to Matthew,” in which he attempts to show how a number of inconsistencies in Mark are the result of fatigue by aMark (the author of Mark) when using Matthew as his source. Four of these examples center on Jesus’ visits to Jerusalem in Mk 11:1-24, and in each case Deardorff makes his case by comparing Mark to Matthew.
In all the instances of suggested fatigue in Mk 11:1-22, Deardorff does not mention the ‘confusion’ in the synoptic parallels to these verses: He does not point out how Luke relates to Mark, nor does he indicate how the relationships between each of the synoptics in these verses change almost from verse to verse, as indicated in Entering Jerusalem: Mk 11:1-17 (which includes comparisons with Marcion’s gospel – The Evangelion, or Ev). He also does not mention the multiple variants in each of Mk 11:3, 6, 8, 11, and 19, that, together with the lack of parallels in Matthew and/or Mark to some or all of each of these verses, indicate uncertainty regarding the original wording of Mark. Finally, Deardorff does not mention the variation in the number of times Jesus enters and leaves Jerusalem in the synoptics, nor the variation in the order of events.
In his commentary on Mk 11:11 at TVU 241 in http://www.willker.de/wie/TCG/TC-Mark.pdf , Wieland Willker notes the following problems:
The whole verse is strange. It reminds one of verse 10:46 where the Secret Mark addition took place: "And they came to Jericho. And he left Jericho..." Here we have a similar thing: "Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry." We have quite an unmotivated mentioning of entering and leaving Jerusalem. Possibly some editorial intervention happened here? …
In Mt the Cleansing of the temple happens after Jesus entered the temple. Only after the cleansing he left for Bethany. After that the complete fig tree pericope is placed:
Mk Mt
Entering Jerusalem Entering Jerusalem
fig tree 1 Cleansing the temple
Cleansing the temple fig tree
fig tree 2
... In Mk the day of Jesus' entering Jerusalem ends quite unspectacular [sic]. In Mt on the other hand he starts immediately the Cleansing of the temple. In any event the direction of editing is from Mk to Mt.
Willker does not give the whole picture here, as he does not note that there is no mention of the fig tree at all in Luke, nor does he mention the number of times that Jesus enters Jerusalem (Three times in Mark, two times in Matthew, but only once in Luke), as is shown below in more detail:
Here it is easy to see the great degree of variation among the three synoptic accounts, including the unique material in all three, and in particular the very odd first return trip to Jerusalem in Mk 11.11. This verse, together with the passage leading up to it, is often referred to as: “The Triumphal Entry.“ However, it should perhaps more accurately be known as: “The Triumphal Arrival but Covert Entry and Exit,” as on any synoptic theory this initial, uneventful, visit to Jerusalem seems inexplicable. Its only purpose appears to be to return Jesus to Bethany, in order to allow him to be coming from Bethany the next day (apparently without the crowds) in Mk 11:12.
Both Mk 11:11-12 appear redundant, and, assuming Markan priority, aMatthew and aLuke also thought so, as neither have parallels to these verses. Either aMatthew saw the verse in Mark but chose not to include it in his narrative, or he did not see it in Mark, and similar reasoning applies to aLuke. Alternatively, if Mark followed Matthew and Luke then adding Mk 11:11 just to be able to split the fig tree story into two sections seems pointless. However, again assuming Markan priority, we know that aMatthew did see Mk 11:12, because of the parallel later on, at Mt 21:18. Lacking a parallel to Mk 11:11 aMatthew had no way to account for Jesus in Mk 11:12 returning from Bethany without having left Jerusalem, and to resolve this issue he combined the two halves of the fig tree episode in Mark, placing both after Jesus left Jerusalem, and adding an otherwise unneeded reference to Bethany at the end of Mt 21:17. aLuke also may or may not have seen Mk 11:11, but even if he did he would also have seen the conflicting account of the fig tree in Matthew. Either way, he chose to remove the conflicting elements from Mark and Matthew and so end his account with no mention of the fig tree, and with Jesus teaching daily in the temple.
There is also a problem with the crowds that accompanied Jesus as he approached Jerusalem for the first (in Luke the only) time: They disappear almost completely from the narrative. This is most clearly the case in Mark, where in Mk 11:11 Jesus is able to ‘case the joint’ with just the twelve, leaving the crowds somewhere unknown. In Mark and Luke there is then nothing to connect the crowds who followed Jesus to Jerusalem with the people in the temple mentioned in Mk 11:18 and Lk 19:48 respectively, and from their reactions to Jesus in Mark and Luke they appear to be people who had not seen him before. In contrast, it does appear that aMatthew recognized this problem, for Mt 21:10b-11 has no purpose other than indicating that the multitude had entered Jerusalem as well.
In Mark and Luke (and to a lesser extent in Matthew) there is a clear ‘disconnect’ between Jesus approaching Jerusalem and what transpires when he actually enters the city. This is only made worse in Mark by the very clumsy way Jesus is returned to Bethany in Mk 11:11, i.e. by having him enter and leave Jerusalem in the simplest way possible short of having him leaving immediately after entering (As he does in Mk 10:46: "And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho ..."). Despite what appear to be obvious problems with Mk 11:11, these problems are often minimized or ignored. For example, in his Exposition of the Bible, John Gill has the following commentary on this verse:
And Jesus entered into Jerusalem
this public manner, riding upon an ass, with the multitude attending him, some going before, and others after, crying, "Hosanna" to him:
and into the temple;
which he rode up directly to; the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions, leave out the copulative "and"; his great concern being there; and having dismounted, and dismissed the colt, and sent it by proper persons to the owner of it, he went into the temple, into the court of the Gentiles; where he found and overturned the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and healed the lame and the blind:
and when he had looked round about upon all things;
that is, in the temple, as the Lord and proprietor of it; and made a thorough visitation of it, and search into it, and corrected what was amiss in it:
and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve;
having spent great part of the day in reforming abuses in the temple, in healing diseases, and disputing with the chief priests and Scribes: the evening being come, he did not think fit, for some reasons, to stay in the city; but went out to Bethany, which was near two miles off, and lodged there;
Gill assumes that Jesus’ manner of actual entry in Jerusalem is the same as for the journey from Bethany to Jerusalem, although in Mark this is never stated. He also states that Jesus: “dismissed the colt, and sent it by proper persons to the owner of it,” actions that he assumes, but are never stated in any of the synoptics. He then conflates Jesus’ first two visits to Jerusalem, and worse still, states that Jesus: “healed the lame and the blind,” actions that only take place in Matthew. Although he does not acknowledge it here, Gill obviously recognized that Mk 11:11 leaves many questions unanswered in Mark, for example:
Was the colt returned?
How did the “The Triumphal Entry” turn into such a low-key affair that the whole visit could be dealt with in one verse?
What happened to the crowds who were with Jesus as they approached Jerusalem?
If the crowds entered Jerusalem with Jesus, why did he leave Jerusalem with just the twelve?
Why did Jesus need to visit the temple prior to returning the next day to deal with the moneychangers?
These questions tend to be ‘glossed over,’ typically by assuming details not present in the narrative in Mark, by resorting to editorial choice as the rationale (e.g. that aMark simply chose not to include these details), or by ‘rationalizing’ problems and apparent contradictions as bring due to our misunderstanding of the intentions of the synoptic authors.
For example, there is an apparent glaring inconsistency with regard to the fig tree. In Mark Jesus sees the fig tree (for the first time) and curses it in Mk 11:13-14, and on the next day he and the disciples see the withered tree in Mk 11:20-24. In Matthew all this takes place on the same day, in one continuous passage at Mt 21:19-22, while the fig tree does not appear at all in Luke. Assuming that aMatthew and aLuke both saw what we see in Mark a rational assumption is that they both saw the need to attempt to deal with at least some of the issues described above, with aMatthew reducing the number of times Jesus entered Jerusalem from three to two and adding Mt 21:10b-11, and aLuke eliminating the fig tree completely, so having Jesus enter Jerusalem just once.
However, it is possible to ‘explain away’ the whole issue of the fig tree (and the different number of times that Jesus is recorded as having entered Jerusalem) by appealing to our failure to properly appreciate the differences in how the synoptic authors wanted to present their source material. For example, in the Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew, William Hendricksen writes:
Since part of the Fig Tree story occurred on Monday and part on Tuesday (Mark 11:11,12,19,20), with the cleansing of the temple taking place (on Monday) between these two parts, it is clear that this story could be handled in two ways: (a) chronologically or; (b) topically. Mark follows the first method, describing the first part of the Fig Tree story, the part that took place on Monday morning, in 11:12-14; then, the cleansing of the temple, later that same day, in 11:15-19; and finally, the second part of the Fig Tree story, the part that happened on Tuesday morning, in 11:20-24. Matthew, on the other hand, uses the second method. He wishes to tell the entire story all at once, in one connected and uninterrupted account. In doing this he does not come into real conflict with Mark, for his (Matthew’s) time indications are very indefinite (p. 773).
Hendricksen is here suggesting that aMatthew is simply re-arranging this whole passage by topic, and that he is not concerned with presenting the passage in chronological order. However, suggesting that aMatthew “wishes to tell the entire story all at once” is imputing motive on behalf of aMatthew for which there is no evidence, in the same way that there is no evidence that the readership of Matthew preferred it that way (as has also been suggested). Both these suggestions also ignore the other issues mentioned above, for example Mk 11:11, and really do not explain WHY aMatthew would bother to make such a re-arrangement, when leaving his narrative in the Markan order would be so much simpler.
It is clear that both aMatthew and aLuke saw problems with the text of Mk 11:11 itself, as neither included this verse in their narratives. It is possible that they did not even see this verse in Mark, or perhaps only saw fragments of something that was later replaced by what we see as Mk 11:11. Whatever it was that they did see here, neither aMatthew nor aLuke chose to include any of this verse, despite the fact that by doing so they both had to alter the Markan narrative significantly as a result. However, even though neither Matthew nor Mark have Mk 11:11, there is no hint in the manuscript record that this verse may have been missing in Mark at some point, although Willker does report variants (missing words and different spellings) in the second half of the verse that could be the result of damage making the text hard to read..
Although there are no variants in Mark suggesting any additional text between Mk 11:10 and 12 other than what we see as Mk 11:11, it is clear that both aMatthew and aLuke had problems with the transition from v. 10 to 12 that each attempted to resolve in different ways. However, as indicated above, it is not uncommon for problems such as this to be ‘explained’ by resorting to dubious claims as to what the authors were trying to achieve.
The problem of Mk 11:11 has parallels with the problem of the different endings of Mark, where it is clear that various people thought that Mk 16:8 was not a valid ending, and added others (see Mark 16:9-20 - The Origin of the Long Ending) to address the issue. In addition, both Matthew and Luke contain additional text after Mt 28:8 and Lk 24:9a (respectively their parallels of Mk 16:8), suggesting that neither aMatthew nor aLuke thought that Mk 16:8 was a suitable conclusion either.
Despite the lack of ms evidence to the contrary, the problems raised by Mk 11:11 are such that it cannot have originally been present in Mark (at least as we see it today), but equally Mk 11:12 cannot have originally directly followed Mk 11:10. The only solution that makes sense is that where we see Mk 11:11 there was originally more extensive text that answered the questions that Mk 11:11 leaves unanswered, and that this text became ‘lost’ (perhaps as some believe also happened to the original ending of Mark and The Great Omission) at a very early stage in the life of the original ms of Mark.
Carlson, Stephen C: The Synoptic Problem Website
Deardorff, James: The Modified Augustinian Hypothesis (MAH) regarding Gospel origins (July 2007)
Gill, John: Exposition of the Entire Bible
Hendricksen, William: Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew
Wikipedia: The Augustinian Hypothesis
Willker, Wieland: A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels Vol 2 Mark