Negative Minor Agreements

In his book The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem, Mark Goodacre begins his chapter on the ‘MAJOR AND MINOR AGREEMENTS as follows

For some time now, Q skeptics have been drawing attention to some of the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark as the Achilles heel of the two-source theory. It is a mark of the success of the strategy that Q theorists regularly accept that these minor agreements do indeed constitute a problem for their theory. The admission is often tempered, however, with the claim that this is the only major problem faced by the two-source theory, and that it can be overcome by appealing to a variety of mitigating factors, chief among which are the possibility of independent redaction by Matthew and Luke, the influence of Q, text-critical uncertainty and the influence of oral tradition. But the minor agreements should not be underestimated. Not only should the difficulties they pose for the Q theory be taken seriously, but also it is important to recognize that they represent only one element in a spectrum of evidence that is uncongenial to Q, a spectrum that is all too easily missed if one insists too strongly on the term “minor.”

Then, in his footnote ‘2’ on the same page Goodacre adds: 

It is difficult to judge the precise number of minor agreements, or to assess the significance of the number. It depends, among other things, on whether and how one counts agreements in omission as well as more positive agreements; and there are many minor agreements that are disputed on text critical and contextual grounds. 

Regarding their number, according to Goodacre Michael Goulder referred to “more than 750 minor agreements” and “some thousand” on two different occasions. He also notes that Richard B. Vinson counted 2,354, and that Vinson “finds a 21.2 percent rate of minor agreements (expressed as a percentage of the total words in Mark).” Goodacre also notes above that “there are many minor agreements that are disputed on text critical and contextual grounds,” but this statement is misleading: The agreements exist, and although the reasons for their existence can be disputed on these grounds, their existence itself cannot.

Goodacre above refers to “agreements in omission as well as more positive agreements,” but what does this mean? There are three categories of agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark:

The first category is commonly known as the Double Tradition: text in which Matthew and Luke agree but where there is no text in Mark. These agreements can certainly be termed ‘major agreements,’ and are agreements in omission (in Mark), but there are also much smaller omissions in Mark in what is otherwise Triple Tradition text in which Matthew and Luke agree, that can be considered to be ‘minor agreements,’ and between the two are what are known as the Mark-Q overlaps, as Goodacre shows in a diagram in section 4 of Fallacies at the Heart of Q. 

By definition there is no text of Mark in the Double Tradition, while (also by definition) in the Mark-Q overlaps all three synoptic gospels have text. However, although also by definition “Triple Tradition Passages With Minor Agreements” are places where text exists in all three synoptic gospels, Goodacre’s diagram does not distinguish between Minor Agreements in which there is common text in Matthew and Luke (positive minor agreements), and those where there is no text in either Matthew or Luke, i.e. what Goodacre above refers to as “agreements in omission,” and this author refers to here as negative minor agreements. 

Assuming that Matthew and Luke have the same text and Mark has something different (either text or no text), and allowing Mark to be either the first or the last of the synoptic gospels to be written (Markan Priority and Markan Posteriority respectively), then the list below shows the six basic ways in which text in Mark and/or Matthew/Luke could have passed (or not) from one to the other (using xxx and yyy to denote different text, and --- as an absence of text):

Note: aMark, aMatthew, and aLuke refer to the authors of those gospels, as distinct from the gospels themselves. 

In both halves of all three pairs 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 the end result (Matthew and Luke agreeing against Mark) is the same, but in the first half of each pair the difference was caused by aMatthew/aLuke changing, removing, or adding to something in Mark, while in the second half exactly the same difference was the result of aMark changing, adding to, or removing something common to Matthew and Luke. In all cases ‘Matthew/Luke’ indicates that both those gospels have the same text (or both have no text where Mark does), but not does suggest how this happened (How Matthew and Luke came to have the same text in these places is not material at this point, but is an important issue in the discussions below). 

Every example examined below is of type 3 or 4, i.e. where Mark has text but neither Matthew nor Mark does, and in particular what is examined below is the minor, sometimes apparently inconsequential, details that Mark has but Matthew and Luke do not, where it is hard to understand why both aMatthew and aLuke would choose to remove this text if they saw it in Mark, or why aMark would add this detail if he knew it was in neither Matthew nor Mark. 

One of the problems that anyone studying the minor agreements runs into is how to distinguish ‘major’ agreements from ‘minor’ agreements because, as indicated above, they exist on a ‘sliding scale,’ and also depending on whether you believe Mark was first or last the positive and negative agreements are created by different actions of the synoptic authors. For example, the Double Tradition is the very large portion of text common to Matthew and Luke but not in Mark, while the ‘opposite’ is the very much smaller portions of Mark that are in neither Matthew nor Luke. For both the major and the minor agreements these differences require very different explanations, depending on whether Mark was first or last, because they are formed in different ways.

Goodacre above makes no reference to the vast difference in the total numbers of positive minor agreements and negative minor agreements. This author counts the latter as around 50 (depending somewhat on how ‘strict’ the definition is), as against the hundreds (or thousands) of positive agreements noted by others. While at first sight this might seem highly improbable, it is not. On the assumption of Markan priority it is aMatthew and aLuke who create agreements against Mark by their common choice of one or more words (however achieved), and aMatthew and aLuke have great ‘freedom’ (in a technical sense) when creating positive minor agreements since they are essentially unlimited in what they can write instead of what they saw in Mark. However, in negative minor agreements they can only do one thing: omit the words they saw in Mark.

More generally, on the assumption of Markan priority omitting text is just one of a vast number of different possibilities facing aMatthew and aLuke when changing what they saw in Mark, i.e. when confronted with text in Mark with which they disagreed (or otherwise wished to change), aMatthew and aLuke would have an unlimited number of options when replacing the words with others that (for whatever reason) they preferred, while only one option when removing the text completely. From the numbers given above it appears that where aMatthew and aLuke agreed in minor ways against Mark they were between 15 and 50 times more likely to change aMark’s words than remove them completely, which in a general sense agrees with the current view regarding whether scribes were more likely to remove or change text where there was doubt as to a reading.

In section XI of The Four Gospels: The Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke Against Mark , Streeter identifies various ways in which agreements could have occurred, under the following headings: 

IRRELEVANT AGREEMENTS: A peculiar name for aMatthew and aLuke making exactly the same change when they “consistently compress Mark.”

DECEPTIVE AGREEMENTS: “Alterations that would naturally occur to independent editors.” Again, this could only be the case if Mark was first.

INFLUENCE OF Q: Where “Mark and Q overlapped, agreements … may be explained by the influence of Q.”

TEXTUAL CORRUPTION: Streeter lists two possible types of agreement under this heading:

(1) Matthew and Luke saw the original form of Mark, but Mark then later became corrupted;

(2) Assimilation between Matthew and Luke could create an Agreement against Mark.

THE MS. EVIDENCE: Scribal alteration.

SOME RESIDUAL CASES: “Mt.xxvi.68 = Lk.x.64,” and “agreements more minute than those examined above.”

Unfortunately, Streeter’s analyses and conclusions put the cart before the horse since he assumes both Markan priority and the existence of Q in his categorization, but all the agreements exist under any synoptic hypothesis, and rather than assuming a particular hypothesis before analyzing the agreements we should be using their details to see how well each hypothesis is supported by each of the agreements.

The subset of the negative minor agreements analyzed below are all found in otherwise triple tradition passages, i.e. passages that exist in Mark, Matthew and Luke, and a typical pattern in these passages is that they begin by setting the scene (in text that may vary due to the previous passages not always being the same in all three gospels), there is some interaction with Jesus and other people, and finally there is a reaction from the people and/or some form of teaching by Jesus. As a result, the first and last portions of a typical triple tradition passage may vary to fit the surrounding context, while the central section is generally textually close in all three gospels. Consequently, it is the variations in these central sections that are most likely to provide clues as to the order in which they may have been written, and all the examples below are of that form. 

Notes

Except where variant readings are identified below the English text shown is taken from the KJV, purely because this author grew up with this translation and not for any theological reason. Any relevant variants are also shown with the text (where present) generally accepted as most likely to be original (Typically what is known as the critical text) marked by [xxx], and other variants, typically those in the majority of mss (Often noted as Byzantine or just Byz) marked by [xxx]. Blue is used to mark both text unique to Mark and also the ‘space’ where parallel text does not exist and so might be expected. Also, a bold outline to a verse denotes that it is here shown ‘out of place’ i.e. that it is not located where shown relative to the other verses in that gospel.

Where a variant is discussed details of that variant are taken from the relevant Online Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels by Wieland Willker unless stated otherwise. Because all of the passages discussed below involve text in Mark but not in both Matthew and Luke, one of the obvious ways in which that could occur is if Mark was written after Matthew and Luke (Markan posteriority) and aMark simply added a small portion of text where Matthew and Luke had none. However, rather than just re-stating this in every case below it is only mentioned where there is something specific to note, e.g. a variant in Mark, or something that would seem to make an addition by aMark very unlikely.

Finally, it is assumed that all three synoptic authors knew the Old Testament, or at least, where there are what appear to be quotes or references to Old Testament text, that all three authors knew a source other than the other synoptic gospels that included that quote or reference.

Example Minor Agreements

The Temptation - Mk 1:12-13 / Mt 4:1-11 / Lk 4:1-13

On the Mark-Q hypothesis it is generally considered that the Temptation is in Q, because most of it (Mt 4:2-11 / Lk 4:2-13) has no parallel in Mark, and so is Double Tradition text. However, “And he was there” (Mk 1:13) is not present in either Matthew or Luke, and this is not explainable on the assumption that Mk 1:13 / Mt 4:1 / Lk 4:1-2ab is a Mark-Q overlap. 

However, there are two different variants in Mk 1:13ab, with Willker (Mark: TVU 8) recording that NA28 has ‘καὶ ἦν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ’ (and he was in the wilderness), while BYZ (i.e. the majority) has ‘καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ’ (and he was there in the wilderness), while mss K, Π*, f1, 69, 124, 788, 28*, 565, 700, 1424 and 2542 have only ‘καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ (and he was there). Although we cannot know what Mk 1:13 read in the ms (or mss) known to either Matthew or Luke, these variants do suggest that uncertainty in what they both knew led aMatthew to omit Mk 1:13abc, and aLuke to omit Mk 1:13a. On the assumption of Markan posteriority the alternate scenario, in which aMark added “And he was [there]” and perhaps also “in the wilderness,” seems very unlikely as it adds nothing significant to what is in Matthew and Luke.

Healing Various Diseases - Mk 1:32-34 / Mt 8:16 / Lk 4:40-41

In all three gospels this healing passage directly follows the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law in Capernaum, and despite the fact that the three accounts report the same events there are a number of differences: 

While it is clear that all three gospels report the same incident, there are a number of differences that serve to slightly shorten the versions in Matthew and Luke without altering the basic details. However, there is one other detail, in Mk 1:33-34a, that in Mark indicates that Jesus was only able to heal "many" or cast out "many" devils from those (“all the city”) who were present. This detail is not present in either Matthew or Luke, in which everyone who was brought to Jesus was healed, and every spirit/devil present was cast out.

It appears from this as though aMatthew and aLuke ‘colluded’ in order to remove the inference that Jesus’ power was finite, i.e. that he could not heal everyone. Of course, it could also be argued that this reflects a common trajectory seen in other places in the synoptic gospels, and while this makes it very unlikely that aMark added this apparent restriction, it is possible for aMatthew and aLuke to have independently removed it. Also, if aLuke knew Matthew (or vice versa) the above differences show that one was not simply slavishly following the other here, even though neither gospel has a parallel to Mk 1:33. 

The Hired Servants - Mk 1:20 / Mt 4:22 / Lk 5:11

As this is such a small detail there is no obvious reason why aMark would add the hired servants if he knew both Matthew and Luke, even if he knew another source that did have them. By the same logic if instead aMatthew and aLuke knew Mark then there would appear to be no obvious reason why either would exclude the hired servants unless they knew another source that did not have them, and that source seemed to them to be more authoritative.

However, in this instance aMatthew also excluded their father’s name, and in Luke “they forsook all,” which could be aLuke's way of encompassing their father and the servants, indicating that they may have each been simplifying Mk 1:20 in their own way even if they did not see another source of this passage.

Jesus and the Leper - Mk 1:40-42 / Mt 8:2-3 / Lk 5:12-13

There is a well known difficult variant in Mk 1:41b, with Jesus being compassionate in the majority of mss, but angry in a few largely Western and/or Latin mss, as discussed in Mark 1:41 - Angry or Compassionate?, which hypothesizes that aMatthew and aMark may have seen a damaged copy of Mark in which the text was not clear, and because of which they both removed all reference to Jesus’ demeanor. 

The Man with The Palsy - Mk 2:3-13 / Mt 9:2-8 / Lk 5:18-27

These verses are part of the passage in which Jesus cures a man with the palsy. Although Matthew does not have the description of the man being lowered into the house (Mk 2:4), almost all of the rest of the passage is common to all three gospels. However, neither Matthew nor Luke have the detail that the sick man was carried by four people (Mk 2:3b), and instead there is a different detail in Lk 5:18b.

Both Matthew and Luke then omit two very small details from Mk 2:9: “to the sick of the palsy,” and “and take up thy bed.” The first could be explained as both aMatthew and aLuke wanting to ‘generalize’ the line regarding sins being forgiven so that it covers other people as well, but for that to be the case “Arise (or Rise Up) and Walk” would also have to be generalized for other ailments or sicknesses. The second detail, regarding taking up the bed, is so trivial that it is highly unlikely that aMark would deliberately add this detail to what he saw in Matthew and Luke.

It is also highly unlikely that aMatthew and aLuke would independently omit both Mk 2:9b and 2:9e, and it is also highly unlikely to be text that either would choose to omit just because the other had done so. However, if they both knew another source in which there were no parallels to Mk 2:9b,e then it is more likely that they would both omit the text, and even more likely if the first of them followed that source and the second saw that.

Eating with Publicans and Sinners - Mk 2:15-17 / Mt 9:10-13 / Lk 5:29-32 

These verses are part of the passage in which Jesus eats with publicans and sinners, with neither Matthew nor Luke containing any parallel to Mk 2:15c. In addition there are multiple variants in Mk 2:15 and 2:16 that appear to have influenced what aMatthew and aLuke put in the corresponding places in their gospels, about which Willker reports extensively in Mark: TVU 33, 34, 35, 36, with TVU 33 being the most important here: 

TVU 33 - Mark 2:15-16 [Excerpted - Re-ordered and re-aligned for readability]:

Minority: Punctuation 1 with kai: P88(4th CE), 01, D, L, Δ, 047, 0130vid, 33, 2786, b, r1, bopt

" ... many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples -- for they were many and also/even the scribes of the Pharisees followed him. And they saw ..."

txt, Punctuation 2 without kai: A, B, C, (W), Θ, f1, f13, 28, 565, 579, 700, 892, 1241, 1342, Maj, Lat, Sy, sa, bopt

" ... many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples -- for they were many and they followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees saw ..."

Some scribes were probably confused by the slightly equivocal sentence structure: many tax collectors ... for they were many and they followed him and the scribes ... It is not clear to what the καὶ ἠκολούθουν αὐτῷ belongs. This parenthetical sentence is rather clumsy. Both Mt and Lk omit it. It is not clear how to punctuate. If one reads on beyond the end of verse 15 "and followed him also the scribes ..." one gets an asyndeton with ἰδόντες.

It is normally assumed that the tax collectors followed him. But it is also possible that the Pharisees followed him and then saw what he was doing. To make this explicit, some scribes added another καὶ. This happened with the txt version and also with the Byzantine version.

If one accepts the reading that also the scribes followed him, one gets a problem with the meaning of ἀκολούθέω. It is used in the Gospels for the disciples only. Following = being a disciple. Thus it would be very unusual here to say that the scribes followed him.  Note that both Mt and Lk changed the wording here.

TVU 34 – Mark 2:16

The term "the scribes of the Pharisees" is more unusual and has probably been changed to the common "the scribes and the Pharisees".  Note the similar changes in Mt and Lk.

The multiple variants in Mk 2:15-16 are clearly connected to the omissions and other differences in the parallels in Matthew and Luke, with the big question being whether the text in Mark has been assimilated to Matthew and/or Luke, or whether aMatthew and/or aLuke saw any of these differences in Mark. In contrast perhaps the easiest questions to answer are why is the parallel to Mk 2:16b so short in Mt 9:11b, and why does Luke have no parallel here?

If aMark knew Matthew and Luke and therefore saw “saw it” in Mt 9:11b but nothing in Luke, writing “saw him eat with publicans and sinners” instead in Mk 2:16b would appear to be pointless. Consequently, it is much more reasonable to suggest that instead aMatthew and aLuke saw the words in Mark and responded to the problem of who saw what in Mk 2:15c-16a. aMatthew resolved the problem by simply using ‘it’ to refer back to what he had written in Mt 9:10 instead of dealing with Mk 2:15d-16a itself, while aLuke removed all mention of seeing something and left that to be assumed by the reader.

However, that does not answer the question of why Mt 9:11a only refers to Pharisees but Lk 5:30a adds “their scribes.” Although in Luke most bibles read something similar to “Pharisees and their scribes,” the KJV and some other bibles have “their scribes and Pharisees.” This is an odd translation that appears to be associated with the variant in Mk 2:16a, regarding which in TVU 34 Willker notes (without comment) these variant readings in Lk 5:30: 

NA28 Luke 5:30 καὶ ἐγόγγυζον οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν

BYZ Luke 5:30 καὶ ἐγόγγυζον οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ

118, 788, 1071: καὶ ἐγόγγυζον οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς

D:                       οἱ Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς ἐγόγγυζον

(Oddly Willker does not then mention this in A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels Vol 3. Luke)

This point leads to the question of how the scribes and Pharisees even came to see Jesus eating with publicans and sinners in his own house. If Mk 2:15d originally read that “they” followed Jesus it would simply be referring to the “many publican and sinners” from Mk 2:15b, but this would then raise the question of why only the Pharisees saw “it” in Mt 9:11. Alternatively, the scribes and/or pharisees could have been ‘following’ Jesus, but then you run into the problem of ‘following’ elsewhere only referring to disciples. Whatever aMatthew and aLuke saw here in Mark it is clear from Mt 9:11 and Lk 5:30 that they had a problem with Mk 2:15-16. Given the different text in Mt 9:11 and Lk 5:30 then even if either Matthew or Luke saw the gospel of the other he did not feel the need to simply copy what he saw, particularly so as Lk 5:30 includes scribes but Mt 9:11 does not.

For whatever reason a change in word order appears to have had a significant effect on the text of Mt 9:11 and Lk 5:30, but none of the variants discussed above have any bearing on why both Matthew and Luke Mark omit “for there were many” from Mk 2:15c. It certainly seems to be not needed in Mark, but in the parallel case of Mk 2:16b aLuke eliminates the phrase while aMatthew just shortens it, although aLuke could have seen Matthew here or both aMatthew and aLuke could reasonably have independently omitted the same words.

Controversy over Fasting - Mk 2:18-20 / Mt 9:14-15 / Lk 5:33-35

In Mk 2:19b, towards the end of this passage on fasting, Jesus points out that guests at a wedding cannot fast while the bridegroom is present, and according to Willker this comment is not present in D, U, W, f1, 983, 33, 700, al50, it, vgmss, geo2. He writes: 

The omission is most probably due to parablepsis:

νηστεύειν… νηστεύειν Lat: ieiunare.

Many Byzantine minuscules commit this error, too.

It is also possible that it has been omitted as a harmonization to Mt/Lk, who both don't have it (so Wohlenberg). Or it has been omitted as redundant (so Weiß). Such somewhat clumsy doublings are typical for Mk.

So here Willker presents three different possibilities for why some mss do not have Mk 2:19b: 

There is of course a fourth possibility: that aMatthew and aLuke simply did not see the words in Mark, but given the lack of early mss that omit Mk 2:19b this is very unlikely. However, the question in Mk 2:19a / Mt 9:15a / Lk 5:34 is essentially rhetorical, and the audience is expected to know the answer, so an equivalent to Mk 2:19b is not really necessary in any of the three gospels. Consequently, it is conceivable that aMatthew and aLuke independently chose to not have a parallel to Mk 2:19b, and one or more scribes later omitted it from Mk 2:19b because it was not in either Matthew or Luke.

Plucking Grain on the Sabbath - Mk 2:23-26 / Mt 12:1-4 / Lk 6:1-4

As is common the introduction to this passage is slightly different in each of the gospels (for example only Mt 12:1 states that Jesus and the disciples were hungry). Nevertheless, in the reply to the Pharisees all three gospels state that David and those who were with him were hungry, while only Mark adds that David “had need,” which appears to add nothing relevant to Jesus' question. 

The incident being referred to in Mk 2:25 / Mt 12:3 / Lk 6:3 is recorded in 2 Sam 17:28-29, with food being brought “for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat,” and while they were also weary and thirsty those other needs are not germane to the point Jesus is making. Consequently, it would be perfectly reasonable for aMatthew and/or aLuke to exclude “he had need and” if they saw it in Mark, while it would be strange for Mark to add the words if he saw that they were not in Matthew and Luke. 

Mk 2:26b is the only other piece of text in this passage that has no parallel in either Mathew or Luke. However, it is also not present in D, W, 5855, 1285, 1546*, 1668*, 2774, it(a, b, d, e, ff2, i, r1, t), Sy-S. This omission is acknowledged to be a Minor Agreement, but somewhat surprisingly it is not noted as a Western non-interpolation, even though the omission from W, D, d, and other it mss would appear to make it an ideal candidate. 

Mk 2:26 / Mt 12:4 / Lk 6:4 appear to be a direct continuation of the previous verses, but they actually record an incident in 1 Sam 21:1-6 in which David asks Ahimelech the priest for bread, and he is given shewbread because there was no other bread available. Unusually, Mk 2:26b refers to Abiathar rather than his father Ahimelech, and although this is possible if Ahimelech was no longer high priest, it is odd for aMark to not have referred to Ahimelech. 

The fact that Mk 2:26b is missing in a number of extant mss raises the question of whether or not aMatthew and/or aLuke even saw these words in Mark. If they did not see Mk 2:26b then the omission from Matthew and Luke is to be expected, while if they did see the words then the omissions cannot be treated as a coincidence, and instead are a strong indicator either that aMatthew or aLuke knew the gospel of the other, that both knew another source that did not have words, or even that both believed that Ahimelech should be named here. The other alternative, that Mark originally did not have Mk 2:26b, would seem very unlikely as not only is there a lack of early mss that omit it, but there would be no reason for it to have been added later. 

The Man with the Withered Hand - Mk 3:1-5 / Mt 12:9-13 / Lk 6:6-10

The healing of the man with the withered hand is yet another passage in which small phrases in Mark are omitted from both Matthew and Luke. It is also notable for a slight change to Mk 3:2a and the omission of Mk 3:3 (both changes in Matthew), a unique addition at Mt 12:11b-12a, and small additions at Lk 6:8, 9b. 

However, Mk 3:4c and 3:5b are the only two portions of this passage that are not present in either Matthew or Luke, although the suggestion that Jesus was angry in Lk 6:10a is not present in most mss, with Willker (Luke: TVU 81) suggesting that the addition in Lk 6:10a is: 

Probably inspired from Mk. This emotional release is a-typical for Lk. There is no reason for an omission.

Also, in The Synoptic Problem Daniel Wallace (assuming Markan priority) writes: 

There are several passages in Mark which paint a portrait of Jesus (or the disciples, etc.) that could be misunderstood. These passages have been altered in either Matthew or Luke or both on every occasion. It is the conviction of many NT scholars that this category is a very strong blow to the Griesbach hypothesis [i.e. that Matthew was first]—and one which has not been handled adequately by Matthean prioritists. Among the several possible passages which scholars have noticed, the following are particularly impressive to me. Still, the cumulative effect is what makes the biggest impression…

(3) Mark 3:5/Luke 6:10 —“he looked around at them with anger/he looked around on them all.”

Matthew omits the verse entirely, though he includes material both before and after it (12:12-13). That Luke would omit a statement regarding Jesus’ anger is perfectly understandable.

Wallace is clearly of the opinion that it is normal for Luke to “omit a statement regarding Jesus’ anger,” but he does not suggest why, nor does he comment either on what is happening in this passage or the other differences in the three accounts. As there is no parallel to Mk 3:4c in Luke (or Matthew) there appears to be no reason for Jesus to be angry in Lk 6:10a, but in Mark and Matthew there is a difference in the audience compared to that in Luke. In Mk 3:4 / Mt 12:11-12 Jesus talks to “them,” presumably meaning whoever was in the synagogue at the time, and we have to go back to Mk 2:24 / Mt 12:2 to find that “them” could be just some unspecified Pharisees. However, Mk 3:1a / Mt 12:9 / Lk 6:6a all indicate that the prior events took place on a different day and/or a different location, and so there is really no indication of who was in the synagogue in any of the accounts. 

Jesus said nothing to “them” until his question in Mk 3:4b, so it was only when “they” did not answer in Mk 3:4c that he became angry, because it was their lack of an answer that told him “the hardness of their hearts.” However, in Lk 6:7-8 only it is stated that it was “the scribes and Pharisees” who watched Jesus, and that Jesus “knew their thoughts.” Consequently, in Lk 6:10a there was no reason for Jesus to become angry after he asked his question because at Lk 6:8a he already knew their answer, and this does not depend on aLuke knowing either Mark or Matthew. 

In Mt 12:11b-12a Jesus asks rhetorical questions that do not require answers, but then in Mt 12:12b he answers the question he was posed in Mt 12:10, none of which require any further interaction with “them.” Hence, even assuming that aMatthew knew Mark there is no reason for Matthew to contain any parallel to Mk 3:4c-5b. If aLuke did not see Matthew then there would appear to be no reason for him to add Lk 6:9b, but he could have also chosen to not have Jesus being angry by also not having a parallel to Mk 3:4c. Alternatively, if aLuke did see Matthew then it appears that he simply didn’t want to include a parallel to Mt 12:11b-12a. Either alternative seems reasonable. 

Despite the above differences the only words in Mark that have no parallel in any extant ms in both Matthew and Luke are those in Mk 3:4c and 3:5b. Although it could be argued that Mk 3:5b suggests a motivation for Jesus that could have been removed by both aMatthew and aLuke as being unnecessary, the simple comment in Mk 3:4c about the audience remaining silent is so short and unoffensive as to make it unlikely that aMatthew and aLuke would both independently remove it.

The differences in the three versions of this passage begin in Mk 3:2a / Mt 12:10b / Lk 6:6b, with aMatthew having “them” ask Jesus a question versus Jesus just being watched in Mark and Luke. That initial difference led to Jesus simply replying and then healing the hand in Matthew, and with Jesus reading minds in Lk 6:8a there was no reason for him to get angry after asking his question. If aMatthew and aLuke had wanted to just downplay Jesus’ anger they could have both simply excluded some of all of Mk 3:4c-5b, but they went considerably further than that. Instead, the differences suggest that there were at least two differences of this passage, perhaps with aMatthew knowing a shorter one. 

How Can We Get Him - Mk 3:6 / Mt 12:14 / Lk 6:11

The Herodians are mentioned in only three places in the Bible: at Mk 3:6b, and then at Mk 12:13a / Mt 22:16a. They do not play a significant role in the story of Jesus, so there appears to be no reason for one synoptic author to be influenced by another regarding whether to mention them or not. In the first incident only Mark notes that the Herodians were involved, in the second both Mark and Matthew record that the Herodians were with the Pharisees, while in Luke it is just unspecified spies sent by “they” (the chief priests, scribes, and elders from Lk 20:1). Considering Mk 3:6 / Mt 12:14 / Lk 6:11 alone it appears that if Mark was last it would be very unlikely that aMark would have added the reference to the Herodians if he knew Mt 12:14 and Lk 6:11, but of course if Mark was first there would appear to be no reason for aMatthew and aLuke to remove it unless they knew another source that did not mention the Herodians.

Because both Mt 12:14 / 22:15 contain the words οἱ Φαρισαῖοι συμβούλιον ἔλαβον [the Pharisees took counsel] the two parallels look very much like versions of the same incident, even though they may not be textually close enough to be considered to be doublets. The first incident is the result of something Jesus did (healing) and the second is because of what he said, but in both the reaction of the Pharisees is to try to ‘destroy’ Jesus (including his reputation), either physically or by catching him saying something they could use against him. The motive is the same although the method involved is different.

Although Lk 6:11 clearly fulfills the same role as Mk 3:6 / Mt 12:14 the words are different enough that they do not here provide evidence that either aMatthew or aLuke knew the words of the others’ gospel. It also appears that aMatthew added a version of Mt 12:14a at Mt 22:15 and that aMark did not see this addition. In addition aLuke did not follow Matthew here because Lk 20:20 is very different from Mt 22:15-16a, with Lk 20:20cd having no parallel in either Mark or Matthew. The overall impression is that all three gospels authors knew of an incident involving Pharisees and Herodians, but that each used this incident differently and the usage does not clearly identify a directionality. 

The Calling of the Twelve - Mk 3:13-15 / Mt 10:1 / Lk 6:13

In Mark the first half of the reason for the choosing of the twelve is at Mk 3:14b and has no parallel in both Matthew and Luke, while the second half at Mk 3:15 has a parallel at Mt 10:1c. The addition at Mt 10:1d regarding healing has no parallel at this point in Luke, nor in Mark in the critical text, but does have a parallel at Mk 3:15b in the majority of mss. Willker (Mark: TVU 60) lists these mss as: A, CC , D, P, W, (Θ), f1, f13, 33, 579, 700, 1342, 1424, 2542, Maj, Latt, Sy, arm, goth, and adds:

 

NA notes this reading as "p) ". But the wording is not exactly as in the parallels. On the other hand there is no reason for an omission. The clause is supported by a variety of different sources. If it is not original it must have been arisen [sic] independently at different places.

 

As indicated above there is no parallel to any of Mk 3:14b-15 between Lk 6:13 and 6:14, a difference that could be easily explained as aMatthew and aLuke having different views on what they wanted to say about the tasks given to the twelve, whether one knew the other’s gospel or not. However, Willker above refers to “parallels,” and in the actual sending of the apostles in Luke 9 (here called disciples despite having been named apostles in Lk 6:13) the other parallel to Mk 3:15 to which Willker is referring is at Lk 9:1c.

 

Because aLuke placed the naming of the apostles and their sending in two different chapters of his gospel, if Mark was written after Matthew and Luke a reasonable assumption would be that aMark knew both Mt 10:1-2 and Lk 6:13-14. However, as there are no other parallels to Luke 9 in this part of Mark we do not know if aMark knew Lk 9:1 (three chapters further on in Luke) when he was writing Mark 3. Consequently, on this assumption if Mk 3:15b was not originally present in Mark (as suggested above by Willker) then aMark used Mt 10:1c but chose to ignore Mt 10:1d, and Lk 9:1c if he knew it at this point. As this choice would be seem to be very unusual even if Mark did not know Lk 9:1 it instead suggests that aMark did not see Mt 10:1 at all, i.e. that he did not see Matthew.

 

If instead Mark preceded Matthew and Luke and Mk 3:15b is original then because it has parallels in both Mt 10:1d and Lk 9:1c there would seem to be no reason for later scribes to remove it, so also suggesting it is not in fact original. This would also make it logical for aMatthew to have Mk 10:1c refer to casting out devils/ unclean spirits and Mt 10:1d adding healing, instead of having healing first and casting out devils/ unclean spirits second, because in Mark he only saw casting out devils, and aLuke then followed the same order in Lk 9:1.

 

The Naming of the Twelve - Mk 3:16-19 / Mt 10:2-4 / Lk 6:14-16

Both Matthew and Luke include the detail in Mk 3:16b that Jesus gave Simon the name Peter, so that raises the question of why neither include the similar detail from Mk 3:17b that Jesus gave James and John the name Boanerges. If Mark was written last then aMark would have seen Mt 10:2a and Lk 6:14a, and so potentially could have also given James and John a new name in even though neither Matthew and Luke did so. Interestingly, there is a variant in Mk 3:17b in a few mss in which the text is altered so as to give all the disciples the name Boanerges, a change that cannot have been influenced by Matthew or Luke because they do not have the name. 

If instead Mark was first then it is very odd that neither Matthew nor Luke have Jesus giving James and John a new name, given that both aMatthew and aLuke had just included the similar detail from Mk 3:16b, and this is the case whether they saw Mk 3:17b as above, or the variant in which all the disciples have the name Boanerges. Even if both aMatthew and aLuke were aware that the new name did not appear anywhere else in Mark (or any other text in the Bible) there appears to be no reason why either of them would not have included a parallel to whichever variant of Mk 3:17b they saw. Consequently, the lack of a new name for James and John in both Matthew and Luke suggests a common influence, and in this particular case the most likely influence would be another source, one in which there was no parallel to Mk 3:17b. 

The Parable of the Sower - Mk 4:1b-9 / Mt 13:2-9 / Lk 8:4-8

This parable is somewhat shorter in Luke than in either Mark or Matthew, having no parallel to Mk 4:1c and (not shown) Mk 4:5b,d, 6a / Mt 13:5b,d, 6 (except for Lk 8:6d). In these verses Matthew follows Mark almost exactly but then has no parallel to Mk 4:8c, 9a, so shortening slightly the details of the seed that fell on good ground and the conclusion. 

On the assumption of Markan priority these differences indicate that both aMatthew and aLuke shortened the Markan version, but each chose a different way of doing it. aLuke appears to consider that the details of why the seed on stony ground withered away are simply unimportant, although he did include corresponding details for the seed that fell by the way side and the seed that fell among thorns. The fact that Luke omits just one of the three sets of details tends to suggest that aLuke knew another source for this passage, especially as Lk 8:6 refers to “a rock” rather than stony ground. Alternatively, if Mark followed Matthew / Luke then aMark made the rather odd choice of including all the details from Mt 13:5-6 instead of the much shorter but perfectly adequate Lk 8:6. 

Matthew has very close parallels to all of Mk 4:3b-6, but neither Matthew nor Luke mention that the seed that fell in the thorns did not yield fruit (Mk 4:7b). Also, both move the mention of the fruit from the seed on the good ground from its position at Mk 4:8b to just before the quantities of fruit mentioned at the ends of Mt 13:8 / Lk 8:8, so avoiding the rather clumsy construction in Mark in which the fruit is mentioned both before and after we are told that the seed “sprang up.” aMatthew also changes the order of the quantities of fruit in Mk 4:8f while aLuke only mentions a hundred, with both these changes being a way of intensifying the difference between no fruit and 100 fruit: aMatthew reverses the order, while aLuke removes the (unnecessary) mentions of 30 and 60 fruit (aMark and aMatthew repeat these numerical references to fruit at Mk 4:20 / Mt 13:23, but Lk 8:15 has just a reference to fruit in general). 

If aMark knew Matthew and Luke then not only did he add the unnecessary detail that the seed that fell among thorns and was choked produced no fruit, but he also moved forward the reference to the fruit from the seed that fell on good ground and reversed the order of the quantities he saw in Mt 13:8e, all of which are seemingly pointless. While these details may appear to be trivial, it is trivial differences between Mark and Matthew / Luke such as these that argue very strongly against aMark being based on Matthew and Luke. 

If instead aMatthew and aLuke knew Mark then both have ‘tightened up’ Mark: Neither have parallels to Mk 4:7b, 8b1, and 8d, and both simplify and strengthen Mk 4:8 by moving ‘fruit’ to the end and emphasizing the 100 fruit. The lack of parallels to Mk 4:2b-3a mentioned above and the perhaps surprisingly simple changes just described indicate that aMark did not know the versions of this passages in either Matthew or Luke, and that either aMatthew or aLuke knew the other’s gospel, or they knew a source in which the small portions of Mark described above that are not in either of their gospels, were not present, and here they followed that source.. 

The Meaning of the Parable - Mk 4:13-20 / Mt 13:18-23 / Lk 8:11-15b

This is almost entirely a ‘strict’ triple tradition passage, following on from Mk 4:10-12 / Mt 13:10-13d / Lk 8:9-10. The majority of the passage is common to all three gospels, with the exceptions being: 

These differences (mainly in Luke) indicate that neither aMatthew nor aLuke are following Mark word-for-word, but the only places at which they agree in having no parallel to a phrase in Mark are at Mk 4:15b and 4:19b, omissions that are all the more surprising given the length of the passage and the other short pieces of text that both might have omitted, but did not. It therefore appears very unlikely that these common omissions are a coincidence, and as there is no known ms of Mark in which these phrases are absent the only reasonable explanations are that either aMatthew or aLuke knew the gospel of the other, or that both authors knew a source in which these phrases were not present. 

More on Parables - Mk 4:24-25 / Mt 13:12 / Lk 8:18

This short passage is preceded by the parable of the sower (above) at Mk 4:13-20 / Mt 13:18-23 / Lk 8:11-15b, but between them is the passage on candles and light at Mk 4:21-22 / Lk 8:16-17. As Lk 8:15c is essentially a ‘repeat’ of the words at the end of Lk 8:8 and only exists in a few mss this appears to be a late addition, possibly for use in lectionaries (See Willker, Luke, TVU 120), and hence Mk 4:23 / Lk 8:15c should not be considered to be part of this passage. 

Apart from Mk 4:24b there is no parallel to any part of Mk 4:24 in Luke, and while Mt 13:12b is a parallel to Mk 4:24d it is located between the parallels to Mk 4:25a and 25b. In addition, both Mk 4:24d and e have variants in which neither piece of text is present in some mss. This makes it hard to determine what portions of the text of Mk 4:24 are original, but it is safe to say that if Mark preceded Mathew and Luke then the authors of those gospels did at least see Mk 4:24a-c. 

However, aMatthew appears to have seem Mk 4:24d as well, but apparently had a problem. In Mk 4:24b-e Jesus is directly addressing the people with him, who according to Mk 4:10 were “they that were about him with the twelve,” but in Mk 4:25 he is making a more general statement about people in general. For some reason aMatthew takes Jesus direct statement to the people listening to him and adds it instead to the points about people in general. aLuke also seems to have problems with Mk 4:24, but in his case he appears to have a problem with Mk 4:23 as well, and replaces the whole of Mk 4:23-24 by just Lk 8:18a (See above re. Lk 8:15c). 

If Mark was first both aMatthew and aLuke have omitted almost all of Mk 4:23-24. This appears to be because they had problems with what they did see here in Mark, and not because these words were not present (It appears that they each saw different parts of Mk 4:24). However, they each chose a different way of dealing with this problem. If instead Mark was last it is hard to imagine how aMark could have come up with Mk 4:23-24 given what he saw here in Matthew and Luke. 

Rebuking the Wind and the Sea - Mk 4:35-41 / Mt 8:23-27 / Lk 8:22-25

This passage is notable both for the issue of why Jesus and the disciples could not be helped by the other boats, and the details that are not present in either Matthew or Luke. Although it does not affect the overall meaning, the extant mss vary considerably regarding the exact wording of Mk 4:36c, with there being ten different variant readings in just these few words. In particular the majority of English language bibles refer to boats rather than little ships or little/small boats, and Willker (Mark: TVU 94) comments: 

These changes are slightly unusual, because they are not inspired from context or parallels. The change to πολλὰ [‘many,’ in D and several Western mss] might be a natural intensification. The replacement of ὅντα for ἦν is possibly stimulated by the other participle ἀφέντες in the sentence.

Pallis (Notes, 1932) conjectures that the rather unimportant observation that other boats were with him (which do not come into play in any way) makes more sense, if it would be negative:

καὶ ἄλλα πλοῖα οὐκ ἦν μετ’ αὐτοῦ

The other boats are mentioned nowhere else, for example not being around during the storm. Consequently, it is possible that thoughts along the lines of those of Pallis motivated scribes to alter what they saw in their exemplars, even though none of them made the apparently obvious change of simply stating that there were no other boats around. Despite scribes apparently not thinking of this both aMatthew and aLuke seem to have down so, because assuming they knew Mark both simply removed whatever form of these words they saw in Mk 4:36c. 

On the same assumption both decided to omit Mk 4:36a, even though there are no extant mss in which these words are missing or different, and both altered what they saw in Mk 4:36b. Also, aLuke moved forward the reference to Jesus being asleep, and both omitted the details of where he was in the ship and that he had a pillow. Essentially, aMatthew and aLuke both simplified Mk 4:36, 38, even though they both followed Mk 4:37, 38c-41 closely at Mt 8:24-27 / Lk 8:23-25, as also in the transition to the man who had Legion at Mk 5:1-3 / Mt  8:28 / Lk 8:26-27 that follows immediately afterwards. 

It would seem very unlikely for both aMatthew and aLuke to remove the same three portions of text from Mark without one knowing the other’s gospel and/or knowing another source, and it would also seem very unlikely for aMark to add these details (particularly the small ships that then disappear) if he knew Matthew and/or Luke. As seen above in other examples where Matthew and Luke agree in omitting minor details in Mark for no obvious reason, the details exist in a number of variant forms (ten in this example) in the extant mss, and this may point at the existence of a source about which we know nothing, for example a copy of Mark with damage at this point.

The Man who had Legion - Mk 5:4-20 / Mt 8:29-34 / Lk 8:28-39 

This passage exists in two similar versions in Mark and Luke, and a significantly shorter version in Matthew in which there are only parallels to Mk 5:7, 11-13b, 13d-14a, 15a, 17. In addition Mk 5:4b, 6b, 13c, 16b, 19c, 20b have no parallel in either Matthew or Luke, but only Mk 5:13c (and the equivalent location in Matthew and Luke) is surrounded by text in all three gospels, at Mk 5:11-13b, 13d-14a / Mt 8:30-33a / Lk 8:32-34b respectively.

In this example Mark contains a simple explanatory detail (the size of the herd) that could be omitted without having any effect on the rest of the passage. While most bibles report that the herd contained about 2,000 pigs before they rushed down the steep slope and were drowned, a few bibles (as shown here) more closely follow the order of the Greek text, in which the size of the herd is only mentioned after they have rushed down the slope. However, as the fact that it was a large herd had been previously stated in Mk 5:11 / Mt 8:30 / Lk 8:32a, this detail adds nothing to the story and appears to be simply a parenthetical remark. Consequently, it is plausible for aMatthew and aLuke to have omitted this detail independently even if they both saw it in Mark. However, the same point also makes it very unlikely that aMark would have added it if he knew that it was in neither Matthew nor Luke. 

The Daughter of Jairus (Part 1) - Mk 5:35-40 / Mt 9:23-24 / Lk 8:49-53

This is another passage in which the version in Matthew is significantly shorter than that in either Mark or Luke, with Matthew having no parallels to Mk 5:23a, 26-27a, 29a-31, 33, 35-37, 41b,d, and 42b-43. After an ‘introduction’ at Mk 5:22-24 / Mt 9:18-19 / Lk 8:41-42, in all three gospels the passages of the woman with the flow of blood comes next, followed by the beginning of the healing of Jairus’ daughter at Mt 5:35-37 / Lk 8:49-51, with no parallels here in Matthew. 

Although Jesus arrives at Jairus’ house in Mk 5:38a, neither Matthew nor Luke mention his arrival because neither have a parallel to Mk 5:38a, and instead they effectively combine Mk 5:38a and 39a into Mt 9:23a / Lk 8:51a. If aMark saw both Matthew and Luke it would seem highly unlikely for him to have taken what he saw in Mt 9:23a / Lk 8:51a and split it into two pieces so that Jesus came to Jairus’ house before Mk 5:38b and entered it afterwards, at Mk 5:39a. It is also a very good example of an apparently pointless common change to Mark that aMatthew and aLuke would have been very unlikely to have made independently, but one that they could have made if they both saw it this way in another source.

In Mk 5:37 Jesus restricts the people following him to just Peter, James, and John, while the parallel at Lk 8:51b restricts those who Jesus allowed to enter the house to the same three disciples. As there is no Matthean parallel to the restriction, and because the disciples go with Jesus in Mt 9:19 but are not then mentioned again until Mt 9:37, in Matthew we do not even know whether the disciples came to the house or not. Consequently, the essentially identical Mt 9:23a and Lk 8:51a have different effects because we do not know whether anyone entered the house with Jesus. Also, in Mk 5:38b Jesus sees all the noisy people before entering the house in Mk 5:39a, while in the parallels at Mt 9:23b / Lk 8:52a Jesus does not see them until after he enters the house.

The Daughter of Jairus (Part 2) - Mk 5:40-43 / Mt 9:25 / Lk 8:54-56

The only parallel in Matthew to Mk 5:40b-43 is Mt 9:25. In addition Mk 5:40c, 41c, 42b have no parallel in Luke, and so are unique to Mark. There is also a variant in Lk 8:54 in which in the critical text the words immediately surrounding Mk 5:40c have no parallel in Luke, so that Lk 8:54 reads just “And he took her by the hand.” This is essentially a majority – critical text difference, about which Willker (Luke: TVU 136) writes:

There is no reason for an omission.

The words are probably a harmonization to Mk. The different word-order variants are an indication for a secondary origin.

Note though that ἔξω [out] does not appear in Mk. But the addition is probably quite natural.

This author disagrees with Willker’s suggestion that there is no reason for an omission, as without any parallel to Mk 5:40c removing these words avoids having any remaining text referring to the other people in the house, i.e. it ‘tidies up’ an otherwise unnecessary reference to removing the people mentioned in Lk 8:51-53. Instead, there is no reason to add the words, so indicating that their removal is secondary, and the equivalent words in Mt 9:25 support their inclusion in Lk 8:54. In turn, the inclusion of the words in both Matthew and Mark support the assumption that both aMatthew and aLuke saw Mt 5:40c but both chose not to omit the words in Mk 5:40b, something they would be very unlikely to do independently.

The three synoptic gospels show a remarkable degree of familiarity with each other in Mk 5:22-43 / Mt 9:18-25 / Lk 8:41-56. Not only are the same two incidents portrayed in all three gospels, but they are all constructed in the same way, beginning with an introduction of the main characters, then an interruption featuring the same new character, and a final section picking up at exactly the same point at which it had been interrupted in all three gospels. Clearly these three accounts are based on the same set of incidents, and the only way that these three parallel accounts could have been written is if they all knew a version of this passage constructed as we see it, or if there was copying from one to another.

Overall the longest version is in Mark, spanning 22 verses, and the shortest by far is in Mark, spanning 8 verses, while that in Luke spans 16 verses. This might suggest a short account known to aMatthew that was lengthened somewhat by aLuke and then further by aMark. However, Mark and Matthew share some material that is not in Luke, while Mark and Luke share material that is not in Matthew, but there is nothing in both Matthew and Luke that is not also in Mark, i.e. there is no double tradition material here. Instead, there is unique material in Mk 5:24a, 29b, 38a, 40c, 41c, and 42b.

In particular splitting Mt 9:23a / Lk 8:51a into two sections either side of Mk 5:37 seems pointless, and Mk 5:42b adds nothing of any value, but all this material is very hard to explain as additions by aMark. On the other hand it is easy to see how Mk 5:22-43 could be ‘tightened up’ significantly by the removal of the material we see as unique to Mark, and while it does appear that both aMatthew and aLuke knew a shorter version of this passage containing some different details, the material in either Matthew or Luke but not the other point away from either aMatthew or aLuke following the other when making changes to what they saw in Mark.

Entering the Synagogue - Mk 1:14b, 6:1b-2b / Mt 4:12b,13:54ab / Lk 4:14-16 

The question here is why in Mk 6:1c Jesus’ disciples followed him to Nazareth, but in Matthew and Luke they did not. This appears to be a straightforward example of a negative minor agreement, but although in both Mark and Matthew Jesus goes to Capernaum (Mk 1:21 / Mt 4:13) before Nazareth (Mk 6:1 / Mt 13:54), in Luke Jesus goes to Nazareth (Lk 4:16) just after the temptation and before Capernaum (Lk 4:31). As a result, it is not surprising that in Luke there is no mention of disciples between the temptation and Nazareth, even though Lk 4:14-15 indicates (with no detail) that he was well known in the region immediately beforehand (but see Well Known in Galilee - Twice). 

In Matthew the situation is different, as prior to arriving in Nazareth in Mt 13:54 (not named, but Jesus’ whole family is mentioned in Mt 13:55) the disciples are mentioned in Mt 11:2, 12:1-2,49, and 13:10,36, and as the conversation Jesus has in Mt 13:37-52 can only be with disciples it appears unlikely that in Mt 13:54 he would have entered Nazareth without them. However, as after Mt 13:36 the next direct mention of the disciples is at Mt 14:12 (when they go to get the body of John) it is just possible that in Matthew there were no disciples in Nazareth with Jesus. Nevertheless, as Mt 13:53-14:11 do not depend on whether the disciples were with Jesus or not there appears to be no reason why aMatthew would not have a parallel to Mk 6:1c if he saw it in Mark. 

One possibility is that aMatthew also saw that there was no parallel to Mk 6:1c in one or more other sources he knew (such as an earlier version of Luke), but there is no possibility of him having seen Q here unless Q contained a version of the entry into and events in Nazareth that also had no mention of the disciples. On the other hand, if Mark followed Matthew and Luke it seems unlikely that aMark would bother adding this small detail, especially as there is no further reference to the disciples until Jesus calls them to him in Mk 6:7. 

In His Own Country - Mk 6:4 / Mt 13:57bc / Lk 4:24 

These verses follow closely after those in the previous example, with Jesus still in Nazareth. In all three gospels Jesus is still in the synagogue and is recognized as the son of Joseph (Mk 6:3a / Mt 13:55a / Lk 4:22c), and as the rest of Jesus’ family is mentioned in Mk 6:3bcd / Mt 13:55b-56a (but not in Luke) it is odd that both Matthew and Luke have no parallel to Mk 6:4b.

While it could be said that aLuke simply omitted the rest of Jesus’ family as being unnecessary, this is not the case for aMatthew because Jesus’ kin have already been mentioned in full, making it unlikely that he would go to the trouble of deliberately omitting such a trivial detail for no apparent reason but to save space. However, it should be noted that the unique additions at Lk 4:17-22a, 23, 25-27 suggest that, despite the agreement in Mk 6:4a / Mt 13:57b / Lk 4:24, aLuke may have here been following a difference source.

The Sending of the Twelve - Mk 6:7-11 / Mt 10:5-15 / Lk 9:1-5

The sending of the twelve is a well-known triple tradition passage, but one in which Mark, Matthew, and Luke are perhaps surprisingly different in a number of places. For example, overall the phrase “he said unto them” is common in both Mark and Luke (23 and 40 times respectively), but not so in Matthew, where it appears only 11 times. As this phrase occur much more frequently in Luke than it does in Matthew, and also more frequently than in Mark, it is unusual to see Luke omitting it in his parallel to Mk 6:10a.

As Matthew contains a number of unique additions in this passage it is not unreasonable for aMatthew to have not used this phrase here (perhaps to save space) but a parallel to Mk 6:10a would be expected here in Luke. It is unlikely that aLuke was motivated to not use it here just because aMatthew did not have it, so it could be that aLuke knew another source in which it was also not present. Given that aMark also uses this phrase quite frequently its presence in Mk 6:10a could be explained as an addition by aMark if he saw that it was in neither Matthew nor Luke. 

John and Herod - Mk 6:14-29 / Mt 14:1-12 / Lk 9:7-9

There are many pieces of text in Mk 6:14-29 that are not in either Matthew or Luke, but the majority of these (Mk 6:17c, 20c, 21b, 22b, 24b-25a, 27b) are because Luke has no parallel to Mk 6:17-29 / Mt 14:3-12 (the death of John), and hence they cannot be used as examples of aLuke possibly seeing these omissions in Matthew and so choosing to omit these same portions of the text of Mark. However, this is not the case with either Mk 6:14b or 6:16b. 

Despite the phrase in Mk 6:14b being shown in some bibles as a parenthetical remark there is no known mss in which these words are either different or are omitted, but nevertheless neither Matthew nor Luke contain a parallel of these words. They are unlikely to have been additions by aMark, but possibly could be seen as independent removals of unnecessary words by both aMatthew and aLuke, essentially replaced by “the fame of Jesus” and “all that was done by him” in Mt 14:1 / Lk 9:7a respectively. 

Mk 6:16b reads either: “he is risen from the dead” or “he is it; he was raised out of the dead.” However, due primarily to word order changes there are actually 13 different variant readings here, with the majority being variants of the longer form, about which Willker (Mark, TVU 121) writes:

It is clear that this large number of variants has its cause in a difficult original reading.

It is possible that the txt reading has been felt to be too short and it has been extended in various ways, inspired by the familiar Matthean reading.

The problem with this statement is that there is no “familiar Matthean reading” that is parallel to Mk 6:16b. However, it is clear that here Willker is referring to Mt 14:2b, so suggesting that scribes familiar with Mt 14:2 lengthened the short variant of Mk 6:16b accordingly. This may appear plausible, but in which case why did no one apparently add similar text between Lk 9:9a and 9b? 

Because there is no parallel in Matthew to the whole of Mk 6:15-16 we cannot say that aMatthew was influenced by problems with the text of Mk 6:16b. Instead, all we can say is that Matthew has no parallel to Mk 6:15-16, and Luke has no parallel to Mk 6:16b, both for unknown reasons. Similarly, because Luke has no parallel to Mk 6:17-20, the fact that Matthew has parallels to all these verses except for Mk 6:17c ‘for he had married her’ affords us no insight into whether aLuke knew Matthew or vice versa.

A Desert Place - Mk 6:30-33 / Mt 14:12b-13 / Lk 9:10-11

After the twelve had buried John (in Mark and Mathew only) and had returned to Jesus and told him what they had done, he suggested that he (Jesus) or they (Jesus and the disciples) go somewhere private. In Mk 6:31 he also commented that they should rest, and then in Mk 6:32 / Mt 14:13 / Lk 9:10 he/they went to a place where he/they could be alone. Although Mk 6:31 has no parallel in either Matthew or Luke it does not appear that the relatively small and unimportant variant in that verse would have had any influence on aMatthew and aLuke regarding whether to include a parallel to this verse or not (Of course, if Mark followed Matthew and Luke then aMark could have added the verse instead). However, Willker (Mark, TVU 128) writes: 

The phrase δεῦτε ὐμεῖς αὐτοὶ κατ’ ἰδίαν is a bit difficult and equivocal. Literally it says "Come, you yourself, privately, by yourself". δεῦτε means "Come" or "Come now" or "Come on". It is not clear if this means the disciples alone or the disciples plus Jesus. The Western text is clarifying this by changing the text to "Come, let us go" δεῦτε ὑπάγωμεν).

In Mk 6:32-33 it is not clear whether he or they were on the ship, and whether the people saw and followed him or them, but in Mk 6:34a only Jesus goes ashore. Later, in Mk 6:35a / Mt 14:15a / Lk 9:12a, the disciples come to Jesus although there is nothing previously to say where they had been while Jesus had been with the people in Mk 6:34 / Mt 14:14 / Lk 9:11.

In the parallels to Mk 6:32, Mt 14:13 has ‘he’ while Lk 9:10 has ‘them,’ but in Luke they did not board a ship, and both Matthew and Luke have ‘him’ in their parallels to Mk 6:33. There is a variant in Mk 6:33c in which the majority text adds “and came together unto them/him,” and while Matthew has a much shorter parallel that has no parallel to Mk 6:33c, Luke has no parallel to Mk 6:33bc. Despite the variants in Mk 6:32-33 these verses do have parallels in both Matthew and Luke (but only partial in the case of Mk 6:33), and so Mk 6:30b-31 is the only piece of text here with no parallels and that is both preceded and followed by triple tradition text. 

Is it reasonable to believe that aMatthew and aLuke could both see Mk 6:30b-31 but then neither write parallels to this text without some form of coordination? The issue is complicated by the fact that in addition to the words in Mark that have no parallel in both Matthew and Luke, Luke has no parallels to Mk 6:33b-34a, has no ship travel, and moves forward the mention of Bethsaida in Mk 6:45c to Lk 9:10d (See also Luke 9:10 - Bethsaida). It is also not clear whether the use of he/him in Matthew and they/them in Luke can be associated with the variant in Mk 6:32-33, or whether these differences have a different cause. It certainly appears that here aMatthew and aLuke knew Mark, but exactly what text they saw in Mark and whether either aMatthew or aLuke knew what the other had written here is unclear. 

The Five Thousand - Mk 6:35-40 / Mt 14:15-19a / Lk 9:12-15

This section of the feeding of the five thousand begins with the disciples suggesting that Jesus should send the multitude away, and ends with the multitude sitting down on the grass. The details vary slightly, but the only detail not present in both Matthew and Luke is in Mk 6:38a, in which Jesus asks the disciples how many loaves they had. Both Matthew and Luke omit this question, and instead in Mt 14:17 and Lk 9:13b respectively they alter the text of Mk 6:38b so that the disciples instead tell Jesus (without having been asked) that they only have five loaves and two fish (so indicating that the food is not enough to feed everyone), while in Mk 6:38b they give a simple numerical answer to Jesus' query.

Here both Matthew and Luke have the same two changes to the text of Mk 6:38, i.e. both removing Jesus’ question in Mk 6:38a, and both altering the disciple’s response in Mk 6:38b to fit with the removal of the previous text by using ‘but’ to add a form of negation. However, while the way they have changed Mk 6:38 is the same, Mt 14:17 and Lk 9:13b are not just copies of each other, in particular with the negation being handled differently in the Greek and Lk 9:13b reading ‘loaves five and fish two.’ As seeing Mt 14:17 and/or Lk 9:13b and then adding Mk 6:38a appears pointless it is very unlikely that aMark saw Matthew and/or Luke. Instead, this suggests that neither aMatthew or aLuke copied directly from the other, and that it is likely that they both knew another source that included a negation instead of a version of Mk 6:38a. 

Five Loaves and Two Fish - Mk 6:41-42 / Mt 19b-20a / Lk 9:16-17a

In Mk 6:41a Jesus blessed both loaves and fish, in Mk 6:41b he broke the bread and gave it to the disciples, and then in Mk 6:41c he divided up the fish. While the blessing and the dividing of the loaves both have parallels at Mt 14:19bc / Lk 9:16, the distribution of the fish in Mk 6:41c has no parallel, and neither does taking up the leftover pieces of fish in Mk 6:43b. However, neither aMatthew nor aLuke completely excluded the fish, because both earlier refer to loaves and fish in their parallels to Mk 6:38b and 6:41a, and aMatthew later refers to fish in his parallels to Mk 8:5, 6b (The Feeding of the Four Thousand), even though in Mark no fish are mentioned there until Mk 8:7! (There are no parallels here in Luke because of the Great Omission – see below).

On this basis there would seem to be no reason for either aMatthew or aLuke to specifically exclude the fish in their parallels to Mk 6:41c, 43b, unless perhaps they both wanted to very slightly shorten their respective gospels by allowing the fish to be assumed but not stated. However, Mk 6:44 has nothing referring to fish corresponding to Mk 6:41c, 43b, and instead has a difficult variant with 9 different readings: Because the loaves are omitted in P45, D, W, 788(=f13), 79, 2193, Lat, sa this could be considered to be a Western non-interpolation, and in Mark, TVU 136 Willker comments on whether the loaves were omitted because the fish are not mentioned: 

The argument that scribes found the fishes missing and therefore omitted the bread too, is unconvincing, because it would be more probable that they would have added the fishes (one OLat manuscript: c has both).

It appears (also from the parallels) that ὡς / ὡςεὶ [about] is a natural addition.

The omission of τοὺς ἄρτους [the loaves] could be simply a harmonization to the parallel accounts. Both Mt and Lk don't have it (Minor Agreement). The quite strong support is strange nevertheless. There should be no problem with τοὺς ἄρτους here.

There is the idea that the men did not eat any of the distributed bread, that ALL bread is coming back to the disciples.

Willker considers that omitting ‘the loaves’ in Mk 6:44 because neither Mt 14:21 nor Lk 9:14a (note the relocation) mention them is more likely than omitting them because fish are also not mentioned, his reason being that adding fish would be “more probable,” even though there are no extant mss in which fish have been added. As having both loaves and fish (matching Mk 6:41, 43) or neither (matching Mt 14:21 / Lk 8:14a) would seem more likely than having just loaves, it does seem probable that Mk 6:44 originally mentioned loaves and that the loaves were later removed to match the parallels. 

Although Willker notes that the parallels to Mk 6:44 are Mt 14:21 / Lk 9:14a (neither of which refer to either loaves or fish), he does not note that Lk 9:14a is ‘out of place,’ as in order to match Mark and Matthew it would instead be expected to be between Lk 9:17 and 9:18, and as Lk 9:14a does not mention eating it is not a complete parallel to Mk 6:44 / Mt 14:21. Nevertheless it is the only place in Luke that refers to five thousand, and because of the Great Omission (see below) there is nothing in Luke from the feeding of the four thousand and so no further references to either loaves or fish in Luke 9. As the Great Omission begins almost immediately after Lk 9:17b (Lk 9:18a may be a parallel to Mk 6:47c / Mt 14:23c) we do not know why the reference to the five thousand is at Lk 9:14a instead of following Lk 9:17b, and therefore Mk 6:44 / Mt 14:21 / Lk 9:14a can have no say in determining the relationship between Mark, Matthew and Luke. 

What we are left with is two references to fish in Mk 6:41c and 6:43b that have no parallels in either Matthew or Luke. As Mark mentions fish 6 times, Matthew 8 times, and Luke (despite not having the feeding of the four thousand) 7 times, there is no reason to suggest that either aMatthew or aLuke had an aversion to fish, and so no reason why either would have removed this trivial detail even if one saw the gospel of the other. Alternatively, aMark could have added this detail (but why would he?) or aMatthew and/or aLuke may have known a source that did not here refer to fish. 

The Great Omission - Mk 6:45-8:27 / Mt 14:22-16:13 / Lk 9:18 

Above Lk 9:14a is referred to as being ‘out of place,’ but more accurately Mk 6:44-47 / Mt 14:21-24a only have direct parallels in Luke for Mk 6:44 / Mt 14:21 and Mk 6:45b / Mt 14:22b, and both not-quite-parallels are located earlier in Luke, at Lk 9:14a and 9:10d respectively. However, it is possible these ‘out of place’ parallels might have originally been located where they would be expected from the locations of their parallels, and their re-location to earlier in Luke could be associated with The Great Omission in Luke beginning in approximately the middle of Lk 9:18: 

        Mark/Matthew                          Parallel in Luke

Mk 6:42-43 / Mt 14:20 Lk 9:17

Mk 6:44 / Mt 14:21 Lk 9:14a

Mk 6:45a / Mt 14:22a                 -

Mk 6:45b / Mt 14:22b Lk 9:10d

Mk 6:46-47ab / Mt 14:23-24ab      -

Mk 6:47c / Mt 14:23c Lk 9:18ab

Mk 6:47d-48a           -                         -

Mk 6:48bc / Mt 14:24c-25          -

At this point Mark continues, with there being no parallels to any of Mk 6:49-8:27a in Luke, and with parallels in Matthew for only approximately half of the verses in Mark, until Mk 8:27 / Mt 16:13 / Lk 9:18cd, at which point the parallels in Luke re-start, as detailed in The Not So Great Omission, which concludes: 

As noted above, only half of the verses in Mark that are omitted by aLuke in the Great Omission have complete parallels in Matthew, with the remainder having either partial parallels, or no parallel at all. Although this is less extreme than the situation in Luke, it is nevertheless the case that, assuming that aMatthew saw and edited a copy of Mark, his edits are unusually severe. It is also the case that these edits can be explained as the result of aMatthew seeing a copy of Mark that was damaged in the area of the same verses that are omitted in their entirety in Luke. Of course, short of finding a substantially complete early copy of Mark which omits large portions of vv 6:45-8:26 (and perhaps also the beginning and end), we are unlikely to ever be able to prove whether or not this is what actually happened. 

Finding and Losing - Mk 8:35-36 / Mt 16:25-26a / Lk 9:24-25

        10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: 17:33 Whosoever shall seek to save his 

        and he that loseth his life for my sake shall life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose

        find it. his life shall preserve it.

Mk 8:35 / Mt 16:25 / Lk 9:24 are textually very close, with the portions in Mk 8:35a / Mt 16:25a / Lk 9:24a being identical in the critical text. This indicates that they all came from the same source, or that one is the source of the other two. Additionally, Mt 10:39 / Lk 17:33 are obviously related, although here both aMatthew and aLuke deviate from the exact wording of the other three verses, for example with Lk 17:33 omitting “for my sake”. 

There is a variant in Mk 8:35a in which the first use of τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ (his life) is slightly different, about which Willker (Mark, TVU 184) comments: “Any other reading than txt would create a Minor Agreement between Mt and Lk.” However, there is a much more important minor agreement here: Mk 8:35b reads ἐμοῦ καὶ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (me and the gospel), although some mss (including P45 and D) have just ‘the gospel,’ and a few read the same as Mt 16:25. Willker (Mark, TVU 185) writes: 

The omission by 33, 579 is clearly a harmonization to Mt. The Byzantine text adds οὗτος from Lk (see next variant).

The omission of ἐμοῦ καὶ is difficult to explain except as scribal oversight. It is possible that ἐμοῦ καὶ has been added as a harmonization to Mt/Lk, but in that case one would have expected either εὑρήσει (Mt) or οὗτος (Lk). The long form could also be a conformation to Mk 10:29. But in any case it is rather improbable such a partial harmonization is supported so universally. Güting (TC Mark, 2005, p. 436) nevertheless thinks that the P45 reading is original.

If the omission is original this would create a Minor Agreements [sic] between Mt and Lk.

Note that this is one of the few cases where the textcritical decision in NA depends on a certain source theory (here Markan priority: both Mt and Lk have ἐμοῦ so they must have got it from Mk). Note also that both Mt and Lk omit καὶ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου.

Willker’s final comment is interesting: Assuming Markan priority then because both Mt 16:25a / Lk 9:24a contain “of me” (my sake) it must have come from Mk 8:35, and hence the variant in P45, D etc. cannot be original. Of course, if Mark was last then aMark could have written τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (with or without ἐμοῦ καὶ), but to do so he would have had to have ignored what he saw in both Matthew and Luke (Note that there are no variants to suggest there were efforts to conform Mt 16:25 / Lk 9:24 to Mk 8:35). 

The evidence of the variants strongly suggests that Matthew and Luke followed Mark, but because of the slight variations in Mk 8:35c / Mt 16:25b / Lk 9:24b independent action by aMatthew and aLuke cannot be ruled out. 

Jesus’ White Raiment - Mk 9:3-4 / Mt 17:2c-3 / Lk 9:29b-30

In the passage on the transfiguration Jesus is described in Mk 9:3a / Mt 17:2c / Lk 9:29b as wearing a white garment. In Mark it shines like snow, in Matthew it is white ‘as the light,’ while in Luke it is glistering. However, Mk 9:3b adds that no fuller (launderer) could make them so white, a detail that is not present in either Matthew or Luke. As in other places aMatthew and aLuke could independently omit such a trivial detail, but there are many other trivial details in Mark that they do not omit, so why this one? Alternatively, aMark could have added this detail, but there is no reason for him to do so. The only reasonable explanations are that either aMatthew or aLuke omitted this detail and the other followed, or that both knew a source in which the detail was not present. 

Coming Down the Mountain - Mk 9:14-17 / Mt 17:14-15 / Lk 9:37-39

After the transfiguration there is a discussion in Mk 9:11-13 / Mt 17:10-13 (but not in Luke) between Jesus and Peter, James, and John regarding Elias. This is then followed by a passage almost all of which is unique to Mark in which they come to a crowd of disciples and scribes arguing with each other. Jesus then asks what they are arguing about, which leads into the passage of the son with the unclean spirit. However, in both Matthew and Luke all we know is that after they came down from the mountain they came to a large group of people, because neither have any parallel to Mk 9:14c-16. 

Although both Matthew and Luke might have skipped over Mk 9:14c-16 as being irrelevant, it is essentially the ‘set-up’ to Mk 9:17-19 / Mt 17:14-17 / Lk 9:38-41, in particular with Mk 9:18b / Mt 17:16 / Lk 9:40 (see below) providing the reason for the scribes questioning with the disciples. As such it would seem not to be text that both aMatthew and aLuke would exclude unless there was another source in which there were no parallels to Mk 9:14c-16. Alternatively, aMark could have added this text for no apparent reason, unless he had a source in which the words were present. However, if that were the case we would need to allow that aMatthew or aLuke could have seen it as well.

The Son with the Unclean Spirit - Mk 9:19b-29 / Mt 17:17b-21 / Lk 9:41b-42 

This passage is unusual in that it is clearly part of the triple tradition, leading directly on from Mk 9:17-19 / Mt 17:14-17 / Lk 9:38-41 (see immediately above), but neither Matthew nor Luke have parallels to Mk 9:20b-21, 22b-25a, 25c, and 26b-28a. The great majority of this passage is only present in Mark, and because much is detail that does nothing to ‘advance the story’ it appears that aMatthew and aLuke knew a much simpler and more direct version of this passage. 

However, Mk 9:17b-19 has close parallels at Mt 17:14b-17 / Lk 9:3-41, and aMatthew has a parallel to Mk 9:22a about the spirit casting the son into fire and water although it is moved forward to Mt 17:15c, in place of the expected parallel to Mk 9:18a / Lk 9:39b. At Mt 17:18a / Lk 9:42b there are parallels to the critical detail in Mk 9:25b regarding Jesus ‘rebuking’ the devil/spirit, but there is a variant in Mk 9:25b, with P45, W, f1, 1139, 1571, 2454, Sy-S omitting τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ [unclean/foul], about which Willker (Mark, TVU 197) notes:

The words could be a harmonization to Lk. It is a common, typically Markan term. It is possible that the words have been added from common usage. In verse 17 the spirit is called πνεῦμα ἄλαλον (= dumb spirit). Immediately following our words, Jesus addresses the spirit as τὸ ἄλαλον καὶ κωφὸν πνεῦμα. Possibly the words have been omitted as considered redundant and/or for stylistic reasons.

Willker’s suggestions all assume Markan priority, but if aMark saw Matthew then ‘unclean/foul’ could have originally been absent from Mk 9:25b because it is not in Mt 17:18a, which simply reads ‘rebuked him.’ Instead, as Lk 9:42b also has τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ for ‘unclean’ it is possible that here aMatthew may have used a different source to aMark and/or aLuke, which could also explain why Mt 17:15c is not a parallel to Mk 9:18a / Lk 9:39b. This suggests that aMatthew did not see the majority of Mk 9:20-29, but even so chose to replace what the father said in Mk 9:18a / Lk 9:39b by one small detail apparently plucked out of Mk 9:22a instead. 

Because aMatthew placed his parallel to Mk 9:22a at the earlier point at which the father is explaining his problem we can reasonably assume that aMatthew did see Mk 9:18a. However, if so then why not have a parallel to Mk 9:18a / Lk 9:39b? Although Mk 9:17 / Mt 17:14b-15b / Lk 9:38 are clearly the beginning of the same episode they are significantly different, in particular with Mk 9:17c / Mt 17:15b / Lk 9:39a reading: 

Mk 9:17c        who hath a dumb spirit τὸν υἱόν μου πρὸς σέ ἔχοντα πνεῦμα ἄλαλον

Mt 17:15b       for he is lunatick, and sore vexed ὅτι σεληνιάζεται καὶ κακῶς πάσχει

Lk 9:39a         And, lo, a spirit taketh him καὶ ἰδοὺ πνεῦμα λαμβάνει αὐτόν

Mt 17:15b does not mention a spirit/devil, and as mentioned above the Greek of Mt 17:18a reads that Jesus just rebuked ‘him,’ although (in the only place in this passage) Mt 17:18b does refer to a demon. As Luke does not even have parallels to Mt 9:22a / Mt 17:15c and Mk 9:26a / Mt 17:18b all these differences point to aMark and aMatthew / aLuke knowing significantly different versions of this passage. Additionally, either aLuke did not see Mk 9:22a, or did but ignored both it and the rest of Mk 9:20b-25a, with his parallel to Mk 9:18a / Mt 17:15c at Lk 9:39b being much closer to Mk 9:18a than to Mt 17:15c. 

On the assumption of Markan posteriority the fact that Mk 9:20b-30 has so little parallel text in Mt 17:18-22a / Lk 9:42 would indicate that aMark knew a much longer version of this passage than did either aMatthew or aLuke, in which case the question would be why did neither aMatthew nor aLuke know the longer version? Alternatively, why would aMark bother to add the basically trivial detail from Mt 17:15c and move it to what we see as Mk 9:22a instead of the more logical position between Mk 9:18b and 19a? However, a much more basic issue is why would aMark bother with this long version at all when the versions in Matthew and Luke are perfectly adequate, given that the details of the boy’s affliction are not the issue, and instead the questions of why the disciples could not cast out the demon, and Jesus’ answer in Mk 9:29 / Mt 17:20-21, are what is really is the important point here. 

Suggesting that aMark wrote Mk 9:19b-29 after having seen Mt 17:17b-21 and/or Lk 9:41b-42 simply makes no sense, and this passage on its own provides a very strong argument against Markan posteriority. Instead, what is much more likely here is that aMatthew and aLuke saw Mark. Then, because so much of Mk 9:20-29 has no parallel in either Matthew or Luke, aMatthew or aLuke saw the others’ gospel and/or both knew a source with a much shorter version of this passage. For aMatthew and aLuke to trim Mk 9:20b-27 in almost exactly the same way with no additional source and no coordination between them is almost unbelievable. 

Suffer the Little Children - Mk 10:13-16 / Mt 19:13-15 / Lk 18:15-17

There are no parallels in Luke to any of Mk 10:1-12 (on divorce – see also Divorce and Doublets), and so although in addition Mk 10:1c, 3b, 10, 12a have no parallel in Matthew these omissions cannot be considered to be minor agreements. However, the lack of a parallel to Mk 10:14a in Matthew and Luke is a minor agreement, and immediately prior to that is a variant in Mk 10:13 about which Willker (Mark - TVU 218) writes:

The txt reading could be a harmonization to Mt/Lk (so Hoskier). Both parallels are safe regarding αὐτοῖς.

It is probable that τοῖς προσφέροσυσιν [in the Byz reading] has been added to make sure that the disciples rebuke those bringing them, and not the children (so Weiss). It is interesting that both Mt and Lk did not change this and leave the equivocal αὐτοῖς. There is no addition recorded for Mt and Lk.

The ‘txt reading’ in Mark [them] could either be original or a later harmonization to Matthew/Luke. However, it is much more reasonable for ‘them’ to have been disambiguated by adding ‘those that brought’ than for the ambiguity to be created by removing the words, so just ‘them’ is most likely original. If aMark saw ‘them’ in Matthew/Luke then keeping ‘them’ would be perfectly reasonable, but he also could have added to what Matthew/Luke wrote for the reason given by Willker. Of course, scribes could have added the words to Mark later, in which case the reason why Matthew and Luke do not have the addition is that they descended from one or more earlier mss in which the words had not yet been added. 

As Mk 10:13 / Mt 19:13 / Lk 18:15 are close parallels there is nothing in these verses that would cause aMatthew and aLuke to omit a parallel to Mk 10:14a unless perhaps they did not want to indicate that Jesus could be angry. However, the fact that in Mk 10:14a Jesus was displeased with the action of the disciples is not only such a small piece of text that it would be odd to omit it, but as it is a response by Jesus it seems likely that it would have been included by both aMatthew and aLuke if they saw it in Mark. Nevertheless, it is possible that either aMatthew or aLuke didn’t like Jesus remonstrating with the disciples and chose to not include it in his gospel, but the chances that both independently chose to not include this text seems slim. 

It has been suggested that in general Matthew and/or Luke wanted to ‘tone down’ Jesus’ anger in Mark, but there are several places in all three synoptic gospels in which Jesus rebukes a person, spirit, or thing, or expresses anger, including the casting out of the moneychangers and the rebuking of the fig tree. There are also the many times Jesus expresses woes directly on scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers, and other places in Matthew in which he calls people hypocrites. As this instance in which Jesus is “much displeased” is hardly distinguishable from the other displays of Jesus’ displeasure just noted it is unlikely to have been independently removed from both Matthew and Luke for that reason. Consequently, the absence of text parallel to Mk 10:14a in both Matthew and Luke appears to be some form of coordination (e.g. that one saw the gospel of the other), or an indication that both saw a different source in which these words were not present.

The Rich Man’s Question - Mk 10:17-21 / Mt 19:16-21 / Lk 18:18-22

This passage is characterized by four small omissions in both Matthew and Luke, with no parallels to Mk 10:17a,c, 19c, and 21d/f, but also four small additions at Mt 19:17b, 18a, 19b, and 20b that together indicate that aMatthew, at least, did not remove the Markan text just to save space. So, for example, there appears to be no logical reason to not include fraud in Mt 19:18 if aMatthew saw it in Mark, and that also applies to aLuke even though he did not follow aMatthew’s small additions. 

While the Greek of Mk 10:19b,d is identical with that of Lk 18:20b,c apart from word order, not only does Mt 19:17c differ from both Mk 10:19a and Lk 18:20a, but Mt 19:18b has slightly different Greek for adultery, murder, and stealing. Given this the reasonable inference is that aLuke is using the form of the words that he saw in Mark, while aMatthew is using words he saw in a different source that probably also included what we see as Mt 19:18a but excluded fraud. If so then it would appear that aLuke did not mention fraud because it was not in any source that he knew apart from (we assume) Mark. 

In a few English language bibles (mainly the KJV family) Mk 10:21 ends with Jesus saying: “and come, take up the cross, and follow me,” while most bibles just have καὶ δεῦρο ἀκολούθει μοι “and come, follow me.” As taking up the cross is mentioned earlier in all three gospels (at Mk 8:34b / Mt 16:24b / Lk 9:23b respectively) there is no apparent reason why Matthew and Luke would not include a parallel to Mk 10:21d/f if they saw it. However, the critical text does not have “take up the cross,” and in those mss that do it is in two different positions. Willker (Mark, TVU 222) notes:

Probably copied from Mk 8:34 (so Weiss) or the other parallels. The two different insertion points clearly indicate a secondary cause. It is interesting that in the parallel accounts no addition is known, except Sy-C in Mt.

On the other hand the words could have been omitted as a harmonization to the direct parallels in Mt 19:21/Lk 18:22.

It's noteworthy that the Majority text has the words a [sic] the end, contrary to the position in all other parallels.

If Mark was written last there would appear to be no reason for aMark to add “take up the cross” to what he saw in Mt 19:21 / Lk 18:22, and even less reason for there to have been later removal or movement of the text if he did add it. Alternatively, if Mark was first then it is very unlikely that it originally included “take up the cross,” because if it did there would be no reason for some later scribes to change the order. Consequently, if Mark was first it is most likely that here aMatthew and aLuke simply followed what they saw in Mark. 

As is quite common in triple tradition passages the introductory verses are different in Mark than in Matthew and Luke, with in this instance Mk 10:17a,c containing text that provides a smooth transition from Mk 10:13-16. In Matthew we at least know that Jesus departed and someone else came (Mt 19:15b-16a), but in Luke there is no transition and no attempt to connect Lk 18:17 to 18:18. These differences in the transitions are part of the ‘personal styles’ of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and do not appear to have any other significance. 

In contrast, the lack of any parallel to Mk 10:19c and the additions in Mt 19:18a, 19b, do not appear to be ‘personal styles,’ and instead at least some differences are perhaps due to the source used for the commandments in each gospel. It is very likely that each author here used the Old Testament source or translation of either Exodus or Deuteronomy with which he was most familiar, with aMark and aMatthew each adding a different commandment regarding neighbors from Leviticus 19, instead of here referring to whichever earlier gospel(s) he may have seen. However, none of these gospels add “against thy neighbor” after “false witness,” but this may be because both Matthew and Mark also refer to bearing false witness in other places (Mk 14:56-57, Mt 15:19, 26:59-60) in a more general sense.

Camels and Rich Men - Mk 10:22-25 / Mt 19:22-24 / Lk 18:23-25

Mk 10:24 has no parallel in Luke, and in Matthew there is just a short introduction at Mt 19:24a, effectively in place of (“saith unto them” - λέγει αὐτοῖς) in Mk 10:24. As “I say unto you” (λέγω ὑμῖν) is characteristic of Matthew (49 times in Matthew, 38 times in Luke, 15 times in Mark), it is not surprising that it is used here in Matthew but not Luke, especially as the addition of γάρ at the beginning of Lk 18:25 makes for a better transition from the preceding verse. 

It is of course unusual that neither Matthew nor Luke contain any parallel to Mk 10:24 even though it contains significant words from Jesus, and so appears unlikely to have been removed just to save space. If anything, you might expect to see none of Mk 10:22-25 in either Matthew or Luke if space was the reason. Alternatively, as Mk 10:24 largely repeats Jesus words from Mk 10:23, and Mk 10:25 is then the third time that Jesus has made the same basic point, simply not including Mk 10:24b (Jesus' words) would seem to be the simplest way to reduce the duplication of Jesus’ words. Nevertheless, the whole verse has been omitted by both aMatthew and aLuke. 

The phrase “for them that trust in riches” in Mk 10:24b is not in the critical text, although it is present in the majority of mss, and Willker (Mark – TVU 223 notes the following (slightly re-arranged):

On the one hand it can be an early addition to soften the rather rigorous statement. On the other hand it could have been omitted accidentally due to h.t. (IN -IN).

It is interesting that both Mt and Lk omit Mk 10:24: ... Note that D, it have the verses in the order 23, 25, 24, 26!

The swapping of Mk 24 and 25 in D,it makes sense if this is based on what a scribe saw in Matthew and/or Luke, since this just makes the disciples astonishment a more reasonable reaction. Willker continues:

The sentence is a very hard one. It is only natural to soften it down. The easiest solution would be to omit it completely (Mt and Lk). The addition of A, D et. Al must be a very early one. "Evidently inserted to bring the verse into closer connexion with the context by limiting its generality" (Hort). Independent other additions are those by W and 1241.

In light of verse 26 ("Then who can be saved?") it is needed to have a "hard" saying here.

Weiss (Mk Com.) notes that it might have been added to secure the connection with verse 25.

The NET makes similar points:

Most mss (A C D Θ ƒ 28 565 M lat sy) have here “for those who trust in riches” (τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐπὶ [τοῖς] χρήμασιν, tous pepoithotas epi [tois] chrēmasin); W has πλούσιον (plousion) later in the verse, producing the same general modification on the dominical saying (“how hard it is for the rich to enter…”). But such qualifications on the Lord’s otherwise harsh and absolute statements are natural scribal expansions, intended to soften the dictum. Further, the earliest and best witnesses, along with a few others (א B Δ Ψ sa), lack any such qualifications. That W lacks the longer expansion and only has πλούσιον suggests that its archetype agreed with א B here; its voice should be heard with theirs. Thus, both on external and internal grounds, the shorter reading is preferred.

Even though both Willker and the NET make the same point regarding removing the words to ‘soften’ the statement to make it hard for everybody, not just rich people, the NET does not comment on the lack of the whole verse in Matthew and Luke. In addition, because Mk 10:23, 25 still both refer to rich people it would appear that removing rich people from Mk 10:24 is pointless, but it would be natural for it to be added to Mk 10:24 to match the other two verses. However, this has no bearing on the question of why both Matthew and Luke lack any parallel to Mk 10:24. If Mark followed Matthew and Luke this could be seen as a reinforcement of Mk 10:23, 25, whereas if aMatthew and aLuke saw Mk 10:24 and wanted to ‘tighten up’ the text then removing just Mk 10:24b would seem a better choice. 

In contrast to Mark and Matthew, in Lk 18:23 the rich man did not go away, so Jesus is not talking to just his disciples in Lk 18:24-25. Consequently, if aLuke saw Mk 10:23 and/or Mt 19:23 he would have had to either refer to both the disciples and the rich man, or say something else instead. There is a variant here in which the original text is not clear, but in either reading there is no reference to the disciples. aLuke would have had to edit or remove the reference to the disciples if he knew Mk 10:24a, so instead using the words in Mt 19:24a would appear to be a good choice if he also knew Matthew. However, it is also perfectly reasonable for aLuke to have simply excluded Mk 10:24 / Mt 19:24a if he knew either or both of them. 

Both Mk 10:25 and Mt 19:24b have a variant in which in a few mss the well-known phrase about passing a camel through the eye of a needle has ‘camel’ replaced by a rope/cable, and while in Lk 18:25 there is no question that the text reads ‘camel,’ aLuke uses a different word for a needle. The NET makes essentially the same point regarding both Mk 10:25 and Mt 19:24b: 

Mk 10:25: A few witnesses (ƒ 28 579) read κάμιλον (kamilon, “rope”) for κάμηλον (kamēlon, “camel”), either through accidental misreading of the text or intentionally so as to soften Jesus’ words.

Mt 19:24b: A few, mostly late, witnesses (579 1424 al arm Cyr) read κάμιλον (kamilon, “rope”) for κάμηλον (kamēlon, “camel”), either through accidental misreading of the text or intentionally so as to soften Jesus’ words.

Willker (Mark, TVU 224) provides a little more information that suggests why there might have been “accidental misreading of the text:” 

In the early christian centuries Eta, h, was sometimes pronounced like "e" and sometimes like "i". In the second case κάμηλον and κάμιλον sounded identical. Greeven (TC Mark, 2005, p. 513) seems to have accepted the meaning "ship's cable".

In Matthew, TVU 263 he adds to this, while in AGAIN — CAMEL OR ROPE IN MATTHEW 19.24 AND MARK 10.25? Theodore R. Lorah, Jr provides significant detail that points to this being essentially a pronunciation issue: 

The discussion concerning the alternate use of κάμιλον “rope” for κάμηλον “camel” in Matt 19.24 has normally been discussed in Western scholarship from the standpoint of a grammatical distinction based on the pronunciation of Greek vowels in late Antiquity. But Alan Bain notes:

The situation re the Peshitta text (which I do have) lies in the Aramaic word . . . The Aramaic is gmla, which can mean rope or camel according to the context—rather like Aramaic targums. Aramaic, like primitive Hebrew, has no vowel points, so that “received” interpretations are the norm. The Aramaic speaking and Aramaic using churches have “received” rope for this verse, and deny any knowledge or reason for reading it otherwise. [From the internet list Ecchst–1 (a discussion list on Christian church history), February 28, 1995]

This makes the question of Jesus’ words a matter of a translation problem from the Semitic languages in which Jesus would have taught, rather than a discussion of how the Greek was pronounced. This has been missed in Western, Greek reading scholarship.

He concludes:

Finally, there is the logic of the passage itself. Although Matthew has placed this saying on the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, the real context is that Jesus is speaking to disciples whose culture had been fishing, whose nets had been mended by sewing, men who fished in little boats on a small lake. The image of the oceangoing vessel with a heavy, braided rope hawser holding to the anchor or tying the ship to the pier makes the image much stronger and is not at all a way of making it less impossible or less hyperbolic. As they used their hand-held needles and thread to mend nets, Jesus said: “It is easier for a hawser to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.” The logic is inescapable, and the language moves in that direction, as soon as one looks to the Semitic tradition behind the Greek text, working in the languages which Jesus fluently read and spoke.

As previously indicated if aMark knew Matthew he could have written Mk 10:24 instead of Mt 19:24a. If instead Mark was first then because in Luke the rich man does not go away aLuke could not use Mk 10:24a whether or not there was an equivalent in Matthew, and so aMatthew and aLuke could have independently chosen to not include text from Mk 10:24. 

Who Can Be Saved - Mk 10:26-31 / Mt 19:25-30 / Lk 18:26-30

This passage begins in Mk 10:26-28 / Mt 19:25-27 / Lk 18:26-28 with the disciples questioning Jesus about who could be saved. Jesus then answers, beginning in Mt 19:28cd with some unique words, and then continuing in all three gospels at Mk 10:29b-31 / Mt 19:29-30 / Lk 18:29b-30. However, the words in Mk 10:30b are unique to Mark, and appear to largely state that the people and things left behind in Mk 10:29b will be later restored - together with persecutions. These words are puzzling, and many people have commented on them: For example, how you receive 100 mothers? Is there a double negative (“no man” … “But he shall not.”) or not? Perhaps for reasons such as these neither Matthew nor Luke have a parallel to Mk 10:30b, but conceivably these words are a mistake. 

Under the heading of ‘Who is the Rich Man That Shall be Saved’ Clement of Alexandria writes: 

XXV. And to this effect similarly is what follows. "Now at this present time not to have lands, and money, and houses, and brethren, with persecutions." For it is neither penniless, nor homeless, nor brotherless people that the Lord calls to life, since He has also called rich people; but, as we have said above, also brothers, as Peter with Andrew, and James with John the sons of Zebedee, but of one mind with each other and Christ. And the expression "with persecutions" rejects the possessing of each of those things.

Although it is not clear what he means here, as this exact wording appears in two places it does appear that it is what he wrote. In Mark: TVU 229 on Mk 10:29-30 Willker comments on Clement, and also writes: 

Possibly the following meaning is intended (with a period after ἑκατονταπλασίονα): "Now in this age to have fields and riches and houses and brothers with persecutions? For what? In the coming (age) life is eternal!" Metzger translates: "And to what end [does he expect] to have now in this time fields and riches and houses and brothers, with persecutions? But in the coming age there is life eternal..."

This verse is difficult to understand. Only Mk has the μετὰ διωγμῶν [with persecutions]. Both Mt and Lk omit it together with the repetition of the "houses ... fields" (Minor Agreement) and reconstruct the sentence…

The reading of D removes the difficulty by inserting ὃς δὲ ἀφῆκεν οἰκίαν [but who has left house] (already in the previous verse). Similarly k.

Is it possible that we have here a very early corruption? Look at verses 29 and 30:

29 "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left

house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields,

for my sake and for the sake of the good news,

30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age

houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions,

and in the age to come eternal life."

We have manuscripts evidence for the omission: 01*, c, k ! A simple copying error must be excluded though, because in the first part the words are separated with ἢ and in the second with καὶ...

Both Mt and Lk follow Mk here with only slight variation. Both omit the strange "insertion". Some kind of corruption in Mk is possible.

Then, in Mark: TVU 230 Willker adds more on the variant in which the whole of Mk 10:30b is omitted is a small number of mss, adding: 

The sentence looks like an intrusion. It has been omitted by Mt and Lk! ἢ πατέρα and ἢ γυναῖκα [father and wife] are omitted, although some added it later. ἢ γυναῖκα is even in verse 29 supported by Byz only.

The "wife" is problematic because you will get it back "hundredfold"!

The difficulty with Mk 10:30b is clear, and it would seem quite reasonable for both aMatthew and aLuke to not include it if what they saw was problematic. As they do not agree on how to deal with Mk 10:30a it seems likely that they did not ‘collude’ on this change, and we do not even know whether they both saw the same text in the copies of Mark that each saw. 

The Third Passion Prediction - Mk 10:32c-34 / Mt 20:17b-19 / Lk 18:31-34

Following the (unique to Matthew) passage of the worker in the vineyard at Mt 20:1-16, Jesus and the disciples start the journey to Jerusalem at Mk 10:32a,b (not in Luke, and with a shorter version at Mt 20:17a), and there is then the somewhat unusual third passion prediction. Although ostensibly this is a triple tradition passage Luke has no parallel to Mk 10:33b / Mt 20:18b, while instead Lk 18:31c, 32c, 34 have no parallel either in Mark or Matthew. Also, Mk 10:32d has no parallel in either Matthew or Luke. 

It is highly unlikely that aMark would add Mk 10:32d to what we see Matthew and Luke. If aLuke added Lk 18:31c and 18:34 to what he saw in Mark it is very unlikely that he would have felt the need to save space by excluding the text of Mk 10:32d if he saw it. Similarly, because the unique Mt 20:1-16 immediately precedes this passage it is also very unlikely that aMatthew would feel the need to exclude a parallel to Mk 10:32d for space reasons. We can therefore reasonably assume that both aMatthew and aLuke either did not know Mk 10:32d, or they did but both chose to not have a parallel for other reasons. As there is no known ms of Mark that excludes Mk 10:32d it is most likely that aMatthew and aLuke both chose to exclude the text either because one knew that the other had excluded it, or they knew another source in which this text was not present.

Healing a Blind Man (or Two) - Mk 10:46-52 / Mt 20:29-34 / Lk 18:35-43

This is a typical triple tradition passage, beginning with some slight variation in the ‘set up,’ and ending with some slight variation in the reaction of the people who saw it, but in this instance with a portion in the middle that is unique to Mark and, of course, with two blind men in Matthew. After Jesus and the disciples had entered Jericho (Mk 10:46a / Not in Mt / Lk 18:35a) and then left in Mk 10:46b / Mt 20:29a / Not yet in Luke, they meet the blind men and Jesus restores their sight. Mark uniquely has that he was “Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus” and that and the fact that Matthew has “two blind men” makes it hard to determine what aLuke might or might not have seen.

Neither Matthew nor Luke have the interaction in Mk 10:49c-50a between the crowd and the blind man in which the man is comforted, and gets up and drops his robe. It could be that here both aMatthew and aLuke simply removed Markan text that did not directly involve Jesus, and the slight variation in the surrounding text in Matthew and Luke supports this possibility. Additionally, it would be odd in Matthew for the two blind men to both get up and both drop their robes, which probably also accounts for Matthew having no parallel to Mk 10:50b-51a. This explanation does not require either aMatthew or aLuke to have known the other’s gospel, while on the assumption of Markan posteriority it is hard to see why aMark would add any of these details.

The Money Changers - Mk 11:15b-17 / Mt 21:12-13 / Lk 19:45-46

Only small portions of Luke 19 have parallels in both Mark and Matthew. Following unique text at Lk 19:41b-44 Jesus enters the temple and casts out the traders and money changers in Mk 11:15bc / Mt 21:12 / Lk 19:45, then, at Mk 11:16 only, there is an apparently unimportant detail, after which Jesus says virtually the same thing in all three gospels. 

If Matthew and Luke followed Mark then Mk 11:16 appears to be simply a minor detail that aMatthew and aLuke both chose to not include. However Lk 9:45 has a parallel to just the first portions of Mt 11:15b / Mt 21:12a in the critical text, while the majority of mss have a parallel to more of Mk 11:15 / Mt 21:12 (there are five different combinations varying in how much is included), about which Willker (Luke - TVU 313) writes:

Probably harmonizations to Mt/Mk (so also Weiss).

h.t. is possible (..NTAS - ..NTAS), but the diverse additions indicate a secondary cause.

As the majority of mss include a parallel to the whole of Mk 11:15b, and a few of those also include a parallel to Mk 11:15c, then as Willker suggests some shortening could have occurred due to a scribe jumping from πωλοῦντας to ἀγοράζοντας when copying, but this would not result in the rest of the parallel to Mk 11:15 being omitted as well. The alternative, that Lk 19:45 was lengthened by scribes to conform to Mark and/or Matthew, initially appears more likely, but again the different readings suggest not, because if a scribe was going to add text why not just add the whole of the rest of Mk 11:15 / Mt 21:12? As the whole of Mk 11:15c-17a is detail that could have been omitted by both aMatthew and aLuke, why were scribes apparently confused regarding Lk 19:45 but not regarding parallels to Mk 11:16? 

If Mark followed Matthew and Luke then there would not seem to be any reason for aMark to add Mk 11:16, especially if he knew that Luke did not include the detail we see in Mt 21:12b. However, if aLuke saw Mark (and possibly Matthew) why would he exclude most of Mk 11:15-16, or (depending on the starting assumption) why would Lk 19:45 have been later shortened in several different ways? In addition, as no evidence points to Matthew having either a shortened parallel to Mk 11:15 or any parallel to Mk 11:16, why are Matthew and Luke different here? 

The similarities between all three synoptic gospels in Mk 11:15-17 / Mt 21:12-13 / Lk 19:45-46 point to a common origin for the passage, but the lack of any parallel to Mk 11:16 and the variants in Lk 19:45 suggest not that aMark saw Matthew and/or Luke, but that aMatthew and aLuke saw a document like Mark that omitted some text here, or possibly a copy of Mark that had damage that became worse between the times that aMatthew and aLuke saw it. The variant readings here make it impossible to state with any degree of certainty whether aMatthew or aLuke saw what the other’s gospel read here. 

There appears to be a similar situation regarding Mk 11:17b-d / Mt 21:13 / Lk 19:46, but here the text gets progressively shorter from Mark -> Matthew -> Luke, or longer from Luke -> Matthew -> Mark, depending on the point of view. The majority of each of these verses is taken from the end of Isa 56:7: “for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people,” with aMark moving “for all people” into the middle of the quote and aMatthew and aLuke simply not including it. On the assumption that all three synoptic authors knew the quote from Isa 56:7 we would expect to see “for all people” before “but ye have made it a den of thieves.” That raises the question of whether any of the gospel authors did not know this quote, and of course makes it impossible to know whether aMatthew and aLuke knew a source with a different version of the quote. 

The Poll Tax - Mk 12:13-17 / Mt 22:15-22 / Lk 20:20-26

This is another triple tradition passage in which small details are omitted in one or more synoptic gospel: 

As just indicated neither Matthew nor Luke have the small details present in Mk 12:15a,d. As with other similar instances these portions of text are far too short for the omissions to be due to aMatthew and aLuke needing to shorten their gospels. In addition both appear to be so inconsequential that, on the assumption that aMark knew Matthew and/or Luke, it is very unlikely that he would have added them to what he saw. In other words, Markan posteriority cannot account for Mk 12:15a,d. 

Directly following Mk 12:12 / Mt 22:15 / Lk 20:20a, Mt 22:16a and Lk 20:20b-d add different details regarding what the chief priests and Pharisees/scribes were doing to try to trap Jesus, but there is no corresponding parallel between Mk 12:13 and 14. If aMark knew Matthew and/or Luke then this could be seen as him simplifying the introduction, whereas if aMatthew and aLuke knew Mark then both were making unique additions to what they saw in Mark. 

As Mt 22:19b-20a is parallel to Mk 12:16ab it might be expected that Matthew would also have parallels to Mk 12:15a,d, but it does not, while Luke has no parallel to any of Mk 12:15a,d-16b. This suggests that aLuke was not simply following Matthew regarding which small details from Mark to include or exclude, nor regarding which details from Matthew to include or exclude. The reverse, that aMark used all the details from either Matthew or Luke, and added more at Mk 12:15a,d, would be very odd given the lack of corresponding details between Mk 12:13 and 14. 

It is very unlikely that both aMatthew and aLuke would independently agree to jointly exclude Mk 12:15a,d only from their respective gospels, not only as both are such trivial details, but also because they both chose to alter Mk 12:15c the same way by having Jesus ask for the penny to be shown to him instead of just being brought to him. For both aMatthew and aLuke to have independently made both changes is so unlikely that the almost inescapable conclusion is that one saw the gospel of the other, or both knew another source that contained these differences from Mark.

A Lawyer Asks Jesus a Question - Mk 12:28-31 / Mt 22:35-40 / Lk 10:25-29

This passage begins with triple tradition text in which someone asks Jesus a question, but the questions in Mk 12:28 / Mt 22:35-36 / Lk 10:25-26 are all different: In Mk 12:28c Jesus is asked which is the first commandment, in Mt 22:36 it is the greatest commandment, while in Lk 10:25 he is asked about gaining eternal life.

Why aLuke has a totally different question here is unknown, but it is probably related to the fact that Jesus was asked about eternal life earlier, at Mk 10:17 / Mt 19:16, while the Lukan parallel to these two verses is much later, at Lk 18:18. On the basis of the surrounding contexts the ‘expected’ location for a Lukan parallel to Mk 12:28-31 / Mt 22:35-40 is between Lk 20:38 and 20:39, but aLuke has instead brought his parallel forward to Lk 10:25-29. His parallel to Mk 10:17-21 / Mt 19:16-21 is then much later, at Lk 18:18-22, with Jesus there being asked about eternal life in all three gospels.

Perhaps related to this relocation is the addition of a unique question from Jesus at Lk 10:26, combined with a different Lukan parallel to Mk 12:29a / Mt 22:37a (in which it is the lawyer who answers) that allows the text to flow into the unique Lukan text at Lk 10:28-42. Following this is Mk 12:29bc, with no parallel in either Mathew or Luke, and with Mk 12:29b having twelve different variant readings for Jesus’ response to the question asked in Mk 12:28. Although the answer itself in Mk 12:29c begins with the same words, in Mk 12:29b the commandment is variously described as “The first of all” / “The first,” / “The foremost,” or “The most important,” / “The principal” / “The chief” / The greatest,” and in some mss is followed by “[of the ]commandments.” Willker (Mark: TVU 263) comments: 

There are no parallels of the words in the Gospels. We have here an interesting clear-cut separation of texttypes. The Byzantine text takes up the words from the previous verse [i.e. the ‘first commandment’]. The Alexandrian text has a short version of it and the Western/Caesarean text is different again.

It actually appears that the complete omission of the words (represented only by k et al.) best accounts for the rise of the others. Scribes felt the need to add something to smooth the abrupt start of the law. Unfortunately the support is extremely slim.

Willker suggests that Mk 12:29b is not original and that later scribes added text to smooth out the transition from Mk 12:29a to 29c, the logic being that if any of the other variant readings were original then there would appear to be no motive for any scribe to change or remove the words later. Also, it is reasonable to expect that both aMatthew and aLuke would have included a version of Mk 12:29c if they saw it, and yet they did not, suggesting perhaps that the whole of Mk 12:29 is not original. However, they could instead have known a different source that did not have at parallel to any of Mk 12:29 and here chose that document over Mark. Alternatively, aMark added Mk 12:29 after seeing that Matthew and Luke had nothing here, but if so that doesn’t answer the question of why it was later changed. 

The different variant readings in Mk 12:29b appear to be related to the different questions that Jesus is asked in Mk 12:28c and Mt 22:36, although if scribes wanted to ‘conform’ Mk 12:29b to Mt 22:36 then why is there no corresponding text between Mt 22:37a and 37b? Although Willker writes “The Byzantine text [of Mk 12:29b] takes up the words from the previous verse,” (i.e. referring to the ‘first’ commandment), he does not suggest that the “Western/Caesarean text” “takes up” words from Mt 22:36, or from anywhere else. 

It is a reasonable assumption that aMark, aMatthew and aLuke all knew places in Deuteronomy that refer to loving or serving God “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,” also that Deut 6:5 adds “and with all thy might,” and perhaps that “with all thy mind.” is not in the Old Testament. Consequently, it is not surprising that Mt 22:37b and Lk 10:27b follow Deuteronomy, with aLuke also including ‘strength’ (might) from Deut 6:5. Matthew does not have ‘strength,’ but ‘With all my mind’ is secure in Luke although strength and mind are reversed.

However, there are variant readings in Mk 12:30a-b with different combinations of heart, soul, and mind, with some mss omitting one or the other, and a few omitting both soul and mind. Mt 22:37 has both ‘heart’ and ‘soul,’ and Lk 10:27 adds ‘strength,’ so we can reasonably deduce that whatever variant aMatthew and aLuke saw in Mark they did not exclude the verse because they knew Deuteronomy. It is not clear where “with all thy mind” comes from, because it is only found in Mk 12:30 / Mt 22:37 / Lk 10:27. Nevertheless, it is secure in Matthew and Luke, although mind and strength are reversed in Luke, suggesting that aLuke followed Deut 6:5 and then added mind. 

Although the lack of parallels to Mk 12:29b in Matthew and Luke would appear to suggest that aMatthew and aLuke saw another document in which the question was not present, it is more likely that instead they did not see an equivalent to Mk 12:29b at all, and altered the question from Mk 12:28 to instead fit with what they did see. Consequently, it is quite possible that aMatthew and aLuke could have omitted a parallel to Mk 12:29bc independently. 

The Request for the Body - Mk 15:43-46 / Mt 27:57b-60 / Lk 23:50-53

There is unique text at Lk 23:50b-51a with details about Joseph of Arimathaea, with an interesting variant in which the ‘ὁ’ in ἐλθὼν Ἰωσὴφ ὁ ἀπὸ Ἁριμαθαίας (came Joseph of Arimathea) is not present in a number of mss, and about which Willker (Mark, TVU 349) writes:

Interestingly the same variation occurs in John. Difficult to decide internally. It is possible that the ὁ has been inserted to indicate clearly which Joseph is meant, that it's not e.g. Jesus' father:

"Came Joseph from Arimathea"

"Came Joseph, the one from Arimathea"

Wiilker suggests that the reading with the article is preferred, but even so it is possible that Lk 23:50b-51 was added specifically to avoid any confusion with Jesus’ father. Following this Mk 15:44-45a has no parallel in either Matthew or Luke, and no parallel to Mk 15:45b in Luke only. There is also different text in Lk 23:53c in which no stone is mentioned, with the effect that in Lk 24:2 the stone being rolled away is unexpected. 

There is a variant at the end of Mk 15:44 in which Pilate asks either whether Jesus was actually dead, or whether he had been dead for a long time. However, Mk 15:45a clarifies that Jesus was in fact dead. The interlude with Pilate has been considerably simplified in Mt 27:58b, and completely eliminated in Luke. Either simplification could be seen as having taken place without knowledge of the other.

Conclusion

In The Case Against Q Goodacre notes that in ‘Q and the History of Early Christianity,’ Christopher Tuckett writes:

The fact that the Minor Agreements are so minor makes it very hard to believe that Luke has been both influenced positively by Matthew's text in such (substantively) trivial ways, but also totally uninfluenced by any of Matthew's substantive additions to Mark. Undoubtedly the Minor Agreements constitute a problem for the 2ST [two-source theory], but precisely their minor nature constitutes a problem for Goulder's theory [that aLuke knew Matthew] as well.

Goodacre himself then comments on the above:

Tuckett’s statement illustrates a difficulty arising from the degree of emphasis that Michael Goulder has placed on the minor agreements in his case against Q. In the attempt repeatedly to point to a concrete difficulty for the two-source theory, Goulder has inadvertently given the illusion that the best evidence in Q sceptic’s favor is only “minor.” But this perspective is, I think, just a trick of the light, and on closer examination it turns out to be based on a fallacy.

If by “trivial” or “minor” Tuckett and Goulder mean very small changes in wording then they may have a point, but even so if both Matthew and Luke change just one word of Mark and agree on the replacement word the question of why they agree still has to be asked. This is also the case where just one word of Mark is omitted from both Matthew and Luke, especially if the omission is “trivial” or “minor.” In this case it doesn’t matter what replacement words Matthew and Luke might have considered. Instead, what matters is why both chose not to include the word at all. Of course, it could be argued that aMatthew and aLuke did not omit the word, but instead aMark added it, and then the question is why he felt it necessary to add the word to whatever aMatthew and aLuke both agreed did not need it.

At issue is the question of whether, when Matthew and Luke agree in omitting something present in Mark, the author of one was influenced by the other. If it could be established that either Matthew or Luke influenced the other regarding these omissions then the whole premise on which Q is based collapses, and of course the same applies where Matthew and Luke agree in containing something not in Mark, e.g. as in the Double Tradition. However, in On the Relationship between Matthew and Luke Tuckett notes:

If one of his [Goulder, On Putting Q to the Test ] examples were established, this would indicate that Luke knew Matthew, but this would not of itself prove that the whole Q hypothesis was invalid. It might be that Luke used Q for most of the ‘double tradition’, but that he also knew Matthew’s gospel and used it occasionally.

And this surely is the whole point. If it is established that aLuke knew Matthew then it is impossible to say that in the Double Tradition aLuke only used Matthew “occasionally” if he had the whole of the Double Tradition in front of him in two different documents: Q and Matthew. Given that Q only exists in a hypothesis in which Matthew and Luke are independent, once you allow that aLuke knew Matthew it is impossible to place restrictions on aLuke’s use of Matthew, such as aLuke only using Matthew “occasionally,” and hence there is no need for Q at all. Consequently, Q supporters must defend every argument that aLuke used Matthew, because even if it is conceded in just one case, let alone “occasionally,” the Q edifice falls. In this case any agreed use of Matthew by aLuke (or vice versa) is equivalent to seeing just one black swan and so disproving the hypothesis that all swans are white. 

In the above examples of triple tradition passages where there is text in Mark but none in either Matthew or Luke, some can be explained on the basis of coincidence, that on the basis of Markan posteriority it would have been reasonable for aMark to have added the text not present in Matthew and Luke, or that (where we see variant readings) aMatthew and aLuke may have simply been uncertain of the text. 

However, in some of the above triple tradition examples these explanations are so unlikely to be the case that 1) Markan priority is almost assured, and 2) either aMatthew or aLuke knew the gospel of the other, or they knew another source that did not have the words unique to Mark. Listed below is the text present in Mark but not in either Matthew or Luke for those examples:

The Man with The Palsy: Mk 2:9b,e

“to the sick of the palsy,” “and take up thy bed,”

The Naming of the Twelve: Mk 3:17b

“and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:”

The Parable of the Sower: Mk 4:2b-3a, 4:7b, 4:8d

“and said unto them in his doctrine, Hearken,” “and it yielded no fruit.” “and increased;”

The Meaning of the Parable: Mk 4:15b, 19b

“where the word is sown;” “the lusts of other things entering in,”

The Daughter of Jairus (Part 2): Mk 5:40c

“he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was [] [lying].”

The Five Thousand: Mk 6:38a

“He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see.”

Jesus’ White Raiment: Mk 9:3b

“as no fuller on earth can white them.”

The Son with the Unclean Spirit: Mk 9:21, 22b, 25a, 25c

“And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child.”

“to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.”

“When Jesus saw that the people came running together,”

“saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.”

Suffer the Little Children : Mk 10:14a

“But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased,”

The Third Passion Prediction: Mk 10:32d

“what things should happen unto him,”

The Poll Tax: Mk 12:15a,d

“Shall we give, or shall we not give?” “that I may see it.”

Because we have no ‘memoirs’ from aMark or aMatthew explaining how or why they wrote their gospels or what sources they used, when discussing the synoptic problem it is almost always the case that anyone could say “aMark could have done this” or “aMatthew could have done that,” without there being any solid evidence to the contrary. However, we do at least know that aLuke knew of, and most likely used, “many” sources when writing his gospel, and that he was writing it for one named person. Even so, in the absence of specific information about which (if any) sources each of the synoptic gospel authors knew or used, questions regarding the order in which they were written, and which were used as a source for either of the other two, almost always come down to questions of statistical likelihood.

Unfortunately, many people distrust statistics, and essentially rely on saying something like: “Well, you can’t categorically say that it couldn’t be that way,” to defend their point of view, and this is often the case with regard to the Synoptic Problem. Nevertheless, some possible solutions are statistically much more likely than others, and the examples examined above do point strongly towards some suggested solutions and against others. In particular, of the examples examined here those just listed above are the hardest to explain on the basis that:

a) aMark followed (and therefore saw) both Matthew and Luke; or

b) aMatthew and aLuke both saw Mark and independently omitted the same small piece or pieces of text from Mark.

These examples therefore all support hypotheses in which:

a) aMatthew and aLuke saw and used Mark as sources when writing their respectively gospels, and

b) aMatthew or aLuke knew and used the gospel of the other as a source, and/or they used another source for at least some portions of the triple tradition material not considered to be Mark-Q overlaps, i.e. a source that could not have been Q as generally defined (e.g. as by the IQP)

References

Carlson, Stephen C: Two Source Hypothesis

Goodacre, Mark: The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem – February 1, 2002, also Fallacies at the Heart of Q, and The Case Against Q


Goulder, Michael: On Putting Q to the Test Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009. Also Two Significant Minor Agreements (Mat. 4:13 Par.; Mat. 26:67-68 Par.) ,  Brill, Novum Testamentum Vol. 45, Fasc. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 365-373


Lindsey, Robert L: The Major Importance of the “Minor” Agreements , 20 Febrauary 2015

Goulder: On Putting Q to the Test Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009

Lorah, Theodore E, Jr: AGAIN — CAMEL OR ROPE IN MATTHEW 19.24 AND MARK 10.25? - January 28, 1996

The NET Bible

Streeter. B. H: The Four Gospels  A Study of Origins, Treating of the Manuscript Tradition, Sources, Authorship, & Dates -   The Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke Against Mark - Wipf and Stock Publishers

Tuckett, C. M: On the Relationship between Matthew and Luke Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009

Wallace, Daniel: The Synoptic Problem

Willker, Wieland: Online Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels: Mark,  Matthew, Luke