SECTION III
Chapter 2 - Biblical Scholarship and Analysis--New Testament

Which New Testament gospel was written first?

  Originally, the four New Testament gospels known today as Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John were anonymous documents--probably all written in Greek
(as opposed to Hebrew or Aramaic). Their authorship was assigned according
to tradition.  Justin Martyr (150 C.E.) for example, was familiar with the
gospels, but never mentions them by name--or how many of them there were.
The first recorded instance of four gospels was made by Iraneous (Bishop of
Lyons around 150 C.E.).  He argued that there had to be four gospels because
there were four winds. Likewise, he referred to the gospels by their modern
revered names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

  The early Church father, Clement of Alexandria, who lived around the
year 200 C.E. believed the earliest gospels were Matthew and Luke because
they gave Jesus' family tree.  Origin, writing also in Alexandria in the
3rd century C.E., also believed that Matthew was the first gospel written.  St. 
Augustine, writing from northern Africa around the year 400 C.E., stated that 
Matthew wrote the first gospel in hebrew, and than Mark was written next
in Greek.

  Over the last few centuries, a bit of clever detective work by numerous
biblical scholars have convinced most historians that the gospel of
Mark was written BEFORE the other gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John. Karl
Lachmann wrote in 1835 that in researching the ORDER of events as presented
by the gospel writers, there was only agreement between the synoptic gospels
when the writer agreed with Mark's chronological order. Whenever Matthew and
Luke agree on the sequence of events, it was in agreement with Mark. Whenever
Matthew disagrees with Mark's order, he ALSO disagrees with Luke's orde,
and vise versa. Therefore Mark's order is always in agreement with either
Matthew's version or Luke's version.

  Other scholars added on other layers of proof that Matthew and Luke copied
from Mark, and not vise versa.  Out of Mark's 661 verses, 610 can be found
in either Matthew or Luke, or both gospels. When Matthew and Luke contain
a specific event that also exists in Mark, they have typically summarized
Mark's version, sometimes adding a new narrative of their own.

   Mark's version of a biblical event is always more "primitive" and
"potentially embarrassing" than that recounted in Matthew and Luke.
There is also ample evidence to show that Matthew and Luke were not
satisfied with Mark's interpretation of certain details of his gospel,
and reworked them to "improve" on them.  Whenever, an "improvement" is
made by Matthew and Luke, it is NOT in agreement by the other.  One or
two instances might not be convincing-- but this pattern is seen consistently
throughout the gospels.

    I have chosen just one example to demonstrate this (for other examples,
see Section II).

  For example, in Mark 10, a stranger approaches Jesus with the question,

"Good Master, what must I do to win eternal life".  Jesus replies here,
"Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone'.

 This same incident appears in Matthew 19:17 with Jesus now replying:

 "Why do you ask me ABOUT what is good?" [emphasis mine]

 Clearly the latter account is a correction by Matthew over Mark's account.
It would seem unlikely that Matthew was writing first, and Mark would want
to change this account back to a position where Jesus appears WEAKER,
instead of stronger.

   Today, virtually all recognized scholars believe that both Matthew and
Luke used the gospel of Mark as one of their source texts (and not the
other way around).

"Q" Text

  There are some 230 verses common between Matthew and Luke, which are NOT
found in Mark. Most of these are inserted in different places within the
Marcan material of both Matthew and Luke, although the general sequence of
Q events is the same. (GA Wells, WHO WAS JESUS, Open Court, 1989, p 84)
From this, scholars have postulated the existence of some second source
text called "Q" (from the German word Quelle meaning "source"), that were
used by Matthew and Luke--but not Mark.

  It is believed that this "Q" text possibly went back to a very early
Jewish Christian community, and was composed primarily of sayings attributed
to Jesus. It has, as of this date, never been found. This is not surprising,
as we know that writings of early Jewish Christian communities were declared
heretical and ordered destroyed in the fourth century C.E. (Also, any texts
NOT recopied over the centuries, would naturally rot unless it was written
on expensive parchment.)

Notes on the Earliest known Bibles

  None of the ORIGINAL manuscripts of the gospels have survived!  The
gospel stories were probably written on papyrus, which tends to rot after
a century or two. There have been various FRAGMENTS discovered-- such as John
Ryland's papyrus, dated from about the early to middle second century. This
fragment is so small that it is about 1/2 inch square.  Because it contains
a fragment of a verse found in John, most scholars believe it to be a portion
from the actual gospel of John.  However, this is not absolute proof, as
it might have been a piece of gnostic text--ie since it was discovered in
Egypt, and it is known that gnostic Christians were active there at a
very early date.

   The oldest bibles that HAVE survived (which date from the FOURTH
century C.E.), were written on expensive vellum--ie animal skins which are
more durable. Both the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus bibles are
believed to date from the middle of the fourth century, when Christianity
achieved official status during the reign of Constantine, and therefore
could afford the expensive vellum. (See next chapter.)