2. Matthew's Treatment of Mark

The first point to establish is Matthew's precise use of his Marcan source. On any theory of Marcan priority, the conclusion is inescapable that Matthew was indebted to Mark in a number of ways. He adopted fully the Gospel genre that Mark had seemingly initiated, and followed the general Marcan story-line of a Galilean mission preceding the climactic events in Jerusalem.Footnote ³ With respect to the order of events, Matthew made some changes to Mark in the first half of his narrative, but retained the Marcan order from 14.1 (cf. Mark 6.14) onwards.Footnote ⁴

Matthew's debt to Mark is also evident in the fact that he included in one way or another most of Mark's content in his own depiction of Jesus' life and mission. The exact percentage of material he adopted depends upon a number of ambiguous and subjective factors. Matthew had a tendency to abbreviate Marcan narratives, and in some cases it is not easy to draw the line between the severe abbreviation or modification of a pericope and its complete omission. Moreover, the so-called Mark/Q overlaps present a further set of problems. It is often difficult to decide whether Marcan material has been omitted and replaced by a parallel Q tradition, or whether Matthew has used and conflated his two sources.Footnote ⁵ Another factor affecting this issue is the possibility that the evangelist has dropped individual verses or whole pericopes but has then incorporated some of this material elsewhere in his Gospel. While a glance at a Greek synopsis reveals that Matthew has omitted Mark 1.1, 23–28, 35–38; 2.27; 3.19b–21; 4.21–24, 26–29; 6.30; 7.3–4, 32–37; 8.22–26; 9.29, 38–40, 48–50; 12.40–44; 13.33–37; 14.51–52, a good case can be made that certain parts of these traditions reappear in other Matthean texts.Footnote ⁶ All of these considerations make it difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty the extent of Matthew's adoption of his Marcan material, but most scholars today follow the lead of B. H. Streeter and contend that Matthew has reproduced some 90% of Mark's content.Footnote ⁷

While it is clear that Matthew was largely indebted to Mark in terms of genre, order and content, it is equally apparent that he was dissatisfied with his primary source in a number of ways. First of all, the language of Mark is often simple, ungrammatical and pleonastic, and Matthew took pains to rewrite and improve the Marcan text.Footnote ⁸ According to Streeter, Matthew's editing and abbreviating of Mark's often cumbersome language resulted in him retaining only 51% of Mark's wording.Footnote ⁹ Secondly, Matthew clearly felt that Mark was far too short and lacked detail in terms of narratives about Jesus and the teachings of Jesus. He therefore inserted the genealogy and infancy narratives at the beginning of his Gospel and the resurrection appearance traditions at the end, and he greatly supplemented the teachings of Jesus by incorporating material from Q and other sources. Thirdly, despite retaining the greater bulk of Mark, Matthew did omit a number of whole pericopes, and it must be assumed that he did so because he found these traditions either irrelevant, unhelpful or offensive. A good example here is his omission of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida in Mark 8.22–26. Matthew presumably dropped this miracle story on the grounds that he was unimpressed by Jesus' use of saliva and that he required two attempts to effect the cure; the evangelist had earlier omitted Mark 7.32–35, which also mentions spittle as a curative aid.Footnote ¹⁰

Fourthly, Matthew often edited the Marcan texts he did retain either to remove offence or to correct unpalatable theological features in Mark's account.Footnote ¹¹ In Mark 6.5 Jesus is unable to work miracles in Nazareth, while the Matthean parallel in 13.58 states that he did not do many miracles. Similarly, Mark 3.19b-21 maintains that the family of Jesus thought he was possessed by a demon, a sin that is later condemned as unforgiveable (3.28–30), but Matthew removes this slur on Jesus' family by omitting Mark 3.19b-21, leaving only the scribes from Jerusalem as those guilty of an eternal sin (12.22–32). In this context we should include Matthew's correction of the Marcan depiction of Jesus' attitude towards the Torah.

It is well known that Mark had a rather liberal attitude towards the ritual demands of the Torah,Footnote ¹² and this is well illustrated in the tradition concerning purity in Mark 7.1–23. Mark betrayed his understanding of Jesus' teaching in this episode when he appended in v. 19b, ‘thus he declared all foods clean’, thereby highlighting that Jesus abrogated the Jewish dietary laws. Matthew's perspective was rather different.Footnote ¹³ The Matthean Jesus spells out clearly in 5.17–19 that all of the Mosaic Law without exception is to be obeyed until the parousia, and it is expected that his followers will obey the Torah and teach it to others until that time. It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that Matthew omitted completely the Marcan comment in Mark 7:19b. In Matthew's version of this pericope, there is no indication at all that Jesus undermined the Jewish rules regarding clean and unclean foods; the emphasis remains on the non-biblical Pharisaic practice of ritual handwashing.Footnote ¹⁴ In line with his emphasis on the Torah, Matthew ‘rejudaised’ Mark in other ways for his Jewish Christian readership. He used the ‘Kingdom of the Heavens’ in preference to the ‘Kingdom of God’, and he employed the formula quotations to root Jesus more firmly in the sacred history of Israel.Footnote ¹⁵

Fifthly, there is sound evidence that Matthew deemed Mark to be sadly inadequate for meeting the specific needs of his own community at the end of the first century. He therefore updated Mark's story of Jesus to make it more relevant to the situation of his intended readers and more helpful to meet their particular requirements.Footnote ¹⁶ An obvious example of this phenomenon is the evangelist's tendency to intensify the opposition between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees, which reflects his community's own conflict with Formative Judaism.Footnote ¹⁷ A second example is Matthew's major focus on eschatological matters, especially the horrific fate of the wicked, who are destined to be punished by eternal fire in Gehenna (cf. 3.7–12; 5.22; 7.19; 13.41–42, 49–50; 18.8–9; 25.41). This rather unpleasant Matthean theme can be explained by the fact that his persecuted community had embraced a Jewish sectarian perspective with a concomitant Jewish eschatological response.Footnote ¹⁸

3. Matthew as a Supplement to Mark or as its Replacement?

The above discussion provides ample evidence, that despite the fact that Matthew owed a considerable debt to his Marcan source, he was none the less dissatisfied with and critical of the earlier Gospel. Having established in general terms Matthew's treatment of Mark, we may now pose a series of further questions. What did Matthew intend to happen to Mark once he had composed and circulated his own Gospel? Was it his hope that his intended readers would consult the account in Mark and then turn to his own version of the Jesus story to fill the gaps in the Marcan narrative? Or was it the case that, once Matthew had improved and updated Mark by his additions and editorial changes, he intended to replace his primary source?

It is an extraordinary state of affairs that Matthean scholarship has almost entirely neglected this whole issue. The proposition that Matthew hoped to replace Mark has been stated definitively by G. N. Stanton and R. Bauckham, but neither of these scholars provides any argumentation at all in defence of this claim.Footnote ¹⁹ The contrary opinion is represented by U. Luz, who does attempt to provide some evidence for his view. Luz begins with the assertion that Matthew has written a conservative new story of Jesus based upon the Marcan account. He continues, ‘In this way he makes clear that his story renarrates a given story. There are no indications in Matthew's Gospel…that he intended to replace the Markan Gospel with which…he assumed at least some of his readers to be familiar’.Footnote ²⁰ The logic of Luz's argument is not immediately clear, but he seems to suggest that Matthew still envisaged a role for Mark in his own community because his intended readers were already familiar with it. Yet a closer examination of the evidence, based upon Matthew's treatment of Mark, supports the position of Stanton and Bauckham and renders questionable the thesis of Luz.

The fundamental question is as follows: What role could Mark have possibly played in the Matthean community once Matthew had published his own corrected, revised, enlarged, improved and updated edition of Mark? Since the evangelist was motivated to write and circulate his own story of Jesus to meet the specific needs of his post-70 Jewish Christian community, there would be no reason for his readers to continue to consult Mark when it so obviously failed to satisfy so many of their basic requirements. Surely they would have needed only Matthew's Gospel, especially as it reflected their own theology and Christology, and it directly addressed the circumstances and challenges they were facing. The complete lack of necessity for Mark comes into even sharper focus once we recall that Matthew reproduces some 90% of Mark's content. After the publication of Matthew, Mark had very little distinctive material to offer. Why would the evangelist want his readers to consult the earlier Gospel when his own text reproduced almost all of that source and often improved upon what he did retain?Footnote ²¹

The questions continue when we consider Matthew's omission and redaction of certain Marcan passages. Why would he want his community to read of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida in Mark 8.22–26 when he himself thought it unworthy of inclusion? Why would he be content to have his readers learn that Jesus' power was limited in Mark 6.5 when he had rewritten that Marcan text in Matt 13.58 so as not to convey that impression? Why would he want his intended readers to learn from Mark 3.19b-21 that the family of Jesus' believed he was demon-possessed after he himself deemed it so offensive that he took considerable pains to ensure that it did not appear in his parallel account? Why would Matthew think it desirable for his community to be exposed to Mark's statement in 7.19b that Jesus declared all foods clean when he himself clearly opposed this view and omitted the offending words, and elsewhere depicted Jesus as a Law-observant Jew? Finally, why would the evangelist desire that his readers continue to read Mark when it offered them so little in terms of their immediate and pressing needs, such as their conflict with Formative Judaism? These questions are relevant in every case where Matthew has significantly edited the text of Mark, and they cast a considerable shadow of doubt over Luz's claim that the evangelist intended his Gospel narrative to supplement the earlier Marcan account that was known to his readers.

The evidence of Matthew's treatment of Mark demonstrates that the former did not write to supplement his primary source and did not intend that his text would be read in conjunction with it. On the contrary, the conclusion is inescapable that Matthew specifically composed his Gospel to render Mark redundant. There was simply no place for Mark amongst the evangelist's readers once his own narrative saw the light of day.

This conclusion that Matthew had serious concerns over Mark and intended to replace it does not sit easily with the common view in Matthean studies that Matthew viewed his major source as authoritative and largely stood in theological agreement with it. J. K. Riches remarks that Mark had considerable authority for Matthew, because he treated it ‘…with considerable respect and care, preserving the majority of Mark's Gospel and incorporating even quite small snippets of Markan material into his narrative’.Footnote ²² According to D. A. Hagner, ‘Since Matthew takes over so much of Mark, we may expect that he shares Mark's theology’.Footnote ²³ In similar vein, R. C. Beaton states, ‘The implication is that when Matthew adopts Mark, even though adjustments are made, he embraces the Marcan tradition and theological commitments’.Footnote ²⁴ J. P. Meier contends that Mark's Gospel was influential early on in Matthew's community, and became the Gospel for liturgy, catechesis, apologetics and polemics before Matthew decided to subject it to revision and expansion.Footnote ²⁵

Perhaps the most detailed statement of this general position is that of U. Luz. In the opinion of Luz, Matthew is ‘…the heir of his theological fathers, Mark and Q’,Footnote ²⁶ though he accepts that Mark is by far the more important of these sources.Footnote ²⁷ Luz goes further than the other scholars by noting a number of important points of contact between these two Gospels. Matthew adopts Mark's literary genre and so shares his source's view that the story of Jesus is also a story for the situation of the church, a point that is highlighted in their respective emphases on the disciples and discipleship. Moreover, both authors share an interest in the miracle stories, the title ‘Son of God’, and the conflict with Israel, although Luz acknowledges that some Marcan themes, such as the messianic secret, find no place in Matthew.Footnote ²⁸

In evaluating these claims, it can be conceded at once that on many theological and Christological issues the two evangelists shared much in common. That is not unexpected. Both Mark and Matthew were Christians, followers of Jesus of Nazareth, and we would expect on the basis of this common affiliation that they shared some or even many theological perspectives. Both accepted Jesus as the Jewish messiah who proclaimed the coming or arrival of the Kingdom of God (or Heavens), who taught in parables, who performed miracles on a grand scale, who can be described with many titles of majesty (Son of God, Son of Man, Lord, and so on), who fulfilled the Jewish scriptures, who was opposed by many of his Jewish contemporaries, who was obedient to the will of God by dying on a cross, whose death had atoning implications, who was raised from the dead by God and thereby vindicated, and who would return in glory at the end of the age. These agreements are by any measure substantial and significant, and they should not be ignored or played down. They testify that Matthew and Mark shared a common Christian narrative and that the former was content to adopt and often expand these themes when they appeared in his source.

Yet, in noting the common ground between Mark and Matthew, we should never lose sight of their fundamental differences that are evident in Matthew's redaction of his Marcan source. Whatever value Matthew placed on Mark, he still viewed it as an inadequate presentation of Jesus' story that required correction, improvement and expansion, and which needed to be updated to meet the needs of his intended readership. Once we acknowledge and understand the extent of Matthew's dissatisfaction with Mark on a wide variety of issues, the common view that the former largely embraced and affirmed the outlook of the latter looks decidedly shaky. This point can and should be pushed further. In the quotes of Hagner, Beaton and Luz cited above, the claim is made that Matthew substantially accepted Mark's theological perspective. While it is clear that these two Christians shared a good deal in common, as noted above, it is questionable whether they shared a similar theological position in the context of a diverse early Christian movement.

Let us return to a point made earlier. The two evangelists had completely opposing views concerning Jesus' attitude towards the Torah and, by extension, its role in the Christian community that succeeded him. The Marcan Jesus has a very liberal take on the Mosaic Law, especially its ritual requirements, and as Mark made clear in his comment in 7.19b Jesus dispensed with the Jewish dietary and purity regulations. By contrast, the Matthean Jesus declares that all the Mosaic Law, even its least components, was to be observed until the parousia (5.17–19), and the evangelist carefully edited his sources so that his Jesus always acts in accordance with the Torah.

This difference between the two evangelists must be viewed within a broader context. The issue of the Law's importance and relevance was hardly a minor matter in the fledgling Christian movement. It was in fact an issue that led to serious divisions in the early church, especially between the Jerusalem church and Paul. One might even state that it was the single most divisive issue in the first Christian century, as the followers of Jesus debated the place of the Sinai covenant in the light of the messiah's appearance and the crucial matter of Christian identity. The one and only meeting in the first century between the different Christian factions, the so-called apostolic council, was convened in response to this matter (Acts 15.2), and both Paul and Luke testify that the only issue under discussion was the role of the Torah in the Christian tradition. The very same problem lay behind the incident at Antioch (Gal 2.11–14), which was instigated by James attempting to impose the Torah on Gentile converts and which resulted in a public confrontation between Peter and Paul. It was again this matter alone that underlay the problems in Galatia and it perhaps features as well in the Corinthian and Philippian epistles.Footnote ²⁹ We also find this issue in the post-Pauline period. It appears in the letter to the Colossians, the Pastoral Epistles, the letter of James, and even in the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century.Footnote ³⁰

The question of the role of the Torah in the Christian movement was thus a live and extremely divisive issue throughout the first century, and Mark and Matthew were not immune from this conflict. They stood on either side of what was clearly an emotive and often polemical debate, and full weight must be given to this important disagreement between them when evaluating the theological perspectives of these evangelists. While there is no doubt that these evangelists shared a common Christian narrative, the claim that Matthew simply embraced Mark's theological agenda ignores not only their different views concerning the Law but also the importance of this disagreement within its broader Christian context. Whatever value Mark possessed in the eyes of Matthew, it was nonetheless fundamentally flawed by its representation of Jesus' teachings on the Torah. This point leads to a further consideration.

An important trend in Marcan studies is that Mark wrote his Gospel from a clear Pauline perspective and depicted Jesus as reinforcing Paul's later claims about himself and his theology.Footnote ³¹ This can be inferred not simply from his agreements with Paul on the role and validity of the Torah, but from other Pauline elements in his Gospel as well.Footnote ³² A few examples will suffice to demonstrate this point. As a passion narrative with an extended introduction, Mark emphasises the sacrificial death of Jesus rather than his teachings. He depicts Jesus as engaging in a (Law-free) Gentile mission which validates the later activity of Paul.Footnote ³³ Both the family of Jesus and his disciples, the later powerbrokers of the Jerusalem church who opposed Paul, are discredited in various ways, which raises the question of their validity to lead the early church and to oppose Paul as they did.Footnote ³⁴

It is imperative to note that Matthew edits or omits all of these Pauline features of Mark. He expands the teachings of Jesus and presents a view of the Torah that stands completely against the position of Mark and Paul.Footnote ³⁵ He also confines the mission of Jesus to the Jews alone (15.24; cf. 10.5–6), and depicts the risen Christ commissioning the disciples to be responsible for both the Jewish and Gentile missions in the time of the church (28.16–20; cf. 16.17–19), thus undercutting Paul's claim that he had been appointed the apostle to the Gentiles.Footnote ³⁶ Moreover, Matthew substantially rehabilitates the disciples and the family of Jesus.Footnote ³⁷ By doing so he not only betrays his allegiance to the tradition of the Jerusalem church, but he also corrects Mark's implication of their unworthiness to lead the early Christian movement. Just as Marcan scholarship is beginning to embrace the view that Mark was inherently Pauline, we find that Matthean scholarship is now taking seriously an anti-Pauline perspective in Matthew.Footnote ³⁸

If we add this factor to the other deficiencies that Matthew identified in Mark's Gospel, then a compelling picture emerges for Matthew's motivation to replace his primary source. It lacked important narrative material concerning the birth of Jesus and his resurrection appearances, it was deficient in terms of teaching material, it contained offensive pericopes, it was stylistically crude, and it did not meet the needs of Matthew's post-70 Jewish Christian community. Furthermore, Matthew clearly saw Mark for what it was, a narrative account of the mission of Jesus that was designed, at least in part, to support the activity and the theology of Paul. Such a depiction of Jesus was, for the evangelist, utterly wrong and perhaps even dangerous, since it contradicted the theology and praxis of the Jerusalem church and probably misrepresented the teaching and activity of the historical Jesus.Footnote ³⁹ For all of these reasons Mark had to be replaced.Footnote ⁴⁰

4. The Cases of Luke and John

It is of interest that the basic claim of this study, that Matthew intended to replace Mark, has been made of the two other later evangelists, and this point is worthy of further exploration. Beginning with Luke, we find that this evangelist sets out his purpose in writing in the prologue to his Gospel (1.1–4). Luke states that since many have undertaken to compile a narrative (about Jesus), it seems good to him also (κἀμοί), having investigated everything carefully (ἀκριβῶς), to write an orderly (καθɛξῆς) account, so that Theophilus might know the truth (τὴν ἀσϕάλɛιαν) of what he has been informed. The question that concerns us is the relationship that Luke defines between his own writing and its predecessors. On the one hand, Luke's use of κἀμοί appears to place his own work very much within the tradition of his sources, in which case there is no criticism at all of these earlier efforts.Footnote ⁴¹ On the other hand, however, most scholars do perceive in this passage some dissatisfaction on the part of Luke with these antecedent texts. The very fact that he took the trouble to write his own account when others were available indicates that he saw them as deficient to some extent.Footnote ⁴² In addition, since he describes his own Gospel as the result of careful investigation with an emphasis on accuracy and order, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that those sources that preceded him were not characterised by these qualities.Footnote ⁴³ There is here a veiled critique certainly of Mark and perhaps of Q as well.

Did Luke intend to replace Mark because of its deficiencies? The answer lies in his treatment of his Marcan source, which is even more extreme than Matthew's. While he adopted Mark's Gospel genre and generally followed that source's order of events,Footnote ⁴⁴ Luke substantially altered Mark in a variety of ways. He too constantly corrected the language of Mark,Footnote ⁴⁵ added a genealogy and infancy stories at the beginning of his narrative and resurrection appearance traditions at the end, and supplemented the meagre teachings of Jesus in Mark by incorporating material from Q and his special sources. Luke took over much less of Mark than did Matthew, omitting whole sections (cf. 6.45–8.26) and substituting parallel traditions from his special source material (e.g. Luke 5.1–11 and Mark 1.16–20).Footnote ⁴⁶ Many of the Marcan pericopes that Matthew found offensive and so edited or omitted (Mark 3.19b-21; 6.5; 7.32–35; 8.22–26) are not found in Luke. On the estimate of Streeter, Luke reproduced only about 55% of Mark's content.Footnote ⁴⁷ It is likewise clear that Mark did not suit Luke's theological programme. The Gospel of Luke was not a stand-alone work; it was designed to be read in conjunction with Acts so that the two books together would provide a unified history of the ministry of Jesus and the first generation of the Christian church.

The questions posed of Matthew above can be posed of Luke as well. What credible role could Mark have played among Luke's readers, once he had produced his own revised, improved, enlarged, and updated edition of Mark? Why would Luke want his readers to consult the original Gospel when he had omitted or substituted almost half its content? Why would he desire that they read the Marcan passages that he clearly found offensive? Why would he be willing to have them read Mark when it was deficient in so many ways as a precursor to the story of the church in Acts? In response to these questions, it must be concluded that Mark had no role at all to play in the Lucan community once Luke had composed and circulated his two-volume work. The earlier Gospel had been made redundant.

The hypothesis that Matthew and Luke desired to replace Mark with their own Gospel accounts raises a tantalising possibility. It is well known that from the second century onwards Mark slipped almost into oblivion in the Christian church. It was the least cited Gospel by far and had the fewest commentaries devoted to it.Footnote ⁴⁸ In the opinion of most scholars, this was a simple ‘accident of history’. Matthew and Luke together incorporated almost all of Mark's content in their own Gospels, so Mark had very little that was distinctive or unique. Under these circumstances it was perhaps inevitable but unfortunate that the original Gospel tended to be overlooked by the Church Fathers and other writers. But it may well be the case that the initial demise of Mark in the ancient church was no accident at all. Perhaps this was the very intention of the later evangelists who were well aware of its many serious flaws.Footnote ⁴⁹

We may now turn to the Gospel of John. The clear tradition of the ancient church was that John was specifically written to supplement the three other Gospels. In H.E. 3.24.5–15 Eusebius cites a tradition that John knew of the other Gospels and confirmed their accuracy, but he believed they lacked information about the early part of Jesus' mission prior to the arrest of John the Baptist. He then composed his own narrative, which described that period in Jesus' ministry. In the view of Eusebius John was motivated to supplement the Synoptic Gospels, and he designed his own account to be read alongside theirs. Another tradition cited by Eusebius but attributed to Clement of Alexandria is that John, being content that the three earlier Gospels provided the basic facts, was then moved by the Spirit to compose a spiritual Gospel (H.E. 6.14.7). This tradition too relates that John was written to be read in conjunction with the others.

In more recent times Johannine scholarship has pondered whether or not the author of John even knew the Synoptic Gospels. The debate on this issue has swung back and forth for a century,Footnote ⁵⁰ but the theory of John's dependence on the Synoptics now commands the assent of most Johannine scholars. Certainly John must have adopted the Gospel genre from one of the Synoptic Gospels,Footnote ⁵¹ and the case for Mark is the strongest.Footnote ⁵² If we assume that John did have access to Mark, then it is clear that he has completely revised and utterly transformed this particular source. The length of Jesus' mission is extended to three years, much more of the action takes place in Judea and Jerusalem, and there are significant differences in chronology. The most profound discrepancies, however, reside in the unique content of John and the nature of that material. Much of the Gospel, especially prior to the Passion narrative, has no Marcan (or Synoptic) parallel. The Johannine miracle stories have few Marcan counterparts and they serve an entirely different function. Moreover, the teaching of Jesus in John is largely unique. While the Marcan Jesus proclaims the arrival of the Kingdom of God, the Johannine Jesus focuses mostly on his own status and mission. He is aware of his own pre-existence as the Word of God (1.1-18), and he testifies to his identity through the many ‘I am sayings’ in the Gospel (e.g. 6.35; 10.14; 11.25). It hardly needs saying that John's rich symbolism, high Christology and sophisticated theology far transcend anything in Mark.Footnote ⁵³

The questions posed of Matthew and Luke are just as applicable to John. What role could Mark have played in the Johannine community once John had produced his own revised, enlarged, improved and updated edition of Mark? Why would he have been eager for them to consult the earliest Gospel after he himself had used it so sparingly, omitted much of it and replaced those traditions with very different material from independent sources? What possible purpose could have been served by the Johannine community reading Mark's primitive theology and inferior Christology when his own spiritualised and profoundly theological account was available? John's transformation of Mark was so drastic and so complete in almost every respect that it is nigh on inconceivable that he believed that Mark could have made any meaningful contribution to his readers alongside his own Gospel narrative. While some scholars continue to support the Patristic tradition that John did indeed compose his Gospel to supplement the others,Footnote ⁵⁴ it is difficult to disagree with the work of H. Windisch who argued long ago that the evangelist saw little theological or Christological value in his predecessors and was motivated to replace them with his own superior account.Footnote ⁵⁵

This discussion of Luke's and John's intentions for Mark helps to contextualise the prior discussion of Matthew. That evangelist's attempt to supplant Mark stands in agreement with Mark's other early interpreters who also viewed that Gospel as seriously flawed and in need of replacement. This not to say that these three writers identified the same failings in Mark, though it is true that Matthew and Luke shared a number of similar concerns, but each of them believed that the original Gospel was at the very least an inadequate prototype of the Jesus story that had exceeded its use-by-date.