Marcan Priority

Marcan Priority (or Markan Priority) is the idea that the Gospel of Mark was the first of the Synoptic Gospels to be written and that it was used as a source for the others (Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke).

Most scholars have accepted Marcan Priority since the 20th-century. Recently, many experts have started to doubt it in favor of other views like Matthaean Priority.

Synoptic Problem

Marcan Priority does not explain on its own why the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke include material that the Gospel of Mark does not have. While many scholars still accept the Q source^[source?] and many attempts at reconstructing it have been made,^[source?] some have also started to favor other explanations like Matthaean Posteriority^[source?] (not to be confused with Matthaean Priority).

History

According to the Church Fathers, first in Against Heresies by Irenaeus, the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew as the first gospel and was used as a source by Mark and Luke. But this began to be challenged in the late-18th century when Gottlob Christian Storr proposed that the Gospel of Mark was the earliest gospel.

References

1. 1 2 Tuckett (2008), p. 10. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFTuckett2008 (help)
2. ↑ Butler, Basil Christopher (2011) [1951]. The Originality of St Matthew: A Critique of the Two-Document Hypothesis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521233033.
3. ↑ Farmer, William Reuben (1976) [1964]. The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Review of the Problem of Literary Relationships Between Matthew, Mark and Luke. Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780915948024.
4. ↑ , Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 1.
5. ↑ Tuckett (2008), pp. 16–17. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFTuckett2008 (help)
6. ↑ Storr, Gottlob Christian (1786). Über den Zweck der evangelischen Geschichte und der Briefe Johannis (in German). Tübingen: Jacob Friedrich Heerbrandt. pp. 274 ff.
7. ↑ Meyboom, Hajo Uden [in Dutch] (1993). Kiwiet, John J. (ed.). A History and Critique of the Origin of the Marcan Hypothesis, 1835–1866. New Gospel Studies. Vol. 8. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. p. xviii. ISBN 0865544077.