Gottlob Christian Storr, in his 1786 argument for
Marcan priority,[1] asked, if Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke, how the latter two were then related. Storr proposed, among other possibilities, that the canonical Matthew (written in Greek) was translated from from the original, which was written in
either Hebrew or Aramaic (the logia spoken of by
Papias) by following Mark primarily but also drawing from Luke,[2] although he later went on to oppose this.[3]
These ideas were little noticed until 1838, when
Christian Gottlob Wilke[4] revived the hypothesis of Marcan priority and extensively developed the argument for Matthaean posteriority. Wilke's contemporary
Christian Hermann Weisse[5] at the same time independently argued for Marcan priority but for Matthew and Luke independently using Mark and another source
Q—the
two-source hypothesis. A few other German scholars supported Wilke's hypothesis in the nineteenth century, but in time most came to accept the two-source hypothesis, which remains the dominant theory to this day. Wilke's hypothesis was accepted by
Karl Kautsky in his Foundations of Christianity.[6]
Wilke's hypothesis received little further attention until recent decades, when it was revived in 1992 by Huggins,[7] then
Hengel,[8] then independently by Blair.[9] Additional recent supporters include Garrow[10] and Powell.[11]
Evidence
Most arguments for the Wilke hypothesis follow those of the
Farrer hypothesis in accepting
Marcan priority but rejecting
Q. The difference, then, is in the direction of dependence between Matthew and Luke.
Arguments advanced in favor of Matthaean posteriority include:
Matthew's version of the
double tradition appears more developed in wording and structure than Luke's, which appears more primitive. (The same observation is made by supporters of the
two-source hypothesis, who regard Luke adhering better to the original Q.)
Matthew contains passages that are conflations of elements drawn from Mark and Luke (e.g. Matt 9:14-17, 9:35-10,12:22-30, 12:31-32, 19:23-30, 24:23-28). This phenomenon is unique to Matthew, for there is no similar array of passages in Luke that are composed of elements drawn from Mark and Matthew.
Matthew seems to have deliberately rearranged his sources to collecting teachings into five large blocks (e.g., the
Sermon on the Mount), which makes better sense than Luke rearranging Matthew into scattered fragments.
In the double tradition, Matthew's language often retains characteristically Lucan features.
The frequent occurrence of doublets in Matthew may indicate drawing from similar accounts in two different sources.
^Hengel, Martin (2000). The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 169–207.
ISBN1563383004.
^Blair, George Alfred (2003). The Synoptic Gospels Compared. Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity. Vol. 55.
ISBN0773468145.
^Garrow, Alan (2004). The Gospel of Matthew's Dependence on the Didache. Journal for the study of the New Testament: Supplement series. Vol. 254. pp. 225–237.
ISBN0826469779.
^Powell, Evan (2006). The Myth of the Lost Gospel. Symposium Press.
ISBN0977048608.