Mark is blue, Matthew is green, Luke is orange, and the second narrative is yellow

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The Jesus Calms a Storm pericope shows the same pattern seen elsewhere: Matthew and Luke share coordinated wording and phrasing against Mark while diverging stylistically, which strongly suggests dependence on a shared intermediary narrative rather than independent redaction of Mark.

Beyond general narrative agreement, Matthew and Luke share several specific features absent from Mark, including:

• “he got into” followed by “the boat,”

• “his disciples” immediately after “boat,”

• the insertion of “went and” between Mark’s “they” and “woke him,”

• “saying” immediately after “woke him,”

• “marveled, saying” before the disciples’ question about Jesus’ authority,

• omission of the article in “even winds and sea/water,”

• pluralization of “winds” at the conclusion.

These are not random minor agreements. They occur at the same narrative junctures and reflect coordinated reworking of Mark’s wording and structure.

Most significantly, Matthew’s inclusion of the rebuke “O you of little faith” fits a broader pattern. That phrase appears repeatedly across multiple Matthean contexts (Do Not Be Anxious; Walking on the Water; Leaven of the Pharisees), several of which already show signs of deriving from the same non-Markan narrative stratum. Its appearance here is best explained if that rebuke was already present in the intermediary source rather than being newly created for this pericope.

On this model, the intermediary narrative (Bizarro Mark) lifted the storm story from Mark and reworked it, incorporating the rebuke “O you of little faith” as part of a consistent theological emphasis. Matthew preserves that element here, as elsewhere. Luke, by contrast, likely omits or softens the rebuke in keeping with his broader redactional tendency to reframe Jesus as a measured instructor rather than an exasperated teacher.

This explains all the data at once:

• Matthew–Luke agreement against Mark,

• divergence in tone and emphasis between Matthew and Luke,

• reuse of distinctive Matthean language across multiple pericopes,

• and Luke’s selective omission without needing to posit direct Matthew–Luke dependence or a hypothetical sayings source.

In short, Jesus Calms a Storm fits the same pattern as other suspected passages: Markan narrative material reworked within a second, Mark-dependent narrative source, then independently redacted by Matthew and Luke

“Note that you’ve listed a Lukan doublet (9,1-6 & 10,1-12), which raises the possibility that Luke is redacting both Mark and Q.”

The Seventy-Two should not be treated as a Lukan doublet of the Twelve. Luke presents the two missions as distinct in scope and function, not as parallel retellings of the same event. The Twelve are explicitly tied to Israel (tribal symbolism), whereas the Seventy-Two are sent “into every town and place where he himself was about to go,” evoking a broader, outward-facing mission. Luke’s narrative logic depends on this distinction.

What creates the source-critical problem is that Matthew’s commissioning of the Twelve overlaps extensively not only with Luke’s Twelve (Luke 9:1–6) but also with Luke’s Seventy-Two (Luke 10:1–12). This is not what we would expect if Luke were simply duplicating Mark + Q material to create a doublet. If Luke were freely composing two versions of the same mission, we would expect Matthew’s Twelve to align primarily with Luke’s Twelve. Instead, Matthew’s Twelve shares distinctive material with both Lukan missions.

Concretely, Matthew 10 and Luke 9 agree against Mark in multiple coordinated ways: proclamation of the kingdom paired immediately with healing (absent in Mark), prohibition of staff (reversing Mark’s permission), second-person phrasing (“for your journey”), aligned house-entry instructions, and closely matched dust-shaking formulas. These agreements indicate Mark-aware revision shared by Matthew and Luke.

At the same time, Matthew 10 also aligns closely with Luke 10: peace-on-the-house language and peace-return imagery, detailed house-staying instructions, and the concluding judgment saying about Sodom (“it will be more bearable… for Sodom than for that town”). These elements are absent from Mark’s sending of the Twelve but appear prominently in Luke’s Seventy-Two. The result is that Matthew’s Twelve looks like a conflation of material that Luke distributes across two distinct missions.

The harvest/laborers saying makes this especially clear. In Luke 10:1–2 it functions as the programmatic introduction to the Seventy-Two. In Matthew 9:35–38 the same saying appears immediately before the Twelve discourse, functioning as a narrative hinge. This suggests that the harvest saying already belonged to a mission-linked complex prior to Matthew and Luke, not that Luke duplicated a free-floating Q saying to create a second commissioning scene.

Taken together, these patterns are difficult to explain if Luke is merely creating a doublet by splitting Mark and Q. Luke’s own presentation treats the missions as distinct, yet Matthew’s Twelve preserves material Luke assigns to both. This is better explained if Matthew and Luke independently inherited overlapping mission material from a shared Mark-dependent intermediary narrative, which had already reworked Mark’s sending material and integrated additional logia. Matthew conflates that material into a single commissioning discourse; Luke preserves the distinction between missions while retaining shared wording.

On this reading, the Seventy-Two is not a literary doublet but a separate mission that happens to draw on the same inherited mission complex, redistributed differently by Matthew and Luke.

One problem with explaining these patterns solely in terms of Q or direct Matthean–Lukan dependence is that it selectively ignores the full pattern of agreements. We do not only find Matthew–Luke agreement against Mark. We also repeatedly find Luke–Mark agreement against Matthew and Matthew–Mark agreement against Luke within the same clusters of material.

Once that is acknowledged, the idea that one evangelist is simply “switching” between Mark and the other Gospel becomes difficult to sustain. Why would an author alternately follow Mark, then follow the other evangelist against Mark, and then revert again—sometimes within the same pericope—without leaving clearer redactional seams or motivations? That kind of oscillation is not how literary dependence normally behaves.

By contrast, this pattern makes good sense if Matthew and Luke are drawing on multiple inherited streams: Mark itself and at least one other Mark-aware narrative tradition. In that scenario, agreement patterns will naturally vary depending on which source is being followed at a given point. Some passages will align Matthew–Luke against Mark, others Matthew–Mark against Luke, and others Luke–Mark against Matthew. That is exactly what we see.

Models that rely on a single additional source (Q) or on direct dependence (Farrer) struggle here because they must explain why an author would repeatedly abandon their primary source in favor of another author’s redaction, then switch back again, often without clear narrative or theological motivation. A layered-source model explains this variability without requiring ad hoc assumptions about an author’s moment-to-moment editorial decisions.

• The Seventy-Two cannot plausibly come from a sayings gospel.

First, the Seventy-Two almost certainly did not happen as a historical event. If Jesus had commissioned a second, larger mission in addition to the Twelve, Mark would not be ignorant of it. Mark is deeply interested in mission activity and preserves the sending of the Twelve in detail. His complete silence about a Seventy(-Two) is decisive. Matthew’s omission is not ignorance but deliberate consolidation; Mark’s omission is evidentiary.

Second, even if one were to imagine a historical mission beyond the Twelve, it would look nothing like Luke 10. A genuine sayings tradition would resemble something closer to Thomas 14—brief, aphoristic, non-narrativized instructions—rather than a fully staged commissioning scene complete with numbers, itinerary, symbolic geography, judgment sayings, and narrative flow.

Luke’s Seventy-Two is therefore not the extraction of sayings from a logia source. It is a literary construction, built to universalize the mission and to house a dense cluster of logia that Matthew redistributes elsewhere. That kind of narrative architecture cannot be generated by a sayings gospel.

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Matthew and Luke’s Twelve

• Both Matthew and Luke’s version has the phrase “Proclaim… the Kingdom of” and like usual Matthew uses “heaven” and Luke uses “god”. Mark’s version does not have “Proclaim… the kingdom of anything”. It does have “Proclaimed that people should repent, but that’s towards the end.
• Both Matthew and Luke’s version has the word “heal” immediately after “Kingdom of…”
• Marks version has Jesus tell the twelve that they can take a staff, and to wear sandals. Both Matthew and Luke’s version says the twelve can’t have a staff. Matthew’s version says they can’t have sandals either. Luke’s version doesn’t even mention sandals. 
• Mark’s version has the wording, “for their journey”, both Matthew and Luke’s version has “for your journey”.
• Mark’s version has the wording, “whenever you enter a house” Matthew and Luke’s version has “And Whatever… you enter”
• Mark has the wording “shake off the dust that is on your feet…”. Matthew and Luke have the wording, “shake off the dust from your feet…”
• Mark has the wording “when you leave…”, Matthew and Luke both have “when you leave that… town…”
• Mark has the word, “demons” towards the end, whereas Matthew and Luke have the word, “demons” much earlier. 

Luke’s seventy-two

• The logia “for the laborer deserves his wages” is probably not a genuine Jesus logion, cause why doesn’t Mark or Matthew or Thomas have anything like it? When Jesus own brother and heir apparent wrote his warning to the rich, why didn’t he use the “labor deserves wages” logion. James quotes the “laid up treasure” logion but not the labor logion? Instead he says in James 5:4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who moved your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you… 
•  Notice how the Laborer deserves his wages maxim can be found almost word for word in 1 Timothy 5:17C The Laborer deserves his wages. on top of that the maxim is very similar to a line Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 3:8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. Paul also writes something similar in Romans 4:4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. Matthew’s
• “Twelve” almost word for word says “for the laborer deserves his wages” except “wages” is swapped out with “food”. Clearly Matthew recognized the quote as being Pauline, and changed it to make it seem more like a genuine Jesus logion. Clearly the second narrative was written by someone aware of Paul.
• The logion “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Can also be found word-for- word in Matthew 9:35-38 The Harvest is Plentiful, the Laborers Few, also that same shared logion is similar to:

Thomas 73

Jesus said, “The Crop is huge but the workers are few, so beg the harvest boss to dispatch workers to the fields.”

• On top of the Thomas 73 like logion being shared between Luke’s Seventy-Two and Matthew 9:35-38 The Harvest is Plentiful, the Laborers Few, the two passages also mention sheep/lambs. Luke’s seventy-two mentions lambs being vulnerable to wolves, and Matthew’s Harvest is Plentiful mentions, “sheep without a shepherd”. Speaking of sheep, the Logion, “behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves”, is almost for for word the same in Matthew 10:16-25 Persecution Will Come, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves”. 
• Circling back to Matthew 9:35-38 The Harvest is Plentiful, the passage starts off with, “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages…” whereas Luke’s seventy-two starts off with “after this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him…”. It seems like Matthew’s Harvest is Plentiful is a follow up to Luke’s seventy-two. 

• But on top of that, Matthew’s twelve also has quite a few agreements with Luke’s seventy-two. Matthews twelve talks about entering a house and greeting it, than talks about peace coming upon it. Matthew’s twelve than goes on to say, “but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you” Lukes seventy-two talks about entering a house and greeting it with, “Peace be to this house” than goes on to say, “And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you.” Finally both Matthew’s twelve and Luke’s seventy-two both end with these same string of words: “you, it will be more bearable on… day…for …Sodom…than for that town”.

Robert, maybe the word strawman meant something else when you went to Devry University or whatever 50 years ago, but you are not using it correctly in 2026, cause I’m addressing things you said, not made up things you never said. You don’t want me to address them, don’t say them. 

In Reply to Bruce’s comment on February 5, 2026 – 6:02 pm

Luke did not use Matthew as a source. Luke repeatedly bypasses Matthew in favor of Mark in places where Matthew’s version would clearly be preferable if Luke had access to it. For example, in Luke 8:40–56 (Jairus’s daughter) and Luke 5:27 (the call of Levi), Luke follows Mark closely rather than Matthew’s smoother redaction. If Luke had Matthew in front of him, these choices are difficult to explain. The consistent pattern is that Luke goes directly to Mark rather than through Matthew. If Luke bypasses Matthew for Mark, there is no reason to assume he would not bypass Matthew for other sources as well.

Matthew did not use Luke as a source. If Matthew knew Luke, he omits material that fits his theological interests extremely well, such as the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Matthew also preserves tension-producing material like “Messengers from John the Baptist” that Luke actively smooths. That behavior is inconsistent with Matthew freely inventing material or selectively copying Luke. It instead suggests Matthew is preserving multiple inherited traditions.

Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source because Mark carried unique authority, plausibly because it was understood as preserving Petrine testimony prior to Peter’s death around 64 CE. In that context, Mark functions as a privileged witness. Matthew and Luke would not naturally treat each other’s gospels as equivalent authorities alongside Peter’s testimony, which explains why both repeatedly revert to Mark even where another Gospel’s redaction exists.

The earliest circulating form of Mark likely differed from the canonical form. It likely did not include the Transfiguration in its present form or certain doublets (feeding miracles, blind healings, exorcisms). This explains why Matthew and Luke sometimes appear to know a Mark-like narrative that diverges from canonical Mark while still being clearly Mark-aware.

There is no need to posit a single Q sayings gospel. Sayings traditions clearly existed, as the Gospel of Thomas demonstrates, but Matthew and Luke do not behave as if they are drawing from one stable sayings document. Many logia appear in very different wording while conveying the same idea (e.g., the Beatitudes), while other logia appear nearly verbatim in Matthew and Luke but are embedded in narrative contexts that presuppose Mark. This pattern is better explained by multiple batches of oral Jesus logia transmitted through different sermons, transcribers, and communities.

Some material shared by Matthew and Luke but absent from Mark is not aphoristic but narrativized and explicitly Mark-aware. This material is interwoven with Markan phrasing and cannot plausibly derive from a purely sayings collection. It points instead to a second narrative tradition that reworked Mark while integrating independent Jesus logia, some of which overlap conceptually with Thomas. This tradition circulated early enough to be used independently by Matthew and Luke and carried enough authority to be preserved without replacing Mark.

Matthew preserves tensions between Mark and this second narrative as multiple attestation, consistent with Jewish scribal practice. Luke smooths those tensions in the interest of narrative coherence, consistent with Greco-Roman historiographic norms.

The letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria describing a “Secret Mark” that expanded Mark and circulated alongside it, while disputed, fits this broader pattern. It suggests that Mark-aware expansions did exist and were treated as related to Mark rather than as uncontrolled variants. This supports the plausibility of one major Mark-related narrative tradition rather than a diffuse field of anonymous documents.

John’s Gospel shows dependence on Luke rather than Matthew, particularly in its handling of John the Baptist. Later expansions such as Luke 1–2, the genealogy, and Acts reflect subsequent stages of development. This reinforces a model of layered Gospel transmission rather than simple linear dependence.

To Stephen:

Stephen, none of this is resolved by saying the Transfiguration “feels Markan” or functions as a literary center of gravity. That is a literary impression, not an explanation of the data.

The argument is not that Mark is incapable of creative composition. It is that the Transfiguration as transmitted shows signs of secondary development and inherited tension, which Matthew and Luke each respond to in distinct but coordinated ways.

First, both Matthew and Luke explicitly describe Jesus’ face being altered (“his face shone like the sun” / “the appearance of his face was altered”). Mark does not. That is not a stylistic flourish; it is a shared expansion against Mark, and it is difficult to explain as independent embellishment if the scene were already a tightly integrated Markan composition.

Second, Mark uniquely says “Elijah with Moses,” whereas both Matthew and Luke reverse the order to “Moses and Elijah.” That is not trivial. The reversal restores the conventional Law-then-Prophets hierarchy and mitigates the very tension Mark creates elsewhere by identifying John the Baptist with Elijah. If the Transfiguration were originally composed as a unified Markan centerpiece, there is no clear reason both later evangelists would independently “correct” the ordering unless they were responding to a perceived problem.

Third, the Elijah problem itself remains unresolved in Mark. Mark portrays John as Elijah, then introduces Elijah as a separate heavenly figure, and only afterward attempts to harmonize the contradiction in dialogue. Matthew resolves it explicitly by identifying Elijah with John. Luke reframes the entire scene. Mark alone leaves the tension exposed. That is characteristic of constrained incorporation, not of a fully controlled literary design.

Fourth, the cloud-voice repeats the baptismal declaration (“This is my Son”) at a point where the inner circle should already know who Jesus is. The redundancy only makes sense if that declaration has been relocated or duplicated to compensate for instability elsewhere in the tradition. Luke’s deliberate ambiguity around Jesus’ baptism strongly supports this reading.

Fifth, Luke’s substitution of “my beloved Son” with “my Chosen One” (ho eklelegmenos) is not cosmetic. It reflects a shift toward election language with clear Enochic and apocalyptic resonances. If the Transfiguration were a fixed literary keystone, Luke’s alteration of the climactic title itself is inexplicable. It only makes sense if Luke is negotiating inherited material rather than polishing a unified scene.

Finally, the immediate transition from the Transfiguration to the exorcism scene fits known apocalyptic patterns (vision followed by conflict with destructive spirits), suggesting an earlier visionary core that has been elaborated rather than a single, closed literary construction.

So the issue is not whether Mark could write creatively. The issue is why this pericope contains:

• shared Matthean–Lukan expansions against Mark

• coordinated corrections (face imagery, ordering of Moses and Elijah)

• unresolved Elijah identity tension in Mark

• divergent theological framing of the divine voice

Those are not the fingerprints of a pristine, self-contained composition. They are exactly what we expect from early tradition under redactional constraint, with later evangelists attempting to stabilize a scene that already carried internal friction.

Appealing to narrative centrality does not resolve those features. It simply avoids them.

You’re exceedingly something alright.

In Response to To BruceRMCF’s reply at February 5, 2026, 5:48PM

2. I agree that early bifurcation alone doesn’t tell us how many forms existed or which survived. My point is about source status, not raw textual plurality. Early gospel transmission was conservative and costly; variant editions, when they existed, were not casual fan edits but carried some form of authority or provenance. Clement’s remarks about Secret Mark are relevant here not because they prove rarity in an absolute sense, but because they reflect how non-standard Markan forms were perceived: as marked, restricted, and theologically charged, not as everyday local rewrites. What matters for the present argument is that Matthew and Luke do not behave as authors selecting among a chaotic field of Markan variants. They consistently align with the same Mark-presupposing alternative—one that relocates Markan redaction, expands Mark’s narrative framework, and integrates additional tradition—while also independently using canonical Mark. That pattern suggests access to a limited, recognized narrative form, not coincidental use of a marginal or idiosyncratic revision. If numerous alternative Marks were in free circulation, we would expect Matthew and Luke either to diverge more often in which forms they follow, or for canonical Mark itself to show signs of having been overwritten by the more developed versions. Instead, we have a relatively unpolished Mark alongside two later Gospels that sometimes correct it in the same way. That is easier to explain if the shared alternative was a short-lived but authoritative Mark-dependent narrative—whether an early edition, parallel release, or Mark-associated expansion—rather than a diffuse field of unrelated variants.

3. I think we may be talking past each other slightly, because I’m not proposing an evolutionary model at all. I’m not suggesting that Mark gradually accumulated elaborations through drift or folk-song–style accretion. My claim is much simpler and more concrete: someone read Mark and deliberately produced an alternative narrative version not long after Mark entered circulation, and both forms were subsequently used in early Christian circles. On that model, questions about incremental smoothing, embarrassment removal, or oral drift aren’t doing explanatory work. The arrow of time is established by dependence: the second narrative presupposes Mark’s redactional decisions, relocates Markan material, and expands Mark’s narrative framework. That tells us which direction the copying went, irrespective of which version later became dominant. In other words, this is less like biological evolution and more like the French dip analogy: two closely related products, one modeled on the other, circulating near-contemporaneously. The historical question isn’t “how did Mark evolve?” but “why did Matthew and Luke independently draw from the same Mark-dependent alternative alongside canonical Mark?” Once framed that way, the issue is source selection and authority, not textual drift.

4. I don’t think this requires a complete map of early leadership or a tidy succession line. The point is more basic and geographical. Matthew’s Gospel consistently reflects alignment with the Jerusalem–James tradition, whatever its precise later configuration (Simeon, Thebutis, hybrid branches, or successors). That makes it historically plausible that Mark reached that network relatively early, rather than remaining confined to the western Mediterranean sphere associated with Pauline and Petrine circles. Once Mark is present in a James-aligned network, the production of a Mark-aware alternative narrative no longer requires diffuse or anonymous evolution. It can be explained as deliberate reuse within a distinct authority zone—one that does not feel bound to preserve Mark unchanged but still treats it as foundational. Matthew’s use of both Mark and the same Mark-dependent alternative that Luke later accesses makes good sense on this scenario, even if we remain agnostic about the precise individuals involved. In other words, I’m not appealing to a complete list of leaders, but to the existence of at least two partially independent transmission spheres on opposite sides of the Mediterranean, and to the textual evidence that Matthew stands closer to the Jerusalem sphere than to the Pauline one. I would add one further consideration, offered cautiously. The second narrative is notable for its repeated incorporation of logia that are formally and thematically close to material preserved in Thomas. I am not suggesting direct literary dependence, but shared participation in a stream of Jesus tradition that circulated outside the Synoptic redactional programs. Thomas is relevant here because it is explicit about authority orientation: it locates post-Easter leadership with James the Just rather than with Peter or Pauline figures. That does not mean Thomas “comes from James,” but it does indicate that Thomas-like tradition is at least compatible with, and perhaps favored within, a James-aligned authority environment. If so, the presence of Thomas-like logia within a Mark-dependent narrative makes good historical sense in a Jerusalem-oriented network that had early access to Mark but did not treat Mark as exhaustive. On that model, the second narrative reflects not diffuse tradition, but the integration of Mark with logia valued in a James-centered milieu—one that Matthew later inherits comfortably, even if Luke accesses it through different channels.

5. Matthew and Luke did not share a sayings gospel. Alongside Mark, they shared a second, Mark-dependent narrative that emerged shortly after Mark’s circulation in a Jerusalem-aligned, James-oriented milieu and integrated Thomas-like logia into a reworked Markan framework. Each evangelist also drew independently on different streams of Jesus logia derived from different teaching occasions attended by different hearers, explaining why many shared teachings show semantic agreement without verbal overlap (e.g., the Beatitudes, interpreting the times, the demand for signs). Near-verbatim Matthew–Luke agreement, by contrast (e.g., Jonah/Queen of the South; Brood of Vipers), derives from the shared narrative source, not from sermon memory or a sayings gospel. Matthew preserves the resulting tensions; Luke smooths them. Q is unnecessary.
6. I think we’re actually closer here than it may sound. I’m not arguing for a freely fluid Mark either. My point is that once we move away from a fluid-draft model, we still need to ask where the punctuations are and what they produce. Celsus is important precisely because he doesn’t describe slow drift; he describes the coexistence of contradictory narratives and subsequent apologetic revision. That presupposes multiple relatively stable forms existing side by side, not a single text gradually smoothing itself. My proposal is simply that one of those punctuations occurs very early, immediately downstream of Mark: a deliberate, Mark-aware narrative revision that circulates alongside Mark long enough to be independently accessed by Matthew and Luke. That punctuation does explanatory work—it accounts for near-verbatim Matt–Luke agreement against Mark, for coordinated relocation of Markan redaction, and for narrative-embedded material that cannot be explained by sayings transmission. A general appeal to punctuated equilibrium is helpful as a metaphor, but unless we can identify which punctuation explains which textual phenomena, it doesn’t yet explain why Matthew and Luke repeatedly converge on the same Mark-dependent alternative rather than on different ones.

In response to Stephen February 9, 2026 – 1:08 pm

That’s a fair quesiton Stephen, 

Farrer doesn’t explain why Luke would use Matthew as a source for most pericopes, but when it comes to Jairus and Levi the tax collector, Matthew is seemingly bypassed and Mark is used instead. Also, why do the Passion pericopes have virtually no agreements between the triumphal entry and the Great Commission? Some might argue Luke got copycat fatigue and just said, “F it, I’m just gonna do my own thing,” but if Luke is so lazy, why use Matthew and Mark at all, and not just Mark? If Luke is so lazy, why interweave his words into Mark’s and/or Matthew’s words? Why not just replace the sources wholesale, like John does with Luke or the Gospel of Peter does with Mark? If Luke is so lazy, why does Luke contain a sizable amount of pericopes that are clearly transformed versions of Mark?

The Centurion’s Servant is clearly a transformed version of Mark 7:24–29, Jesus Honors a Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith—but instead of a woman and her daughter, it’s a man and his male servant. A Woman with a Disabling Spirit is clearly a transformed version of Mark 3:1–6, A Man with a Withered Hand—but instead of a man inflicted with a medical disorder, it’s a woman. Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son is clearly a transformed version of Mark 5:21–43, Jesus Heals a Woman and Jairus’s Daughter—but with a mother instead of a father, and a son instead of a daughter. The Parable of the Rich Fool is clearly a transformed version of Mark 10:17–31, The Rich Young Man. Speaking of the Rich Young Man, the Rich Ruler is clearly a reworked version of the Rich Young Man. If Luke is so lazy, why is he reworking Markan pericopes and transforming them too? Or could it be that the Rich Ruler comes from Luke reworking Mark’s Rich Young Man, while the Rich Fool comes from a second narrative that transforms the Rich Young Man?

Sure, some of these transformed pericopes are shared between the two authors, but notice how Luke omits the Syrophoenician woman, just as he omits the feeding of the 4,000 and the blind healing with spit. Luke doesn’t always include pairs; there are times he picks one over the other. But the point of the matter is that there is another source. Matthew, on occasion, opts to keep both Mark’s version and the transformed version, such as the Syrophoenician woman and Matthew 8:5–13, The Faith of the Centurion, as well as the feedings of the 4,000 and the 5,000. But when Matthew opts not to keep both, he likes to consolidate. Matthew 9:27–31, Jesus Heals Two Blind Men, has Matthew consolidate two similar pericopes. Matthew 8:28–34, Jesus Heals Two Men with Demons, does the same.

Keeping this in mind, look at Luke 7:11–17, Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son; Luke 8:40–56, Jesus Heals a Woman and Jairus’s Daughter; Matthew 9:18–26, A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed; and Mark 5:21–43. Matthew’s and Luke’s Jairus stories have virtually no agreements, except “the fringe of” and “and when”—two things anyone reworking Mark could have inserted by coincidence. But what is not coincidence is Matthew’s ending to the Jairus pericope: “And the report of this went through all that district,” and Luke’s ending to the Widow’s Son: “And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.” So either Luke decided to bypass Matthew’s Jairus story, use Mark’s, rework it, take Matthew’s ending, and also create another transformed version of the Jairus story with that same ending—or Matthew and Luke both mined Mark and a second narrative, Matthew consolidated, and Luke kept both.

Speaking of consolidation, look at Luke 12:13–21, The Parable of the Rich Fool, and its ending: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Now look at Matthew 6:19–24, Lay Up Treasures in Heaven, and notice how it incorporates the ending of Luke’s Rich Fool and the ending of Luke’s Do Not Be Anxious. Either Luke arbitrarily split the beginning of Matthew’s Lay Up Treasures in Heaven, attaching one logion to his Rich Fool ending and a Thomas 76–like logion to his Do Not Be Anxious ending—or Matthew and Luke are working a shared source differently.

P.Oxy. 5575 gives credibility to Matthew and Luke working from a shared source. Some might argue that Do Not Be Anxious comes from a sayings source, and that P.Oxy. 5575 attests to that theory, but Do Not Be Anxious could not possibly be something the historical Jesus said, nor would oral tradition preserve it in the form we have in Matthew, Luke, or 5575. Thomas 36 gives us a clue as to how a logion like Do Not Be Anxious would have actually been conveyed and remembered by the historical Jesus.

P.Oxy. 5575 has the verified word “died” preceding the verified wording “be anxious about.” Luke 12:13–21, The Parable of the Rich Fool, precedes Luke’s Do Not Be Anxious, and that parable is about someone who dies. On top of that, The Parable of the Rich Fool contains logia similar to Thomas 72 and Thomas 63. Notice how Thomas 63 contains the word “died,” and how the parable itself seems like the origin of the Rich Young Man pericope. Seeing that the Parable of the Rich Fool ends with a logion about “laying up treasure,” and that the Rich Fool precedes Luke’s Do Not Be Anxious, and that the passage preceding Matthew’s Do Not Be Anxious also contains a logion about laying up treasure, it is reasonable to conclude that Matthew and Luke lifted Do Not Be Anxious from a source that also contained a preceding passage about laying up treasure—and that preceding passage must have been some form of the Rich Fool.

Also notice that P.Oxy. 5575 uses Matthew’s wording for the Do Not Be Anxious section. Additionally, notice how Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of Do Not Be Anxious differ in how they transition from “nor about your body, what you will put on” to “life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” Matthew uses “is not” to transition between these segments, while Luke uses “for.” This variation supports the idea that P.Oxy. 5575 is a fragment of a shared second narrative, and that the original version of Do Not Be Anxious likely had a Thomas 27–like fasting logion sandwiched somewhere between “body, what” and “birds.”

Also, if Luke copied Matthew, why didn’t he simply use Matthew’s superior ending instead of the Thomas 76–like logion—unless the original version Luke reworked already contained the Thomas 76–like logion?

I can go on and on and present much more evidence. I could talk about Matthew’s and Luke’s woes and how P.Oxy. 840 is likely a copy of the original source the two mined, which itself is a transformed version of Mark 7:1–13, Tradition and Commandments. That being said, if after all the evidence laid out here one still believes Farrer, then one still has the problem of Matthew’s second source. Once again, that leaves us at Q.

My model provides an explanation for how the second narrative came to be, how it entered circulation, and why Matthew and Luke do not always follow Mark. It also takes into account each author’s habits, values, and compositional practices.