It’s far more likely that Mark copied from earlier sources we don’t have now.  Probably written in languages other than Greek, so he was making them available to the increasing number of Christians who were never going to know Aramaic or Hebrew.  We must assume there were books written for the first Christians, who were mostly converted Jews (who still, in most cases, regarded themselves as Jewish, and Jesus as the Jewish Messiah).  

Scholars have many times disparaged Mark’s command of Greek–it possibly was not his first language (which does not prove he himself was Jewish).  Matthew and Luke have a far better command of Greek.  So we’re expected to believe Matthew was copying their language–and making it worse?  

They were copying him (and others) and polishing up the language–and (as they saw it) the story itself.  They admired what Mark had done but saw ample room for improvement, most of all in the way Mark’s Jesus seems so–human.  That seemd like a problem, because how could a mere man accomplish such feats, rise from the dead?  The further away they got from him, the more his humanity faded.  Nobody was left who had known him as a man, loved him as a man.  

Jesus gets more divine with each new gospel.  Mark’s Jesus is the most human.  Still pretty far from who Jesus was, I suspect.  But closer to the original.  

CRoldan said
Is it possible based on the evidence we possess today to make a good case that Mark actually copied from Matthew and simply condensed his account? If so what argument would that be? I am curious if their are scholars out there who hold such a view.   

Yes its possible to make a good case. The place to start is the order of stories in the synoptics. The later gospel writers (whoever they were) decided to sometimes rearrange the ordering of the stories they held in common. Luke’s ordering, particularly in the second half of his gospel, being the most unlike the other two.

The only re-ordering that could be made any sense would be if Mark wrote third and had access to Matthew and Luke. Any other placement of the gospels leads only to randomness of re-ordering.

Although Matthew and Mark either add or delete stories to the others gospel, the ordering of those stories they hold in common are the same from Matthew Ch14 to the end of his gospel and form Mark Ch6 to the end of his. (with 2 minor exceptions).

The differences in ordering between Matthew and Mark occur therefore only in the first third of Mark’s gospel, and is due almost certainly to the Sermon on the Mount. Either Matthew has added it and messed up the Mark’s order or Mark has deleted it and messed up Matthew’s order.

What we see at the beginning of Mark’s gospel is Mark following Luke’s order (with 1 minor exception) until we reach Luke’s version of the sermon on the mount. At this point in Luke we have just had the “Lord of the Sabbath” story and “the calling of 12”. This calling for Luke and Mark occuring on a mountain. Luke moves to the Sermon on plain/mount but Mark jumps to the corresponding position in Matthew’s gospel – “Jesus and Beelzebub”.

3 consecutive stories “Jesus calms the storm” “Demon possessed men” “Jesus raises dead girl” had been passed over in the skip from Luke to Matthew, but with this exception and the other 2 minor one’s, Mark follows Matthew’s order from here (Ch3) to the end of his gospel.

With Markan priority one cant make any sense of the re-ordering of stories.

Bren, you can say this as often as you like.  It’s not an argument.  It’s a defense mechanism.  

Because you haven’t made it an argument.  You just keep stating it, over and over again.  In and of itself, the ordering of stories in the gospels isn’t an argument for one of them being first.  If none of the gospel authors were present for all of any of these events (as is overwhelmingly likely) none of them would have known the correct order–and any of them might, for reasons of his own, have chosen to reorder them because he felt the story worked better that way.  NONE OF THEM are writing histories.  They are using stories, some of which clearly did not happen at all, to get across who they believed Jesus was, and what he was trying to get across with his deeds and words.  

When there are so many alternative explanations for Mark’s ordering of the narrative (like, for example, previous narratives he was translating from Aramaic and/or Hebrew), it’s not a compelling argument to say Matthew came first because his order matches Luke’s better.  Matthew and Luke probably had sources Mark didn’t have, like Q.  To some extent, any ordering is arbitrary, because  nobody was taking notes while Jesus was alive.  There wasn’t any established timeline.  Just a rough idea of what happened when, based largely on his location when it happened (or didn’t happen).  

Your problem is that you go into every argument determined to prove Matthew was first.  You are what used to be called a monomaniac on this subject, and I can’t remember you getting much involved in any other debate here, without the underlying agenda of looking for evidence Matthew was first.  

You won’t allow even the possibility that this isn’t true, which is absurd when hundreds (thousands) of people, all of whom are vastly better educated in this area than you, all of whom can read the texts in the original language (as you can’t) have said it isn’t.  

And this determination to prove one and only one thing, without the needed evidence to do so, warps every argument you make.

There is a very precise term referring to this methodology of yours.  It’s in Latin, which I assume you can’t read either (neither can I, though I took it in college).  

** you do not have permission to see this link **

Remember, for many generations, the assumption was that Matthew came first.  That wasn’t overturned on a whim.  It was overturned because the evidence pointed to Mark being first.  Not first in the sense that nobody had written about Jesus before.  First in the sense that other than Paul’s epistles (which largely assume the recipients already know Jesus’ story), and a few fragmentary references here and there, this is the earliest surviving work we have about Jesus.  

You can keep talking about ordering from now ’til Doomsday (which might not be so far off).  The consensus won’t change.  The only thing that stops you from being proven definitively wrong is the lack of sure evidence to prove beyond a doubt that anyone is right.  That and invincible skepticism, which is another logical fallacy.  

godspell said

Your arguments from order do not seem well-ordered to me.  They are not convincing in the least.  I don’t believe order of the stories IS the primary reason Mark is considered to be first, and that you are overemphasizing that because you haven’t much of anything else.

“The argument from order, as understood since K Lachmann, constitutes the main reason for positing Marcan priority” Frans Neirynck ‘Synoptic Problem’

“Meanwhile, it should be observed that it has been forty-seven years since Cambridge University Press, on the recommendation of Professor C.H. Dodd, published B.C. Butler’s book, The Originality of St. Matthew. It was this book which first established the point that Streeter’s argument from order was not valid. Since some form of the argument from order has been basic to confidence in Matthew’s and Luke’s dependence on Mark both in Germany and in the English-speaking world, and almost a half-century of research on the Synoptic Problem has produced no new arguments to support the Two Source Theory, the observation that “the Emperor has no clothes,” already being made, is likely to spread.” – William R. Farmer ** you do not have permission to see this link **

Imagine a new gospel was found which was identical to Matthew for the first half and identical to John for the second. The conclusion would not be that Matthew and John had both copied from this previously unknown gospel, one choosing to copy the first half and the other the second. The conclusion would be that the previously unknown gospel had copied Matthew for half its gospel before choosing to switch and copy John.

Well its the same form of argument for the above – Mark’s order matches Luke’s at the beginning before switching to follow Matthew til the end.