Stephen said
There’s almost nothing in Mark that’s not in Matthew – there’s nothing distinctive to Mark that can’t be found in Matthew. His gospel can be understand as a paring back of Matthew – take away everything from Matthew you think is only of concern to Jewish christians and not to gentile christians and you’ll get something close to Mark.

But Mark’s major theme is a redefinition of the nature of the Jewish messiah.  Certainly of concern to Jewish Christians. 

He is removing things of concern solely to Jewish christians. A redefinition of the messiah to more appeal to gentile christiains would be of concern to both jewish and gentile christians.

But without knowing Luke nothing odd about leaving out precisely the material that Matthew and  Luke have in common?

He did know Luke. But even so there’s nothing coincidental. Mark leaves about a third of what Matthew and Luke have in common. There’s no coincidence here but there is a question of why he left it out.

Only to those who knew both Matthew and Luke.  But Mark didn’t know Luke, right?  Anyway  Mark forecasts appearances  in Galilee and  includes no such appearances itself.    The  ending of Mark has been controversial ever since.           

Right, Mark is attempting to remove controversies between Matthew and Luke, that doesn’t mean he’s not creating any of his own.

Mark’s adding of dozens of incidental details are by definition non-controversial.

Except of course it mitigates against the idea that Mark was “paring  down”.

No it doesn’t. He’s paring down the controversies, incidental details are irrelevant to that endeavor.

But  Papias is not responding to claims Mark  left stuff out but  for being disorganized.    In  fact  Papias  claims  that  Mark  made  his  gospel as complete as he could make it.    Seeing  as how  the  gospel we have is  anything  but  disorganized  it’s not  at  all  clear  Papias  is  even  talking  about  our  Mark.

Its not clear whether its Peter’s teaching that weren’t in order or Mark’s written account.

But Papias’s defence of mark is that he only wrote down what he remembered hearing Peter say and nothing more. “For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.”

ie – don’t blame Mark for leaving out lots of beloved pericopes because he only wrote what he heard Peter say.

So how early are you dating the gospels?    

Matthew 40s, Luke 50s, Mark and John both around 60.

Hngerhman said
As I, a non-expert, understand it, it’s not so self-sealing as that. The scenario comparison is not unidimensional – Mark’s style in a vacuum, a blunt instrument to be wielded without regard for evidence – but is rather a relational/comparative one. Is it more likely that a writer B intervenes to make the language of a writer A better or worse during a copying exercise, especially when not changing it is the default option?  

If you found some long lost 19th century document that began

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that everyone should be treated like the same and stuff because everyone’s equal and the same”

what should the conclusion be? 

That obviously Lincoln had this document and fixed up the quality of writing at end for his own speech? Or, obviously some not particularly talented writer changed Lincoln’s original for some unknown reason?

Mark and Matthew share long word for word passages. What happened to Mark’s verbosity and careless word placement in these? Why don’t they need correcting? Isn’t the better explanation that for these passages Mark isn’t the author? And that the passages with careless word placement is where Mark, the less talented writer, is writing his own material?

Robert said

You just made up the bolded part. Matthew’s more concise revisionary style is apparent throughout the material he takes over from Mark.   

But you do accept there are some parts of Mark which don’t require revision by Matthew’s more concise style?

So we get two styles in Mark, one verbose and careless and requiring revision, and one not verbose and not careless and not requiring revision?

False dichotomy, most likely based on your lack of training in Greek and avoidance of scholarly literature studying Matthew and Luke’s use of Mark.

But you do accept that if Matthew had written first and Mark had decided to make changes here and there using his own verbose and careless style, Mark’s gospel would end up with the same characteristics as its currently observed to have?

Why do you keep avoiding this enormous amount of scholarship from the last hundred years? 

I’ve read streeter’s chapter on it in the four gospel’s and the evidence in Horae Synopticae, Mark goodacre’s fatigue in the synoptics. can’t read everything but I’m hardly avoiding it.

Robert said

No, I do not. You would have to demonstrate this to me. I have already referred you to works of Markan style that show this is a consistent trait of Mark’s Greek style throughout his entire gospel (not just “here and there” as you would like to believe), and which is consistently but variously revised by both Matthew and Luke. 

how about the calling of Matthew,

Mark 2:14-17 “As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. Follow me, Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 9:9-13 “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Why is Mark’s verbosity and careless word placement not evident and why is Matthew’s concise revisionary style not required?

Robert said
Your making my case for me! Matthew deletes the entire verse of Mk 2,13, the explanatory clause ‘for there were many who followed him’, the presence of the scribes, and the repetitive object of what the scribes and Pharisees saw, ie, ‘that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors’, and the unnecessary ‘to them’. All that was apparent even in your English translation. In the Greek, you can also see Matthew eliminating the historical present of γίνεται for the more formal aorist as well as the unnecessary ὅτι recitativum.

But there’s nothing wrong with 2:13 requiring Matthew’s revisionary concise style to correct. “for there were many who followed him” also doesn’t need removing. They’re not wordy or careless in word placement.

Where Mark says “scribes of the Pharisees” he is less wordy than Luke’s “The Pharisees and the scribes of them”.

There’s two interesting things about mark’s first repetition of “tax collectors and sinners”.

First Luke doesn’t have it either and second where Matthew twice, Mark twice and Luke once say “tax collectors and sinners” Mark’s additional use of the phrase unique to his gospel is “sinners and tax collectors”. Doesn’t this suggest two authors in Mark’s gospel?

So we have a pericope in Mark which doesn’t look particularly verbose or careless in word placement, and where the one place that looks like it may need correcting looks more like a secondary addition.