How is Matthew's Gospel different from Mark's Gospel?

Answer 1

Mark's Gospel differs from the other gospels, in that it appears to have been the first written record of the life and mission of Jesus. He was writing for an audience who had probably never heard of Jesus of Nazareth. This, combined with the fact that it was written some forty years after the events it describes, could have created some unique problems for its author. In all this time, little had been proclaimed about the founder of Christianity. Even the Apostle Paul seems not to have understood Jesus to have been a historical person who had died in the recent past.

This Gospel, unlike the later gospels, was careful to provide reasons for the lack of any prior record of the story of Jesus and the great miracles he performed. Usually, he says that Jesus was at pains to tell people he cured not to tell others who he was - a style that is not evident in the later gospels. Mark's Gospel originally ended at Mark 16:8, with the women troubled and amazed that Jesus seemed to have risen, but for those readers who could not accept the reality of Jesus' resurrection it did not press the issue further. The "Long Ending" (Mark 16:9-20) only appears in later manuscripts of the Gospel.

The later gospels used Mark's Gospel as their source for the life and mission of Jesus. Clearly, Mark's Gospel had begun to circulate widely in the Christian community and pehaps among those sympathetic to Christianity. So, the authors of Matthew and Luke could point to Mark if challenged to demonstrate any older evidence that proved the existence of Jesus or of the miracles he worked. The second evangelist, Matthew could assume that his audience accepted the existence of Jesus and of the miracles he performed, and focus on attempting to prove the Old Testament to have prophesied and foreshadowed the arrival of Jesus.

Answer

Mark wrote to reach the Romans with the Gospel message simply because they needed it as much as any other people. Jesus commanded that all nations be taught the news of whom He was and what He had done. The Romans had a significant presence in the area where Mark lived. The other writers of the Gospels were moved by the Spirit to write for different people groups.

Answer 2

• The Gospel of Mark was the first New Testament gospel to be written and is now known to have been the major source relied on by the authors of both Matthew and Luke.

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• Matthew and Luke also contain saying material taken from the hypothetical 'Q' document, but the author of Mark does not seem to have known of Q.

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• Mark was written approximately 70 CE, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, so the author knew of the destruction of the great buildings and seems to have believed that the whole world was about to end. So, in Mark we have Jesus prophesy the destruction of the great buildings, the end of the world and his own return on clouds with power and glory before the present generation had died (Mark chapter 13). By the time Matthewand then Luke were written, it was clear that the generation had passed but that Jesus had not returned, so they made important theological adjustments by saying that no one knows when Jesus will return.

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• Mark's Gospel is a significantly superior literary work to either Matthew or even Luke. As the first gospel, its author could decide what events would be described and in what sequence. He was able to write his Gospel as a parallel structure, a literary sequence in which an opening set of events is contrasted with another, parallel set of events that mirrors the first. The opening set begins with John explaining the coming of Jesus, followed by the baptism and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with Jesus predicting his death. The contrasting structure begins with the Transfiguration of Jesus and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with the crucifixion, followed by the young man explaining the departure of Jesus. Within these major milestones we find other pairs such as 9:1, in which he told the disciples that some of them would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God coming with power, and chapter 13 (previously mentioned), in which he described the end of the world and his second coming, on clouds of glory, within the lifetimes of some of those to whom he was speaking. The elaborations and changes made in Matthew and Lukebreak up this chiastic pattern.

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• Mark contains another important chiastic pattern covering the last 24 hours of the life of Jesus, which is broken up into eight segments, each of exactly three hours. In this case, the opening set begins on the evening of the Last Supper and ends with the trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. The second set begins with the trial before Pontius Pilate and ends on the evening of the crucifixion. The authors of Matthewand Luke were not aware of these patterns and although copying from Mark reasonably faithfully, they destroyed the patterns.

Answer 3

Scholars tell us that Matthew's Gospel was actually copied in large part from Mark's Gospel. Whenever the two gospels agree, they use almost exactly the same words in the Greek language, something that could not happen if the two authors were simply relying on a common oral tradition or even Aramaic source.

Matthew's Gospel differs from Mark in that it also contains sayings material believed to have been copied from the hypothetical 'Q' document, as well as some further material unique to Matthew. An interesting example is in the eight beatitudes in Matthew. Four of these are from the Q document, but four of them are unique to Matthew's Gospel. The four beatitudes in Matthew only can be found in various earlier sources. For example, Matthew's beatitude for the meek is likely to have been inspired by Psalm 37:11, especially given the author's frequent use of material from the Old Testament throughout the Gospel.

The best known material unique to Matthew's Gospel is the account of the nativity of Jesus, with the wise men visiting to worship the baby Jesus. John Shelby Spong (Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus) calls Matthew'sstory of the wise men, Christian midrash, and the almost universal assumption among biblical scholars is that there was no flight to Egypt and no Slaughter of the Innocent by King Herod.

A thematic difference between the two gospels is in Matthew's much greater use of the Old Testament, which the author sees as prefiguring the life and mission of Jesus.

In summary, Matthew's Gospel differs from Mark in its use of material from Q and other material unique to this gospel, and in its greater use of the Old Testament to prefigure the life and mission of Jesus.