This harmonization of the gospels destroys the gospels, as you're going to see. I've been teaching for 43 years. Lots of, I've had Catholic students at Notre Dame, I've had William and Mary, just average college students. And I've, yeah, I'll leave that up a minute. I'll keep talking. I've also had, uh, at UNC Charlotte. I mean, this is the South, where the Bible Belt tends to be. My students, you know, Christian backgrounds, they take my Christian Origins course, and my Gospel course, and my Life of Historical Jesus course. And a lot of them are pretty conservative, you know. And we don't have any problem with one another because I show them a way to read the text that they can then process and gain from, even if they hold faith presuppositions, approaches, convictions that I don't share, because that's not what the class is about. So today, when we go through this, it doesn't matter if you think the whole thing is mythology, or, you know, with no historical value, or you think it's the word of God. This will be valuable for you to understand something, maybe, about the text. And many of you might know some of this.

But now, here we have Kermit Zarly, my friend. I love Kermit Zarly. Look at him. A professional golfer, and he was in the, you know, the PGA, and some of the big golf tournaments. I think he's retired now. It's a wonderful Christian believer. And he wrote a book, what is that, '87, "The Gospels Are Interwoven." And he sent me a copy. And I'll have to tell you a story. I read it. I looked at it. And what he's done, he's taken Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and put them all together. At the end, we're going to show you some slides of what he does. Don't do those yet. Oh, I'm just showing the book. Yeah, the book's fine. And, uh, anyway, the idea is, I'm going to create one gospel. Everything that's in all four will be in my book. And guess what? He's right. It is. And guess what else is true? No Matthew, no Mark, no Luke, no John. You say, "Well, I thought you said everything was in there." But now they're like this. You see that? So where's Mark? Where's Matthew? Where's Luke? Where's John? It's become the Kermit Zarly Gospel. So I had a, had a kid with him. And I said, "Dear Kermit," I think I wrote him an email. And I said, "You have destroyed the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke no longer exist, and you've made a Kermit Zarly Gospel." Thank you, but it's not what we as historians study. Now, I understand there's a use for that. I would suggest this. I gotta see what you, I don't expect you to see this. But this is Gospel Parallels, Throckmorton. This is the Synoptics. This is what I use in my classes. Look it up. Throckmorton. Uh, there's a new edition. This is my old one. Or really, I've started to use this one. This is American Bible Society. I like the Revised Standard Version. It's just a little more literal. This has John as well. So take a look. I open it up. Now, that is not a harmony. You see the difference? That is getting all three or four across the page where you can do your own comparisons. And for those of you who study Greek, and some of you do, you can get Hook, which is the version that Throckmorton translates. So this is English. This is Greek. And sometimes you do need to go to the Greek to see what sort of editing was done. You see right there. And guess what? The numbers of the pericopes in Hook are the same as Throckmorton. So if you're going to really go deep, here's the spine of the book where you can see and write it down. Synopsis of the First Three Gospels. But I like the American Bible Society version. It's cheap. And why not throw John in? I think John knew Mark, and I think he knew the other Gospels. So anyway, so what we're going to do is talk about why that enterprise of Kermit Zarly, and others have tried this too, but Zarly does a really good job of destroying the Gospels. And I'm saying that in a friendly, facetious way, because I love Kermit, and I think there's a use for what he does, but it's not a historical critical use. And we will show that right away. That's what I wanted to do is let everybody know that when we get going, I really, really want to let everybody know. We'll get to your super chats after we get done with the presentation because I don't want to interrupt what you're doing. Um, it'll create a better question, I suspect, as well. So along the way, super chat, so you don't forget. And then when we get to the end, we'll get to your questions and have Q&A. But I'm excited about this as well. We had a dietetron in history at one point. The church wanted to create a, a unified message. They saw the problem. I think they saw the problem. So Kathy, thank you. Yesterday, Cresson, I'm taking off my watch, so don't worry about our time. Let's just, uh, let's get through the presentation. We've got 18 slides, and you'll get the bulk of it. And then any questions on the presentation, and hey, anything else in the universe? Okay, I'm going to listen to Dom's, uh, live yesterday. Oh my goodness. Uh, I take a walk every morning, a two-mile walk, and I finished it up this morning, uh, just as I was walking. And wow, just amazing. He is so fun. Are you ready to go, Derek? Should we just get going? I am. Yeah, let's do it. You're my students. Take some notes. Uh, if you know it, just check it off. Like, I know that, I know that, I know that.

So this is usually called the Two-Source Hypothesis. I don't, I can't show anything with my cursor, can I? Because it's your screen share. No. And I don't think I can either. I don't think we won't worry about it. I'll just describe what's going on here. So if you look at the top with the two big boxes, that's where they get the word "two sources." The idea of two sources. This goes back to the 1830s. A number of German and British scholars. Let's start with Mark. The idea that Mark wrote first, what we call the priority of Mark. It's a narrative account of the life of Jesus. Now, later, as we get into questions, let's talk about Mark and its provenance and when it was written and so forth. And here I agree with Crossan, and I don't think it has anything to do with Peter or Rome or anything like that. I think it is a product of the land of Israel, and I think it's very Pauline, extremely Pauline. Mark knows Paul, and it's kind of an anti-gospel, as we're going to see. Derek and I are working on a Mark course where I'll give this in great detail. But anyway, just look at the chart. So the idea of the two sources, which, as you can see, is really six sources. You see the blocks? Count them. I don't see, I don't see two. I see six. So let's call it the Six-Source Hypothesis. Okay. Makes more sense. Otherwise, it's confusing. But I'm calling it Two-Source because that's how everybody refers to it. So the idea would be, Mark wrote first and put together the Jesus story. Okay. Now, notice the line going down from Mark. There's two lines. One goes to Luke, one goes to Matthew. The dates are arbitrary. If you notice, scholars just go, "Oh, 70, 85, 95." You see what they're doing? Let's jump decades. We have no idea. But all of them seem to be either right around or certainly after the destruction of Jerusalem. That's our only peg. So Mark writes, and according to this hypothesis, Matthew is rewriting Mark as far as the story goes. Okay? In other words, he's got Mark. Got a copy on his desk. And he's going, "Oh, we've got this story, but I've got a lot of things about the story of Mark that I want to change and alter. Some things I'm just going to take out because I don't particularly want to include them. I'm going to add some things as well to Mark. And I'm also going to add my own material that Mark doesn't even know." Now, look over to the left of Matthew, the way I'm looking at the screen here. M. That's easy. Matthew. Matthew's own material. So everybody got that? So what is Matthew? Matthew is rewritten Mark's story plus his own material. But then we got, we have up at the top on the left, Q. I don't care if you call it Q. I'm going to call it in this presentation, the Sayings Source, or even the Double Source, because it turns out, here's a formal definition, that if you compare Matthew and Luke, and you take out the material that they did not get from Mark, which should be easy to do, right? You can read Matthew and go, "Oh, that's from Mark. That's from Mark." I can actually take this book and go through and wherever there's two columns, like right there, I have it marked. See? Two columns. No Mark. Luke and Matthew. I mean, this is just effect. It's there. So go back to my screen. You follow? So we call that Q. Q just means "fellow" in German, a source. So I'm going to call it the Sayings Source. Turns out it's mainly the teachings of Jesus. It's a lot like the Gospel of Thomas, not entirely, but 95% of it. It's about 60 pericopes of Jesus just talking. By the way, this is a little footnote. Whenever that movie was made, it's called "The Jesus Movie," and it claims to follow just the Gospel of Luke. The one evangelicals use. It has Brian Deacon, I think, as Jesus. Do you remember that one? So famous. It's the most produced Jesus movie ever. And when they, because they did Luke, haven't got to Luke yet, but it has all that Q sayings material. Nothing's happening. I'll show you that later. Like for nine chapters, nothing happens. And Luke just puts in Q, Q, Q, Q. So what are you going to do if you're producing a movie? Because there's no action, he's just talking. Oh, they have him up, up a hill, down a hill, sitting on a rock, sitting by a river, walking, talking, trying to get that sayings material in in a movie. So it doesn't work. So back to Q, or the Sayings Source. Luke has that as well. Okay. And Luke, uh, incorporates Mark's story. He has his own material, and he has a lot of material, much more than Matthew, that's L. Okay. So Luke is rewritten Mark with the Sayings Source put in, and his own material. Matthew is rewritten Mark with the sayings material put in, and his own material. So that's the hypothesis. It's a little complex. I make my students remember this. Q, or the sayings material, is the material that Matthew and Luke have in common that is not in Mark. Say that 20 times before you go to bed. Q. If you don't like people, go, "I don't believe in Q." Well, do you believe there's a two-source bulk of material that Matthew and Luke have in common? You have to believe that, because if you open up your a synopsis of the Gospels, anytime there's two columns, no Mark, we're calling that the Sayings Source. Okay? And just so, just so you know, Dr. Tabor, I just want to mention, we're not even getting into the whole, you know, FAR debate. That's not even the point of this episode. It's useful. And that has to do with what about like Mark Goodacre would be the best spokesman for FAR today. And that isn't, people say, "Is denying Q?" He's not denying that there's material that Matthew and Luke have in common that's not in Mark. Of course, he's not denying that, because it's right there. What he's saying is, was it a separate document that circulated? That's kind of the Q idea. I don't really care if it was or not. What I'm going to show you in just a few minutes is that Luke has a version of it that is less edited than Matthew, in my view, and I think it'll become your view when you see what happens. So Mark wrote first, the story. There is somehow a collection of the sayings of Jesus that Matthew and Luke incorporate. And then they both have their own material. So you see that there's three components. So Matthew is rewritten Mark plus sayings plus his own stuff. Luke is rewritten Mark plus sayings plus his own stuff. That's the theory. 95% of scholars agree with this. That does not make it right. I'm going to show you now what makes it right. In other words, there's a reason they just, they agree. Dale Allison, Bart Ehrman, Paula Fredriksen, Dom Crossan, these are smart people. They all see this as a good working hypothesis. Here's why. See, people never look at the details. Here's why.

Okay, slide two. Okay, this is where it's gonna get tricky because if I do the slides, you won't be able to see it. Can you make it any bigger? Or maybe people can make their screen bigger on their computer? Ah, let me try this. So I did something. I zoomed it in. See if this is better. Yeah, I'll just scroll across. Yeah, I'll just go across. Yeah, that's better. Okay. Okay, that's perfect, Derek. Thank you. Uh, do you remember, uh, is this name DJ Wilkins in the chat yesterday? Yeah, he emailed me today. He was asking about composite quotations. Yep. I didn't put this in for that, but it's very interesting to pick up on his point. Here you have the opening of Mark. And he says, "That is, I'm skipping the first verse for now. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet." And then he quotes Malachi. Whoa. This is not given. "Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare the way." And then verse three, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." Hmm. What are we going to do there? Then we got John the Baptist appears, and how he looks and so forth. Okay, go over to Matthew. Here's the hypothesis. Matthew's rewriting Mark. Okay? I've got Mark. I'm going to rewrite it. So he says, uh, uh, verse three, "For this is he who is spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord." Wait a minute. Malachi disappeared. That's called rewriting Mark. He's correcting him. He does it a number of times. Now, he puts, he likes the verse, but he puts it in later. You go look it up. It's in Matthew later. He quotes Malachi, but he's not going to say, but notice how carefully he's rereading Mark. Why didn't he say, "As it is written in the prophet Malachi and Isaiah"? And then leave it. That's not the way he works. He's actually sort of conservative. Do you see that? Yeah, like Mark said Isaiah, so I'll give you Isaiah. I won't give you Malachi. No, let's have our imaginary biblical inerrant person, and they're going to harmonize. Well, if you're harmonized, you got to have both, because Mark has Malachi, and you almost need to add Malachi, even though it's not there. But if we're harmonized, we cannot add to the word of God. So it's going to be kind of wrong because it's so. So what are they doing? This is called composite quotations, which Wilkins was talking about, and he was picking up on the studies that you talked about yesterday. So why are these so interesting? Because what they're doing is rabbinic. What connects those two? Go back. The way. Prepare it. Okay, prepare the way. Prepare the way. I got two verses. Prepare the way. Isaiah talked about it. You see that? And basically, you connect them. Uh, but I just want you to see how Matthew corrects Mark, and it does not go the other way. Like, there's no, to me, it's illogical to say Matthew wrote first. We got our Matthew priority people, and then Mark is so stupid that he goes, "I'm going to rewrite Matthew, and I'm going to add a verse that's not even in Isaiah, which will be like, wrong." You see? In other words, it always goes the way of the correction. So follow the correction, or this, or the shortening, or the summary, as we'll see.

Next slide. All right, next pick. I gotta. Yeah, that's gonna work good for you to just enlarge them. I think that's what I'm going to do. I have to close each one and then boom. We'll go as fast as we can because I know. So go back to Mark is always on the left. So go to Mark. Okay, here's the baptism of Jesus. Amazing. Notice how you can already see Matthew there in the picture. Do you see some stuff added? Or do you see some stuff taken away? You see the point? If Matthew wrote first, then Mark is giving a short version, quick story. I'm a kid, 12 years old, got baptized in the Churches of Christ. I'm going to read my New Testament. Got it. So I read Matthew. I made it through Matthew. Wow. I'm such a good boy. And then I get to, uh, Mark, second. Remember Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. And I go, "Like, I've already read this. I read Matthew. I was a good boy. And now I'm ready Mark." Mark's just like a kind of a shortened, you know, like a summary of Matthew. But Matthew's the main thing, right? Wrong. I didn't know then. If you get to Luke, it's like, "Well, this is kind of repeating Matthew, and I kind of read it, but there's other stuff." And then I get to John. This is wholly different. The experience of the average person reading the Gospels. But if you look at the, I'm, I don't like the word "critically." Critically is okay, but most people think critically is like, "pick away, pick away." No, carefully. I tell my students, we're not reading critically, we're reading carefully. Big difference. You know, it has a different tone to it. Like, if you ask anyone, "Should I read Mark and Matthew carefully?" Absolutely. The most liberal scholar reads it carefully. The most conservative scholar reads it carefully. Let's read it carefully. Well, let's read it. When Jesus is baptized, the heavens open, the spirit descends like a dove, a voice comes from heaven. "Since you can highlight, you are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased." Personal message to Jesus. You said, "Well, others could hear it?" No, Mark is Mark. I'm just reading Mark. I don't know if anybody else could hear it. I think it's a self-disclosure to Jesus. Now, flip over to Matthew. Move it over just a little bit. Oh, wait a minute. If Jesus is baptized, and he's baptizing for their mission of sins, before I copy Mark, which I'm gonna do, I have better explain why he's even getting baptized, because Mark doesn't even tell you that he's not a sinner. So I got to have this little objection. And then finally, he goes back. "Heavens were opened." You can see he's following Mark perfectly. Spirit descending like a dove. The Greek is word for word the same. And lo, a voice came. Whoa. Wait a minute. Derek, highlight that last verse. The voice. Oh, sorry, sorry. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Loudspeaker from heaven. Everybody hears it. Our buddy Kermit, what is he gonna do here? Remember, we want everything. We're gonna create a new gospel. It's gonna be a fifth gospel that we're gonna make from these three. You see what's happening? If we put them together, I think the voice has to say to Jesus, "Here, my beloved Son." He's my beloved Son. Hey, what gospel says that? No, none of them. So you've created a gospel. Now, I want to read all of Mark's work. When, when people hear this course, it's going to blow them away because we're going to do just Mark. And later, Derek, let's do just Matthew, just Luke, and just John. Okay, this is the introduction. Go to Luke. So Mark has an object. Look what Luke does. He doesn't even have the baptism of Jesus. Notice first, Jesus is baptized, and he, he's told by God who he is. Mark is like, Matthew's like, "Yeah, he was baptized, but it didn't really matter because he didn't need it." And Luke is like, "When all the people were baptized, and Jesus is baptized, and was praying." You see, there's, I don't say he wasn't baptized. What I'm saying, he is baptized, but he's praying, meaning he's disassociating it from John. It's not like John had his hands on him and he got the big revelation either. The loudspeaker or the personal. This is more like, "By the way, Jesus was baptized. John was baptizing people. Jesus is baptized. And, you know, once he was praying." Well, it doesn't say he was praying. When was he praying? He also had been baptized. This could have been later, up on a hillside, by a rock. You see the point? So now he's getting the personal disclosure, according to Luke. Now, you can't harmonize that. If you put all three together, and I didn't put John, forget John for today. But John doesn't even have him baptized. He just says, "The one on whom I saw the Spirit descend." But it doesn't say when he was baptized. Never mentions baptism. See what's happening? So we gotta have all three. We got to take each one individually.

Next slide. We're going to go as fast as we can because this could take a while. My courses are an hour and a half normally. Okay, now what do you see immediately here? Or what don't you see? No Mark. No, it's not because I didn't include it. It's because it doesn't exist. And you can kind of center this one a little bit where they can see both at once. It's word for word the same in Greek and in English. Yeah, there you go. And this is shows you how consistent the two sources are without Mark. This is the sayings stuff. It's got a little bit of narrative in it. It's got to have a little narrative. He can't just not say who's talking. So it introduces John. But notice, if Luke begins, he's, he's talking to the multitudes. And Matthew has him talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees. So that's your first occurrence of the so-called two source. Very early on. And so both Matthew and Luke put it right after the baptism. It's part of John the Baptist preaching. Just want you to see that where you can see how much they agree. Sometimes they seem to be getting it maybe from each other, if that's possible. I think that would be the FAR hypothesis. Or maybe there was a, a source external that they're relying upon. Okay. Next. I shouldn't have told you how many slides. They'll start counting them. It's like my students do. Okay, here again, what do you see here? Two sources. Two sources. Uh, see if you can. Well, let's just, uh, everybody know this is Luke's blessings. "Blessed are you poor, yours is the kingdom. Blessed are you that hunger. Now, blessed are you that weep now. Blessed are you when men hate you and exclude you and so forth." So basically, it's four blessings: the poor, the hungry, the ones weeping, and the ones persecuted. You got that? Go over to Matthew. Matthew, I believe, is taking Luke and expanding it. And this is the version everybody knows, the so-called Beatitudes. But notice how it is quite a bit different. "Blessed are you poor" becomes "poor in spirit." "Blessed are you that mourn" that could be about the same. "Hunger and thirst is after righteousness." Now, see how it's being spiritualized more. Uh, and "blessed are the people." I wonder if there's like some rich people behind this gospel going, "Yeah, I don't know about this." Yeah, it could be. You're gonna see. So here's the two sources again. Call it Q. Call it whatever. You don't care what you call it. They're right there. You can read them and you can see. Now, they're different. I believe that Luke has priority in terms of following this two source. Now, he's written later, but I think one of his reasons for writing is he wanted to preserve more the original version of the two source that he had. And Matthew is adapting it. Now, I'll show you more examples of that. Go ahead. Next. And again, let me just add, if I put them all together, what have I got? It doesn't even make sense. "Blessed are you poor, and also if you're poor in spirit, you're you're good too." "Blessed are you." You see, it's just, you know, come on. Let's be real here. Hey, just, just want to say thank you for the super chats. We are going to get to them at the end of this. We're going to get to donation. Yes. I just knew people were popping in. New people popping in. All right. Don't believe guys. Don't leave.

Notice Luke though adds this, which Matthew doesn't have. Remember we had four blessings: rich, hunger, mourning, and persecuted. And he does three. Whoa. He does four woes. They exactly match the blessings. Was that in the original two source? Maybe. Or Luke might have made it up. Who knows? But again, if you put all these together like Kermit does, my good friend, who I care about and love, and he's a good guy, and I'm glad he did what he did, or I can talk about it. Uh, now, where's Matthew? Where's Luke? You've lost it. You say, "Well, you got it." No, you don't. You've lost it. It's gone. You have, you don't have that distinctive. Look at the power of Luke. "Bless, bless, bless, bless. Curse, curse, curse, curse." It's got a real drum beat to it, doesn't it? Did he do that? I don't know if he did it. Did his source do it? But it's very different from Matthew. Matthew rolls. It's liturgical. Matthew sounds like he'd say it in church. And guess what? If you've ever heard it quoted in church, I guarantee you've never heard Luke's version quoted. So it worked. It rolls off your tongue. "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger." See, not making fun of him. I'm just saying it's different. Next. Derek's pretty good at this. I'm trying.

Okay, my favorite. Talk about the Lord's Prayer. Let's all say the Lord's Prayer together. "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." Look at Luke. "When you pray, say, 'Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive others. And lead us not into temptation.'" Staccato, staccato, right? Four petitions. Go to Matthew. That's the liturgical version. Now, if you got a King James Bible, which I happen to have right here, look up Luke. You know what they did? The scribes of the King James. Don't pull it up. You don't have to pull it up. Just look on your own. They put Matthew's version of the prayer into Luke because people would be so disturbed. "That's not the Lord's Prayer." I think this was the original prayer. I think Matthew's expanding it. Now, if I put them together, what do I have? You see, the expanded version is always going to trump, to use a word that's been kind of changed in our culture today, it's going to trump or triumph over the short version because you're adding all the stuff. Just like the baptism scene, Luke doesn't have Jesus objecting. I mean, John objecting to Jesus being baptized, but Matthew does. So you see the additions are gonna literally drown the original. So you don't get the original if this is original. It's certainly original. It's Luke. Okay. By the way, "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen." It's not even in the RSV or any modern translation because it is only in the late manuscripts. But do you see how liturgical that is? That's why people have remembered it. Nothing wrong with that. But why would you not want to notice the difference? I sort of like Luke's prayer. But anyway, by the way, I think John the Baptist taught this prayer to his disciples. That's what it says. "Luke, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." And he goes, "Well, when you pray, say this." Okay. Interesting. Okay. And by the way, Luke's prayer could be said in any synagogue today. Matthew's prayer could be said in any synagogue today. Talk about Jewish. What is there about the Lord's Prayer that's Christian? The way people use the term.

Now, this is my favorite. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Does that sound like John Kennedy? You understand the rhythm I'm talking about? Yes. "Whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." It's called rhetoric. Now, there's a voice here. Notice the "yes." The rhetorical "yes." Okay. Hate. I'm in Sunday school, third grade, maybe. Teacher, "Did Jesus say we should hate our father, mother, brother, sister?" "No, Jimmy." Dan was my name. "No, Jimmy, he said we should love them less than God." "Oh, I thought he said we had to hate them." Go to the next. Go to Matthew. You think we had that problem in the modern world? They had the problem. Look what Matthew does. "And you cannot." Go from Matthew back to Luke. Because Luke's the problem. "Hate." I've heard people. I remember my Sunday school teacher went, "Well, hate in Greek doesn't mean hate." "Miss, oh yes, it does." "What do you mean it does?" "What they didn't have a word for hate. It means to test, hate, cast aside. It's called hyperbole." Now, does it mean love less? Probably. I agree with Matthew's interpretation. I think that's what it meant. But in Luke's original version, Jesus never lets up. In Q, he hits you like this. "You want to follow me? Hate your family. Leave your family. Hate them. Go." "You mean like love them less?" "Okay." He doesn't let you off the hook. You got to go figure that out. Now, look at Matthew. This is the exact passage. "He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy." You see, you've lost the rhetoric. You've lost the tone. You remember how I read the first one in Luke? It had that feel of an oral presentation. Is it from Jesus? Or is it the writer of the Sayings Source having a more original version? I don't know who to credit it to, but it's rhetorical. This is not rhetorical. This is explanatory. If you read Luke and go to Matthew, it's like Matthew's going, "This is what he meant." You see the difference? Luke is what he said. Sunday school answer: "Here's what he meant." Now, you tell me the Gospels are the same. Come on. They're not the same. He's telling you what it means, but he's not giving you what he what he said. He's making it easy for you. And I think he's probably right. That's probably what it means. I mean, he doesn't mean you should detest your parents. One of the commandments is love your parents. Next.

This one's even better. That's one of my favorites. But this is even better. You see why my students have fun. "Scribe came up and said, 'Teacher, I will.'" No, that there's, I didn't know the order of them. This is good, but it wasn't what I was talking about. "'Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go.' And Jesus said, 'Foxes have holes, birds of the earth have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.' And another guy said, 'I got to bury my father.' And he says, 'Follow me. Let the dead bury their dead.'" More demands of following Jesus. Okay, look at Luke. I think Luke is original, by the way. Why did I switch these? Because I want you to see that that does not come out. See verse 61 that I highlighted in green? That doesn't come out as Q. You see why? Because it's the material they have in common. Well, 61 is not in Matthew. It's a third example. So did Luke just say, "Oh, I've got a third one. I'm going to add it"? Just like he added those woes that Matthew didn't have? I don't think so. But it's open. So Luke has, "Well, I gotta go home and tell my family. Bye." "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom." My theory is, we would flip those around. Luke has three, uh, questionings. And Matthew goes, and he does this at least 10 times. He shortens it because it's like, "Have you got the point yet?" You see the idea? As if two guys come and they're both told, you know, "Foxes have holes," and "I gotta bury my father," and so forth. Why do you need a third? Okay. Next. So once again, I think Matthew is editing the Sayings Source. This is probably the one I was thinking. Yep. This is it. Now, you talk about rhetorical. Derek, I'm going to have you read this with your JFK voice. Go ahead. Well, put your power in it. "Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, no." Pause. "I'm going to teach you rhetoric." Say it again, but pause after your question. "They got a thing. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two, two against three. They will be divided." You just, "Father, again, why are you repeating that?" Go ahead. "Father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." It's hard to read on one breath. It is very redundant. Like I tell you, "No division." "They will be divided, and they will be divided." He says again. This is rhetoric. If I'm speaking as a public speaker, we naturally do this. I say, "I'm going to drill home this point, and I'm going to make it plain, and I'm going to repeat it, and I'm going to push it so you'll get it." I said, "Why didn't you just say you're going to really make your point?" Because I want you to feel the rhetoric. Okay. Now, what did that mean? Matthew is the cliff notes. Go over. What, what did Jesus just say? Luke is what he said. Matthew's like, "What did he mean?" "Do you think?" "No, I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. Do you think?" "No, I'm cutting to the chase. Don't think I've come to bring peace. I've not come to bring peace, but a sword. I've come to set a man against his father, a daughter against their mother, a daughter-in-law against their mother-in-law, and a man's foes will be those of his household." Do I need to name every other relationship in the family until I'm out of breath? No, you got the point. See, see what he's doing? Now, who's editing whom? You know, if you think Matthew is prior, then you're gonna go, "Oh, Luke, boy, he turns this dry kind of explanatory stuff into this powerful rhetoric." Maybe. But wait, because I'll show you that it definitely is not going that direction. Luke is preserving a more original version, whether it goes to Jesus or not is a question, but that's not what we're talking about. You see the idea, though? Matthew is always shortening it and telling you what the point is. Luke is giving you the saying, and you got to figure out the point. There's Luke is a big question mark. Okay. Next.

That was all the Two-Source stuff. Now let's do Mark. I think Mark is next. There might be one more. No, there's one more of those. Okay, just the part that I have highlighted because we, we want to move ahead. I tell you, my friends, this is Luke. "Do not fear those who kill the body and after that no more have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who after he's killed has power to cast into hell." That's Gehenna. "Yes, I tell you, fear him." He already said, "Fear him." Why are you saying at the end? "Yes, I tell you, fear him." No, you say to me, Derek, "What did he just say?" Go over to Matthew. It's almost comical. He said, "Don't fear those who killed the body but can't kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy soul and body in hell." You see that's what he said. Well, that is what he said, but it's not what he said. Said it's what he, Matt said. So you see what's happening. Now, did you notice all four of those examples? The same process is going on. Shorten, abbreviate, summarize, soften the blow. What does hate mean? Well, don't even use hate. Just say it means love less than God. Well, let's go ahead and interpret it. Okay. So Luke is raw sayings. Matthew's interpreted theologically. It's not bad. Every Sunday school teacher does Matthew, whether they're conscious of it or not. "What did he mean by that?" Okay. Next.

I think we're finally going to get to Mark, and we'll be able to wind this up pretty quick. Whoo. These are thick. Now, this is a story. Don't look at Matthew. You're going to have to go to Mark. And are you able to stretch Mark at all? We're just gonna have to describe this to people. You want me to like zoom in more? Yeah. And Mark, though, I'm not gonna read it all. Yeah, pull over it. Yeah, you can see how long it is. You look it up and, and you'll have the recording of this, all of you, and you can look it up yourself. Anyway, I'm not gonna read it all, but it's basically a very elaborate story about a paralyzed guy. They're in Capernaum. Uh, they take the roof off the room where Jesus is because it's so crowded, they can't get into him. They remove the roof. It's like a thatch roof with mud. We show you examples of that when we go to Israel. They let the guy down on a pallet. It even says, I think it even maybe says how many men. I'm not sure. Anyway, the whole controversy is, how can he forgive sins? Because Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven." How can he forgive sins? Is he claiming to be God? And then go on down. You see how long Mark is? I want you to mainly see the length so you can zoom back out again. Zoom back out where they can see the link, the length. Now, Luke doesn't matter here because he follows Mark almost visually. Can you see what I'm saying here? That Luke is basically keeping Mark. He's conservative. If he doesn't have a problem with Mark, he just puts it all in. Now, look at Matthew. Remember we said Matthew shortens, abbreviates, and it's almost like Matthew's saying, "Get to the point, get to the point." Well, what's the point? The point is not like how the guy got there. Did they take off the roof? Was it hard? Nothing. It's just like, "Look, let me read it to you. And behold, they brought to him a paralytic." What? Like, no circumstances. Yeah, right. What is he on the road? Or what? Doesn't even say they're in a house. "Take, son, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven." "Oh, how can he forgive sins?" Well, "I can say, rise up and walk, that you may know the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. Take up your bed and walk." He rose and went home. Totally, totally different story, and totally the same story. Why? Because for Matthew, the point is Jesus has the authority to forgive sins and heal. Well, that's also Mark's point. But for Matthew, he doesn't need all that details because he just wants to slam home the point. We saw him do it with the Two-Source too. It does the same thing. Next.

Okay, this is my favorite of the comparisons. Picking grain on the Sabbath. This is dynamite. Again, it's small print, so I'm going to summarize it. You can make Mark a little bigger and move it over, maybe just a little bit, where they can see it. Many people will know this story. "One Sabbath they're going through the grain fields, they begin pluck ears of grain." We won't talk about how is that a violation of Jewish law or is it or whatever. Anyway, "And the Pharisees accused Jesus, 'Why are your disciples doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?' That is, work, threshing, right? Or not preparing your meal ahead, which you're also supposed to do." And he goes, "Well, uh, you hadn't read about David? He was hungry, and we're hungry, and he entered the house of God when Abathar was high priest." By the way, Abathar wasn't high priest, it was Abimelech. But hold that, like, Malachi and Isaiah. And he ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priest to eat. If you go back and look in the Torah, it's a severe penalty for eating the bread of the presence. You're going to be cut off from the people. Only priests can eat that. David's not a priest. He goes in and eats it and gives it to his men. Running from Saul. And then he said, "The Sabbath was made for humans." I'm going to say humans, not man, for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath." Let me paraphrase Mark in my own words. Laws are for people. People aren't for laws. So you need to decide if you have a law like, "Keep the Sabbath." What does that mean? Just keep in mind it's for human good. God didn't create the law and then make a world. He created a world and then gave teachings. That's called situational ethics. Derek, you're familiar with it, right? Anne Frank is in the attic. The Nazis are knocking on the door. The neighbors said, "You had Jews hidden in your attic." "Oh, yes, I cannot tell a lie. They're upstairs." "Sorry, I'm an honest person." Or do you say, "What are you talking about? I don't even like Jews. I would never even let a Jew in my house. You got the wrong house." Did, is that okay to lie? I would say it's not only okay, it's ethically required of you to lie. Okay. This is not that extreme. But what he's saying is, judge a law by the situation. Go over to Matthew. Changes this. This really bothers Matthew. Because if you leave, by the way, notice it. Go to all the way to the bottom. All right. All the way to the bottom. "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Wait a minute. Verse 8. I thought he said, "Laws are for people. People aren't for laws." Oh, that's gone now. And now let's change the meaning of the whole thing. Why was it okay for Jesus and his disciples to eat the grain picked on the Sabbath? And if you read Matthew, you know what the answer is. It's not that laws are for people. It's because of who Jesus was. So what does he add? He has the David thing. It's basically like, "David broke the law, so I'm breaking the law. Go figure that out." That's Mark. Sorry to create a problem, but, you know, if you have any spirituality, you'll probably figure it out. What, but he did break the law. David broke the law, and he was okay. Okay. Now look what Matthew does. He has David breaking the law, but then verse 5. Look at verse 5. Highlight that verse. Five. Or, "Or have you not read in the law how the priests on the Sabbath profane the Sabbath?" Mark doesn't have that. Matthew's adding it. This is rewritten Mark. So what is he saying? He says, "I got a better reason. I know you had your reason, but that's a little dangerous. You're going to have people deciding how to keep the law on their own. Do you really want that?" I think the real reason was how great Jesus is. I'm going to ask you, "Why can the priests work hard on the Sabbath?" "Because they're serving the temple." So it's allowed. "Well, I'm greater than the temple." So they're allowed to serve me. The whole pericope switches. Do you see that? It switches from "Laws are for people, people aren't for laws" to "Jesus is greater than the temple, so he can do whatever what he damn wants to do because he's basically God or certainly the Son of God." You see the idea? Yeah. Now, could you go from Matthew to Luke? Mark? I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, you can make that argument, but it doesn't work for me. Uh, Luke actually, uh, go ahead with Luke. He also has a problem. He, he doesn't add the temple stuff and all that. That's too much. He's not going to add that. And I think Luke has Matthew. Matthew wrote first. I think Luke sees the day. I saw what Matthew did. I'm not going to go that far. But I do like that "Lord of the Sabbath" thing. And I am going to take out that "laws are for people, people aren't for laws." I'm paraphrasing them. You get my point. I'm taking that thing out because I don't know. You let people decide their own ethics, where you could end up with some real problems. Mark is like.

Okay, I think we're finally going to get to Mark, and we'll be able to wind this up pretty quick. Whoo. These are thick. Now, this is a story. Don't look at Matthew. You're going to have to go to Mark. And are you able to stretch Mark at all? We're just gonna have to describe this to people. You want me to like zoom in more? Yeah. And Mark, though, I'm not gonna read it all. Yeah, pull over it. Yeah, you can see how long it is. You look it up and, and you'll have the recording of this, all of you, and you can look it up yourself. Anyway, I'm not gonna read it all, but it's basically a very elaborate story about a paralyzed guy. They're in Capernaum. Uh, they take the roof off the room where Jesus is because it's so crowded, they can't get into him. They remove the roof. It's like a thatch roof with mud. We show you examples of that when we go to Israel. They let the guy down on a pallet. It even says, I think it even maybe says how many men. I'm not sure. Anyway, the whole controversy is, how can he forgive sins? Because Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven." How can he forgive sins? Is he claiming to be God? And then go on down. You see how long Mark is? I want you to mainly see the length so you can zoom back out again. Zoom back out where they can see the link, the length. Now, Luke doesn't matter here because he follows Mark almost visually. Can you see what I'm saying here? That Luke is basically keeping Mark. He's conservative. If he doesn't have a problem with Mark, he just puts it all in. Now, look at Matthew. Remember we said Matthew shortens, abbreviates, and it's almost like Matthew's saying, "Get to the point, get to the point." Well, what's the point? The point is not like how the guy got there. Did they take off the roof? Was it hard? Nothing. It's just like, "Look, let me read it to you. And behold, they brought to him a paralytic." What? Like, no circumstances. Yeah, right. What is he on the road? Or what? Doesn't even say they're in a house. "Take, son, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven." "Oh, how can he forgive sins?" Well, "I can say, rise up and walk, that you may know the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. Take up your bed and walk." He rose and went home. Totally, totally different story, and totally the same story. Why? Because for Matthew, the point is Jesus has the authority to forgive sins and heal. Well, that's also Mark's point. But for Matthew, he doesn't need all that details because he just wants to slam home the point. We saw him do it with the Two-Source too. It does the same thing. Next.

Fine. It's kind of like Paul. Mark is a lot like Paul. Remember some of Paul's things where he would say, uh, he would quote something really radical and then the Corinthians would go too far with it, and he'd go like, "Oh yeah, I said that, but like I didn't mean that." You know, like, "Eat what is set before you asking no questions." And then they're going to the pagan temple, eating sacrifices to Athena, and he goes, "Oh, well, yeah, generally you can, but don't go to the temple and do it and sit at the table because that's, you could be a demon there or something." You see? So it's sort of like that. It's like Mark is dangerous. He, Paul was dangerous. Meaning Paul figures if you have the spirit, you'll figure it out, right?

Okay, next. Now, by the way, Derek, we always want to remember, what if we try to harmonize those three? Whoa. First of all, it won't even make any sense. Secondly, Matthew will triumph because he's added stuff that changes everything. So that's going to take precedence. Oh, this is a great one. I say they're all my favorites. I guess they're all my favorites. Peter confesses Jesus finally. Uh, I meant to put Mark first. Go over to Mark first. Um, "Who do you, who do people say that I am?" Verse 29, Peter says, "You're the Christ." He charged them to tell no one. "I began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer and so forth." Uh, verse 32, "He said this plainly." And Peter took him again to rebuke him. And turning to his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan."

Okay, go back to Matthew. Okay, Matthew has all that, but before that, he puts a blessing on Peter. Now, that's a look. If you just read Mark, Peter has no idea what it means to be the Christ. He totally misunderstands, as the disciples do all through Mark. The disciples never understand. But Matthew is like, "But yeah, later, didn't Peter become kind of the foundation of the whole 12 and so forth?" And even though James is the leader, he's headed the 12. So he's also blessed, right? So I'm going to put that in. So that people, I'm gonna put the rebuke. You know, he's not going to take out the rebuke. So he doesn't take out the rebuke. Uh, if you go on reading, it does have the rebuke. But if you bless the guy before you rebuke him, you see what it does to the flow of the passage. Once again, what direction does it go? We always start with the problem, and then you get the softened version. So Matthew's the softened version.

Next. We're almost done, and then we can do your super chats or any kind of questions on the universe, for that matter. Ah, this is a good one, and we don't even have to read this much. It's just funny, really. Uh, there are three predictions of Jesus' suffering, three times the disciples misunderstand, and three times Jesus teaches them about following. "Take up your cross." "I'm going to suffer." Mark 8, Mark 9, Mark 10. Matthew has to rewrite that. He already saw what he did with Peter being rebuked. Oh yeah, but he blessed him too. Okay, maybe. But not in Mark. He doesn't. Never blesses him. Okay. What does Matthew do? Go ahead. Oh, two disciples come up. I'm sorry, sons of Zebedee. And in Mark, we didn't, I didn't even point that out. And their misunderstanding is, uh, he's been talking about suffering right before, like, "I'm gonna die and bleed and they're gonna spit on me and, you know, I'm gonna be crucified." And they go like, "We had a question, Master. Good. Like, my brother and I be like on your right and left hand in the kingdom?" Like, "I know you're gonna suffer, but like, when we get to the power and glory, I just want to check ahead." You see? Mark is making you laugh at him, not laugh, but like cry, probably. He's, you know, like, "Oh my God." Okay, look at Matthew. The mother comes and asks. The Jewish mother. Oh, so they didn't really fail. It was the ambitious mother wanting to put her sons forward. Now, if I harmonize, then it's the mother. And then when the mother asks, they'd chime in and go, "Yeah, yeah, we want to be first and second." You see that? Yeah.

Now, I didn't put Luke in. You know why? He just takes the whole thing out. Luke is hilarious. He's just like, "I'm not dealing with any failure." He doesn't even have the story. But it's in his Mark. Now, if he only did it once, that's fine. But Luke does it every time. Every time he takes it out. Do you think he has the rebuke of Peter? I didn't mention that. Jesus rebukes Peter. You think Luke has that? Not there. Look it up in Luke.

Okay, next. And this is why we think Mark has priority. Wrote first. Okay. This is, this is amazing. The great commandment in Mark 12. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Love the Lord with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself." As the second. Notice this is a scribe who answers well. Who says, when Jesus is asked, "What is the great commandment?" He says, "You are a right teacher." Look at verse 32. "You are right teacher. If you could highlight that for people, you've truly said that he is one. God is one. There's no other. Love him with all the heart, all the understanding, all the strength. Love one's neighbor as yourself. It's much more than all her whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said, "You're not far from the kingdom of God." And after that, no one dared ask him any question. This is the only guy commended in the entire Gospel of Mark for understanding what the kingdom is all about. Remember, in Mark, the kingdom's a secret, right? He tells the disciples, "For you is revealed the secret." But they never got it. He gets exasperated with them explaining it. Now, this scribe is good. This scribe stands out as having the most spiritual insight of anyone in the gospel. Matthew does not like Pharisees and scribes. Go over to Matthew. By the way, Luke just takes it out. He goes, "I'm not going there. You guys remember Luke's already seen what Mark does and what Matthew does, and he's like, 'You guys have your little catfight. I got other things on my plate to get across, like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son and other things.'"

Okay, notice this is bad. Actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fault Matthew for that. This is bad. If he's looking at Mark and turns it into this, that's bad. Please, Kermit, don't harmonize this because notice you're making the guy bad. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. It's not a sincere guy with wisdom. This is a guy that just wants to trip Jesus up. And then as soon as Jesus makes his big declaration, "Whoa, I can't even say anything." "No one dared to ask a question." Now, is that different or not? Jerry, it's really different. And to tell somebody, "You're not far from the kingdom," because you realize that the temple is not even needed because it's a den of thieves, which means shredding animals, and it's supposed to be a house of prayer for all people. And you got the court of the Gentiles and the court of this and the court of the women and the court of the men, and you know, it's segregation, segregation, segregation. And then the priests, and then the high priests. It's supposed to be a house of prayer for all people. So anyway, uh, Mark, remember Mark writes after 70 A.D. So Mark's version, you don't need the temple anymore to serve the one God of Israel. That's the most important verse in Mark. That's Acts. That pericope. If you change that, as Matthew does, and don't commend the guy and tell why he's wise, you know why he sees it, why when he, when he ends, because he's the guy that goes like, "A light goes on in his head. Oh my God, if that's true, then we don't even need this temple anymore." And Jesus says, "You're not far from the kingdom." So now, what is the kingdom? The rule of God on Earth, right? As it is in heaven. With all human beings. Our Father. It's not Jewish. It's not Israelite. It's the kingdom that fills the Earth.

Next. So that's a biggie, Derek. And I think we're getting to the end now. Maybe two more. Okay. This is quick. Have you ever seen a longer account of Gethsemane than Mark 14:32-42? 10 verses, 11 verses. Wow. Three times he says, "Please stay awake. Please stay awake. I need you. Stick with me. Don't fall asleep." Three times. I fall asleep. And finally, verse 42, "Get up. The betrayer is here." Look at Luke. Go ahead to Luke. Now, here I'm not doing Matthew. You can read Matthew yourself because I want to make the point about Luke. Now, that Luke removes the failure of the disciples. I alluded to it, but I want to give you an example. Yes, they do fall asleep. Any, but notice he only prays once. And then he gets up and finds them sleeping. And he goes, "Why are you sleeping?" And I think Matthew says, "They're sleeping for sorrow." I believe it. That's Matthew that says that. So Matthew again. Mark is presenting a pretty stark story, you know, of the failure. And look what it becomes in Luke. And, uh, I didn't put in Matthew because they've already hit on Matthew enough.

And finally, I think we're getting maybe to the empty tomb. Is that the next? Is that the last one? I think we're real close to the list. Yes. Yes. You want me go ahead and go there? Yep. Okay. By the way, Luke takes out, "They all forsook him and fled." I didn't put that in. You know the verse? Shortest verse in Mark. "They all forsook him and fled." It's not there. So it doesn't even say the disciples ran away. And also, Luke takes out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That's what that's the only thing Jesus says in Mark. Takes it out. "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do." He adds that.

Okay. Sabbath has passed. Mary Magdalene and Mary come to the tomb with James. Uh, Mary, mother of James, and Salome. I think that's maybe Jesus' sister. They're going to anoint Jesus. The tomb is empty. There's a young man inside. Verse five. He's sitting on the right side of the tomb. He's in a white robe. They're amazed. They're told he's risen. He's not here. See the place where they laid him. Go tell his disciples. He's going to meet you in Galilee. They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Curtain down. Mark's over. So your last few of Jesus, the purpose of the empty tomb is you're never going to see Jesus again on Earth. He's gone. Your last view of Jesus is a dead Jew crucified on the cross, crying out with his last words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Now, if you look at Matthew, it's the Glory Hallelujah ending. That's not a Glory Hallelujah ending. That is kind of like, "Well, he's gone. And what do we do now?" Well, go back and read Mark. You could do things like, "So what you have? Take up the cross, right? Give up all you have and so forth." Okay. Matthew 28. We've got an earthquake. Wow. Angel. The Lord comes. His appearance is like lightning. Matthew did not sit well with Mark's son. It's like, "Wait a minute. Not only does he have people raised when Jesus dies, running around, appearing. This has got to be cosmic." You're just going to have a guy dead, saying God has forsaken him, and that's the last view. That's worse than the Lone Ranger riding off. And you go, "Who was that man?" You know, I mean, this is like, you don't even get to see him. But I absolutely agree with Don Cresson. It's apotheosis. Sent to heaven. They're going to see him in Galilee on the mountain, as Matthew even says. Matthew knows this tradition. But here in Matthew, Angel. The Lord. Appearance like lightning. Is Raymond white as snow. The guards tremble. Remember the tomb has been sealed and guarded. The angel says, "Don't be afraid." They go in quickly. Let's see. Doesn't it say? Trying to remember here. I'm looking at this small print. Maybe it's Luke who says that there were two people, two angels in the tomb. Maybe that's Luke. It might have been Luke. Yeah, Luke. But anyway, you see the difference. Dramatic difference. A young man sitting in the tomb versus this huge thing. And of course, Matthew has appearances and so forth up in the Galilee on the mountain.

Okay, that's it, Derek. Uh, let me summarize real quickly. I, I do want to say, just, just what's interesting before I exit. This is like the women went and told no one, for they were afraid. And in here, it's like, you know, they go and tell them. They go and tell them. Yeah. It's like, yeah, he's not gonna leave it there. As I told you when we filmed the Mark course, picture it like a play. And the last thing you've seen is Jesus, and the curtain goes down, and he's dead. Then the curtain goes up, and it's Sunday morning. You see the tomb, and the stones away, and there's a guy inside. You can see the guy inside. Picture like a play on a stage. And they run up and all that. And then they're told, "He's not here. He's risen. You're going to see him in Galilee." They run away. And then the curtain goes down. See how dramatic that would be? Yeah. Yeah. Very different.

Now, I said several times, Mark's Paul. I don't mean Paul wrote Mark. Right? Mark would say, "What really matters? Truly, this man was the Son of God." Centurion confessing him. He's dead. He's dead. This dead guy is the Son of God. Meaning you need to take up a cross, follow him. And if you want power, position, glory, all of that, like the disciples did, you're missing the point. And what does Paul combat constantly in his letters? The Corinthians already are, "Are you kings without us?" You know, "Have you become powerful? Judging one another? Wanting to decide who's the greatest?" You know, "I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of this." And what's the main message? The Messiah crucified. Suffering. The suffering servant. Isaiah 53, Isaiah 42, and so forth.

So what does Matthew do? Typically, he shortens, he abbreviates, he summarizes, he interprets for you, for you. And he expands like crazy if he feels something is not to his liking or his presentation. And he sometimes will completely change a story, like the wise scribe. And not even tell you he had the greatest insight of anybody Jesus ever dealt with, according to Mark. He vindicates the twelve. He vindicates the twelve. Here's some of the, you know, he, he'll say things like, "And on the way, they ask." Mark says, "On the way, they're talking about who's the greatest." So Mark's like, "Oh, while he was talking about suffering, they're going, 'You guys, when we get back to Jerusalem, do you think like, who's going to be on the right and left hand?'" You know, they're talking like this. And he basically, as I recall, Matthew says, "And when they got in the house, they asked him, 'Who is the greatest?'" Like they were talking about it where he rebukes them, but more like, "We were just wondering." You know, anyway. So, uh, the, uh, trying to remember.

Luke takes out the widow's mite thing too, which is interesting. But that's another. Doesn't Luke, Luke downplays the family? Luke, uh, really tries to downplay Jesus's family. Uh, I would say so, to some degree. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot. So he shortens, he abbreviates. And I think the direction is always Mark first priority. So I would agree with Streeter and Schlatter and the ones who first proposed in the 1830s, Mark and priority. I think there was this, uh, two-source tradition of the sayings of Jesus. And even when you look at those, what is characteristic of Matthew? To shorten, to edit, to get to the point, to summarize. And that's what he does with Mark as well. His source.

I used to play a game with my kids when they were growing up, eight, nine, ten. And they would just laugh their heads off. They would say, like, "Okay, Dad, we're gonna read you a verse from one of the Gospels. You have to tell us which one." I told, I set it up. I said, "You know, you guys, I know the Bible pretty well. Read me any verse." And they don't even, you know, they don't know. They're just opening at random. Ninety percent of the time, I could get it because I would recognize these things, right? It wasn't because I had it memorized. So I tell my students in the Gospels course, by the end of the course, you got a pretty good chance of winning at that game, way over 50 percent. Because chances are, they're going to read something like, "They all forsook him and fled," and you'll be like, "Mark." You know, it's like, you just know.

So it's not. And also, have you ever noticed, Derek, at the end of each Gospel, you get the meaning of the Gospel? Look, Mark, mystery man, crucified. Oh my God, I'm afraid and trembling. Would I have to do that to follow Jesus, who is the Son of God? I don't know. Matthew, glory, power, authority is given to me. Go into all the nations, preach, teach, baptize. What is Matthew about? Jesus is the Messiah. He's the new Moses. Teach, baptize people into his Torah faith, right? Last verse. "Look, repentance and remission of sins will be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." And so forth. And then you go to Acts, and that's what you have with the mission of Paul. So they all give it away at the end, you know, what they're really all about, right? And I know it sounds like I'm full. I do prefer Mark. There's no question. But I'm not saying I prefer him theologically, right? We talked about that in your course. Yeah. I kind of prefer the original version before someone came along and rewrote it, because I'd like to hear the power of the, of the first story told. And if you have another story to tell, fine. And for your time, maybe it was needed, you know, by Matthew or Luke, or it's serving their community in some way. But to say that they're all the same, and now you see the transgression, I won't use the word sin, but the terrible mistake to do this, because you just lost them all. And the one who will gain will be the one who changed and added the most.

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How Christian Apologists Unintentionally DESTROY the Gospels

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