26 he wrote his gospel, and apparently had access to Matthew’s gospel, I would prefer to keep the date for Mark somewhere within the range of AD 41-44. That is after the latest likely date for Matthew (AD 38), and before Mark went to Antioch with Barnabas and Paul in AD 44. It also was after the first Gentiles had come into the Church (AD 38) and after the Caligula crisis (AD 39-41). This harmonizes perfectly with Parker Voll’s independent analysis in his paper presentation at the 2008 Evangelical Theological Society entitled, “Utilizing Acts to Help Us Through the Synoptic Maze,” where he dates Matthew “during the first decade of the church” (AD 30-40), with Mark written soon after “in the early to mid- 40’s”. Those who compare the three gospels will notice that Mark has additional material that Matthew does not have, suggesting that Mark was written later. And Luke clearly borrowed from both Matthew and Mark, plus has some unique material that was not borrowed from either of them, suggesting that Luke was written after Matthew and Mark, and based on additional research. Luke and Acts appear to have been written after Paul and Luke reached Rome in AD 61, where they had access to both Matthew and Mark. Thus the similarities and differences between Mark and both Matthew and Luke seem best explained by a Matthean original, especially in those sections where Mark appears to be reflecting Peter’s perspective. That implies that Mark was still in Jerusalem at the time of writing, in order to closely consult with Peter. Peter and Mark had seen Matthew’s gospel, and added some things to it from Peter’s perspective, which are not found in Matthew. After doing most of my study of the synoptic gospels and formulating my conclusions for the priority of Matthew and the early dates of Matthew (AD 31-38) and Mark (AD 38-44), I got a copy of John Wenham’s excellent book, Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem, where he assigns very similar dates to Matthew (AD 40) and Mark (AD 45). It was gratifying to see that his conclusions were close to mine, even though his process of arriving at those dates was significantly different. Another book that was helpful in terms of presuppositions and methodology was Restoring the Original Bible by Ernest L. Martin. He argues for the theory of Apostolic Canonization, which dates almost all of the New Testament writings before AD 70, except for John’s writings. R. Alan Cole, in the Tyndale Commentary on Mark, had this to say about the order in which the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were written: “For a spirited defense of Matthean priority, see, among modern scholars, Butler [Butler, B. C., The Originality of St. Matthew (Cambridge: 1951).] and Farmer [Farmer, W. R., The Synoptic Problem (1964).]. Their main arguments are that Matthew’s Gospel, which is of course far longer than Mark, contains all of Mark’s material but for some forty verses, in addition to much extra material: that Matthew and Luke share numerous agreements as against Mark: that Matthew retains Palestinian touches, as against Mark’s alleged signs of Pauline influence, and his adaptations of the tradition to Graeco-Roman readers.” The introduction to Mark in the NIGTC commentary commented on which gospel was first written: “C. S. Mann’s Anchor Bible commentary of 1986 [says that he] believes in the priority of Matthew, and so interprets Mark as a deliberate revision of the material earlier recorded by Matthew.” For a thorough survey of the history of the study of the Synoptic Problem throughout church history, from a conservative evangelical perspective, see David Laird Dungan’s book, A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels. New York: Doubleday, a division of Random House. First Edition 1999.
The Synoptic Problem
This author takes the position that Matthew was the first of the synoptic gospel accounts to be written, with Mark next, and Luke last. There are others who share the Matthean priority, but insert Luke as the second gospel instead of Mark. Many different theories have been developed over the last five hundred years to explain the
