The Relation of the Gospel of Mark to Primitive Christian Tradition

Abstract

The main conclusions that were widely accepted at the close of the last century with reference to the origin of our first three gospels have been confirmed by the investigations of the first decade of the new century. Thoroughgoing re-examinations of the whole problem, such as those of Wellhausen, Burton, and Loisy, have resulted in the reaffirmation of the so-called Theory of Two Sources. According to this theory Mark is the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, and served, in some form, as a documentary source for each of the other two Synoptists, who had, besides Mark, another written source, made up to a large extent of the sayings and teachings of Jesus. The term Logia was formerly much used as a designation of this second source, on the supposition that it was to be identified with the writing to which the church father Papias applied that name, but there is now a general disposition to avoid this usage and to employ some more neutral symbol, like the letter Q (Quelle, “source”).