THE DEATH OF THE BAPTIST
(Mk vi, 17-29; Mt xiv, 3-12)
Luke has omitted this because he has long ago finished with the Baptist (in iii, 19-20). The passage seems to be parenthetical in Mark, to explain Herod’s statement that he has killed John the Baptist. Mark says Herod did not wish to kill John, because he regarded him as a just and holy man. Matthew says Herod wished to kill John, but feared the people, because they considered John a prophet. Matthew’s difference here may be due to a different tradition which he considered superior to Mark’s, or it may be due simply to the abbreviation he has made in Mark’s narrative. Mark’s account contains the somewhat improbable feature of the daughter of Herodias dancing before the drunken tetrarch and his companions; which Matthew omits. The Latin word σπεκουλάτωρ in Mark (vi, 27) is dropped in Matthew.
THE RETURN OF THE DISCIPLES AND THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND
(Mk vi, 30-44; Mt xiv, 13-21; Lk ix, 10-17)
Matthew assigns as the reason for Jesus’ departure in the boat the news of what had happened to John the Baptist. Mark, treating this latter as purely parenthetical, says Jesus and his disciples went away to escape the crowds. Luke, not having related the death of the Baptist, assigns still a different reason for Jesus’ withdrawal, saying that “the apostles” had returned, and Jesus went aside with them, apparently to hear their report. Luke says they retired to Bethsaida, where it seems out of place that the feeding of the five thousand should occur; this latter event being more appropriately located by Mark and Matthew in a “desert place.” Mark and Matthew both say the crowds went on foot; Mark says they preceded Jesus, Matthew and Luke, that they followed him when they knew of his departure. The deviations are easily accounted for by the desire of Matthew and Luke to improve the story of Mark. Luke’s mention of Bethsaida is accounted for by his desire to supply exact details wherever possible; perhaps also by the fact that the second feeding, which he omits, was related to have occurred in that place. Luke is apparently unaffected, in his placing of the five thousand in Bethsaida, by the fact that he represents Jesus as saying, “We are here in a desert place.” He may also have been misled in his location of the miracle by the mention, in Mark vi, 45 (which Luke omits), of the departure of Jesus and his disciples for Bethsaida. Luke transposes Mark’s statement of the numbers fed, to an earlier and presumably better position. Matthew adds, as in the feeding of the four thousand, that the numbers given were exclusive of women and children; apparently from his desire, or the desire of the tradition lying back of him, to heighten the impressiveness of the miracle. Mark’s Hebraism, συμπόσια συμπόσια, is omitted by both Matthew and Luke.
THE WALKING ON THE SEA
(Mk vi, 45-52; Mt xiv, 22-33)
Mark’s narrative seems to imply (vs. 46) that Jesus “meant to walk past them.” Matthew implies, on the contrary, that Jesus was coming to their help. Matthew “spiritualizes” the account by adding the experiment of Peter: “Peter can do it so long as he has faith.”[35] It has been observed that in this narrative, as in others which Matthew takes from Mark but which Luke omits, the verbal agreement is considerably closer than in the sections which Matthew and Luke both copy. Schmiedel has suggested that this points to a common document occasionally employed by Matthew and Mark but not by Luke. The hypothesis of a later assimilation of Matthew and Luke seems simpler. At all events, the very close agreement of Matthew and Mark in this narrative, up to the point where Matthew inserts the experiment of Peter, may possibly indicate that this latter is later than the body of Matthew’s Gospel. Whether so or not, its presence is easily accounted for by Matthew’s ecclesiastical point of view, the primacy of Peter being asserted by him in one other notable passage which occurs in Matthew alone. Probably Matthew has drawn these special passages about Peter from a source of his own, and, according to his custom, has here combined one of them with a narrative of Mark’s.
THE RETURN TO GENNESARET