Which Gospel was written first?

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According to apostolic tradition Matthew.
The church fathers say Matthew was written first and specifically to the Jews either in Hebrew or Aramaic.
The oldest copies of Matthew we have today are Greek although there are syriac-aramaic variants from a similar time frame.
Most modern Bible scholars think Mark was written first.

So whom do you believe present day Bible schlars or the church fathers. In the end it really doesn’t really matter.
But remeber the order we have the gospels and the autors that we attribute those books to are entirely from the church fathers.
The church taught Mathhew was written then Mark then Luke then John and we give those apostles authorship some modern Bible scholars believe it was Mark, Luke, Matthew then John and don’t believe Matthew, or John wrote their gospels at all.
 
Tom of Assisi:
Which Gospel was written first?
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The Catholic Church has always listed Matthew first and most early Fathers of the Catholic Church indicate that Matthew was written first. The Catholic Church has always proposed that Matthew was written first.
 
Many modern scholars claim that there were several editions of Mark, before we received it as we have it today. So is it possible that an early edition of Mark was written before the first edition of Matthew?
 
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Madaglan:
Many modern scholars claim that there were several editions of Mark, before we received it as we have it today. So is it possible that an early edition of Mark was written before the first edition of Matthew?
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Those several edditions are really just 2 variants.
There is a longer version which elaborates on the ressurection and some weird prophecy about the elect being really good with snake handling most likely a later edition. The original version has the women running away after witnessing an empty tomb and thats it.
Its a rather weird ending compared to the other gospels perhaps the Markan community noticed that the other gospels had a better ending and wanted to beef it up sometime later. All this doesn’t point to the short recension of Mark being before Matthew though.
The Markan primacy is directly linked with the theory of Q and it being an actual document. THis was origanally thought of by German protestant scholars and not the church fathers so beware of this theory.
 
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Madaglan:
Many modern scholars claim that there were several editions of Mark, before we received it as we have it today. So is it possible that an early edition of Mark was written before the first edition of Matthew?
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As I said the Church proposes this, she does not state it. I think that the Church has it right. Matthew first.
 
The early Church Fathers state that St. Matthew wrote the first Gospel in Aramaic. This appears to be the position of the Dominicans who translated La Bible de Jerusalem (french), and I haven’t heard any compelling arguments from Protestant or Catholic scholars to suggest that St. Mark’s Gospel was written first. Indeed, there are enough internal indications that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written first to make the St. Mark first position somewhat passe (e.g., the divorce passage).
 
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Philthy:
My father was asking me about this the other week and I sent this link to him…

catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9403fea1.asp

read it all if you really want to know.

Phil
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Here’s the conclusion from this link:

We may sum up the relationships(and the chronological appearance - philthy) between the Gospels as follows:
  1. Matthew was composed to meet the urgent needs of the **primitive **Church of Jerusalem (the Church set up by Peter), which needed a manifesto defending its integrity and its right to exist in the earliest days.
  2. Luke was written at the behest of Paul to meet the urgent need of his churches to have their own manifesto to prove their full equality with Jewish Christians.
  3. Mark was the result of the collaboration of Peter and Paul to make sure that the spiritual and doctrinal unity of the Universal Church was not impaired as a result of the appearance of Luke beside Matthew in the churches of both.
  4. The Gospel of John made it clear that the primary objective of Jesus throughout his public ministry was the winning over of the spiritual authorities in Jerusalem; at the same time it had the further purpose of readjusting the chronological sequence of his ministry which had been somewhat distorted by the literary sequence of the three synoptic Gospels.
*Dom Bernard Orchard is a Benedictine monk at Ealing Abbey, England. He was general editor of the Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (1953), served as chairman of the editorial committee for the New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (1969), and is the author, with Harold Riley, of *The Order of the Synoptics (1987).
 
It’s interesting how the scholarship on this stuff shifts over time. Probably just a hundred ago you would have found a lot of the Protestant Bible scholars of the day saying that all of the Gospels were all composed much later than what the scholars are saying today. So today a lot of them say Mark was composed first around 60 A.D., whereas in previous times they would have said the first one was composed maybe in 120 A.D. I wonder what further shifts are in store.

Is there anything more profound to this than just an interesting topic for scholars to debate about over coffee? The church assures us that each of the gospels is based on authoritative eyewitness testimony of the apostles. Certainly there is spiritual value in understanding why each author wrote what they did, the way they did, and who their audience was, and hence what point they’re trying to make by telling the story. But unless there are vast gulfs of time between them, what is the great relevance of getting the exact sequence of writing?

I have another crazy question… what is the probability that Matthew, Mark, and Luke and maybe John were in contact and communication with each other when writing their gospels? I think there’s an assumption in some of the scholarship that they are writing independently of one another, with maybe one copying or borrowing from another. But I bet these guys talked or at least wrote to each other a bit more than that. And I also bet that none of them wrote down their gospels all in one sitting, in the space of a month or even a year. Maybe more like memoirs that they work on over the course of a few years. That would allow for some “cross-pollenation” between the writers.
 
Matthew is put first in the Bible because it applied to JEWS. And JEWS were the ones putting the Bible together. But Matthew and Luke use information from Marks.
 
It was my understanding that the tradional first writer was Matthew but most scholars say its Mark…
 
My vote goes to Matthew. I’m a firm believer in the “Fathers know best.”
 
Strangely enough I was just studying this topic yesterday:nerd:. From what I gather, the standard Catholic teaching is that Matthew came first in Hebrew/Aramaic. This was first suggested by Papias. But there is enough flexibility in the Church’s statement to allow for the case of Markan priority.

One writer suggested that Matthew wrote first in Aramaic but later revised his Gospel, writing it in Greek and using some of Mark. There definately is a strong case for Matthew using Mark.

to sum up - I have no idea who wrote first. Its a fascinating discussion though.
 
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         Robert Bay's new rules of the forum:
  7. If you support any sort of view that is different than what the mods believe, you will be banned. Discussion is not open for different and new ideas. Even if Catholicism is making a mistake, we support tradition.
  8. Everything the Catholic Church has ever done has been infallible. Therefore, there is no need for you to question anything about Catholicism, the Church is perfect. If the Church told you to kill someone, you should do it, no questions asked.
  9. Any rude and ignorant comments to others stating “You are not a true Catholic if you voted for Obama” will be accepted and is encouraged.
  10. God didn’t give you this conscience to use for yourself. You must substitute other peoples judgment for your own, and never question them, because their judgment is better.
  11. If you child someday asks you if they should use a condom, you should tell them “No, let yourself get HIV instead.”
  12. You must agree with everything Robert Bay believes or you’ll be banned.
Robert Bay’s new rules of the forum:
  1. If you support any sort of view that is different than what the mods believe, you will be banned. Discussion is not open for different and new ideas. Even if Catholicism is making a mistake, we support tradition.
  2. Everything the Catholic Church has ever done has been infallible. Therefore, there is no need for you to question anything about Catholicism, the Church is perfect. If the Church told you to kill someone, you should do it, no questions asked.
  3. Any rude and ignorant comments to others stating “You are not a true Catholic if you voted for Obama” will be accepted and is encouraged.
  4. God didn’t give you this conscience to use for yourself. You must substitute other peoples judgment for your own, and never question them, because their judgment is better.
  5. If you child someday asks you if they should use a condom, you should tell them “No, let yourself get HIV instead.”
  6. You must agree with everything Robert Bay believes or you’ll be banned.
    Code: 
         Robert Bay's new rules of the forum:
  7. If you support any sort of view that is different than what the mods believe, you will be banned. Discussion is not open for different and new ideas. Even if Catholicism is making a mistake, we support tradition.
  8. Everything the Catholic Church has ever done has been infallible. Therefore, there is no need for you to question anything about Catholicism, the Church is perfect. If the Church told you to kill someone, you should do it, no questions asked.
  9. Any rude and ignorant comments to others stating “You are not a true Catholic if you voted for Obama” will be accepted and is encouraged.
  10. God didn’t give you this conscience to use for yourself. You must substitute other peoples judgment for your own, and never question them, because their judgment is better.
  11. If you child someday asks you if they should use a condom, you should tell them “No, let yourself get HIV instead.”
  12. You must agree with everything Robert Bay believes or you’ll be banned.
Robert Bay’s new rules of the forum:
  1. If you support any sort of view that is different than what the mods believe, you will be banned. Discussion is not open for different and new ideas. Even if Catholicism is making a mistake, we support tradition.
  2. Everything the Catholic Church has ever done has been infallible. Therefore, there is no need for you to question anything about Catholicism, the Church is perfect. If the Church told you to kill someone, you should do it, no questions asked.
  3. Any rude and ignorant comments to others stating “You are not a true Catholic if you voted for Obama” will be accepted and is encouraged.
  4. God didn’t give you this conscience to use for yourself. You must substitute other peoples judgment for your own, and never question them, because their judgment is better.
  5. If you child someday asks you if they should use a condom, you should tell them “No, let yourself get HIV instead.”
  6. You must agree with everything Robert Bay believes or you’ll be banned.
 
ElephantMan said:
Robert Bay’s new rules of the forum:
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  2. Everything the Catholic Church has ever done has been infallible. Therefore, there is no need for you to question anything about Catholicism, the Church is perfect. If the Church told you to kill someone, you should do it, no questions asked.
  3. Any rude and ignorant comments to others stating “You are not a true Catholic if you voted for Obama” will be accepted and is encouraged.
  4. God didn’t give you this conscience to use for yourself. You must substitute other peoples judgment for your own, and never question them, because their judgment is better.
  5. If you child someday asks you if they should use a condom, you should tell them “No, let yourself get HIV instead.”
  6. You must agree with everything Robert Bay believes or you’ll be banned.
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Dude, chill.

Zach
 
I have no idea, as I think no one else has either.

But it would make sense that Mark came first since Mark was with Peter at the end of Peter’s ministry. The detailed account of what happened in the presence of the Lord would have for its most important witness Peter himself. Wouldn’t Mark have listened to Peter and recorded what Peter remembered?

Is it likely that Matthew would have reported the Gospels ahead of Peter’s report when Peter was certainly the head of the apostles? If he deferred to Peter, it seems reasonable to assume that when Mark recorded Peter’s version Matthew felt free to go ahead with his and respectfully follow Peter except in adding details that he remembered and that Peter may have forgotten or never even knew.

Mark recounts Peter’s denial of Jesus three times, and that upon the third denial he wept. This very likely was revealed by Peter to others, since he was alone at the time of the denial. If Peter was leaving a record for Mark to assemble, most likely Mark obeyed Peter by revealing the shame, and then Matthew followed in turn. But it’s also possible that Matthew knew of this if Peter revealed it to him before he revealed it to Mark (who was not one of the apostles).

I’m inclined to think Mark is the first if only because it is the shortest. Later versions would tend to be longer as more was remembered according to the testimony of others.

But who really knows for sure? And does it really matter?
 
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