What was Mark for Matthew?: An Examination of Matthew’s Relationship and Attitude to his Primary Source

The Gospel of Mark appears to have been an overnight success in earliest Christian circles, inspiring and influencing two later evangelists to compose their own accounts of the life of Jesus. Matthew provides us with the first evidence of the reception of the Markan gospel, and is thus the closest we can come to knowing how Mark was understood by first-century Christians. What does Matthew’s re-working of the gospel of Mark tell us about his relationship and attitude to this important Christian text? J. Andrew Doole examines Matthew’s sources, which the evangelist used to compile and compose his own story of Jesus. Doole suggests that Matthew was not disputing the Gospel of Mark, rather developing its tradition in a conventional manner to reinforce its authoritative position in the growing Christian movement.