Biblical books Matthew, Mark, Luke, John... written by them or one story with four telephone game variants?

submitted by JasonCarswell from self.Religion

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Biblical books Matthew, Mark, Luke, John... written by them or one story with four telephone game variants?

(Today I learned that the "telephone game" is also called "Chinese whispers" and "transmission chain experiments".)

A Christian friend of mine and I (atheist) often walk his dog and discuss our local resistance movement, deeper thoughts, and religion (a passion of his). I was surprised that he'd not heard of this theory that I'd heard several times before.

So the theory goes, the Biblical books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were originally all stemmed from the same book. Apparently centuries ago an influencer (I don't recall if it was Saul/Paul or Constantine or another Caesar) sent out his favourite book about Jesus Christ to the four corners of the Mediterranean - then ages later (years, decades, centuries?) variations of those texts returned to wherever they were compiling the New Testament with an abundance of redundancies, as well as variations, omissions, and new passages.

For example, IIRC, regarding the birth of Jesus, the angel and the shepherds story is not in all four books.

Another example, IIRC, the Three Wise Men - or is it Three Kings - depending on which version.

I tried to find something on this matter for him - and now you - but had trouble searching for it. There's no shortage of other stuff on those four books. Perhaps you can point me to some texts or videos on this theory / issue / matter, of which I don't know the name of.

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[–]jet199 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

And apparently there were 2 other versions of Mark which were far more spiritual but the early church thought they would just confuse the average person.

[–]Vulptex 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I think there was only one other version, "Secret Mark". So two total. And apparently Secret Mark is more in line with how Mark is generally structured.

The Hebrew version of Matthew found among medieval Jews has a line from Secret Mark in it, as well as a parallel story from Mark that is not in canonical Matthew. There's actually a ton of stuff in it connected to ancient documents, I don't know how anyone could say it's a translation from the Vulgate, even though many parts were "corrected" to match it.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting lead. Thanks!

[–]Vulptex 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

If this happened the most likely candidate is Marcion's Evangelion. But I don't really think that's likely, I think Mark came first based on a much shorter Hebrew version of Matthew, then whoever wrote Marcion's gospel revised it and included more material, then Marcion's gospel had a bunch of stuff added to it over time which eventually became Luke, then Matthew was translated into Greek with the help of Luke and maybe Mark, and John was written using Mark and Marcion's gospel.

The virgin birth stuff was added because for some reason Greco-Roman culture wouldn't accept someone as a god unless they had a virgin birth. Also the three "wise men" are actually magicians in the Greek version, and they follow star signs...and the Hebrew version literally says "star watchers" aka astrologers.

It could not have been Constantine. All the books of the Bible existed long before him. He just decided which ones are "canonical".

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you! Very good information to process.

I think you're correct about the origin of my OP premise based on trivia I partially remembered from a documentary I saw over a decade ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_of_the_Gospel_of_Marcion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Marcion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism

Grasping for familiar names, Paul/Saul and Constantine were my wild guesses that I didn't expect to be correct, but thought might help root the concept. Wish I could recall the documentary. I know it's a simplification, but I'm certain they mentioned an influencer who sent it out to the "four corners of the Mediterranean", a metaphorical phrase that stuck with me. I'm pretty sure he was long dead by the time the revised gospels were aggregated. Or perhaps all of it was an over-simplification for the audience to easily digest.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

So the theory goes, the Biblical books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were originally all stemmed from the same book

The "Q source." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

Q is part of the common material found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but not in the Gospel of Mark.

[–]Vulptex 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I personally think this is a shorter Hebrew proto-Matthew, but there's also a decent chance that it's Marcion's gospel. Marcion started pretty much all Christian idolatry of scripture, and naturally most of it goes back to him, so this would make sense. What makes me doubt this though is how many details in it are missing from Matthew.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the excellent citation.

This is a major breadcrumb supporting my OP premise, learned and mostly forgotten from a documentary seen when I first delved into skepticism.

And this can lead to more investigation, as I also like finding stuff in the "see also" section, new to me, like Agrapha and Gospel harmony.