THE PRIORITY OF MARK
[Jesus] looked around at them in anger - Mark 3: 5
[Jesus] looked around at them all - Luke 6: 10
If these arguments are correct (and the majority of Bible scholars think they are), then Mark is the earliest Gospel - perhaps the proto-Gospel - and Matthew and Luke both had copies of Mark in front of them when they wrote their Gospels. Matthew kept a lot of Mark's text (90% of it) and Luke kept rather less (about 50%).
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Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us - Luke 1: 1
YES
Mark was the secretary/translator of Peter, the leader of Jesus' Twelve Disciples. Therefore, his Gospel is based on the best possible eyewitness. That's why Mark uses Aramaic expressions and preserves some 'hard readings' - it's authentic history.
Markan Priority is essential for the 2-Source and 4-Source solutions to the Synoptic Problem. It explains the similarity between the Gospels and (if we take the Q-Source into account) the differences as well.
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NO
By presenting Matthew and Luke as simply copying chunks of Mark and making their own changes, this theory presents the Bible as a creation of flawed humans rather than a set of independent eyewitnesses inspired by the Holy Spirit.
These solutions break up the unity and coherence of the Gospels by presenting them as 'jigsaws' or 'collages' made up of different sources stitched together, rather than independent eyewitnesses.
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