Walk into any church and open a pew Bible. You’ll see Matthew first. It’s been that way for centuries, sitting right there at the start of the New Testament like it was the first one off the press. But here’s the thing: most historians and biblical scholars think that’s actually wrong. If you’re looking for the first gospel to be written, you have to flip past Matthew and land on the shortest, punchiest, and arguably grittiest book in the set: Mark.
It’s a bit of a shocker for some. For a long time, the "Augustinian Hypothesis" ruled the roost, suggesting Matthew came first and everyone else just copied him. But modern scholarship has largely moved on. We’re talking about a detective story that spans two thousand years, involving linguistic puzzles, lost documents, and a very stressed-out early church trying to figure out how to keep their story alive as the eyewitnesses started dying off.
Why Mark Wins the Race for the First Gospel to be Written
So, why do we think Mark is the original? It’s called Markan Priority. Think of it like a rough draft that got polished later. Mark is written in what scholars call "Koine" Greek—the common, street-level language of the time. It’s unrefined. It’s fast-paced. Mark uses the word "immediately" (euthys) about 40 times. It feels like someone breathless, trying to get the story out before they forget the details.
Compare that to Matthew or Luke. They take Mark’s stories and smooth out the grammar. They make it "pretty." If you were writing the first version, you’d write it like Mark—raw and urgent. If you were writing a second version, you’d fix the typos and clarify the confusing parts. That’s exactly what we see in the text.
Also, there’s the "Double Tradition." Matthew and Luke share a ton of material that isn’t in Mark, but they almost always follow Mark’s chronological order when they are using his material. When they deviate from Mark, they usually go their own separate ways. It’s like two students using the same textbook but adding their own personal notes in the margins. Mark is the textbook.
The Mystery of the Q Source
But wait. If Mark was the first gospel to be written, where did the other stuff in Matthew and Luke come from? You know, the stuff like the Beatitudes or the Lord’s Prayer? Mark doesn't have those.
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This is where things get nerdy. Scholars talk about "Q" (from the German word Quelle, meaning source). It’s a hypothetical collection of Jesus' sayings. We don't have a physical copy of Q. We might never find one. But because Matthew and Luke have nearly identical blocks of text that Mark lacks, most experts—like those in the Jesus Seminar or at major divinity schools—agree there was likely another written source floating around.
Imagine Mark provided the "action" (what Jesus did) and Q provided the "sermon" (what Jesus said).
Dating the Text: When Did This Actually Happen?
Timing is everything. Most mainstream scholars date Mark to around 66–70 AD. Why then? Because of the Temple in Jerusalem. In Mark 13, Jesus talks about the destruction of the Temple. In 70 AD, the Romans actually did it—they leveled the place during the First Jewish-Roman War.
If the author of Mark knew about the destruction, he probably wrote it right as it was happening or just after. If he wrote it way after, the descriptions usually get more specific. If he wrote it before, it looks like a prophecy. Most historians lean toward the "during the chaos" theory. This puts Mark about 35 to 40 years after the death of Jesus.
That sounds like a long time to us. We’re used to instant tweets. But in the ancient world? That’s incredibly fast. People were still alive who had seen these events. It wasn't "long ago and far away"; it was "my grandfather told me about this."
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What About the Others?
If Mark is 70 AD, where does that leave the rest? Usually, the timeline looks something like this:
- Mark: 65–70 AD. The frantic original.
- Matthew: 80–90 AD. The Jewish-focused expansion.
- Luke: 80–95 AD. The polished, historical account for a Greek audience.
- John: 90–110 AD. The deep, theological reflection that reads totally differently from the first three.
Does it Matter Who Was First?
Actually, yeah. It changes how you read the stories. If you know Mark was the first gospel to be written, you notice what he doesn't include. There’s no birth story in Mark. No wise men, no star, no manger. It starts with Jesus as an adult getting baptized.
If Mark is the baseline, then Matthew and Luke adding the Christmas story later tells us something about what the early church was craving—they wanted to know where this man came from. They wanted the backstory. Mark didn’t care about backstories; he cared about the ending.
It also helps us see the "telephone game" in reverse. Usually, the telephone game makes stories crazier and more exaggerated. But in the gospels, it’s often about "theological refining." Mark shows a very human Jesus who gets angry and doesn't always know everything. By the time you get to John, Jesus is much more divine and in control. Seeing that progression is only possible if we know the order.
The Minority View: Was Matthew Actually First?
I should mention that not everyone agrees. There’s a group of scholars who still hold to the "Griesbach Hypothesis." They argue that Matthew was first, Luke used Matthew, and then Mark came along later and summarized both of them.
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The argument for this usually relies on the traditions of the early church fathers like Papias or Origen, who insisted Matthew wrote first in a Hebrew dialect. It’s a respectable position, but it struggles to explain why Mark would leave out the "best parts" of Matthew, like the Sermon on the Mount, if he was trying to summarize it. Most people don’t summarize a book by cutting out the most famous quotes.
Real-World Evidence in the Pages
Look at Mark 14:51-52. It’s this weird little snippet about a young man in a linen cloth who runs away naked when Jesus is arrested. It has nothing to do with the plot. It’s never mentioned again.
Why is it there?
Many historians think this is a "signature." It’s like a cameo in a movie. It suggests an eyewitness detail that stayed in the first gospel to be written because the author actually saw it or knew the guy. Matthew and Luke both cut this part out because, honestly, it’s weird and doesn't add to the theology. This is a classic example of why Mark feels like the primary source.
Actionable Insights for Your Own Research
If you want to dig into this yourself without getting a PhD, here is how you can spot the differences:
- Compare the "Gerasene Demoniac" story: Read Mark 5:1–20, then see how Matthew 8:28–34 shrinks it down. You’ll see Matthew "cleaning up" Mark's rambling narrative.
- Check the ending of Mark: Most Bibles have a note saying Mark 16:9–20 wasn't in the earliest manuscripts. The actual first gospel likely ended abruptly at 16:8. Think about how that changes the vibe of the story.
- Look for the "Aramaic bits": Mark keeps some of Jesus’ original language, like Talitha koum or Ephphatha. It’s a sign of a very early tradition that hasn't been fully translated into "proper" Greek yet.
- Read a "Synopsis of the Four Gospels": This is a book that puts the stories side-by-side in columns. When you see them lined up, the fact that Mark is the skeleton for Matthew and Luke becomes blindingly obvious.
The search for the first gospel isn't just about dates and dusty scrolls. It’s about understanding how a movement started and how people tried to capture "lightning in a bottle" before the people who saw it were gone. Mark might be short and a little messy, but as the first gospel to be written, it’s the closest window we have to the original fire.