Mark records the teachings of the Apostle Peter
Since this concerns the game “Telephone”, let me ask, have you ever played the game? As I recall it, this is how it was played at a summer camp I went to in my youth many years ago. The proctor created two teams and lined them up. Then he split each team so there’s a short distance between the two halves of the team. There were two teams, each team with members in a line and the line separated in the middle by a short distance. The opposing teams were far away enough so they couldn’t hear what the other team was saying.
The proctor had a number of sentences. He’d give the first sentence privately to the first person in line on each team, so only that person could hear it. Once the first person in line for each team had the sentence (it was the same sentence), the proctor would start a countdown. On the word “Go” the first person in line for each team would run the short distance to the first person in line on the other side for their team and whisper the sentence in their ear. Once the person had the sentence, they in turn would run back to the other side where the person just came from and tell the next person who as now first in line on that side. They’d repeat the processing, going through each person on both sides until everyone had been told the sentence. The last person would then go and tell the proctor.
The goal was to be the first team to finish telling each person the sentence, with the last person telling the proctor the message. Since the goal was to be the first team to complete the task, there was not much time taken to clarify the message. (I don’t recall if there were explicit rules on whether you could repeat the sentence or not, but I do recall there was the time pressure of being first to complete the task.)
Of course, with the rushing and the whispering into the ear, the final sentence given to the proctor was typically different from the original sentence, sometimes in very amusing ways. To me, it always seemed like the entire point of the game was not to see which team could be the first to finish, but to see how much the sentence had been changed—typically in a funny way—from the original.
The change from the original due to a process like that of the “Telephone” game is what this questioner is claiming about the Gospels. Further he’s stating that it was the transmission process that turned the normal man Jesus into a “god”. Of course there are a number of problems with both those points. Let’s take a look.
Writing the Gospels was not like the “Telephone” Game
The production of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and the gospel of John wasn’t done in a “Telephone” game manner. This is clear because of the following.
1. The Gospel writers did not have a callous disregard for the message as one does when playing “Telephone”.
When playing “Telephone”, the message is short. Although you try to receive and transmit it correctly, you’re not overly concerned if you don’t, because part of the fun of the game is to see how the message changes as it travels from person to person. That’s part of the game. But the composing and writing of the Gospels, an entire book by each of the authors, and not a mere sentence, was not a game and certainly not the “Telephone” game. The means and motives of the Gospel writers were totally different. First the motive: the Gospel writers were acutely aware of the fact that they were recording the words that can lead people into eternal life, many of those words came directly from Jesus. In fact, the apostle John, writer of the Gospel of the same name, tells us:
“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
John 20.31
John specifically wrote his Gospel so that people learning about Jesus would believe and have eternal life. He was not engaged in some haphazard game nor dealing in carelessly composed recollections of Jesus. Neither were the other Gospel authors. Luke tells us he carefully investigated and wrote an orderly account. (Luke 1.3). Matthew starts with:
“A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
Matthew 1.1
Genealogies are long, detailed affairs. Matthew is making a point to Jewish readers that Jesus fulfills the requirements of the messiah, being both the son of David and a son of Abraham. Clearly, he took pains to get the genealogy correct. He did not put it together haphazardly or in the rush required of a game like “Telephone.”
Mark reports that he is sharing the “beginning” of the “good news” about Jesus Christ, the “Son of God.” So right up front Mark is saying he has “good news”, which we now translate as “gospel” and it’s about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark tells us that what he is about to share concerns the Son of God. (Understand that, as the son of a human is also human, so the son of God is God in human form.) The whole book is arranged around that point. It’s not a collection of stories that people pondered and then concluded that Jesus was God. No, Mark’s point from the beginning is that Jesus is God and came in the flesh as a human man. But that human man did not have a human father. His father is God. Thus, though he appeared as a man (Php 2.8), his nature, “veiled in flesh” as the Christmas hymn says [1], was that of God. (Php 2.6). The gospels did not make Jesus God. Jesus is God, come in the flesh as a fully human man, and the gospels reported and recorded that fact.
2. The Gospels relied not merely on memory but multiple written sources.
Notice that the game of “Telephone” relies on everything being done by memory. If the proctor wrote down the message, handed each team pieces of paper, and then had them pass the paper along, the game would be nothing more than a race of passing the baton, with the baton, in this case, being the piece of paper with the message. But “Telephone” is not a race of passing the baton, because the message is never written. But we know that the Gospel writers relied on written testimonies as well as eyewitness testimonies—perhaps their own—speaking to Gospel writers who were also eyewitnesses, namely Matthew and John [2].
Since the Gospels used written sources, we can again rule out a “Telephone” game process. But, in passing, what sources did they use? Here we get into the synoptic problem. The first three Gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke—are called “synoptic” Gospels because they are very similar in content, form and order. “Synoptic” is a joining of syn [meaning] “together with” [and] optic [meaning] “seeing”, thus “seeing together.” [3].
John’s Gospel: Eyewitness Testimony
John’s Gospel is stylistically quite different and so is typically considered separately from the synoptic Gospels. John’s Gospel is arranged around claims Jesus made of who he is, and “signs” he did to verify the claims. One key thing of importance is that his Gospel is one of the Gospels written by an eyewitness. John declares that he is the disciple who saw the things written in the Gospel, and wrote them down (John 21.24). So his is clearly a firsthand, eyewitness account. No “Telephone” process there. Regarding the claim of making the man Jesus into God, John’s Gospel uniquely presents a number of “I am” statements of Jesus that identify who he is. One of the most powerful is recorded in John 8.58:
58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”
59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
John 8.58-59
Why did the Jewish crowd pick up stones to stone him? Because they recognized that he was identifying himself with the God who appeared to Moses on Mt. Sinai, who declared his name forever was “I Am.” (Ex 3.15)
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
Exodus 3.13-14
This statement in John was not a “Telephone” game turning a man into God. This is the eyewitness John recording what the man Jesus had said. The record shows that Jesus identified himself as the God who appeared to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The people who heard Jesus did not believe him, and, since they did not believe, they saw him as a mere man. A mere man identifying himself as God is blasphemy and thus worthy of stoning according to their Old Testament laws. (Lev 24.14, 16) That’s why they picked up stones to stone him. They understood very clearly what he was saying. It’s not that they misunderstood the message. They did not believe the message.
This “I am” statement is, of course, in addition to the premier evidence of Jesus’ deity: his resurrection from the dead, as the apostle Paul points out in Romans 1:4. Both Jesus (Matt 16.1-4) and Paul (Rom 1.4) make the point. Jesus rising from the dead, never to die again, is proof of his claims to deity. So, again, it is not a ”Telephone” game that turned the man Jesus into God. It is God taking on flesh, living on earth, and allowing his deity to shine through so people could see it. And many people did recognize his deity.
Synoptic Sources
Now let’s return to the synoptic Gospels. The NIV Study Bible has a nice summary of the sources for the synoptic Gospels [4]. But one cannot judge the value of the various suggestions until one determines the approximate date of the various Gospels, because a suggested source should not be considered as a resource for a document if the source did not exist at the time when the document under consideration was written. Most scholars agree that the Gospel of Mark was written first and that the date of its writing ranges between AD 44 to 75 (Moody Bible Commentary) [5]. That covers the extremes, but the most recognized dates include a narrower span: “So a date in the mid- to late- 50s is most likely, but a date in the mid-60s is possible.” (ESV Study Bible) [6]
Mark’s account having been written first eliminates suggestions that he relied on Matthew and Luke, for example. But let me cut to the chase. Based on the textual evidence, it is clear that the Gospel writers relied to some degree on written texts. Scholars name one of the major written texts “Q”, for Quelle (German for “source”). A comparison with the other Gospels indicates that Mark and Q were written first. Following the creation of those two documents, it appears that Matthew and Luke relied on both Mark and Q for some of the materials in their Gospels. The main problem with that theory—called the two-source theory—is that we don’t have the Q document. So why believe it? I’ll show you some of the evidence that convinced me.
Before I get started, let me ask a question. If you’re in school and write a paper, and your teacher notices that many of the things you wrote are word-for-word identical to a paper by another writer, what will your teacher conclude? Would the teacher not conclude that you copied it from the other writer? Today, to avoid chargers of plagiarism, the modern practice is to give credit, typically through footnotes or end notes, of items copied verbatim from another source. But that’s a modern practice. First century writers did not follow that custom. And, since with regard to the Gospels, the teachings were that of Jesus, there was no point in claiming them as your own when you were sharing them as the teachings of Jesus. Thus, it is not unreasonable to assume there were documents of the teachings of Jesus that circulated without anyone claiming authorship.
These teachings of Jesus may have been collected into a “sayings source”, or what the scholars call “Q’. As a seminary student, one of the classes is synoptic Gospels. The class I attended was taught by Dr. Scott McKnight. He gave us an assignment to help us see what is not readily apparent unless you do the exercise. The exercise is to take the original Greek of the synoptic Gospels, put them side by side, and note the similarities and differences. Now the placing of the original Greek of the gospels side by side has already been done in a book called Synopsis of the Four Gospels[7]. So all we had to do was get the book and note the differences. To see the differences, he gave us a color coding scheme:
Brown: The text was the same in all three synoptic Gospels
Blue: The text was same in Matthew and Mark; or Luke and Mark
Green: The text was the same in Matthew and Luke (and missing in Mark)
Red: The text was unique to that Gospel
He gave us a number of texts to look at. Before I show you some of the results let me point out the color green. Green means the text of Matthew and Luke are identical, but it’s not in Mark. If the texts are identical, that means someone copied from someone else. (Remember your teacher!) Yet they didn’t copy from Mark, since the text is not in the gospel of Mark, so who did they copy from?
With that introduction, let me show you some of my results when I did the exercise. Look at the first text snippet below. Notice all the green. The two texts are, in fact, identical except Luke adds the word “servant” (οικετης underscored in red). Again, a teacher would say one copied from the other. But neither copied from Mark, because Mark does not include this text. One theory that rejects the existence of “Q” suggests that Luke copied from Matthew. Let’s consider that theory by subjecting it to text criticism. I gave some of the rules for text criticism in my article, Were the Pyramids Built Before the Flood? Correcting the Record. Briefly, when doing text criticism—trying to determine what the original text is—two of the main criteria are:
1. The shorter is more likely the original text
2. The more difficult is more likely the original text
This is because when copying manuscripts by hand the tendency was to add words, not take them away. This would of course make the text longer. The copyists would also tend to clarify difficult texts. This would make the original text more difficult to understand or believe than the copied text. For our purposes we’ll look at the criteria of the shorter text. The numbers listed after the scripture references below indicate the number of words in the Greek text. Sure enough, in this particular passage, the passage in Luke is longer than the passage in Mark. That is often the case. But not always the case. Look at the next three examples.
On Serving Two Masters: Matt 6.24 (27) || Luke 16.13 (28)
In these next three examples you can see that the text in Luke is shorter than the text in Matthew, particularly in the last passage listed below on prayer, typically called “The Lord’s Prayer.” Luke’s text is quite noticeably shorter, 44 words vs. 61 words in Matthew. By text criticism criteria, that would lead us to believe that Luke wrote the original text, not Matthew. So that works against the theory that Luke copied from Matthew.
John’s Preaching of Repentance – Matt 3.7-10 (77) || Luke 3:7-9 (72)
The Return of an Evil Spirit – Matt 12:43-45 (67) || Luke 11:24-26 (55)
On Praying – Matt 6:7-15 (61) || Luke 11.1-4 (44)
If we go back to the two-source theory, another possibility of what happened is that both Matthew and Luke started with Q, since the passage is not in Mark. Then they added words, if they thought it necessary, for clarification of the particular point they were trying to make. Any Bible scholar will tell you that each of the Gospel writers had themes in their Gospels and presented their material to reinforce those themes. I’m not saying they changed the meaning of the text. Instead, they emphasized things already there in the source text, but perhaps not as clear as the author wanted.
So when you do the exercise of going through and looking at identical texts, particularly ones where there is no text in Mark, it becomes clear that:
1. The text in green is being copied from somewhere.
2. That “somewhere” is not the Gospel of Mark since Mark does not include it.
3. There is not enough evidence to definitively say Luke (considered later than Matthew) copied from Matthew and some evidence that speaks against it. (The text criticism we did above.)
That leads to the question:
4. If not from Mark, but both Matthew and Luke have it, and Luke didn’t copy it from Matthew, and neither Matthew nor Luke copied it from Mark, where is it from?
Since sometimes Matthew is shorter and sometimes Luke is shorter, it’s difficult to dogmatically say one is copying from the other. It makes more sense that there is another source that both are copying from and adding their own clarifications to highlight the point they’re making. This other document is what the scholars call “Q”.
I’ve gone through this exercise here to demonstrate that the production of the Gospels was a deliberate, carefully thought out, researched and planned writing of documents of historical literature. Their subject is the good news about Jesus the Messiah, who showed through his words and actions that he is the Son of God. The Gospels were not produced by a haphazard process like the game of “Telephone.”
3. Eyewitnesses’ Testimony
A final consideration I’ll mention that rules out errors is that when the Gospels were written there were still many eyewitnesses around who could have pointed out errors. This would likely have prevented the church from endorsing or sharing any such erroneous Gospels. As noted below, Peter was around during the writing of Mark’s Gospel, and gave his stamp of approval to it. This is why the pseudepigraphal (“false signatures”, i.e. falsely signed Gospels) appeared much later, as I point out in my article “Q.43 No one has any idea who wrote the Gospels”. Wesley Huff shows a timeline that identifies a number of pseudepigraphal Gospels which were written in the second through fourth century AD. This is, of course, well after all the apostles had died, so those authoritative figures were not around to refute them. But the gospel had already been handed down to “reliable men” (2 Tim 2.2), one of which was Mark, and other church leaders who refuted the false Gospels in the apostles stead.
Objection: Q is not extant
Some object to the two-source theory because we don’t have a copy of “Q.” But that’s not the only document from antiquity that we don’t have. We know there are a number of letters from the apostle Paul that he wrote that we don’t have, but don’t doubt they once existed. In 1 Cor 5.9 Paul writes about his instructional letter to them that we don’t have. In 2 Corinthians Paul writes about a tearful letter in 2 Cor 2.4, which is apparently different from the instructional letter because it deals with a serious sin someone committed who needed correction and restitution (2 Cor 7.12). Further, in 1 Cor 16.3 the apostle said he would write “letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem.” We don’t have those letters either. And notably, we don’t have the letter the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Laodicea, regarding which he charged the church of Colossae to have read publicly in the church. (Col 4.16) With regard to the Old Testament, we don’t have the “annals of the kings of Israel” (1 Ki 14.19) which is mentioned a number of times. We also don’t have the Book of Jasher mentioned in Joshua 10.13 which talks about the sun stopping in the middle of the sky. There are others, but I mention these to point out there are many books or writings that once existed that we currently do not have. That does not mean they didn’t exist. That simply means we don’t have them. Granted, those are named books or writings, and Q is not named, but given the highly inflected nature of Greek and all the identical passages—down to the Greek inflections in the New Testament—it seems highly like to me that the Gospel writers, used among other sources, a written source of Jesus’ teachings now called “Q” that we no longer have.
The Final Question: The Source for Mark’s Gospel
So we’ve identified that, as Luke says, he “investigated everything from the beginning” (Luke 1.3) and that the gospel writers used a number of sources for the information contained in their Gospels. Matthew and particularly John, as eyewitnesses, have the benefit of being able to verify the items included in their Gospels since they were with Jesus two or three years (depending on how long you believe Jesus’ ministry was). Luke explicitly says he researched the matter carefully leading to the conclusion he used multiple sources which I expect would include interviews from eyewitnesses, the Gospel of Mark, and a sayings or teaching source (sources?), one of which is now called “Q”. Matthew likely did similarly. But what about Mark? If his gospel was first, where did he get his material?
Early church fathers (Irenaeus, Clement of of Alexandria, the writer of the Anti-Marcionite Prologue [8] and Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History[9]) all indicate that the writing of Mark’s Gospel was associated with, and based on, the teachings of the Apostle Peter, who was in fact an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus. Further, Eusebius reports that Peter “approved and affirmed it [the Gospel] by his own authority for the reading of the church.”[10]
In his Second Epistle, the apostle Peter writes:
13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body,
14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.
2 Pe 1.13-15
Peter was aware he was about to be executed by the Romans. Barbieri in the Moody commentary [11] suggests that part of the preparation Peter was making for his departure (i.e. his death at the hands of the Roman government) was to assure that the believers would “always be able to remember these things” (v15). Part of that preparation that Peter was making likely included giving and impressing upon Mark his teachings. These were Peter’s teachings about Jesus he was giving to Mark so Mark could commit them to writing, with the resulting document being the Gospel of Mark. This would be yet another reason Peter “approved and affirmed” Mark’s gospel as Eusebius reported, which would have helped its acceptance.
The NIV Study Bible notes:
“91 percent of Mark’s Gospel is contained in Matthew, while 53 percent of Mark is found in Luke.” [12].
If, as has been suggested above, Mark is a source for both Matthew and Luke, and Peter is the source for Mark, that makes Peter a primary source for much of the material in the synoptic Gospels. This gives new meaning to Jesus’ declaration about Peter:
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
(Mat 16:18)
Protestants have always maintained that the “rock” Jesus was referring to was Peter’s confession of Jesus as the messiah, the son of the living God (Matt 16.16), not that Jesus was making Peter the first pope. With Peter being the primary source for Mark, and Matthew and Luke strongly relying on and influenced by the teachings in the gospel of Mark, it appears even clearer that the building of the church that Jesus was referring to was teaching. And as it turns out, it seems much of the teaching in the synoptic Gospels, upon which the church was built, is based on the teachings of Peter. It is appropriate, then, that Jesus calls his confession “this rock.” Need I mention that this totally excludes the uninformed suggestion that a “Telephone” game process was involved in the formation of the Gospels?
Duane Caldwell | June 15, 2026 | Printer Friendly Version
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Notes
1. From the second stanza of the Christmas Hymn – Hark! the Herald Angels Sing Note: Immanuel is Hebrew for “God with us”, another reference to the fact that the messiah born as a baby is God come in the flesh.
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2. Matthew and John were eye witnesses. Many suspect that Mark, also known as John Mark (Acts 12.12, 25), may have also been a witness to at least parts of the gospel events. Many scholars suspect that the “young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment” (Mark 14.51-52) who was at the arrest of Jesus was actually the gospel writer Mark.
Wessell in his commentary on Mark notes that the “consensus” is that the young man is Mark.
Walter W. Wessell, “Mark” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8, Frank E. Gaebelein, General Editor, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984, p.766
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3. The NIV Study Bible New International Version, Kenneth Barker, General Editor, Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985, p.1437
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1. The use of oral tradition.
Some have thought that tradition had become so stereotyped that it provided a common source from which all the Gospel writers drew.
2. The use of an early Gospel
Some have postulated that the Synoptic authors all had access to an earlier Gospel, now lost.
3. The use of written fragments
Some have assumed that written fragments had been composed concerning various events from the life of Christ and that these were used by the Synoptic authors.
4. Mutual dependence.
Some have suggested that the Synoptic writers drew from each other with the result that what they wrote was often very similar.
5. The use of two major sources.
The most common view currently is that the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical document, called Quelle (German for “source”) or Q, were used by Matthew and Luke as sources for most of the materials included in their Gospels.
6. The priority and use of Matthew
Another view suggest that the other two Synoptics drew from Matthew as their main source.
7. A combination of most of the above.
This theory assumes that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels made use of oral tradition, written fragments, mutual dependence on other Synoptic writers or on thier Gospels, and the testimony of eyewitnesses.ref: The NIV Study Bible New International Version, Kenneth Barker, General Editor, Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985, p.1437
5. Lou Barbieri, The Moody Bible Commentary, Michael Rydelnik and Michael Van Laningham General Editors, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014, p.3759
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6. The ESV Study Bible, Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008, p.1890
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7 Synopsis of the Four Gospels, Edited by Kurt Aland, Seventh Edition, Stuttgart Germany: German Bible Society, 1984
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8. “Mark”, in the Expositors Bible Commentary, p 608
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9. ESV Study Bible p. 1889
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10. ESV Study Bible p. 1889
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11. Mark in the Moody Bible Commentary p. 3758
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12. The NIV Study Bible, p.1437
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