Continuing in on from my last post
The four Gospels which we accept as Holy Scriptures were formed from the personal reminiscences of the apostles, the content of their preaching, formed the materials from which the Gospels were written and the purpose they were written down, by each author, explains why and how they were organised in the way they were organised.
All were composed for use in the Churches and not for literary content.
Now to answer your question about Mark's Gospel,
when you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke you see they present similar views and resemble each other closely in content and phraseology.
The questions this raises are as follows
1. If the three Gospels are completely independent of each other, how can one account for the minute verbal agreements in their texts?.
2. If they are copied from each other, or compiled freely from common sources, how can they be original and authorative? (which was your point OMYA)
3. Are they then truly the product of inspired (Men carried along by the Holy Spirit as we are told in 2 Peter 2:1) or are they merly combinations of anecdotes which may or may not be true?
The simplest way to explain it is to say that all three Gospels are dealing with life of the same Person, whose deeds and words were continuously being preached and talked about as public messages. From the day of Pentecost the book of Acts talk about "the teaching of the Apostles" as the only teaching with credibility in the early church.
As the church expanded the written accounts were created to meet the demand for instruction and they reproduced the praseology an content of the oral teaching. Each Gospel, however, was shaped to it's own purpose and audience.
It is widely believed as I said, that Matthew and Luke borrowed on Mark's account.. but that only adds credibility to the sources as Peter was one of the apostles and Mark's writings were as I said in my last post, considered to be the account Peter gave him of the life of Christ.
By AD 170, the four Gospels as we have them today, were securely established as the sole authorities.
I'll have to write more later, I'm going out.. but again, hope this helps. Let me know if it does.
Carol