While not
dogmatic about it, I am rather partial towards Matthew being the first gospel
written, not Mark. There are some indications that Matthew wrote independent of
Mark. Note the following discussion from John M. Rist in his monograph defending
the thesis that Matthew and Mark having wrote independently of one another:
The End of
the Parousia section (Mt 24:34-25:46)
Mark’s account of the Parousia ends at 13:37,
but he departs from close parallelism with Matthew (and Luke) at 13:32. The
last sentence where Mark and Matthew run in tandem is the striking ‘But of that
day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father only’. The sentence looks like a culmination, and Mark merely follows it
with an exhortation to be watchful.
Matthew also has a theme of watching, but
develops it greatly with other material, much of which is found elsewhere in
Luke, but in different contexts, but some of which – and above all the passage
on the Last Judgment with which Matthew concludes chapter 25 – is found in
Matthew alone. Clearly this material was floating in the tradition, and
Matthew, following his usual pattern, fitted it in here, where he found it
appropriate. So it might appear at first sight as though Matthew followed Mark
as far as Mark went, and then added in his extra material. But in fact this is not what Matthew has done. For Matthew does not
include M 13:33-7 in Mark’s place, but scatters versions of it through the
remainder of his chapters 24 and 25 (c. Mt 24:42, 25:14-15, 25:13). In fact, it
seems as though Matthew has versions of this particular ‘Markan’ material
available, but from (and in) a source other than Mark. What has happened in
chapters 24 and 25 is that Mark and the Matthew-source have overlapped, but
there is no reason to suppose that the Matthew-source is Mark. In fact, since
the ‘Markan’ sections are fitted excellently into non-Markan contexts, there is
every reason to suppose that the Matthew-source is not Mark (Goulder [Midrash and Lection in Matthew, 166]
plausibly conjectures the influence of Paul on Matthew’s eschatology). So it is
clear that Matthew does not use Mk 13:33-7 as his source, and since this leads
on well enough after Mark 13:30-2 parallels Matthew 24:34-6, Mark is not the
source of Matthew at this point. (John M. Rist, On the Independence of Matthew and Mark [Society for New Testament
Studies Monograph Series 32; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978], 82,
italics in original)
