So which is it? The Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven? Mark and Luke plump for God, Matthew prefers Heaven.
It doesn’t matter, you say? They both mean the same thing. Each comes from a different oral tradition.
But which did Jesus use? Did he say Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven? Did he use then interchangeably? If the latter, why don’t the three gospel writers reflect this, Mark and Luke dropping in the occasional ‘Heaven’ just as Matthew drops in Kingdom of God a couple of times. That they don’t would seem to tell us that their respective oral traditions conveyed only the version they themselves prefer. Two separate oral traditions then, which converge neither at their starting point not their end point in the gospels. While this suggests how unreliable oral traditions were and are, it gets us no nearer to knowing which Jesus himself used. One or other of these supposed traditions is wrong. But the discrepancy is not the result of different oral traditions: Matthew changes Kingdom of God to Kingdom of Heaven when he’s copying passages from Mark which are otherwise word for word. He feels free to alter this one term to suit his own theological ends.
Some theologians argue he did this because, being the most Jewish of the gospels writers, he needed to avoid using God’s name in full. Yet he does just that elsewhere in his gospel, including the two places where he refers to the Kingdom of God. Did he just forget to alter these particular references? The fact he’s altering Mark’s text at all should be a cause for alarm; changing the very words of Jesus. What was Matthew thinking? And no, Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t mean something slightly different from Kingdom of God as some desperate apologists argue: the fact it replaces Kingdom of God in passages that are otherwise copied verbatim from Mark eliminates this possibility.
The only explanation is that Matthew’s sect tampered with the word of the Lord just because they felt like it, for reasons now lost to us. Decades later, the writers of the fourth gospel do the same thing when they eliminate all but two of the references to the Kingdom of God. Yes, they reduce the main focus of the synoptic gospels the imminent arrival of the Kingdom, to a mere footnote. The coming Kingdom of God/Heaven just didn’t suit their agenda so they side-lined it.
The gospel writers felt free to alter, amend, improve, change and invent Jesus script as they saw fit. The evidence that they did so is right there in front of our eyes. Each sect made up and used (or didn’t) the term they themselves thought best described the coming of God’s rule on Earth. And the practice extends far beyond tampering with the Kingdom’s title and importance. And if Matthew, Luke and John did it, particularly the inventing part of their creations, them why not Mark too? Just because his gospel was the earliest doesn’t mean it’s any more an accurate representation of Jesus than the later ones. It doesn’t mean Mark didn’t invent his material wholesale either. If his successors are anything to go by, it’s likely that that’s exactly what he did.
Let me make another suggestion. The sect which gave rise to Mark’s gospel, later copied by a different sect from which Luke’s gospel arose, devised the term the Kingdom of God. The sect that produced Matthew’s gospels preferred to call it the Kingdom of Heaven for reasons best known to themselves.
No conflicting oral traditions required. No earthbound Jesus either.
rejectingjesus, 
Don here AGAIN.
Do you read Greek, Neil? Or are you simply picking up these ideas from others?
I don’t think Matthew borrowed from Mark. When you say verbatim, you need to compare the Greek. There is very little borrowed verbatim. That which is or comes close is found in the saying of Jesus, which were actually translated from Aramaic by someone else earlier. The voice (literary term) is completely different from any of the Gospel writers.
I have done the comparison of a number of parallel passages in the three synoptics, and word for word similarity is rare. Even in the sayings of Jesus there are few places where the word for word similarity is longer than a few words.
You can find some of those on my blog. Search for “parallels.”
The best explanation for similarity is the oral gospel. We can see that in Mark most clearly. Mark used Peter’s oral gospel as he heard it from him. But he used it in pieces. You can tell by the voice (literary term) of the two men. Peter is terse and grammatically simple. It is like I speak when I speak Spanish, which is not very well. Greek was not Petere’s first language.
Mark on the other hand had an excellent command of Greek. The sections of the Gospel that are entirely Mark’s are the last several chapters. He writes in longer sentences and much more fluidly and elegantly than Peter speaks.
I think that Matthew also uses the oral gospel, but not Peter’s; it is the oral gospel he preached. He also used the translated sayings of Jesus, but almost everything else is in his voice. And his grammar is very good. That means Greek was his first language. But here’s the kick. His knowledge of Hebrew is also first language. That means he was probably bi-lingual. This enabled him to do some of his own translation of the OT passages he used.
(Though he also used the LXX, the passage about the virgin from Isaiah is his own translation.)
His regular use of the rabbinical style of interpretation and references to OT passages also mean he was well acquainted with rabbinical writing. His other name was Levi, and that meant he was a Levite and probably well educated in the OT. So, don’t put Matthew in a box without doing some of your own analysis.
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We’ve discussed this to death previously Don Again (in the comments here for example: https://rejectingjesus.com/2023/06/04/don-makes-up-more-stuff/) so I’m not going to waste my time writing a lengthy rebuttal.
I will point out, however, that ‘the vast majority of modern biblical scholars agree that the author of the Gospel of Matthew used the Gospel of Mark as a primary source’ (AI summary). That’s ‘the vast majority of biblical scholars’: the concensus in other words. But of course you know better. You always do.
And isn’t it remarkable that although the Greek in Matthew’s gospel is, according to you, different from that in Mark, when bible translators translate those different words into English they end up being exactly the same: verbatim in other words. And we’re not just talking about the supposed words of Jesus himself. Maybe you should point out to all the translators just how wrong they are.
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The gospels are fundamentally religious propaganda. The Chick Tracts of their time.
Each gospel is its author’s attempt to reach the audience they hope to sell to. Changing something like “the Kingdom of Heaven” to “the Kingdom of God” – or vice versa – is exactly the kind of change one would expect in targeted propaganda.
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With Neil’s leave?
The photo reminds of when an old mate flew to England to run the London to Brighton marathon and went into a McDonald’s in London and ordered a Big Mac.When it arrived he opened the box and called the manager over and informed him the order was wrong as what was in the box was nothing like the picture he had ordered. Simon could be a real devil at times. I can’t remember the outcome – I seem to have a vague inkling he got his money back – but the point was made.
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