The Phantom Returns: Delbert Burkett's Rehabilitation of Proto-Mark

In 2004 Delbert Burkett published a book entitled Rethinking the Gospel Sources: From Proto-Mark to Mark, the first of a projected three-volume study of the sources of the canonical gospels. In this first volume, Burkett first challenges the widely accepted assumption that the synoptic gospels stand in direct literary relation to each other and subsequently reconstructs various recensions of an original Proto-Mark to explain the similarities and differences in the so-called "Markan tradition". If Burkett is correct that no two canonical gospels stand in direct literary relation to each other, this has significant implications for their interpretation. Thus this study appraises the cogency of his argument against any direct literary relations between the synoptics.