Episodes from Mark's Gospel that were deleted in Matthew's edited versionMatthew's deletion of Mark's chiastic critique of Yeshua's motherThe gospel of Matthew shows evidence of familiarity with the gospel account given in Mark's gospel, as does the gospel of Luke (the author was familiar with both Matthew's account and the gospel of Mark). Matthew's gospel closely follows the schema of the gospel of Mark, picking up on Mark's account from about chapter seven onward. Such close correspondence could not be coincidental. Even more interesting is the fact that Matthew does not follow Mark's arrangement given in Mark chapters 1 to 6. In these chapters Mark's chiasmus contain a sequence of particularly strong attacks on the Torah and on the family of the Messiah, and these chiastic structures are broken apart in Matthew's version. That Matthew would then begin following the exact of ordering of Mark's gospel for the rest of the manuscript is a pretty clear indication that Mark had priority, and that Matthew intentionally diluted the chiasmus found in the first six chapters of the gospel of Mark for theological reasons (Matthew's approach to the Torah is more moderate than the radical rejection of Mark, and the author proposes instead an approach of ‘moderate reform' of the Torah, so the deletions in this case are hardly coincidental given the ideology of the later author.)
Almost every verse in Mark's gospel is reproduced in Matthew's version with a few notable exceptions (whereas only half of Mark's gospel is reproduced in the gospel account known as Luke). In both cases, Matthew and Luke exclude material from Mark's earlier account for theological reasons.
One obvious example of this sort of thing is found in considering Mark's version of the gathering of the disciples on the mountaintop. According to Mark, the disciples gathered on the mountain, were assigned their various tasks, ‘and then he (Yeshua) went home.' When his family heard about his activities they attempted to seize him and have him incarcerated in what must have passed for an institution for the mentally disturbed in those days, for his family said, ‘he has lost his mind.' Now Mark uses chiasmus to make points in the gospel (juxtaposing verses and stories, arranging verses in counter-positions in step like structural arrangements, so that, in order to understand the full meaning of the gospel it is required that one recognize and appreciate the structural form adopted by the author). In this case Mark balances this story of his families attempt capture of Yeshua on account of his ‘mental illness' with two other related parables. In one parable, after he escapes capture, he tells his disciples, ‘who is my mother? Who are my brothers? My mother and my brothers are those who do the will of God.' The implication is that his mother and his brothers did not do the will of God, and this rejection needs to be understood, embedded within the structure of Mark's account, as a rejection of his family for their unwillingness to ‘do the will of God' (as evidenced just previously by their attempt to arrest Yeshua). The point is driven home in another chiastic structure wherein Yeshua raises the dead and immediately once again is rejected by his family whose powerful unbelief causes him to lose his powers to heal leaving him amazed by their ‘unbelief'. No prophet is ever accepted by his own family, he tells his disciples.
Now the first deletion that takes place in both Matthew and Luke's account is the removal of the attempted arrest of Yeshua by his mother and his brothers on the grounds of insanity. This deleted episode will naturally enough be out of place in both the Matthew and Luke account (and would also not fit comfortably into the gospel of John either). In all three of these accounts Mary knew that her son was the Messiah all along, having been chatting with angels in the gospel of Luke after all, and ‘treasuring' his godly deeds in her heart as he grew up, fully aware of his godlike status. In John's gospel, before Yeshua even begins preaching Mary is after him to perform godly miracles. The line about ‘no prophet being honored by his own family or in his hometown remains in these later accounts, but with the account of the attempted arrest having been deleted, Mark's chiasmus commentary is disrupted and the later gospels reproduce the line without the original context found in Mark's account of Yeshua's relationship with his family.
According to Mark's account, Yeshua met his disciples on the mountain, gave them their instructions, and then ‘he went home' only to face attempted arrest by his family. Matthew deletes this account of the arrest, and also uses to opportunity of the mountain top visit to introduce some new material not found in Mark's gospel. Far from assigning duties to his disciples and then ‘going home' (only to face arrest) Matthew has Yeshua launch into the famous sermon on the mount. The assignment of duties to the disciples will be moved to a later chapter, after the interpolation of the sermon on the mount.
"And he went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach ... (At this point he assigns tasks to the disciples, and chooses the twelve) ... Then he went home ... And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, "He has lost his mind." Mark chapter 3 verse 13
"Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:" Matthew chapter 5 verse 1 (the sermon on the mount follows, and the assignment of duties to the disciples is found in chapter 10)Most of what you find in Matthew chapters 5 to 7 does not appear in Mark's gospel, with the exception of a few teachings that are found scattered in various chapters of Mark's account. Matthew concludes the Sermon with a line borrowed from Mark's account "they were astonished at his teaching"
While Matthew reproduces Mark's line about a prophet being rejected by his family (and also reproduces the line ‘who is my mother...my mother is those who do the will of God') by deleting Mark's story of the attempted arrest of Yeshua by his mother and brothers Matthew strips the meaning of these lines out of the context they were given in Mark's gospel and renders them meaningless. This disturbance of chiasmus in Mark's gospel is a recurring feature in Matthew's account, when, for theological reasons, Matthew (and Luke as well) do not like certain ideological features of the earlier Mark account.
A Unified Field Theory
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The Unified Field Theory
is also available as a zip file -> unified.zip
Introduction :The Pioneer Effect and the New Physics. A brief description of the new physics required to explain the 'Pioneer Effect', which is the constant deceleration of space craft as they fly through space.

