There are at least three sources that underlie the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Mark both, at least as we know them today. This project will provide an overview and a possible solution.
The Egerton Fragment, as shown here, is clearly a predecessor of John. But I agree with Crossan here that it was also a predecessor of Mark 6:45-8:21 at least. Egerton also predicts a Passion, including (I think) a crucifixion. The Bethsaida edition of Mark cites Egerton's Passion (or at least its predictions) in its own Passion story at 14:41.
Robert Fortna believes that the miracle stories are pre-Johannine. These miracles are semeia - signs of Jesus's power and of the end of times. The word semeia does not exist in the other Johannine literature. By contrast the Johannine-language parts of the Gospel refer to Jesus's actions as "works of the father": see here.
These stories seem to have been available to Mark 6:45-8:21 as well.
I wrote here,
"Mark has Jesus still the tempest (4:35-42), and John has Jesus walk on the water (John 6:16-21),
but Bethsaida has Jesus walk on water (Mark 6:48b-50 == Matt 14:25-31)
and still the tempest (Mark 6:51 == Matt 14:32).
". The Bethsaida Redactor took
the source of John 6:16-21 and "Markanized" it.
Fortna's definition of the Semeia Source does not demand a Passion, but the Johannine Passion
is nonetheless dependent
on the Semeia Source. Fortna cites as an example John 11:47-48: "So the ranking priests called
the Council together and said, 'this fellow performs many signs. If we let him go on like this,
everybody will come to believe in him...'
" (Miller, p. 186).
In addition, John uses a cognate of semeia (semainein) in 12:33-34 and 18:32 to show how Jesus "signifies" how he is going to die: Jesus is to be uywqhnai - lifted up by crucifixion.
Fortna believes that the "Signs Gospel" either contained a Passion from the get-go or else was revised into a "Passion Source", either way prior to John (Miller, p. 186).
The language of much of the Passion is synoptic for Mark, Matthew, and Luke. But some of it, particularly the order of certain events, is synoptic instead for Mark, Matthew, and John. Luke dissents in order and content in those matters. I therefore call the latter agreements against Luke a deutero-synopsis.
Luke is generally considered to have altered the Passion herself. Perhaps she did add material here and there; the repentant thief comes to mind (I do not agree with Crossan that Luke got it from Peter). But it is less easy to explain why Luke erased the priests' accusations, which had directly contradicted John, yet felt free to contradict John in her own way for her order of events. Some of Luke's variants are even un-Lukan: the treatment of gentiles is harsher and the focus on Scripture more exact.
But the real "deutero-synoptic problem" lies with the reason for John's place in the synopsis. John Dominic Crossan believes that John depended on at least Mark and possibly other synoptic Gospels. Evan Powell, by contrast, thinks that Mark was reacting to John and John's insults to Peter.
Some deutero-synoptic passages exist because the editors of both Mark and John made use of the gospel of the Egerton Fragment. For example, Mark 14:41's announcement that "the hour has come" is not found in the rest of Mark, or at all in Luke; but is found in Egerton 1:8-9 and John 7:30. But Egerton cannot be stretched to cover all the shared features between Mark, Matthew, and John.
In my view - and as far as I know I am the only person to posit it - the Bethsaida Redactor, fresh from adding Mark 6:45-8:21, also added Mark 14:41b, 14:42a, 14:55-61a, 15:29b, and 15:35-37a. He rewrote 14:3-9 and placed it in that position, and very probably constructed the current form of 14:32-42 in the process of inserting 41b and 42a. In the passion itself he reordered Mark 14:61b-72 into its present form. (Read about it, in no particular order, here, here, here, and here.) This was done as a reaction to a source of John that had insulted Peter and portrayed Jesus making shocking boasts, some even blasphemous to an orthodox Jew - but not, yet, John as we know it today.
These three sources share much in common. First, by definition they are shared among John and Mark against Luke, unwittingly to Luke. They believe that Jesus made claims of his power, and two of them (Egerton, Signs) have him prove it through miracles. All three are also self-consciously Jewish, and Egerton and the deutero-synoptic Passion are focused on Jerusalem and controversy, and look to a Passion story with a crucifixion - in fact, they all do if Fortna is correct.
In addition, any distinction between the three is not apparent in John. As noted above Signs-ish semainein in John 12:33 and Egerton-ish uywqhnai in 12:34 appear in juxtaposed verses, and are linked with the Passion at 18:32. Likewise Mark 14:42a is deutero-synoptic (John 14:31), and Mark 14:41b is Egertonian (Egerton 1:8-9) and deutero-synoptic (John 7:30).
One might propose that the Fourth Gospel could be John's harmony of the Signs Gospel, that allowed for a Passion; Egerton, which predicted a Passion; and the basis of John 2:19 and the deutero-synoptic Passion events. John had after all harmonised Egerton 3:2 with John 2:11's "signs" to create John 3:2. If so John managed one of the great works of interweaving harmonisation in antiquity for those texts, such that they can scarcely be disentangled, yet did not do nearly so well at subsuming the Johannine-language portions into it.
The easiest way out is if all three of these "sources" are just three different ways we moderns have of viewing the same original document. The Gospel of Signs is not incompatible with Jesus speeches that proclaim the meaning of the signs, as Egerton has. The Gospel of Signs is also not incompatible with a final prediction, of a sign to "rebuild this temple", nor with the miracle of Jesus's resurrection. And Egerton's proclamations dovetail easily with John 2:19, both in tone and context.
Instead the distinction is an artifact of the differing foci of research for Johannine scholars. Koester concentrates on the "the coming of the hour" and Jesus's self-proclamation as the fulfilment of Scripture, and derives John from the Egerton fragment. Fortna compares the "signs" passages to the "works of God" passages, and derives John from a putative Signs Source. And Powell notes the divergent emphases of John's and Mark's Passion accounts, and because that alone provides little reason to look further, does not derive John from anything.
In fact, in the spirit of The Synoptic Problem Homepage, I would like to propose yet another "solution", the "Trito-Markan Hypothesis", or perhaps the "Peter's Fight Club Hypothesis". I think the four known gospels are derived from four lost gospels: Egerton, original-Mark, Bethsaida-Mark, and Q. In the beginning was original Mark and Egerton, and all was not well between the followers of Peter and everyone else; this is where Luke came in. Egerton got on the nerves of Peter's community to such an extent that they revised their Gospel of Mark to co-opt it. If Egerton delivered a counter-punch, we don't know about it, because John took that one, Matthew took Mark at this stage, and Mark sank into the Carpocratian community to be ignored elsewhere.
If it sounds baroque, that's because it is. It does however explain some of Luke's "changes", like his Passion narrative and missing text, better than other theories I've yet seen. It also explains John's strange affinity for the parts of Mark and Matthew that Luke didn't touch.
But this is all based on circumstantial evidence (not to say, "house of cards"), and I am very open to contrary ideas on how else the questions raised here might be answered.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 19 May 2002. 21 May, reorg. 22 May, more on Fortna & conclusion. 25 May, Mark 14:41-42. 27 May, deutero-synoptic Mark 14:41.