One of the most frequent criticisms of the GH is that it can offer no convincing Sitz im Leben for the production of a gospel such as Mark, given the existence of Matthew and Luke. This is closely related to the problem, already partly considered, of Mark's choice of material: why should anyone have wanted to write a new gospel which omitted so much from the sources available? A fresh approach to this problem has been made by Dungan, and his research has been said by Farmer to be another of the significant developments which explains the more favourable response given now to the GH. Dungan seeks to find possible examples in other gospel literature of the early Christian centuries which might provide analogies to Mark's gospel on the GH, i.e. to a gospel which chooses only what is common to both its sources and adds virtually nothing new. Insofar as his work succeeds, Dungan too is implicitly appealing to the criterion of coherence, albeit in a slightly different way. For he is attempting to show that the GH gives a theory about Mark which fits in with what else is known of the history, in particular the ‘gospel-making activity’, of the period.

The problem of a convincing Sitz im Leben for Mark has been explicit or implicit in all the detailed discussions so far. Why should Mark have proceeded in the way he is alleged to have done?