Luke's "Great Omission"
Luke’s Great Omission is a well-known phenomenon in New Testament studies referring to a large block of material found in Mark 6:45–8:26 that Luke completely leaves out when writing his Gospel—even though Luke is otherwise closely aligned with Mark and usually follows Mark’s narrative order.
This omission is striking because:
It is about 1½ to 2 chapters of Mark, a significant chunk.
It includes major stories and teachings.
Matthew does include these episodes (often expanding them), which highlights Luke’s silence even more.
Scholars refer to this as “The Great Omission” because it is the single largest section of Mark absent from Luke.
Here are the major items Luke does not include:
Jesus walking on water (Mark 6:45–52)
Luke includes the feeding of the 5,000 (just before this event in Mark) but then skips the next 1.5 chapters, picking up again at Peter’s confession in Mark 8:27.
Healings and miracles in Gennesaret (Mark 6:53–56)
Jesus rebukes Pharisees for upholding the tradition of men over the words of God (Mark 7:1–23)
Pharisees ask Jesus why his disciples do not wash their hands before they eat
This is the famous passage where Jesus “declares all foods clean.”
Luke, although a Gentile-friendly writer, oddly leaves this out.
The Syro-Phoenician woman and crumbs-from-the-table story (Mark 7:24–30)
Jesus equates Gentiles to dogs
Healing of the deaf man with his saliva (Mark 7:31–37)
Feeding of the 4,000 (Mark 8:1–10)
Luke includes the feeding of the 5,000 but not this one.
Demand for signs and the yeast of the Pharisees (Mark 8:11–21)
Healing of the blind man of Bethsaida with his saliva (Mark 8:22–26)
Then Luke resumes with the Confession of Peter (Mark 8:27), matching Mark again.
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