I'm at work again and reading
Deciphering the Gospels in bit by bit mode, and I feel the need to respond to this statement:
At the time that Paul was writing his letters, however, sometime around 50 CE, the Gospels had not yet been written. The "gospel" that Paul talks about here is simply the teachings of the Jesus cult.
While I agree with the idea that the gospels had not yet been written in Paul's time, I think the gospel he is talking about in Galatians is
his gospel, the one he refers to in 2:2 ("I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles"). And I don't get the impression that Jesus teaches anything in Mark that is like this (Torah-free) gospel.
You also write:
It appears that author of Mark picked up the phrase [Kingdom of God] from Paul, and the phrase made its way into the other Gospels via copying from Mark.
Here's one I have an easier time accepting. I think Mark did know Paul (even Christians who had not met him had at least heard about him, as he says in Gal. 1:22-23) and is the same Mark mentioned in Phm. 1:24, where Paul calls him one of his "fellow workers." So maybe there is some cross fertilization going on here.
And I like your observation that Mk. 7:20-23 resembles (if not exactly, as you go on to note) Gal. 5:19-21. I never noticed that before.
He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
About this, you write:
Keep in mind that the Gospel called Mark was written decades after the works of Paul were written, that Paul's teachings are never presented as being Jesus' teachings by Paul, that Paul claims not to have learned anything about Jesus from anyone else (though the truth of this could be called into question), and Paul never claims to have any knowledge of Jesus other than from revelation.
Maybe there is something to this one too. This deserves some more thought. For now, factoring in the idea that Mark was a follower of Peter, and being in the camp that calls into question that Paul did not learn anything about Jesus from anyone else, all I can think is that maybe both Paul and Mark learned something similar from Peter and other Jewish Christians.
For example, Paul's discussion of food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality resembles what James and other Jewish Christians proscribe in Acts 15 and Rev. 2 and the Didache (which is thought to have been written relatively early and in a Jewish Christian milieu). And both Mk. 7 and Gal. 5 above resemble Did. 5:1:
But the Way of Death is this: First of all, it is wicked and full of cursing, murders, adulteries, lusts, fornications, thefts, idolatries, witchcrafts, charms, robberies, false witness, hypocrisies, a double heart, fraud, pride, malice, stubbornness, covetousness, foul speech, jealousy, impudence, haughtiness, boastfulness.
This puts more weight in the "common source" camp for me.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.