"The simplest truths often meet the sternest resistance and are also slow in getting general acceptance." Frederick Douglass.
Perhaps Charles Schultz's most adorable character was Linus. Never do we see him without his blanket. It's his cover. It keeps him safe. He can hide behind it if necessary.
We can all relate to Linus.
Modern gospel scholarship wraps itself with its own Linus Blanket -- unbridled speculation. "All the evidence that has been accumulated from various sources goes to prove most conclusively that our earliest Gospel is that of Mark." One could only wish. Perhaps the quintessential evidence of pedagogical puffery is the invention of a "document" called Q.
We see everything as we want it to be.
Regardless of groundless guesses, hyperbolical hypotheses, and endless errors, there is a simple alternative to the Markan priority hypothesis. What if someone offered counterarguments to the consensus view? A theory that requires exactly zero hypothetical documents?
And here's a thought. What if I told you that the earliest Christian scholars all agreed that our first Gospel was Matthew's? What could possibly be gained by ignoring their testimony? Instead, to protect our "solid conclusions," we drape ourselves in our own Linus Blanket.
I could say more, but there's already an entire book out there on the subject.