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:

1. Jesus walking on water (Mark 6:45–52)
2. 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.
3. Healings and miracles in Gennesaret (Mark 6:53–56)