“... Granted this heavy and purposeful redaction that pervades Matthew’s reworking of Mark 7:1–23, it is difficult to maintain that the differences in Matt 15:11 vis-à-vis Mark 7:15 are due not to Matthew’s editorial hand but rather to a stray independent logion that suddenly pops up in the midst of a pericope that is otherwise simply and solely the product of Matthew’s recasting of Mark. This is all the more the case when we notice that Matt 15:11 exemplifies the same softening tone (i.e., avoiding as much as possible direct conflict with the heart of the Law) that we see elsewhere in Matthew and indeed in this pericope (e.g., the omission of Mark 7:19c). Within 15:11 itself, Matthew’s redactional hand is seen both in the introduction of the characteristically Matthean word “mouth” (stoma) and in the abbreviation of the Marcan logion in a way that creates greater balance between the two halves. Unless we are to forget suddenly all that redaction criticism has taught us about Matthew’s consistent redaction of Mark throughout his Gospel, the simplest and most natural explanation of Matthew 15:11 is that, like the rest of Matt 15:1–20, it is the theologically motivated rewriting of Mark 7:15 by Matthew. This conclusion carries an important corollary. If Matt 15:11 is nothing more than Matthew’s redactional rewriting of Mark 7:15—with the typically Matthean word “mouth” inserted into the saying—then G. Thom. 14 must be judged not an independent tradition but rather a slightly redacted version of Matt 15:11: “For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but what comes out of your mouth, that is what will defile you.” The use of “into [your] mouth” and “out of your mouth” in the two halves of the aphorism, the resumptive “this” (or: “that”) in the second half, and the carefully balanced parallelism all reveal Matthew’s fingerprints on logion 14 of the Gospel of Thomas. Once again, the academic dogma of Thomas’ independence of the Synoptics and its possession of a more primitive tradition does not hold up to close scrutiny. The results of this comparison of Mark, Matthew, and the Gospel of Thomas suggest the following conclusions about the authenticity of Mark 7:15: (1) Mark 7:15 represents the earliest available form of this saying. Matt 15:11 is simply Matthew’s reworked version of the logion, echoed by G. Thom. 14. ...”