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Matthew 15 · a question people ask

Matthew calls her "a Canaanite woman" (15:22). Doesn't Mark call her a Greek?

In the text

Yes, and here are the two side by side. Matthew: "Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders and cried" (15:22). Mark: "Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race" (Mark 7:26). Both say where Jesus had gone. Matthew: he "withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon" (15:21). Mark: he "went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon" (Mark 7:24). Neither Gospel explains the other's words, and these notes don't either. They say nothing about her people beyond these verses, don't join the two tellings, and don't say how they fit.

The verses

“Jesus went out from there and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders and cried, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, you son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!””
Matthew 15:21-22 · World English Bible
“From there he arose and went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. He entered into a house and didn’t want anyone to know it, but he couldn’t escape notice. For a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of him, came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race. She begged him that he would cast the demon out of her daughter.”
Mark 7:24-26 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Matthew 15

Matthew 15: Great is your faith

In Matthew 15, Jesus answers "Why do your disciples disobey" with "Why do you also disobey" (15:2-3), and one Greek verb runs through his answer: honor your father and mother (15:4), and honor with the lips (15:8). And "Be it done to you" and "was healed" (15:28) are, in the Greek, the words of the centurion's healing (8:13).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions