1. The fact that this episode is included in Matthew may suggest that it was inserted into the text sometime after the main book was written, as it tends to counter the apparent Matthean tendency to insist on the necessity of following Jewish religious law. In that case, what we may have is a recollection that arrived by a different route than much of the other material. Or we may regard the story as buttressing the Matthean idea that, when in Jerusalem, do as the Jews do and honor Jewish customs.
We may also consider the possibility that the story was originally an allegory given by some preacher in order to get across the point that true Christians are free of such obligations.
Interestingly, there is no completion in which Peter actually goes and finds the shekel. In virtually all other cases of miracles related in the four gospels, it is clearly stated that the miracle was performed and that someone benefited. But here the story stops with Jesus' words. One cannot help but wonder whether the Matthean writer or editor was chary of saying that a miracle had occurred because he thought the story might have been meant as an allegory.
The possibility that we can question a particular recollection should not be taken to mean that, therefore, nothing is trustworthy. It is obvious that a number of people had witnessed incredible things and heard amazing wisdom. In fact, the sayings of Jesus are in themselves so powerful that they point to a person of divine centrality, which in turn tends to attest to the fact that many miracles occurred, even if the precise retellings vary in minor detail or if sometimes only one evangelist records a particular event.
The fact is that three evangelists saw Mark's second mass feeding miracle as unlikely to have occurred, realizing that it appears to be an obvious retelling of the first miracle story with minor differences of detail, including the approximate number fed.
Yet the Markan writer found the two versions useful, because, for one thing, he used the literary device of "sandwiching" other material between the two tellings, a device he uses elsewhere.
Further we must conclude that the Markan writer must have been at at least one remove from the first apostles. That is, he had access to church accounts of, possibly, sermons of one or more apostles, but he could not have reviewed his material with any substantial eyewitnesses.
Still, what if Mark is correct and there were two mass feedings? We would then attribute the too-strong similarities to the conflation of recollections. That eventuality cannot be excluded.
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