An Introduction to Mark

OPENING REMARKS

Today we’re embarking on a study through the gospel of Mark. We’ll be running this study in tandem with our study of 1 John.

This afternoon instead of diving straight into chapter 1 we’ll be laying the foundations for our study of Mark; getting acquainted with the historical context in which this gospel was written and having a birds eye look at the great themes and motifs of the whole of the second gospel. I’ll also be taking time to address some apologetic concerns and responding to some common sceptical arguments about this gospel.

Why do this?

Because we have to remember that our Bible is a collection of ancient historical documents. Breathed out by God (1 Tim 3:16) yes. But also written by men at a particular point in history. If we take no care to learn about the who, the where and the why of these ancient documents that make up our Bible we risk:

Misunderstanding what they are really saying to us; anachronistically reading in our 21st century concerns and sensibilities into a text which knows nothing of them.

Doing narcigesis; everything is about ME! The only real meaning that the Bible has is the meaning that I give it. Sadly this has become endemic in the church. “God told me this verse means this...” We’re only interested in the passages of scripture that confirm what we already want to believe.

Being bamboozled by enemies of Christianity. “The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write the Gospels.” - Bart Ehrman

So are we right to think that Mark actually did write Mark’s gospel? Yes we are, but it always helps us to know why that is correct. Rather than just saying ‘it’s what I’ve always been taught.’

It’s good for us as Christians to know at least as much about how the Bible came to be as the average atheist who wants to tell us it’s a load of rubbish. For example, did you know that verses 9-20 of the final chapter actually don’t appear in the earliest manuscripts of Mark, which suggests that the original gospel of Mark actually ended at verse 8 in chapter 16?

WHO WROTE MARK?

I’ve heard it said that the gospels were written hundreds of years after Jesus actually lived, by people who hadn’t actually been around to witness his life.

The zeitgeist movie from back in the day and novels like Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci code popularised myths like the idea that the council of Nicea was where the Bible was finally put together in 325 AD by the emperor Constantine. And that Christianity was in fact a creation of the Roman empire.

These theories sound rather appealing to people who hate the Bible, but they aren’t grounded in truth,

In reality the gospels and the books of the New Testament are not the work of Constantine and his Bishops, they are Greek documents coming to us from the 1st century AD. There isn’t a scholar teaching in any relevant field today who would deny this. Scholars generally have Mark’s gospel as being the earliest, written some time between 60 and 68AD. The early church fathers record that this gospel was based on the eye witness account of Peter:

“And the elder used to say this, Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said and done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had followed him, but later on, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord’s oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them.” - Papias of Hierapolis (60-130AD)

“Matthew composed his gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul proclaimed the gospel in Rome and founded the community. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, handed on his preaching to us in written form” - Irenaeus (130-200AD)

“And so great a joy of light shone upon the minds of the hearers of Peter that they were not satisfied with merely a single hearing or with the unwritten teaching of the divine gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, who was a follower of Peter and whose gospel is extant, to leave behind with them in writing a record of the teaching passed on to them orally; and they did not cease until they had prevailed upon the man and so became responsible for the Scripture for reading in the churches.” - Clement of Alexandria (150-215AD)

“The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it.” - Eusebius

Mark’s gospel, along with the other three gospels were already in circulation around the Roman Empire by the second half of the 1st century, just thirty to forty years after Jesus’s resurrection.

We know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John alone were considered as the gospels by early Christians. That the later gnostic gospels of Peter and Thomas weren’t considered as authentic by the church fathers.

“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning… It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament records than have many theologians” - Frederick Bruce, Historian

The early church fathers were keen to record for us that the Gospel of Mark was indeed written by Mark, who was an interpreter for the Apostle Peter. Although there is no ‘by Mark’ at the end of the manuscripts we have strong historical evidence to support that it was indeed Mark or John Mark as he is sometimes called who wrote it.

Mark is mentioned a number of times in the new testament. It was to his mothers house in Jerusalem where the Apostle Peter came after his miraculous escape from jail in Acts 12:12 - ‘When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.’

Mark was a cousin of Barnabas (col. 4:10) and travelled with both Paul and Peter. He was the source of the dispute between Paul and Barnabas in the book of Acts.

WHO WAS IT WRITTEN TO

Mark takes extra care in his gospel to explain certain Jewish traditions and festivals which might have been unfamiliar to gentiles. Therefore the initial audience for this gospel were indeed gentiles, like you and I!

Mark followed Peter around helping him in his ministry, and eventually committed Peter’s eyewitness testimony of Jesus to writing. Mark, along with the other three gospels is therefore an eye witness account of what happened in the days of Jesus. Therefore when we study the gospel of Mark, we are getting as close as we can possibly get to the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter was martyred in Rome some time around 64 A, crucified upside down during the first great persecution under the emperor Nero, and Mark likely wrote his gospel in Rome either shortly before or shortly after Peter’s brutal death and before the sack of Jerusalem just 6 years later. So his gospel was likely read at first by the early church in the city of Rome.

These were dark, oppressive times for the early church, especially in Rome. We read about some of what those believers went through in the writings of first century historian Tacitus:

TACITUS QUOTE

The following account was written by the Roman historian Tacitus in his book Annals published a few years after the event. Tacitus was a young boy living in Rome during the time of the persecutions.

"Therefore, to stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero] falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition - repressed for a time, broke out yet again, not only through Judea, - where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were arrested who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of "hating the human race."

In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. For this cause a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of exemplary capital punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man."

THEMES

Appoximately a third of Mark’s gospel consists of the passion narrative, the story of Jesus’s Crucifixion. The first half of the gospel follows Jesus on his journeys in and around Galilee, the second half follows his final journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. So as we read this Gospel we are literally journeying with Jesus.

Jesus is portrayed in Mark as the sufferring servant of Isaiah 53 - Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

This strong focus on the suffering of Jesus for our sakes would have been such an encouragement to those early believers who doubtless would have known friends and family members who had been fed to wild beasts or crucified for their faith.

Jesus stands with us in our suffering.

Jesus is the subject of Mark’s gospel from start to finish. Mark never once allows Jesus out of the crosshairs, he’s always in focus. He wants us to know that these events; that this life is the pinnacle of all human history. That Jesus is the answer to our suffering, He is the answer to our sins, He is the answer to our needs.