Student Name Date Primary Source Analysis: The Gospel of Mark The primary source that I decided to read and study is the Gospel of Mark, which is found in the Bible s New Testament. I am specifically focusing on the teachings, supposed miracles, and accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth recorded in it. I ended up choosing to work with this particular document because not only am I interested in religion but I have also been following the debates over the socalled quest for the historical Jesus for the past several years. I had not yet read Mark, so I figured this would be an opportune time to finally do so. Regarding the authorship of the gospel, one can read it and see that it does not say specifically who wrote it. The early traditions of the Church, however, point to John Mark as the author, a younger member of the original apostolic community in Jerusalem, who became a close associate of Peter the Apostle. 1 Tradition also says that Mark was the one who established the church in Alexandria, Egypt. 2 As far as preconceptions and goals that Mark might have had, I can think of a few. First off, as a Jew, it can be assumed immediately that he was a monotheist, meaning he believed in one God. Also, since he was choosing to write about Jesus of Nazareth, it is obvious that he was one of the firstcentury Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Continuing on with this theme of Mark being Jewish, I also remember from the lecture notes that the Jews of the time were very resentful of the Roman occupation of Palestine; so it seems to me that we can assume that Mark felt the same way. When it comes to goals, all one has to do is read the 1 Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997), 123. 2 Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, revised ed. (New York: Penguin, 1993), 64. 1
gospel to see that Mark was adamant about presenting Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, no doubt so that other people whether Jewish or Gentile would believe in the Nazarene just as he did. Concerning the date when Mark was written, we are not entirely sure when it was, but the consensus is that it was sometime between AD 60 and 70. 3 At that point, the Jesus movement had been in existence for something like thirty or forty years. Keeping this in mind, some of the people who had known Jesus the apostles, for example would have still been around. As a matter of fact, one of the early leaders of the Christian community, a man named Paul of Tarsus, had already been spreading Christian beliefs about Jesus all throughout the Roman Empire. Speaking of Rome, Palestine remained occupied by the Romans. The Jewish War between the Jews and their Roman overlords erupted between AD 66 and 70, two of the results being the besieging of Jerusalem and the destruction of the magnificent second Temple. Rome itself by this point was being ruled by emperors as the Republic had collapsed the previous century. It could be that Mark wrote the gospel during the reign of the megalomaniac emperor Nero (r. AD 54-68), the one thought to have been responsible for the Great Fire of Rome for which the Christians were blamed. Regarding the Gospel of Mark s contents, its real focus is to provide details about the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Interestingly, however, the text is not a traditional biography like what we would expect nowadays, as it tells us nothing about Jesus childhood. Instead, it starts with Jesus as an adult being baptized by the apocalyptic Jewish preacher John the Baptist: And it came about in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately 3 Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels, 121-23. 2
coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; and a voice came out of the heavens: Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well-pleased (Mark 1:9-11). It continues with Jesus launching his ministry. According to Mark, the first words out of Jesus mouth were: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel (Mark 1:15). Clearly, Jesus was another first-century Jew expecting God to act in a significant way that would change the world order. Mark described that Jesus performed miracles too. Among them, he recounted how, in Mark 5:35-43, Jesus had supposedly brought a dead girl back to life. In verses 40 and 41, Mark stated: [Jesus] took along the child s father and mother and his own companions, and entered the room where the child was. And taking the child by the hand, he said to her, Talitha kum! (which translated means, Little girl, I say to you, arise! ). It is worth noting that the language Jesus was speaking here was Aramaic, the common language of first-century Jews, as we learned in class. In Mark 6:33-44, the evangelist also recounted how Jesus had supposedly fed 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish. The following is stated in verses 41 through 43: And [Jesus] took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, he blessed the food and broke the loaves and he kept giving them to the disciples to set before them; and he divided up the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish. For Mark, all these claimed miracles were proof that Jesus was the promised Messiah. The Gospel of Mark also provides us with some of Jesus important teachings. One that I have heard time and again is found in Mark 8:34-35, where Jesus was explaining that people had to make a very serious commitment one that could ultimately cost them their lives to be one of his, the Messiah s, followers. The text says: 3
And [Jesus] summoned the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel s shall save it. Furthermore, there is that famous teaching given to the rich young ruler who did not want to leave behind his riches to follow Jesus: Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:24-25). Lastly, the Gospel of Mark narrates the crucial events of the last week of Jesus life. After the events of his public ministry in Galilee, he made his final journey to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey: And they brought the colt to Jesus and put their garments on it; and he sat upon it. And many spread their garments in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went before, and those who followed after, were crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest! (Mark 11:7-10). If what Mark wrote is true, it appears that Jesus was deliberately acting out a messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. As that week went on, Jesus confronted the religious establishment with his message about God s coming kingdom (Mark 11:15-12:40). We can also see how he and his disciples celebrated the Last Supper (Mark 14:22-25). After all was said and done that night Jesus was betrayed to the religious leaders (Mark 14:43-50), condemned for blasphemy after claiming to be the Christ (Mark 14:61-64), and then turned over to the Romans for crucifixion, the punishment reserved for slaves and pesky foreigners. (Jesus would have been the latter from the Roman perspective). One can read the details of Jesus crucifixion under Pontius Pilate in Mark 15. The gospel concludes with the sixteenth chapter, where the author wrote that despite having been executed, Jesus allegedly came back to life. It says that some of his female disciples, which 4
included Mary Magdalene, went to his tomb, where the following is said to have happened: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid him (Mark 16:5-7). This is the Gospel of Mark in a nutshell. When it comes to the impact of Mark on the society in which it was written, it seems to me that it would have had a big impact. The Christians, who by this point in the first century had been sharing their beliefs about Jesus by mouth for decades, now had a document about him that they could circulate throughout the Roman Empire for evangelistic purposes. Also, literate people who believed that Jesus was the Christ could now refer back to the text for information about Jesus teachings, deeds, and miracles said to have been performed by him. For example, early Christians probably would have turned to Mark s account of the Last Supper in order to read from it while celebrating the Eucharist. Regarding the historical insight this document provides us, it sheds a great deal of light on the historical Jesus. That it is likely the first gospel ever written makes it all the more significant in our efforts to get back to who the Nazarene actually was and to better understand the content of his teaching. From it we also learn about the earliest Jewish Christians and what they felt it was important to preserve about the man they believed to be the promised Messiah. 5
Works Cited Blomberg, Craig L. Jesus and the Gospels. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997. Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church. Revised ed. New York: Penguin, 1993. 6