Part i. pp. introduction to the gospel of mark. 1st lesson

Part I: Introduction to Mark’s Gospel: Is The Second Gospel A Secret Christian Code ? Adult Bible Lesson. Antioch Bible Baptist Church February 19, 2006 (Original). Revised, July, 2011. Park Central Baptist Church (Dallas, Texas) Presenter: Joseph David Rhodes, M.A., M. Div.

Part I: Introduction to Mark’s Gospel: Is The Second Gospel A Secret Christian Code ?

I. Introduction: Why is the Study of Mark Important ?
Popular non-Christian and cultic works challenge the accuracy of the history of the New Testament and Christian belief:
The Book of Mormon
The Nag Hammadi Writings from Egypt
(1947) [ Gnostic Apocalypses, Gospels, Epistles,
etc . ].
The Fifth Gospel ( Robert Funk, “ The Jesus
Seminar ” ).
The Da Vinci Code ( Dan Brown’s “novel”).

The Status of Mark’s Gospel
“ Very possibly the oldest written account of Jesus’ minis-try that we possess, the Gospel of Mark is a vivid and fast-paced writing that holds the interest of the popular reader and biblical scholar alike. When Christians first began discussions about drawing up a list of writings that would be regarded as authoritative for the Christian faith ( . . . middle of the second century ) the Gospel of Mark was among the writings selected for inclusion in this list and is today, of course, still regarded as one of the four ‘canonical,’ or authoritative, written portraits of Jesus in the New Testament. ”
Prof. Larry Hurtado, Mark, A Good News Commentary, p. x.

II. Some Interesting Facts About Mark
Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels. In one recent edition of the Greek New Testament it has only 31 pages as compared to 51 for Matthew , 54 for Luke , and 40 for John .
It has less unique material about Jesus than any other Gospel:
92 % of Mark’s material is paralleled in Matthew.
48 % of Mark’s material is paralleled in Luke.
About 95 % of Mark is found in Matthew and Luke.
It contains less of Jesus’ actual teaching than the other Gospels.

II. Some Interesting Facts About Mark ( 2 )
If the Gospel’s original ending was at 16:8 rather than later, it records no explicit resurrection appearances [ The ending - the last twelve verses has been the most controversial part in textual
study in the last several centuries .]
Mark’s Greek seems to be rougher and simpler than either Matthew’s or Luke’s.
Mark has the highest number of candid statements about the humanity and self-imposed limitations of Jesus and all too human dullness of the disciples.
During the most of Christian history, Mark has been least popular of the Gospels, but popularity does not equal inspiration or value.

The Gospel of Mark has vividness of description that is consistent with its being an eyewitness account; details that are unnecessary to the flow of the narrative are included in the gospel. Examples include the following:
The Gospel of Mark is non-literary, having a simple and popular style; it has affinities with the spoken Greek as revealed by the papyri and inscriptions. Moreover, the gospel has a Semitic flavor to it. By this is meant that Semitic syntactical features influence the form of the Greek. For example, corresponding to Hebrew and Aramaic syntax, frequently verbs are found at the beginning of a sentence in the Gospel of Mark. Two other examples of a Semitic syntactical feature is the abundant presence of asyndeta , the placing of clauses together without the use of conjunctions, and parataxis, the joining of clauses with the conjunction kai ("and") (imitative of the waw-conjunctive in Hebrew and Aramaic). (There are many other alleged examples of Semitisms in the Gospel of Mark.) What can you infer about the author from these stylistic features of the Gospel of Mark?

James and John leave their father in the boat with the servants when they heed Jesus' call to follow him (1:20).
James and John go with Jesus and the rest into the house of Simon and Andrew (1:29).
Jesus takes Peter's mother-in-law by the hand and raises her to her feet (1:31).
It is explained that on the evening of the Sabbath, when the sun has set, that the sick are brought to to Jesus to be healed (1:32).

It is explained that in the morning, long before daylight, that Jesus gets up and goes out (1:35).
There are so many people crowded into the house that there is no room even near the door (2:2).
The paralytic is carried by four men and the roof is dug out in order to lower the paralytic down (2:3-4).
Jesus looks around at his critics with anger (3:5).
Jesus sits in a boat in the water and teaches the crowd of people on the shore (4:1).

Still More Examples of the Vividness and Eyewitness Character of Mark’s Gospel:
Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat (4:37-38).
There are about two thousand pigs into which Jesus sends the legion of unclean spirits (5:13).
Jesus instructs the people to sit down upon the green grass in groups of hundreds and fifties (6:39-40).
Jesus puts his fingers in the ears of the deaf and dumb man, touches the man's tongue with saliva, looks to heaven with a deep sigh and says "Ephphatha" (7:33).

Even More Examples of the Vividness and Eyewitness Character of Mark’s Gospel:
◊ Jesus spits on a blind man's eyes and laying his hands; the blind man is described as gradually regaining his sight (8:23-25).
Peter asks Jesus whether he should build shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah (9:5).
Jesus takes children into his arms, blesses them and lays his hands on them (10:16).
The blind man who is healed in Jericho is identified as the son of Timaeus (10:46).
Jesus is crucified at the third hour (15:25).
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome bring spices to the tomb very early, before the sun has risen (16:2).

III. Mark in the Early Church .
If Mark was the original “Gospel”, Matthew & Luke must have used it as a source of their information (Cf. “The Synoptic Problem.”). Most Conservative Biblical scholarship has variously dated Mark from the 40s to the 60s .
If some very recent study is to be accepted (C. Evans, D. Dormeyer, James Crossley), Mark was written as a bold Christian challenge to the Roman Emperor Caligula’s self-deification and his threats to the Jewish people.

III. Mark in the Early Church (2).
On the other hand, if the more traditional date of the late 50s or early 60s is valid, then the circum-stances of the Gospel’s publication may involve Nero’s insanity and the plunge of the leadership
of imperial Rome into civic chaos.
In either case, one of the key purposes of Mark’s Gospel was to challenge the claim that Caesar was a god with the revelation that Jesus, the suffering servant, was God . His kingdom would indeed thus eternally outlast the cruel oppressive empires of the Caesars and all human rulers.

A. The Testimony of Papias (ca. 130-140A.D.). Papias, a direct disciple of John of Zebedee):
And the Elder used to say this: “ Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately everything he remembered, though not in order, of the things either said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor follow-ed him; but afterward, as I said, followed Peter, who adapt-ed his teachings as needed but had no intention of giving an ordered account of the Lord’s sayings. Consequently, Mark did nothing wrong in writing down some things as he remembered them, for he made it his one concern not to omit anything which he heard or to make any false state-ment in them . 1
1 T he Fragments of Papias cited ca. 325 A.D. by Eusebius, Ecclesias-tical History , 3.39.15. Cf. Michael W. Holmes, (ed.) The Apostolic Fathers . 2nd Edition. Translation by J.B. Lightfoot and J.R. Harner. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1990), p. 316.

B. Other Early Church Testimonies to Mark’s Authorship and Purpose in Writing His Gospel.
A Testimony From An Early Heretic / Enemy of Faith – MARCION:
The Gnostic errorist Marcion rejected the Gospel according to Mark as too earthy and historical to support his distorted view of Christ. His highly deformed list or canon of the New Testament (c.a. 145 A.D.) also lacked John and Matthew (while retaining a mutilated version of Luke’s evangel).

B. Other Early Church Testimonies to Mark’s Authorship and Purpose in Writing His Gospel. (2).
2. Justin Martyr (100 ? -177 A.D.)
However, the star orthodox “ Apostolic Father ” Justin Martyr (ca. 155-60 A.D.), mentioned that the Memoirs of Peter contained the description of James and John as both “ named Boanerges, which means ‘ sons of thunder.’ ” This phrase is only found in Mark’s Gospel ( 3:17). 2
2 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho , 106, cited by James A. Brooks in his commentary, Mark, New American Commentary (Nashville, TN.: Broadman Press, 1991), p. 18. See also Henry Chadwick, The Early Church. O. Chadwick, ed. The Pelican History of the Church I (Har-mondsworth, Middlesex: Pelican Books, 1967), ch. 4, pp. 74-77.

3. A famous Christian apologist of the later second century, Irenaeus of Lyons, wrote in ca. 180 A.D. his opinion that Mark, who was Peter’s disciple and interpreter, wrote his particular Gospel after Peter’s death. [?] 3
[Cf. Note from Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough, Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker Books, 1998), p.89. [ Eusebius’ H.E., VI, 14,6-7]. There is an ambiguity here in the word “departure.”
3 From his book, Against Heresies , 3.1.1 cited by James Brooks, Ibid.

4. Other Witnesses (170 – 430 A.D.): Mark as disciple of Peter and author of the “ Second Gospel” or “ Third” One?
Tatian, in Harmony of the Gospels, the Diatessaron ( 170 A.D.).
Clement of Alexandria – claimed that both Matthew and Luke had written Gospels with geneologies before Mark. But Mark wrote in Rome during Peter’s lifetime. 4
4 Clement, in his Hypotyposes , makes this claim, cited in Eusebius, in
E cclesiastical History , 6,14.5-7. See the edition translated by C.F. Cruse
(Peabody, Mass. Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), pp. 204-5. [Reprint of
1850 edition].

4. Other Witnesses (170 – 430 A.D.): Mark as disciple of Peter and author of the “ Second Gospel” or “ Third” ?
Tertullian (ca. 210 A.D.) said that Mark was an
“ apostolic man ” who acted as Peter’s inter-preter and aid, who also edited a Gospel. 5
Origen, the 3rd century Christian Bible scholar (d. 254), wrote that “ The Second [Gospel] is according to Mark, who did as Peter instructed him. ” 6
5 Tertullian, Against Marcion , 4.25, cited by James Brooks, Mark, Op. Cit.
6 Quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.25.5.

4 . Several Other Witnesses from 170 – 430 A.D. to Mark as disciple of Peter and the author of the “ Second Gospel” or “ Third” ? (2).
Evidence from the so-called “ Anti-Marcionite Prologue ”,
(early 4 th century) which is also found in several early manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate (6th to 8th centuries). In these sources Mark is depicted as both a protégé of Simon Peter and later the bishop of Alexandria. It is said that he wrote his gospel account while in Italy.
The learned Bible scholar and translator, Jerome (d. 420 A.D.), also stated that Mark was the interpreter of Peter and pastor in Alexandria. 7
7 Jerome, Commentary on Matthew , Prologue 6, cited by James Brooks, p. 18. It will be
remembered that, acting by a papal order from Pope Damasus, Jerome translated the
Bible from the Hebrew and Greek to create the Latin Vulgate and standardize the Old
Latin versions of the Bible from the 2nd to 4th centuries.

4 . Several Other Witnesses from 170 – 430 A.D. to Mark as a disciple of Peter and the author of the “ Second Gospel” or the “ Third” One? (3).
Finally, bishop Augustine of Hippo (370-430 A.D.) firmly believed that the proper order of the writing of the Gospels was Matthew, Mark, Luke , and John . In his estimation, “ Mark followed him [Matthew] closely and appears to be his imitator or abstractor. ” 8
8 Augustine, Agreement of the Gospels ,1.2.4 See Augustine’s works
in the standard editions of Philip Schaff’s edition of the Post-Nicene
Fathers or the Loeb Classical Library .

C. The Gospel of Mark in the Middle Ages ( 5th to 14th Centuries).
Strangely, Mark’s Gospel was the least quoted by later ancient and Medieval Christian writers or it is very difficult to tell if it is being specifically cited whenever parallels were quoted .
Prof. James Brooks notes that “ No one appears to have written a Commentary on the Gospel of Mark until the late fifth century when Victor of Antioch did so . . . It was never placed first in the ancient manuscripts of the New Testa –
ment, and sometimes it was third or fourth rather than second.” 9
9 James A. Brooks, Op. Cit., p. 19.

IV. Modern Study of Mark (1850 - ca. 2000). Rapid Changes and Paradigm Shifts – What Kind of Code is a Gospel ?
A. Mark’s status changed with “critical” Biblical studies of the Synoptic relationships ( i.e., how to solve the “ Synoptic Problem” ?).
B. H.J. Holtzmann and others proposed the late 19th century liberal theological position that Mark was the really “historical” Gospel – the basis of dozens of rationalistic/ liberal “ lives of Jesus” (e.g., the famous “ Markan hypothesis”).

Modern Study of Mark ( 1850 – ca. 2000). ( 2. = Examples ).
This heady trend came to an abrupt halt then
with the monumental work of the late Dr. Albert
Schweitzer in his Quest for the Historical Jesus
(1906, 1910) who revealed that liberal scholars got back from Mark (and other Gospels) only their own preconceptions, i.e., Jesus was mere-ly a . . . “liberal” first century ethical and relig-ious teacher.

Modern Study of Mark ( 1850 – ca. 2000). ( 2. = Examples ).
Schweitzer also had demonstrated (to his own satisfaction!) that there was not enough historical material for the Gospels to be “biographies” of Jesus. The First “Old” Quest for Jesus died. The liberal “ Jesus ” was a Myth of 19 th century Evolutionism and the theory of Social Progress.

D. Other liberals (frequently German and French uni-versity professors) endeavored to further undermine the historicity of Mark. Some examples were:
William Wrede – who proposed the “theory of the Messianic Secret ” in about 1901.
The rise of “ Form Criticism” with such as K.L. Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, and Rudolf Bultmann from about 1910-1945.

D. Other liberals endeavored to further undermine the historicity of Mark (2).
Thus, the thematic unity and the geographical-historical skeleton [framework] of the first three Gospels - especially Mark’s Gospel - was fully dissolved in literary and critical analysis of so-called “ pericopes ”. Each Gospel then became a collage of many “layers” of early and later “Church traditions,” “reflections”, “legends,” etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseum .

D. Other liberals ( frequently German and French university professors) endeavored to further undermine the historicity of Mark. Some examples were: (2) [ Continued ]
Particularly radical was the school of Rudolf Bultmann (a liberal !!! German Lutheran) whose application of Form-Criticism moved him toward also complete skepticism about all the historical facts of the Gospel including Jesus’ virgin birth, His miracles, and the Resurrection. The number of “authentic” deeds and sayings of Jesus became minimal and the view of Christian belief became uncertain and highly “existential.”

D. Other liberals (frequently German and French uni-versity professors) endeavored to further under-mine the historicity of Mark. Some examples were: (3) [ . . . Continued ]
Some of Bultmann’s students (Gunther Bornkamm, Gerhard Ebling, Ernst Kasemann, etc.) reacted quite strongly against this strait-jacket of rationalism and anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions as did some outstanding British and American Bible scholars (C.H. Dodd, W. Davis, James Barr, H.H. Rowley, W. Albright, G.E. Wright, etc.)
Thus, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a slight shift in scholarship and the Second or “New Quest” for the Historical Jesus began with Gunther Bornkamm, E. Stauffer, J.M. Robinson, and others such as Wolfhart Pannenberg (Erlangen University).

D. Other liberals (frequently German and French university professors) endeavored to further undermine the historicity of Mark. Some examples were: (4) [ Continued . . .] [ Evangelical Reaction]
. . . From all this furor, both liberal and conservative scholars began (in some cases) to take the Gospels on their own terms as well-crafted proclamations of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and birth of the Church (Donald Baille, F.F. Bruce, William Barclay, Oscar Cullmann, R.H. Fuller, T.W. Manson, J. Moltmann, Leon Morris, et al .). Meanwhile, from the late 1940s onwards, evangelical scholarship began to slowly become the new leaders of genuine Biblical study because of its firm commitment to the Divine inspiration of the Bible and the unique Deity of Jesus Christ and His atoning death. Both America and Britain have experienced something of a strong Evangelical revival in scholarship from the 1970s until the 1990s.

Part IA: Introduction to Mark’s Gospel: [ (Slide 25) End of Part I.1A. ]
Is The Second Gospel A Secret Christian Code ?
No, Not According to the External Historical & Textual Evidence !!!!!!!!!!!!

Is The Second Gospel A Secret
Christian Code? No. It is a Gospel !
Next: Some Interpretative Theories of Mark’s Gospel, the Synoptic Problem, Markan Priority, the Authorship of the Book, Its Geographical Provenance and Date, and Miscellaneous.
Part IB: I ntroduction to Mark’s Gospel: Theories & Historical Facts

E. About Fifteen Keen Theories On Origin and Meaning of Mark’s Gospel ( ca. 1952-1989). What Kind of Code Is this KATA MARKON ?
S.F.G. Brandon (Manchester University, U.K.): Jesus was a Zealot and Mark’s Gospel, penned after 70 A.D. is a “cover-up.” 10
10 Cf. The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (2nd Edition; London: SPCK,1957). Professor Brooks observes, however, that the Gospels reveal that Jesus tended to avoid the title “ Messiah” early on just to prevent this kind of misappropriation and misapplication of His message ( Mark, NAC , p. 20). Some ardent readers of theology may also recall the much more notorious thesis of Hugh Schonfield in The Passover Plot : New Light on the History of Jesus (New York: Bantam Books, 1966).

E. About Fifteen Keen Theories On Origin and Meaning of Mark’s Gospel (ca. 1952-1989). What Kind of Code Is this KATA MARKON ?
P. Carrington & M.D. Goulder ( Profs ., Cambridge
University): Jesus was like an ancient Anglican
“ Liturgist” and the Gospels were Early Public
Lectionaries. 11
11 Cf. P. Carrington, The Primitive Christian Calendar: A Study in the Making of the Markan Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952) and M.D. Goulder, The Evangelist’s Calendar (London: SPCK, 1978) which focused on Mark as guide for baptismal liturgy. A similar thesis was propounded by B. Standaert in L’Evangile selon Marc: Composition et Genre Litteraire (Nijmegen: Stichtig Studentenpers, 1978). Aside from an obvious problem of anachronistic emphasis, the Gospels and Epistles were not generally read publicly as Scripture until at least the 2nd century !

E. What Kind of Code Is this KATA MARKON ? (2) . . . . [Continued]
William Marxsen : Mark was a Theological Redaction : It was written in 66 A.D. to warn the Jerusalem Christians to flee the doomed city and wait for the Lord’s return in Galilee. 12
12 In Mark the Evangelist: Studies in the Redaction History of the Gospel. Trans. By J. Boyce. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969). This theory has some obvious prophetic problems and it is incomplete as an explanation for a full Gospel purpose.

H. Riesenfeld : A Much More Conservative Ap-proach. [A Redaction Study ] Prof. Riesenfeld demonstrates how a Disciple of Jesus reflected the post-Easter discipleship. (Mark focused on Christology and the preaching [ kerygma ] and the didache [ teaching ] of Jesus for the second Christian generation). 13
13 Cf. Riesenfeld’s later volume of his collected essays, The Gospel Tradition . E.T. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), esp. ch. 3. Riesenfeld, a Scandanavian Lutheran, followed here the lead of Cambridge writer C.H. Dodd and also the Oxford Bible scholar Robert H. Lightfoot, whose History and Interpretation in the Gospels (Oxford University Press, 1934) anticipated many contemporary conservative evangelical views. His view was that Mark was a creative theologian who took Peter’s oral recollections and interpreted their meaning for his generation. See his mature reflections in The Gospel Message of Mark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950).

Charles H. Dodd : Mark’s Gospel – A Reflection of the Apostolic Preaching of Acts and Its Develop-ments (reflecting the ministry of the Divine and human Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee and Judea). (This thesis was originally contained in Dodd’s famous The Apostolic Preaching and Its Develop-ments London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936). 14
14 But see also “ The Framework of the Gospel Narrative,” in Expository Times 43 (1932), pp. 396 ff. which was later issued in his New Testament Studies (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953). American evangelical scholar Ralph Martin has stated, “ In the hands of the redaction-criticism it is the his-tory writing of a creative theologian who makes history serve his purpose. No issue is more central than to ask how Mark’s value will fare, either by depreci- ation or enhancement, in the matter of its witness to the historical Jesus .” - Cited in Mark: Evangelist and Theologian (Exeter, U.K. and Grand Rapids, MI.: Paternoster Press and Zondervan Publishing Academie Books, 1973).

T.J. Weeden : Mark’s Gospel as a Polemic Against A “Do-cetic Christology ” [Written about A.D. 80]. 15 Thus, Mark opposed Jesus being represented as the typical Graeco-Roman “divinized” man and the false conceptions of op-ponents of the original disciples of Jesus. Weeden indeed believed Mark’s view of Jesus and true discipleship must be understood in terms of suffering and sacrifice. 16
15 Cf. his essay “ The Heresy That Necessitated Mark’s Gospel,” in Zeitschrift fur neu-testamentliche Wissenshaft 59 (1968): 145-58; and his primary book on the subject, Mark - Traditions in Conflict ( Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971). We disagree with Weeden about the date of Mark and some details of his thesis, but he had something right here !
16 See James A. Brooks, Mark , NAC , p. 21. This basic understanding of Mark, with some
important modifications, is reflected in an essay by my own New Testament mentor, Prof.
Terry L. Wilder, (Ph.D., Aberdeen), “ The Heart of Mark’s Gospel,” in the Midwestern
Journal of Theology Vol. 1. No.1 ( Fall 2004): 44-50.

Ralph J. Martin: Mark written to refute a Gnostic distortion of Paul’s concept of a spritual divine Christ. He did so by emphasizing Jesus’ earthly and human characteristics – Jesus, though truly Divine, fulfilled the role of the prophecied OT & Davidic Messiah by humiliation, suffering, and death. Only then, was there exaltation. 17
17 Mark: Evangelist and Theologian (Exeter, U.K. and Grand Rapids, MI.: Paternoster Press and Zondervan Publishing Academie Books, 1973). See more recently, Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993).

J.D. Kingsbury : Mark wrote to correct popular false Christ-ology. Thus, “ Son of God ”, a functional, public, polemical title = “ King of Israel ” 18
Walter Kelber : Mark’s purpose was eschatological, e.g., to correct early Christian prophets who connected Jesus’ return with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by showing He would later “return” to Galilee. 19
18 The Christology of Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983). Some other
scholars question whether Kingsbury’s view of Christology in either the Old or New
Testament allows for the full deity of the Messiah and fulfillment of O.T. prophecy.
19 The Kingdom in Mark: A New Place and a New Time (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974); and Mark’s Story of Jesus ( Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979).

Ernst Trocme v : The issue of Mark’s Gospel is ecclesiology - the doctrine of the Church - : he represented a “progress-ive movement” which broke away from the conservative Christian body in Jerusalem. 20
Howard C. Kee : The Modernist Sociological View of MARK : (Written 68/69 A.D. by a charismatic, apocalytic community promoting itinerant evangelism). 21
20 The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975). James A. Brooks comments on this reading: “ It may be a necessary part of his view that Trocme v believed that the original Mark consisted only of chaps. 1-13, which were written in the 40s or 50s. Chaps. 14-16 were added ca. 85 A.D. ”, Mark , NAC, p. 22.
21 Community of the New Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977). Dr. Kee held to a somewhat Bultmannian view of Jesus’ historicity and strongly slants the small apoc-alyptic element in the Gospel of Mark toward a particular kind of “realized eschatology”. Thus, he leaves out any future prophetic fulfillment.

Ernest Best : The Gospel was written by a “Mark” in Rome, but not John Mark of Acts and the Paul-ine Epistles. He rejects both the apologetic and the polemical theses, and holds that the Gospel was a pastoral application of important early Jesus’ traditions. 22

22 Cf. Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark (Sheffield, U.K.: JSOT, 1981); and
Mark: The Gospel as Story (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983). Dr. Best, a Belfast Scot, has
lectured at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas, Presbyterian College
in Belfast, University of St. Andrews (Scotland), and from 1978- 80 was the Dean of the
Divinity Faculty at Glasgow University.

E. What Kind of Code Is this KATA MARKON ? (9) Three Other Minor Views :
D. Rhoads and D. Mitchie : Mark – the “omniscient narrator of the Ad-vent of the ‘ Reign of God in Jesus’ ” (Character study ) 23
Andrew Stock : Mark’s Gospel is the rhetorical presentation of Jesus’ suffering in the form of a Greek tragedy. 24
Victor K. Robbin ’s thesis: Mark’s Gospel follows the literary form (genre) of classical Graeco-Roman teachers with disciples whose integrity cost them their lives ( ignores the heal-ing ministry of Jesus and his role as redeemer from sin). 25
23 Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982).
24 Call to Discipleship: A Literary Study of Mark’s Gospel (Wilmington, Del: Michael Glazier, 1982). In an earlier theological monograph, G.C. Bilezikian pursued a similar plan of interpretation in The Liberated Gospel (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1977).
25 Cf. V.K. Robbins, Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark. Phila-delphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

V. The Priority of Mark Among the Synoptics Was It the First and P rimary Christian Code ?
Some Early Witnesses Would Have Strongly Disagreed !!!!!!!
Clement of Alexandria (Early 3rd Century).
Augustine of Hippo (d. 430): Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
Athanasius of Alexandria (328-373). (Quotes usual order).

V. The Priority of Mark Among the Synoptics Was It the First and P rimary Christian Code ? (2)
Revolution for Markan Priority in the Later 19th Century:
H. J Holtzmann (1863).
C.H. Wiesse (1880s).
Main Defenders in the 20th Century:
John C. Hawkins ( Horae Synopticae. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899).
B.H. Streeter . ( The Four Gospels . 4th Edition. London: The Macmillan Press, 1924).

Others:
C.H. Dodd, Joachim Jeremias, Vincent Taylor,
Archibald M. Hunter, and William Barclay. 27
27 On Dodd, Jeremias, and Taylor, see the bibliography. See Prof. A.M. Hunter’s small yet outstanding book is Introducing the New Testament (2nd Edition, Revised; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957). William Barclay’s excellent volume is the The First Three Gospels (London and Philadelphia: SCM and Westminster Press, 1966).

D . Traditional Arguments for the Priority of Mark . (A)
Since Mark is the shortest of the Gospels, it is easier to conceive of
Matthew and Luke expanding it rather than vice versa.
Why does Mark apparently leave out so much of Jesus’ teaching
(Parables, etc.) and any detailed accounts of the resurrection. ?
When Matthew and Luke differ from Mark in the order of the pericopes
(self-contained units of verses), they only occasionally agree against
him in their distinctive wording. Explanation ?
The language style, vocabulary, and grammar of both Matthew and Luke is more sophisticated than that of Mark.

Sometimes , it appears as though the other Synoptic Gos- pels correct impressions given in Mark’s brief accounts.
In some cases, it appears that the author of Matthew com-pressed and rewrote Mark’ s “ looser” accounts [ ?! !?].
Mark ’s narrative is given to much more candid and more strongly emotional accounts than the other two Synoptic Gospels.
It is easier for most to believe that Matthew and Luke im-proved on the precision of the accounts in Mark than that the latter “muddled” the fuller and more organized records of longer Gospels.

VI. Historic and Contemporary Challenges to Markan Priority:
A. There is the ancient (early Church) tradition
that Matthew (reflecting earliest Jewish form of
Christianity) preceded all others.
B. For many traditional scholars, the Matthean
theory (= that indeed Matthew’s Gospel was first)
best explains the minor agreements in wording of
Matthew & Luke against Mark . [ Yet, would not
Matthew and Luke agree more perfectly if the
latter depended on the former ?]

VI. Historic and Contemporary Challenges to Markan Priority:
C. Most Roman Catholic scholars (following St. August-ine’s view) supported the historic priority of The Gospel of Matthew until about 1943.
D. The most formidable challenge of the Markan priority came from an erudite Methodist scholar at SMU in Texas, W.R. Farmer, who published the first edition of his book The Synoptic Problem (London/New York: The Macmillan Press, 1964). Farmer strongly attacked all the traditional defenses that Mark was the earliest Gospel and the “two-document hypothesis” which B.H. Streeter propounded at Oxford in the early 20th century. Farmer also reassert-ed a theory that J.J. Griesbach of Gottingen had formerly proposed in the late 18th century. Essentially, the new Farmer-Griesbach hypothesis is that Matthew wrote first, that Luke used Matthew, and that Mark used the work of both Matthew and Luke.

VI. Historic and Contemporary Challenges to Markan Priority (3):
E. Farmer and his supporters (a growing number of both conservative evangelical scholars and moderate liberals) believe they can better explain why if Mark only differs in less than 5% from Matthew and Luke , why Mark’s narrative is significantly distinctive here. 28
28 See the criticisms and reaction to this theory in James A. Brooks, Op.
Cit ., pp. 24-25. See also the detailed and erudite defense of Farmer’s
basic view in John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh
Assault on the Synoptic Problem (London: U.K. and Downer’s Grove,
Ill.: Hodder and Stoughton and Intervarsity Press, 1992).

VI. Historic and Contemporary Challenges to Markan Priority (4):
F. British scholar and preacher, John Wenham, former vice-Principal at Tyndale Hall, Bristol, and Warden of Latimer House, Oxford, wrote a meticul-ously nuanced study a few years ago in which he argued that Matthew was written ca. 40 A.D., that Mark was then written about 45 A.D., Luke was composed ca. 54 A.D. – with its second part, the Acts of the Apostles , ca. 62 A.D. Now, this student would accept these dates as historically reason-able and Biblically sound.

Mark – A New Literary Genre ? Is The Markan Code Biographical-Historical or Is It Something Else ? [1]
“ Mark is neither biography or history in the modern sense. It does not deal with such things as family background, influences on Jesus, any psychological analysis of Jesus, or periods of his life. Mark’s primary purpose was not to set the forth historical facts as objectively as possible. His purpose was to describe Jesus in such a way as to promote loyalty to him and his teaching.” 29
29 James A. Brooks, Mark, NAC , p. 25. Brooks also remarks, “ Mark and the other Gospels represent a unique combination of the deeds and teachings of a great person, a combination that is not even paralleled in the later apocryphal gospels.” ( Ibid .) Mark is unique !!!!!!!!!

Mark – A New Literary Genre ? Is The Markan Code Biographical-Historical or Is It Something Else ? [2]
“ The gospels, then, are a form of ancient biography. When we study them. We walk through an ancient portrait gallery; the gospels are hung in the same hall as other ancient biographies – and we must study them with the same concentration upon their subject, to see the particular way each author tries to portray his understanding of Jesus. The gospels are Christology in narrative form, or less technically, the story of Jesus . ” [Emphasis ours. JR]. 30
30 Richard A. Burridge (Dean of King’s College, London) in his Four Gospels, One Jesus ? A Symbolic Reading (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994. See also his work, What are the Gospels ? A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biography . SNTS Monograph Series 70 (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

VIII. The Authorship of Mark’s Gospel : Anonymous Code or Genuine Personal Witness of a Vita ?
Key Facts About the Book:
Although the earliest extant manuscripts do not contain the name or the identity of the author, ancient Christian
tradition is unanimous that Mark wrote the Gospel later
attributed to him.
The title or tag κατὰ Μάρκον was attached to this docu-
ment in the early decades of the second century (certainly by ca. 150 A.D.) As James Brooks notes (among many
others), because of its early date and its universal accept-
ance by the Church, this title has much more significance
as evidence than later critics and detractors know.

VIII. The Authorship of Mark’s Gospel : Anonymous Code or Genuine Personal Witness of a Vita ? [2]
B. Key Lines of Confirmatory Evidence of Validated Witness.
Papias , the earliest external witness, was probably the pupil of John the Apostle (so other early traditions reckon this so: Irenaeus, Polycarp, Clement, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Eusebius).
For nearly eighteen centuries Christian believers and most Biblical scholars have found a connection between Peter (preaching in Rome) and Mark as his assistant and writing secretary convincing and reasonable.

The New Testament elsewhere independently attests to the close association of Mark with Simon Peter (1 Peter 5:13).
If Mark, who was not an apostle himself, wrote a Gospel accepted as early as the middle of the second century as an account of Jesus Christ, this requires a logical and historical explanation. It should be remembered that quite a bit is known of Mark, both his youthful failures ( Acts 13:13) and his services to the Apostolic cause in various times ( Acts 12:12,25; 13:5,13; 15:36-40; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 24; and 2 Timothy 4:11).

While it is true that “Markus” (Marcus) was a common Roman name, the John Mark of Acts is a known person. Thus, “ The story of the youth in Mark 14:51 seems to be of a different complexion from other Gospel incidents. If Mark himself was the youth, its presence is explained and vindicated. In that case it is likely that the Supper was celebrated in his own home and that the upper room is the same as that in Acts 12.” 31
31 Article, “ Mark, The Gospel of, Authorship,” in James Orr, ed. International Bible Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids, Michigan and Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark and Zondervan Publishing Company, 1915 .

Contemporary authors who deny that Mark is truly reflecting Peter’s testimony must assume the burden of proof to be on themselves. The haughty and con-temptuous assertions from the “higher” critical literary detractors from Mark (or the other Gospels) that the New Testament was written without eyewitnesses flies in the face of its own plain assertions (* Luke 1:1-4; John 19:20; *20:30-31; 21:24-25; Acts 1:3; *1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Galatians 1:11-22; * Hebrews 2:3-4; *2 Peter 1:16-21; and *1 John 1:1-4 ).

One late tradition that Mark became the bishop of Alexandria in Egypt (and later was martyred there) has been question-ed, though not disproven. Hippolytus of Rome (d. 325 A.D.) described Mark as “stump-fingered.” 32
32 Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of All Heresies 7.30, cited by James A. Brooks, Mark Op. Cit. , 27. One further later tradition in the Paschal Chronicle of the seventh century claimed he died a martyr’s death. Neither of these extra-Biblical traditions are certain.

IX. The Place of Writing and the Initial Audience: Is The Markan Code – The Gospel Kata Markon Geographically Identifiable ?
Locations Suggested by the Early Church Tradition:
The destination of Gospel was typically thought to be Italy, probably Rome.
One later writer, John Chrysostom ( d., 407 A.D.) said – Egypt.
Chrysostom’s opinion, however, seems to rest on the misunderstanding of a tradition that Mark once served the bishop of Alexandria. 33
33 Chrysostom, Homily on Matt. 1, cited by James Brooks, Ibid. Cf. also Ralph Martin, Mark: Evangelist and theologian, ch . Iii, “ Mark in the Frame of History,” pp. 61-2.

IX. The Place of Writing and the Initial Audi-ence: Is The Markan Code – The Gospel Kata Markon Geographically Identifiable ? (2)
Several Powerful Evidences for/against a Roman Provenance:
If Paul’s Prison Epistles were written from Rome (virtually certain), then Colossians 4:10 and Philemon 24 connect Mark with Rome in the early sixties (and the possibility that he was there earlier or wrote there earlier exists as well).
Again, 1 Peter 5:13 appears clearly to connect Mark with Peter in Rome in the late 50s or early 60s. It has been plausibly argued that the description -- “ Babylon” is a code word for Rome and the kingdom of Caesar.

IX. The Place of Writing and the Initial Audi-ence: Is The Markan Code – The Gospel Kata Markon Geographically Identifiable ? (3)
2 Timothy 4:11 powerfully implies that Mark would soon journey to Rome . . . Moreover, when Mark 15:21 is compared with Romans 16:13 (assuming “Rufus” was the same in both instances), it seems natural to link the Gospel with the city of Rome.
There is a virtually universal early Christian tradition that Peter died as martyr in Rome during the Neronian persecution (A.D.64-65).

IX. The Place of Writing and the Initial Audience: Is The Markan Code – The Gospel Kata Markon Geographically Identifiable ? (4)
The presence of numerous Latinisms in the Gospel also support either a Roman provenance or, possibly, a Roman destination.
Nevertheless , some evidence exists that Mark was written earlier (in the mid to late 40s) and that Palestine or Syria its actual place of writing and Rome (with its mixed Jewish and Gentile church) was the destination. Certainly there were Christians in Rome nearly two decades before either Peter or Paul arrived there ( Acts 2:10-13; 10:1-33; 28:13-16; Romans 15:19-24; 16:3-16).

X. Date of Mark’s Gospel: Is KATA MARKON a Code with Particular Incarnational Aspects or Is It Timeless Fiction ?
A. Mark is definitely timely (1:4, 5,9; 15:42ff.16:1,2,9).
B. The traditional date given for Mark in modern times has been between ca. 55 – 65 A.D. and is linked to late Roman provenance.

X. Date of Mark’s Gospel: Is KATA MARKON a Code with Particular Incarnational Aspects or Is It Timeless Fiction ? [2]
C. It is possible that the allusions to persecution in Mark (Cf. 8:34-38; 10:38-40) have a Neronian background in mind. However, in the era of Caligula (37-41 A.D.) and Claudius (41-53 A.D.), the first stirrings against the new Christian way began (Cf. Suetonius, Claudius 25:4; Tacitus’ Annals 25:44.2-5; Acts 18:1-3; and 2 Thess. 2:3,4). 34
34 Paul Barnett, Jesus & The Rise of Early Christianity ( Leicester, U.K. and Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1999 ), ch. 2, pp. 27-30.

X. Date of Mark’s Gospel: Is KATA MARKON a Code with Particular Incarnational Aspects or Is It Timeless Fiction ? [3]
Since Nero died in 68 A.D. and Peter was most probably martyred by 64/ 65 at the latest, then, on the latest, he must have arrived in Rome by 62 A.D. If one accepts the later conservative date for Mark, its publication in late 62-64 seems highly probable in this schema.

XI. The Occasion and Purpose of Mark’s Gospel : What Was the Intention of the Gospel Code KATA MARKON ? Why ???????
Whether in the late 40s or mid-60s, the Roman authorities and the Jewish authorities displayed hostility to Christians.
The threat of imminent persecution may constitute the primary occasion for Mark’s composition.
Another contributing purpose may have been to translate the regular apostolic preaching and teaching, along with the oral traditions of Jesus (from Peter, John, et al .) into a form which new Gentile converts in Rome and elsewhere could use to guide their faith.

XI. The Occasion and Purpose of Mark’s Gospel : What Was the Intention of the Gospel Code KATA MARKON ? Why ??????? [2]
* Mark also wanted to share his Divinely-shaped understanding of the record of Jesus which he had learned from Peter and the other apostles. He wanted to demonstrate that not only was Jesus both truly human and deity (God), as the Son of God, e.g., the Messiah, He was the Lord of the nations and the suffering Savior of Sinners.
Mark’s Gospel, whether the First or Second in chronological order, is primarily a Gospel of Jesus for disciples, i.e., those who would follow in the path of Master, who was the Suffering Servant.

XI. The Occasion and Purpose of Mark’s Gospel : What Was the Intention of the Gospel Code KATA MARKON ? Why ??????? [3]
He “[ Mark] presents Jesus as the Son of God, the suffering Son of Man, and urges his readers likewise ‘ to take up the cross.’ This emphasis, found primarily in 8:27-10:45, is thus rightly called by scholars ‘ the heart of Mark’s gospel’. ” 35
35 Professor Terry L. Wilder, “ The Heart of Mark’s Gospel,” Op. Cit., p. 44. (Note 17).

Part IC: I ntroduction to Mark’s Gospel: Manuscripts & Gospel Outline.
See the Next Section in the Appendices to Parts 1A & 1B.
Mark is a marvelous Gospel !!!

BREAK. Appendices
Some Medieval Manuscripts
Some Ancient Manuscripts
Outlines of the Gospel of Mark
Maps of “ the Gospel Era ”

Some Medieval Manuscripts: The Book of Kells. Folio 292 R

Some Medieval Manuscripts: Lindisfarne Gospels : (7 th /8 th Century). British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV, f.211

Some Medieval Manuscripts: Opening of the Gospel of St. Mark. Folio 86, The Book of Durrow. (Ca. 680 A.D.) Dublin Trinity College, 51.

Some Ancient Manuscripts: Introduction
Partial New Testament Papyri. The oldest complete bibles are the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus . Older Manuscripts are fragments of verses or chapters of bible books. Some are named but most are numbered. P1 (Papyri number 1) through P5300 . The following is a list of the oldest:

Some Ancient Manuscripts: Introduction
<50 <70 125 200 250 300 350 400
Matthew P64 P67 P45 Vat. Sin.
Mark 7Q5 P45 Vat. Sin.
Luke P45,75 Vat. Sin.
John P52 P66 P45,75 Vat. Sin.
Acts P45 Vat. Sin.
Rom- Hebr. 7Q4 P46 Vat. Sin.
James-Jude Vat. ,P72 Sin.
Revelation P47 Vat. Sin.

Some Ancient Manuscripts: Rylands Papyrus (P52) One of the earliest surviving pieces of New Testament Scripture is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John 18:31-33 and 37-38, called the Rylands Papyrus (P52). This papyrus was found in Egypt, and has been dated at about 125 A.D. ( John Rylands Library in Manchester, England).

Some Ancient Manuscripts:
Bodmer Papyrus (P66, P72-75)
This collection of approximately fifty Greek and Coptic manuscripts was purchased by M. Martin Bodmer of Switzerland in 1955-56, and has been dated at around 200 A.D. Most of the collection is located in the Biblio-theca Bodmeriana in Cologny (near Geneva). The ex-ception is Pap. VIII (including 1 & 2 Peter), which was given as a gift to Pope Paul VI in 1969; it is in the Va-tican Library. The documents were discovered in Egypt. They are from both codices and scrolls; most are papyri, but three are on parchment (Pap. XVI, XIX, and XXII). The manuscripts include Old and New Testa-ment texts and writings of the early churches. The papyrus manuscript P75 (the gospel of Luke and John) showed a virtually identical text to the ([see below]):

Some Ancient Manuscripts: Bodmer Papyrus (P66, P72-75) ca. 200 A.D. The Bibliotheca Bodmeriana in Cologny (near Geneva).

Some Ancient Manuscripts: The Chester Beatty Papyrus P45 (Dated 200-250 A.D.) Made public in 1931, it contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s Epistles, and Revelation. It was actually found in Egypt about 1895.

Some Ancient Manuscripts: Magdalen Papyrus (P64) The papyrus scraps had been housed at the library of Magdalen College for more than 90 years, the gift of a British chaplain, Rev. Charles Huleatt, who bought them at an antiquities market in Luxor, Egypt. Using new tools such as a scanning laser microscope along with more conventional hand-writing analysis, Thiede re-dates the fragments, previously dated in the mid- to late second century, to sometime between 30 and 70 A.D. In three places on the Magdalen Papyrus, the name of Jesus is written as "KS", an abbreviation of the Greek word Kyrios, or Lord. Contains Matthew 26

Some Ancient Manuscripts: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Mid-second century; sayings of Jesus which have parallels in all four gospels.More than two thousand papyri from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt have been published, most of which are not Biblical. The Biblical passages are thought to have been copied from an even earlier manuscript, perhaps 110-130CE.

Some Ancient Manuscripts: [ British Museum] The two oldest Complete New Testament Manuscripts scholars have are two “Codex” Manuscripts – These are the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. (4 th Century)

Codex Sinaiticus
Originally included both Old and New Testaments plus the Epistle of Barna bas and the Shepherd of Hermas , all in Greek. Sin. was found in a monas-tery library on the slopes of Mount Sinai in 1859 and brought to St. Petersburg. In 1933 it was sold to the British Museum in London where it currently resides.

Some Ancient Manuscripts: Codex Vaticanus
Fourth century Greek codex of the Old and the New Testaments. The codex was brought to the Vatican from Constantinople as a gift to the pope in the fourteenth century. The Old Testament lacks Gen .1-46:28; portions of II Kings 2; and Psalms 105-137. The New Testament is missing Heb . 9:14; I and II Tim .; Titus and Revelation .
It was not available to open scholarship until 1889. The original is still in the Vatican. Neither Sinaiticus or Vaticanus contain the last twelve verses of Mark ( Mark 16:9-20). However, the verses are included in some earlier fragments, and in the writings of Church fathers, even ones cited by scholars as second century. These are the only two Greek manuscripts ( Sinaiticus and Vaticanus ), out of a total of 620 which contain the Gospel of Mark, that omit the verses.

The Evidence of Ancient Manuscripts: Amazing Confirmatory Evidence of the Authenticity and Reliability of the Greek New Testament.
There are over 5,300 known ancient Greek manuscript copies (MSS) and fragments of the New Testament in Greek that have survived until today.
Counting an additional 10,000 Latin Vulgate and over 9,300 other early manuscript versions in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, and Ethiopic, totaling over 24,000 surviving manuscripts of the New Testament.
Small changes and variations in manuscripts affect none of the central Christian doctrines, nor do they change the message.

The Evidence of Ancient Manuscripts: Amazing Confirmatory Evidence of the Authenticity and Reliability of the Greek New Testament.(II)
Tertullian stated that by 150 A.D., the Church in Rome had compiled a list of the New Testament books matching our list of today.
We have 32,000 quotes from before 325 AD, from Irenaeus (182-188 AD), Justin Martyr (before 150 AD), Polycarp (107 AD), Ignatius (100), Clement (96 AD) and many other second and third century fathers. All but eleven verses of the New Testament could be reconstructed through their writings alone.
The Muratonian Canon Fragment dating from 170 AD lists the same New Testament that we have.
See the Ante-Nicene Fathers , a 32 volume Encyclopedia of the writings of the Early Church, by Eerdmans Publishing. Or on the Internet see the Early Church Fathers

Some Ancient Manuscripts: A Disputed Manuscript (I)
The external, direct evidence is contradictory. There is disagreement about whether Mark wrote his gospel before or after Peter's death, which took place during Nero's persecution of the church c. 65. The Gospel of Mark was written either when Peter was in Rome or just after his death in Rome. To be on the safe side a date ranging from 63-68 should be attributed the Gospel of Mark. But for those of us who eshew a “safe” date, any year between 45 to 55 A.D. appears historically defensible !

7Q5 : Disputed Ms. Fragment from Qumran:
Some Ancient Manuscripts: A Disputed Manuscript (II) Oldest Copy of Mark’s Gospel? Found in cave seven at Qumran was a very small papyrus fragment consisting of five lines of text and twenty visible letters (7Q5). Some have argued that this is actually a fragment of the earliest copy of Gospel of Mark. They consider it to be part of Mark 6:52-53. If this identification is correct, then the date of the Gospel of Mark should be pushed back to the 40's CE, since the fragment has been dated between 50 BCE and 50 CE. The issue is complicated, but suffice it to say that the evidence for the identification of this fragment with the Gospel of Mark falls well short of proof.

Part i. pp. introduction to the gospel of mark. 1st lesson

by Joseph Rhodes

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Part i. pp. introduction to the gospel of mark. 1st lesson Presentation Transcript