Of the gospels included in the NT, Mark appears to be the first one written.

• Mark is the only writing in the NT to refer to itself as a "gospel" (1:1). And the word is worth noting.

• In the Greco-Roman world, "gospel" meant "good news," especially victory in battle. When the Roman army was victorious, they would often send a messenger home ahead of them to announce the victory.

• The word was also often used in relation to the birth of the emperor.

Mark was probably written between 65-75 AD, and is traditionally believed to have been written in Rome:

• Mark focuses on suffering and persecution, and Christians in Rome were going through this at this time, during the persecution of Nero following the burning of Rome.

Tradition claims that the author is John Mark (of Acts), who

• accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, and is described in Acts as a follower and "interpreter" of Peter.

• He was probably not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus.

• There are no strong arguments against accepting the tradition here. 

• He was clearly a Greek speaker, although his Greek is unsophisticated (possibly his second language?).

Mark probably ended with 16:8. Earliest manuscript copies of the gospel end here.

Mark can be divided thematically into two parts:

• 1:1-8:26.          

  • Part One focuses on Jesus' ministry of preaching and healing in Galilee. It is intended to both ask and answer the question, "Who is Jesus?"

  • According to Mark, he is the Messiah, but not the one that Jews in the first century have been expecting.

• 8:27-16:8.        

  • Part Two focuses on Mark's understanding of the Messiah, as the one who must suffer and die for the sake of others. 

  • It is intended to answer the question "What does it mean to call Jesus 'messiah'?"

• The word/phrase "immediately/at once" occurs 42x in Mark; in contrast, it occurs only once in Luke (this despite the fact that Luke has copied at least 50% of the material in Mark into his own gospel).
• Mark uses the "historical present" tense- passages that took place in the past from the author's perspective are written using present tense verbs in Greek, adding to the sense that things are happening rapidly. 
  • This is usually corrected by translators to more accurately convey Mark's message- it is also corrected by Matthew and Luke.

• For Mark, Jesus' healings, exorcisms, etc., are a form of teaching, and they serve to confirm Mark's claims about Jesus' identity. 
  • In Mark, Jesus' teachings deal primarily with the "kingdom of God"- a phrase that has apocalyptic significance in the gospel and in the OT. 
  • Jesus uses the OT theme of "divine reversal"- best illustrated by sayings like "the last shall be first and the first shall be last."
    • This amounts to a criticism of the present "kingdom" in which Jesus lived: If in God's kingdom the status of humans will be reversed, then the current kingdom is the opposite of God's and the opposite of what is just in God's eyes.
    • So who were the "last"? The shamed- those who were poor, diseased, afflicted, possessed, outcasts (most of which was seen as a punishment from God for sinfulness).
    • Who were the "first"? Those who prospered in Caesar's kingdom, those with wealth and authority- the honored. If they prospered in a world that was opposed to God, then they prospered because they themselves were opposed to God.
      • In Jesus' social setting, those who prospered did so because they were Roman or sympathetic to Rome- they were outsiders and oppressors who exploited common Jews for their own benefit.
    • Consider the theme of "divine reversal" in the following teaching of Jesus in Mark:
      • " If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all." (9:35)
    • If those who prospered in Caesar's kingdom were not of God, then it follows that those who suffered and who were outcast were so because they were of God- because they did not belong to "this" world.
  • So how do Jesus' actions function as a form of teaching? Each healing or exorcism enacts divine reversal, the "last" become "first" in a symbolic sense.
  • Jesus' actions point to the real nature of the kingdom, not necessarily to the real nature of Jesus. 
    • This is why, for Mark, Jesus' miracles are not "signs" that reveal him as Messiah, although some of the miracles take place within stories that are intended to reveal Jesus' significance and identity.
• Often Mark will mention that Jesus taught, without telling us the content of the teaching, but telling us how the crowd responded (amazement/fear).

• The relatively fast pace of the gospel suddenly slows in the last three chapters, where Mark starts to give an almost hour-by-hour account of Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  
• But much of the material in the second half of the gospel (and some of the first half) is intended to foreshadow the passion:
  • Three "Son of Man"/Passion predictions (8:31; 9:30; 10:32)

• Each of the stories helps to interpret the other:
  • For example, in Mark 11:12-25, two stories are intercalated in the following pattern:
    • 11:12-14= Jesus curses a fig tree because it is not bearing fruit, it is not ready for him when he arrives.
      • 11:15-19= Jesus curses and symbolically destroys the temple in Jerusalem by overturning the tables of the money changers in the court of Gentiles.
    • 11:20-25= As Jesus and his disciples leave Jerusalem they pass by the fig tree Jesus cursed to find it has withered and died. If his curse on the fig tree came to pass, what does this say about his condemnation of the temple?
  • See also 5:21-43, the raising of Jairus' daughter and the woman afflicted with a hemorrhage.

• but the scene shifts to Jerusalem in ch. 10 to describe the events leading up to the crucifixion.

• Although Mark is careful to place Jesus within OT history, he clearly writes for an audience that is not fully aware of that history
• He occasionally stops to explain Jewish rituals to his reader, whom he assumes would not otherwise understand.
• He also translates Aramaic phrases for his reader, but does not do the same for Latin phrases.  
• It seems clear from the text that at least part of Mark's audience was not Jewish, although Mark's assumption that the reader will understand his OT allusions argues that some of the community must have been Jewish.

• His Jesus experiences the full range of human emotions;
• he is not all knowing,
• and his healing power even fails him.

• In Mark, Jesus never calls himself by the title "Messiah," nor by any synonymous titles, such as "Son of God" (or "Savior" or "Son of David," etc.) In fact, he never takes any title for himself in the gospel, although his use of the phrase "Son of Man" in the passion predictions appear to be references to himself.
  • There may be one exception, in 15:61, when Jesus is asked by the high priest if he is the messiah and he responds "I am"- but then makes a prediction about the appearance of the Son of Man.
  • In 8:29, Jesus asks the disciples, 'Who do you say that I am?" and Peter responds, "You are the Messiah." But Jesus neither confirms nor denies Peter's answer, he just tells him "not to tell anyone."
  • Throughout the gospel, the only characters who are consistently portrayed as correctly identifying Jesus are the demons he casts out (see 1:24, 34; 3:11; 5:7). 
    • One possible exception to this is Bartimaeus, a blind man who recognizes Jesus as "son of David" (10:47-48).
  • Although Jesus never calls himself "Son of God," the title is nevertheless used for him three times:
    • Twice, it is spoken by a "voice from the heavens":
      • At Jesus' baptism (1:11)
      • At Jesus' transfiguration (9:7)
    • The third time, the title is spoken by the Roman centurion at the foot of Jesus' cross when he dies (15:39).
• Mark also suggests that Jesus taught the crowds that followed him only in parables, so that they would not understand his teachings about the Kingdom of God, and then "be converted and be forgiven." (4:10-12)
  • In other words, Mark portrays Jesus as deliberately obscuring his teachings to prevent those who followed him from being saved!
• Why the secrecy motif? Some possible explanations:
  • Wrede's solution was controversial. He suggested that Mark portrayed Jesus as keeping his identity secret to conceal the historical reality that Jesus had in fact never considered himself to be the messiah.
    • Writing at a time when some people who may have known Jesus personally were still alive, Mark had to respond to their claim that Jesus did not call himself the messiah.
    • He does so by claiming that Jesus had called himself the Messiah, but only in secret and not even to all of his own apostles.
    • Wrede's proposal assumes that Christians "made up" the claim that Jesus was the messiah, and put this claim on his lips despite the fact that he never said it. This proposal has been largely rejected, partly for the following reasons:
      • If we accept the portrayal in Mark of Jesus' message as being primarily apocalyptic and concerned with the "Kingdom of God," then it is highly unlikely that he could have preached about the kingdom without being considered to be the messiah by at least some of those who heard him. At some point, he would have been confronted with the question of who he claimed to be.
        • If he explicitly rejected the idea that he was the messiah, then it is hard to believe that Christians would have given him this title. It would amount to saying, "Yes, he denied that he was messiah, but he was wrong/lying."
        • On the other hand, if he had accepted the title publicly, he would have risked being mistaken by Jews as a military leader or revolutionary.
  • It is most likely and most logical to assume that Mark's theme of the Messianic Secret has a historical basis, that perhaps Jesus acknowledged himself as Messiah to some of those closest to him, but resisted public acknowledgment for fear of being misunderstood.
    • This helps to explain other aspects of Mark's portrayal, such as the fact that the only person to correctly identify Jesus as Son of God is the Roman centurion who witnesses his death (15:39). For Mark, it is Jesus' suffering and death that confirms his status as messiah, therefore no one can correctly identify him as such until after his suffering and death have taken place.

• Mark portrays the disciples as incapable of understanding Jesus' teachings, as lacking in faith, as incapable of following his commands, as unable to comprehend his destiny, and as ultimately betraying and abandoning him.
• For more on this characteristic, see below.  

• 6:7-13= Jesus gives the disciples power over unclean spirits.
  • 9:14-29= The disciples fail to exorcise a demon, and Jesus tells them it is because the demon "can only come out through prayer."
  • 9:38-41= The disciples try to prevent another exorcist from driving out demons in Jesus' name- he is able to do so even though he is not among Jesus' apostles. Jesus chastises the disciples saying "whoever is not against us is for us."
• 14:32-42= Jesus tells the disciples to keep watch while he goes into the garden to pray, and he tells them to "pray that you may not undergo the test." 
  • Three times he comes out of the garden to find the disciples sleeping instead of praying. They have failed to follow his orders, and in 14:52 they fail "the test" by abandoning him when he is arrested.
• 9:33-37= Jesus tells the disciples that "If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all" (divine reversal, above). He then takes a child in his arms and tells them, "Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.
  • 10:13-16= Just one chapter later, the disciples "rebuke" parents who are trying to bring their children to Jesus, and he must remind them of his previous teaching, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."
  • 10:35-45= James and John ask to sit at Jesus' right and left hand in the kingdom, or to be greatest among his disciples. Jesus reminds them that whoever "wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all."
• In a series of stories, Mark uses Moses typology to portray Jesus (as fulfillment of Deut 18:15). In each case, the disciples fail to understand.
  • 6:34-44= The Feeding of the 5000. Jesus takes a crowd of followers to a "deserted place" where he teaches them. They become hungry, and Jesus miraculously multiplies loaves of bread for them (see Exodus 16:4-15). Twelve baskets full of fragments are left over.
    • 6:45-52= Immediately following the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus comes down from a mountain where he was praying to God and walks across water towards his disciples, who are in a boat being cast about by strong winds. The disciples think they are seeing a ghost, but Jesus identifies himself, and calms the winds. Mark claims that the disciples did not understand "the incident of the loaves, on the contrary their hearts were hardened." Like pharaoh, they have failed to recognize God's messenger in Jesus.
  • 8:1-10= The Feeding of the 4000. This is essentially the same story as the previous feeding miracle, with several key features. First, the disciples still must ask Jesus where he will get bread for 4000 people, even though he just fed 5000 people two chapters earlier. Second, instead of twelve baskets, there are seven wicker baskets of fragments left over.
    • 8:11-21= Following this, Jesus and his disciples are again in a boat and the subject of bread come up. The disciples have only one loaf of bread with them, and when Jesus tells them to "guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod," they mistake Jesus' symbolic language as a literal reference to their lack of food. Jesus wonders why they would be concerned about bread after his two feeding miracles and reminds them of those miracles and the baskets left over. They do not understand him, and he must ask them, "Are your hearts hardened?" In each case, the disciples have failed to recognize the Moses typology, and failed to recognize who Jesus is.
• 8:34-38= Jesus defines true discipleship for his followers: "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. (and ff)"
  • 14:66-72= Rather than "denying himself" Peter denies Jesus three times to save himself.
  • 14:10-11= Judas betrays Jesus in return for payment.
  • 14:43-52= When Judas arrives with a crowd to arrest Jesus, all of the disciples flee. One of his followers is seized in the process of fleeing and is so desperate to get away that he leaves his clothes behind and runs away naked.

• John the Baptist denies himself to announce Jesus' arrival (1:7).
• After she is healed by Jesus, Simon's mother-in-law "waited on"/"served" Jesus and his disciples (1:31).
• The friends of the Paralytic overcome great obstacles to bring the Paralytic close to Jesus (2:4-5).
• Both Jairus and the woman afflicted with a hemorrhage humble themselves and fall down before Jesus when requesting his assistance. In both cases, Jesus fulfills their request.
• The Syrophoenician woman humbles herself before Jesus and denies herself when asking him to heal her daughter despite the fact that she is a Gentile. 
• An unnamed exorcist is able to exorcize demons in Jesus' name even though he not among his followers.
• Bartimaeus recognizes Jesus despite his blindness and overcomes the chastisement of the crowd to get close to Jesus, and is immediately cured of his blindness because of this.
• The poor widow gives up all she has to donate to the temple treasury, and Jesus tells his disciples that her contribution is worth more than all the others.
• The woman who anoints Jesus for burial is commended by him because she has rightly recognized his destiny, while the disciples still have not.
• Simon the Cyrenian literally fulfills Jesus' command to "take up [the] cross."
• Joseph of Arimathea risks revealing himself as a follower of Jesus (when all the others have abandoned him) by asking Pilate for permission to remove Jesus' body from the cross for burial.

• It is possible that Mark's community was not one of those founded by the twelve apostles, and so Mark portrays them negatively in order to play down any claims of authority or leadership made by competing apostolic churches. 
  • Mark may intend to imply that there is no reason to accept apostolic tradition over his own, since the apostles never clearly understood who Jesus was to begin with.
• It is also possible that Mark has highlighted the failure of the disciples in order to also highlight Jesus' continual willingness to take them back, including the invitation sent to them (although never received in the original version of the gospel) to join him in Galilee after his resurrection (16:6-8). 
  • Mark may have intended this as encouragement for those in his own church who had apostatized in the face of potential persecution and whom the author sought to re-invite back into the community.

• The story of the supper itself is brief (14:22-26) and shares much with the other synoptic portrayals and with the account found in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, probably the earliest.
• Three key elements of the supper story stand out:
  • The "eucharistic formula" in 14:22: "...he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them..."
  • The bread is referred to as Jesus' "body."
    • On one level, the reference to Jesus' body as the bread broken parallels the symbolism of the Passover meal, at which a lamb was  sacrificed and eaten in remembrance of God's saving action in Egypt.
      • The blood of the sacrificed lamb marked the doors of the homes of the Hebrews, so that the angel of death (the 10th plague ) "passed over" them and only killed the first-born children of the Egyptians.
      • As a result of this, the Hebrews were allowed to go free by Pharaoh, and were guided by Moses to the Promised Land.
      • Similarly, all of the gospels symbolically connect Jesus' death to the Passover, suggesting that his death was sacrificial, an expiation or sin offering that brought freedom from slavery to sin and its consequences.
      • For Mark, the bread broken by Christians at the celebration of the Eucharist is meant to recall Jesus' sacrifice, the "breaking of his body" at his death, and to remind Christians of the freedom they received as a result of this sacrifice
    • Bread is also referred to in the two feeding miracles Jesus performs in 6:34-44 (Feeding of the 5000) and 8:1-10 (Feeding of the 4000).
    • Both stories also contain the eucharistic formula:
      • Feeding of the 5000: "Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples..." (6:41)
      • Feeding of the 4000: "Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute..."
      • In both stories, it is Jesus' disciples who distribute the bread to the crowd.
    • The symbolism in these stories works in two directions.
      • It looks back to the Exodus narrative, when the Israelites tested God in the desert by demanding that he satisfy their hunger. 
        • God responded by raining manna (bread) from heaven, satisfying their physical hunger, as well as their "spiritual hunger" or longing to have God's presence among them confirmed.
        • Similarly, Jesus, as a "new Moses" satisfies the spiritual hunger of those who follow him- Jews first (hence the 12 baskets left over in the first feeding story, symbolizing the 12 tribes) but gentiles as well (hence the 7 baskets in the second story, symbolizing all of creation).
        • It is also worth noting that in both stories it is the disciples who are given the responsibility to distribute the bread, as it is the disciples to whom the bread is given at the supper. 
      • In this way, the stories also foreshadow the Last Supper. This is perhaps Mark's way of saying that at the supper, by accepting the bread, the disciples also accepted the responsibility of carrying on Jesus' mission after his death.
  • The cup is referred to as Jesus' "blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many."

The two most important days in the church’s liturgical year are Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Christ, and Easter, which celebrates his resurrection. Do you think the author of the gospel of Mark would agree with the church’s decision to make these two moments in Jesus’ life the most important and the most celebrated? Why or why not? If not, then what two moments in Jesus’ life do you think were most important to Mark, and why?

At the Last Supper in Mark, Jesus shares bread and a cup with his disciples. Explain to me what these two things symbolize, using stories from other parts of the gospel where “bread” or a “cup” appears to support your argument. Be sure to explain to me all of the ways that the stories you choose are interrelated. Finally, tell me what you think the Eucharist/communion means to most Christians, and how this is similar to or different from what it means to Mark.

Choose one of Mark’s intercalations. Tell me the stories involved, and tell me how each story helps to interpret the other. How does this literary characteristic of Mark complicate or facilitate the task of trying to understand who Jesus was, as a historical figure?

We have discussed Mark’s portrayal of Jesus’ disciples, and how they continually fail to live up to Jesus’ expectations. Give two examples from Mark of ways that the disciples disappoint Jesus, then give two examples of minor characters who are better examples of discipleship in Mark than the twelve. Be sure to explain your examples specifically in both cases.

Consider the theme of suffering that recurs throughout this gospel. Explain how Mark uses Jesus and other character