Talk:Gospel of Mark

Shouldn't Markan primacy be discussed? Lacrimosus (talk) 11:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Three quarks for Muster Mark (but no boiled eyes on ghost'). 212.85.6.26 (talk) 18:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

εφοβουντο γαρ
Translating the latter part of Mark 15 and through to Mark 16:8 was one of the things I had to do on my ancient Greek final. εφοβουντο ("they were frightened") is in the imperfect tense. This signifies that it was an ongoing process of fear. If it had been in the aorist, that would indicate that they had been scared once and got over it. --Wackyvorlon (talk) 04:39, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

John Mark
There is all sorts of confusion regarding which "Mark" the Gospel of Mark is attributed to. Most people identify Mark the Evangelist as John Mark. Since the Coptic Church claims to have been founded by Mark, they have a considerably large number of tradition about his life. The Coptic Church says the Mark was a Jew born in Cyrene (in between modern day Tobruk and Benghazi, it had a relatively large Jewish population during the Hellenistic era) who immigrated to Palestine. This website  also claims the he was born there about 15 years after Jesus was born. Coptic tradition also holds that his family came to Palestine during the end of Augustus Caesar's reign (he died in 14 CE, though there is some difficulty interpreting the calendar according to Wikipedia which as you all may be aware was undergoing reforms at around this time). This would have made him a teenager at the time of the crucifixion and Coptic tradition states that he was the young man mentioned in the Gospel of Mark at his arrest who ran away (the idea being that Mark was recounting a personal memory). He lived in Jerusalem until 49 CE when he traveled from Jerusalem to Alexandria where according to tradition he founded the Church in Alexandria. There are various problems with geography in the Gospel of Mark, however it is worth noting that all of those problems are related to the geography of northern Palestine and there is no tradition which mentions John Mark as traveling to northern Palestine. A citation note on the bottom of the Evidence for Jesus Christ page (or something along those line) claims that divorce was not possible in Palestine at this time which I'm not sure is accurate given that the Mishnah which records traditions and laws dating to this time period mentions divorce law (though there was a controversy over whether or not divorce was permissible), divorce is also mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew which was written by a relatively knowledgeable Palestinian Jew and is there implied as being perfectly legal albeit socially objectionable. I any case he (Mark) died some between 68 CE and 71 CE. I am generally skeptical of traditional authorship claims, but the Gospel of Mark is the earliest Gospel and hence at the very least we should go into more detail about the supposed author since of all new testament authorship claims this one seems to be the most believable once you learn about the various other traditions regarding Mark. Alsto003 (talk) 19:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC) Alex

Made a mistake, there are geographical errors in regards to southern Palestine as well (Jericho and Bethany). In any case that's not the overall point of my suggestion. Let us lay out what we know. The Gospel of Mark is the earliest complete Gospel that we have and was probably written before the end of the first century (It was also probably abridged and the entire ending may be an interpolation). It also seems to have advocated an Adoptionist position regarding Jesus's divinity (but again that's off topic). It's traditionally attributed to John Mark who I gave a bit of biographical information about in the above section (the one where I wildly speculate about his authorship). It has some bizarre elements but is relatively straight forward and doesn't really embellish stories (with a couple of exceptions). Given the ignorance about geography it was almost certainly not written by a Palestinian Jew and if the guy who wrote it spent any time in Palestine then it was when he was a child. Tradition states that John Mark did not actually witness the events he writing about, Eusebius quotes Papias about the Gospel of Mark and this is what he says happened, "And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." So the traditional account of authorship holds that all the stories accounted in this Gospel are hearsay (sort of like Herodotus). Despite all of that this Gospel is the first synoptic gospel we have and was one of the first written despite the fact that the person who wrote it was certainly not a Palestinian Jew and may not even have ever visited Palestine. That in itself may have some significance. In any case we should address this topic further. Alsto003 (talk) 10:20, 20 November 2014 (UTC) Alex

Mark shot wrote first?
While it appears to be the view of a slight majority, it is by no means the consensus view of all biblical scholars. See here for one of the other theories out there. 22:28, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Prediction of Jerusalem's destruction?
Mark 13 mentions destruction of a temple that somewhat happens in 70CE. The book is dated as early as 68CE.
 * Was that a prediction of this incident beforehand, or added in afterward?
 * If beforehand, would this be a coincidence, a failed prediction (because one wall is still up and the celestial things are intact), or something else?

Thanks for your consideration. - Sour-tape (talk) 22:28, 29 November 2020 (UTC)