Sunday School

The Chronology of the New Testament, part three : Mark Enters the Chat

Welcome back to Sunday School! Class is officially in session. This week we’re continuing our deep dive on the chronology, the who wrote what when, of the New Testament (NT). Last week we looked at the first witness, the oldest documents found within the NT, the seven authentic letters of the historical Paul.

To catch up click here.

In the development of the NT the Gospel according to Mark comes next. While it comes second in the canonical order, following Matthew, an overwhelming majority of scholars are convinced of Markan priority (meaning Mark was written first). This idea began to be discussed in the 18th century, and by the 20th century that Mark was the earliest canonical Gospel was accepted as a foregone conclusion. I won’t go into all the reasons for this except to note that Matthew, written in the 80s, incorporated ninety percent of Mark into his Gospel, some 600 of Mark’s 678 verses. Luke, writing perhaps as late as the early 100s, used sixty-five percent of Mark. That Mark was a source for both of these texts is clear.

Due to their similarities these three Gospels—Mark, Matthew, and Luke—are known as the “Synoptic Gospels.” Synoptic comes from the Greek word συνοπτικός, which means “seeing together.”

WHO wrote the Gospel?
As the first Gospel to be written (that we know of, at least) Mark gives us a window into the developing Jesus tradition at a critical moment in Jewish history. It usually comes as a surprise to many people when I tell them that we don’t know who the author of this Gospel actually is (nor do we know the authors of any of the others for that matter). Mark is an anonymous text that, as time went on, became attributed to John Mark, who was said to be an interpreter of Peter. From this perspective, Mark recorded what he heard from Peter’s teaching, which gave the Gospel an apostolic connection that brought with it credibility. As we will see later, there is an opposite idea among some scholars today who see Paul, not Peter, as a source for the author of Mark. The reality is the text is anonymous, and any attempt to assign specific authorship is conjecture. However, in conversations “Mark” is used to identify the text/author, and I will follow this convention.

WHEN was the Gospel written?
Based on the contents of Mark we can say with a strong amount of confidence that Mark was written sometime around the Jewish-Roman war of 66-73 CE. Many scholars use 70 CE as the date, acknowledging that it could have been a little before or just after that particular year.

A few reasons for dating the text around the year 70 CE:

• Mark 13, known as “The Little Apocalypse,” reflects the cataclysmic moment when the Second Jewish Temple was destroyed by Rome, which happened in 70 CE. Mark wrote at or in the aftermath of, “the end of the world” for his community.

• Jesus’s ministry follows a similar track to that of Rome’s army as it retook the territory. Jesus began with a Galilean campaign in the rural villages, and ultimately met his fate in Jerusalem at the hands of the empire.

• Recurring images and language reflects the context of Rome’s military advance. This is most obvious in Mark 5 with Jesus’s exorcism of the “Legion” of unclean spirits from the land.

WHERE was the Gospel written?
Those who see a connection with traditions about Peter have placed the writing of Mark in Rome, where legend says Peter ended up and was eventually martyred. However, based on the connection of the Gospel to the Jewish-Roman war of 66-73 CE, it seems more likely that it originated in the region of northern Galilee or southern Syria. When Rome began to reassert control and stop the rebellion they began the campaign in Galilee. After subjugating the northern part of the territory, they made their way to Jerusalem which fell in the year 70 CE. It is likely that Mark’s community lived through that experience, and more likely that some did not.

Fun Markan Facts:
Here are some things that I find interesting about Mark. The list is by no means exhaustive:

• Some scholars suggest Mark was familiar with the writings of Paul, specifically 1 Corinthians. For more on this see the suggested further reading.

• Mark employs many themes and writing techniques/conventions to tell his story. A few examples:

  • Intercalations / Markan sandwiches - Mark regularly introduces a story (A), interrupts it with a different story (B), and then concludes the original story (A). In this A-B-A sandwich the interior, or “filling,” interprets the outer story.

  • The Messianic Secret - This is a much debated and discussed theme of Mark. Jesus regularly tells people that he’s healed, or that have confessed him as the Christ, to not tell anyone. They always do anyway.

  • Failure of the Disciples - Again and again Mark presents Jesus’s disciples as failing to really understand his teaching. They also don’t rise to the occasion in critical moments, further demonstrating that they just don’t get it.

• Mark seems to have introduced the idea of the “empty tomb” into the written tradition. Paul does not mention an empty tomb, just that Jesus was raised up by God and then appeared to some of his followers afterward.

• Mark contains no appearance of the post-Easter Jesus. The women who visit the tomb are told to tell his disciples that Jesus was raised up and they will meet him back in Galilee, where it all began.

• There has been much debate about the ending of Mark. The abrupt ending with the women walking away and saying nothing created much consternation, which led some scribes to add on sections of text that were more definitive. Scholars have debated whether Mark originally ended at verse eight or if there was a longer ending that has been lost. The consensus now is that Mark originally ended with verse eight.

That’s a brief introduction to Mark, but it’s barely the tip of the iceberg. If you’d like to dig in further here are some suggested resources that will be helpful.

Binding the Strong Man, by Ched Myers
Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of Mark, by Marcus Borg
The Gospel of Mark: A Beginners Guide to the Good News, by Amy-Jill Levine
The Quest for Mark’s Sources An Exploration of the Case for Mark’s Use of First Corinthians, by Thomas P. Nelligan
The Gospel of Mark and the Roman-Jewish War of 66–70 CE Jesus’ Story as a Contrast to the Events of the War, by Stephen Simon Kimondo