By Julie M. Smith
Virtually all scholars believe that Mark 16:9–20[1] was not originally part of the Gospel for the following reasons:
By Julie M. Smith
Regardless of our assumptions about “Mark” the author, we might wonder to what extent the writer simply transmitted the traditions about Jesus that he received (from Peter or from others) or reshaped them. As Joel Marcus phrased the question, was Mark a “conservative redactor [=editor] or creative theologian?”[1]
by Julie M. Smith
The oldest statement about the authorship of Mark’s Gospel comes from Papias, who was the bishop of Hieropolis (in what is now Turkey) and lived from about 60CE to 130CE. Most scholars date Papias’ statement about Mark’s Gospel to close to 130CE,[1] but a few scholars think his statement might have been made closer to 100CE[2] and that he was referencing information that he learned at an earlier time, perhaps 80CE.[3] Unfortunately, Papias’ original works are lost and come to us only through quotations contained in Eusebius, who was a bishop in Palestine and lived c260-340.
By Julie M. Smith
The Gospel of Mark was widely thought to be an abbreviated version of Matthew’s Gospel and therefore virtually ignored until the 19th century, when a closer examination of the Gospels suggested that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke used it as a main source. Since that time, attention to Mark’s Gospel has expanded exponentially. There is much discussion about Peter as a source for Mark, and the evidence for such an association is as follows:
by Julie M. Smith
The Gospel of Mark is formally anonymous, meaning that the name of the author does not occur within the text (contrast Revelation 1:1). The writer may not have felt any need to include his name because he was well known to his community, or he may have omitted his name for rhetorical reasons, perhaps to focus the text on Jesus Christ instead of himself. He does not claim to be a follower of Jesus or an eyewitness to his ministry or to have any specific personal connection to the people in the Gospel.[1]There is no indication as to how the author learned the stories that are in the Gospel. Apparently, the author did not think that the reader needed to know his name or his connection to Jesus’ life. This, of course, has not stopped scholars from trying to figure out as much as possible about who wrote the Gospel.
By Julie M. Smith
When the Gospels are read as separate texts, it becomes apparent that each writer emphasized certain themes. Matthew’s Gospel strongly emphasizes Jesus’s role as the one who fulfilled scripture. (By way of contrast, Mark virtually never mentions this.) In Matthew, Jesus is the “new Moses” who brings to fruition all that had been prophesied. In Luke, there is a definite emphasis on marginalized people: widows, orphans, the poor, the ill, and women take center stage as Jesus interacts with them. While there is some of this material in Mark’s Gospel, it is much more subtle. John’s Gospel is very cosmic and philosophical, and the distance between it and Mark’s Gospel is quite great here. By contrast, the spotlight is almost always on the idea of discipleship in Mark; there is general agreement among scholars that discipleship is a key theme in this text.