Loading...Did Mark write Mark? A couple of weeks ago I did an eight-lecture course on the Gospel of Mark for my separate (unrelated to the blog) venture, a series of courses on “How Historians Read the Bible” (the courses are available on my website: www.bartehrman.com). It was a blast. One of the things I loved about doing it was that I was able to read and reread scholarship on Mark and I learned some things I had long wondered about, and re-learned other things that I used to know.
One of the things I had to think seriously about for the first time in some years was the question of why church fathers in the second century (but when?) began claiming that our second Gospel was written by John Mark, allegedly a secretary for the apostle Peter. That took me straight back to the question of the reliability of an early Christian writer named Papias (writing around 120 or 130 CE?).
Papias gets used all the time as proof that Mark wrote Mark. Conservative Christian scholars cite him on the point as “gospel truth.” But for the past 30 years I’ve found the evidence unconvincing. I’ve written about the issue briefly on the blog before, but I decided to look up my lengthiest discussion of the matter in my book Jesus Before the Gospels (HarperOne, 2016) and lo and behold, I made some points there that I didn’t remember!
I thought it would be worthwhile to present that discussion here. It tries to show why Papias’ witness is so problematic for establishing the authorship of both Mark and Matthew, the only two Gospels he mentions in the snippets of his writings we still have. This will take three posts.
In this one I
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The Gospel writers are all anonymous. None of them gives us any concrete information about their identity. So when did they come to be known as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? We might begin by considering the earliest references to the books, which occur in a group of authors who were writing, for the most part, immediately after the New Testament period. These are the so-called “Apostolic Fathers.” That term is not meant to indicate that these authors themselves were apostles, but that, in scholarly opinion starting hundreds of years ago (though no longer), they were companions of the apostles. Theirs are among our earliest non-canonical writings.[1]
In the various Apostolic Fathers there are numerous quotations of the Gospels of the New Testament, especially Matthew and Luke. What is striking about these quotations is that in none of them does any of these authors ascribe a name to the books they are quoting. Isn’t that a bit odd? If they wanted to assign “authority” to the quotation, why wouldn’t they indicate who wrote it?
Almost certainly the first apostolic father is the book of 1 Clement, a letter from the church of Rome to the church of Corinth written around 95 CE (and so, before some of the last books of the New Testament) and traditionally claimed to have been composed by the third bishop of Rome, Clement. Scholars today widely reject that claim, but for our purposes here it does not much matter. Just to give an example of how the Gospels are generally treated in the Apostolic Fathers, I quote one passage from 1 Clement:
We should especially remember the words the Lord Jesus spoke when teaching about gentleness and patience. For he said: “Show mercy, that you may be shown mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven you. As you do, so it will be done to you; as you give, so it will be given to you; as you judge, so you will be judged; as you show kindness, so will kindness be shown to you; the amount you dispense will be the amount you receive.” (1 Clement 13:1-2)
This is an interesting passage, and fairly typical, because it conflates a number of passages from the Gospels, containing lines from Matthew 5:7; 6:14-15; 7:1-2, 12; Luke 6:31, and 36-38. But the author does not name the Gospels he has taken the texts from, and certainly doesn’t attribute them to eyewitnesses. Instead, he simply indicates that this is something that Jesus said.
The same is true of other Apostolic Fathers. In chapter one of the intriguing book known as the Didache, which contains a set of ethical and practical instructions to the Christian churches, the anonymous writer quotes from Mark 12, Matthew 5 and 7; and Luke 8. But he never names these Gospels. Later he cites the Lord’s prayer, virtually as it is found in Matthew 6; again he does not indicate his source.
So too, as a third example, Ignatius of Antioch clearly knows Matthew’s story of the star of Bethlehem (Ignatius, Ephesians 19) and Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism which was undergone “in order to fulfill all righteousness” (Smyrneans 1). But he doesn’t mention that the account was written by Matthew. Similarly, Polycarp of Smyrna quotes Matthew chapters 5, 7, and 26 and Luke 6, but he never names a Gospel.
This is true of all of our references to the Gospels prior to the end of the second century. The Gospels are known, read, and cited as authorities. But they are never named or associated with an eyewitness to the life of Jesus. There is one possible exception: the fragmentary references to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark in the writings of the church father, Papias.
[1] For a translation of their writings, with introductions, see Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003). I have used this translation for all my quotations.
Bart,
This question is a bit more philosophical in nature but wanted to get your insight. Since I retired I’ve been able to read/listen to a wide range of Bible scholars and the scholars who identify as Christian I really admire seem to view the Bible as much (if not more) as a *question* text as an *answer* text. That the Bible raises questions and we the reader join in and think it over for ourselves.
Whereas most rank and file Christians I know in the South view the Bible as an *answer* book. The Bible says it and that settles it! Bumper Stickers come to mind.
So the Christian Scholars I really respect ( M. Smith, etc( seem to view the Bible as raising lots of *questions*…but not nec providing all the answers. Its still up to us individual humans to join the debate and figure things out for ourselves.
Would you agree with this – or am I off in left field here?
TY for your time,
SC
I think that’s absolutely right. Most people want answers. Careful thinkers know there are simply more questions. Including very find biblical scholars as a rule.
I am thoroughly enjoying your course on Mark. It’s interesting and informative. I have two classes to go to finish it.
If Mark wrote his gospel in Rome, why didn’t he write it in Latin? How widespread was the use of Latin in the Roman Empire? We don’t hear Latin mentioned very much. Was it spoken mainly in what is now Italy?
Greek was still widely used in Rome among the educated folk. Latin was certainly the language of government and many people, but Greek could be assumed to be more widely understood. I for my part don’t think he was from Rome, but who knows! (The first Christians to write works in Latin are from the end of the 2nd century, even Xns in Rome, such as 1 Clement and Justin)
It’s a little bit surprising, isn’t it, that the holy liturgical language of Christianity became Latin when Christianity’s most important scriptures were originally written in Greek or Hebrew?
Compare other religions. The holy liturgical language of Islam is Arabic b/c the Koran was written in Arabic. The Holy language of Judaism is Hebrew b/c the Old Testament is written in Hebrew. The holy language of Hinduism is Sanskrit b/c most of the ancient scriptures are in Sanskrit. The holy language of Buddhism became Pali because that was the language of the Buddha and his earliest followers (although the Tibetan Buddhists treated Sanskrit as the holy language, for reasons that are probably similar to Christianity’s historical preference for Latin over Greek). Sikhism’s holy language is, to some extent, Punjabi, because the Guru Granth Sahib is written largely in Punjabi (although parts of it are in other languages).
I suppose on one level. But you could also ask why parts of the OT are written in Aramaic, and why the NT writers didn’t write in Hebrew. I’d say it’s analogous to today. Many people still think the Bible was written in English. And almost NO ONE (in terms of percentages of the population) who knows that the Bible was written in Greek and Hebrew actually LEARNS Greek and Hebrew. Everyone now, and in the ancient world, simply thought that the languages simply didn’t matter that much. As to LATIN, yeah, that’s very important but also understandable. It was the Western church that dominated, and in the West they spoke language. As the liturgy developed, it then becomes the sacred language. Just as for some peole the King James is the sacred Bible!
I’ve never understood why some believers say that the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Bible yet insist that the Gospels were written by M, M, L and J and the Pentateuch was written by Moses, despite evidence to the contrary. If the Holy Spirirt inspired the writing who cares who held the pen? But you can evoke some heated arguments if you question the authorship.
Oh boy do you. And ain’t no way to win one of *those* arguments….
If John Mark was indeed a secretary to Peter, a companion of Jesus, and if he did write the Gospel of Mark, that would seem to make Mark probably the most authoritative of the Gospels, i.e., almost “straight from the horses mouth” so to speak. Sounds like it might be a long shot though.
P.S. I attended the 8-lecture course on Mark a couple of weeks ago. It was excellent. Time flew by. I’ll be
watching the recording again for sure. Trouble is now I realize how much I don’t know about the Gospels but that’s a good thing I guess.
I’ll count it as a good thing!
On an unrelated topic, I simply have to ask…
Did you get the voice-over guy from “Unbelievable?” for your podcast, Misquoting Jesus?!
Actually, I don’t know *whose* voice that is. First time I heard it I though, Huh!
I can anticipate that whatever Pappias said will be problematic! Incidentally,I started watching the Mark lectures(I missed them live).A blast indeed!I was most impressed with your explanation of Jesus’ difficult words (his problem with people understanding and thus converting, lecture 3).It’s a tough one.Maybe for a future webinar you could speak of a collection of these tough sayings.
I totally agree that the truly important thing is to know how close “Mark”could have been to any witness of Jesus’ life.
Another question that occurred to me as I listened is how likely is it that some of the “Markan” testimony could have been created by “Mark” after the fact,like relaying that Jesus anticipated his death, and like the Prophets? But I’m not asking this question right now.
My question:
What is the case against “Mark” (whoever he was)being a secretary of Peter?
The chronology could work.Peter would have been a still reliable 65-70 year old by the time Mark wrote.My own worst caveat against this possibility is that ” Mark” would have told the whole wide world that these were Peter’s memories,and surely would have written this at the very top of his Gospel. Is the ” secretary of Peter” a serious belief of some scholars?.
The main case is that we know a good deal about how secretaries worked in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, and we don’t have any evidence of any secretary ever composing a book in the name of someone else based on what they heard from them or translating their prose dictated in one language into another. This kind of proceeding would make perfect sense todqy — which is hwy people assume it must have made perfect sense then. But alas, there’s nothing like it known anywhere.
If Mark was really Peter’s secretary, why the book was not named “the gospel according to Peter” ?
( I read this in one of Bart’s books and was enough for me to discard the “Mark as Peter secretary”theory)
I think Mark was an important church leader when the “Mark’s” gospel was produced but as the times went by he was forgotten although “his” gospel became widely known.
So the problem for subsequent generations of christians was to attach authority to the gospel and this was achieved by linking him to Peter, probably based on what is said in 1 Peter, a letter that in fact was forged .
Since we don’t have an original manuscript copy of ” Mark”s Gospel, what we know we have is a scribe’s copy of another scribe’s copy and so on.
Conspiratorially, I could propose a theory that “Mark” was indeed, symbolically,
” a son” of Peter, as Peter says in 1Peter.I would speculate that “Mark” did enter in his Gospel that his testimony was taken from Peter- who couldn’t write- , but a subsequent scribe at some point erased it. Why would a particular scribe do so? Well… scribes erased other things as well, and all we can do is speculate about their motives.
Bart,
Quick Joke…I get asked often:
“What are your religious beliefs?”
So now instead of trying to explain what the heck Pantheism is or what Agnostic means etc I respond:
I’ll give you 2 hints:
its the oldest belief system on the planet…far older than Hinduism etc
its symbol is a half Elephant / half Rhino
So what is it? No guesses???
Elephinoism
🙂
Right! I never would have guessed….
So, a John Mark kindly gave me a ride in a storm recently and exposed a big gap in my learning – I didn’t know John Mark was Barnabas, my fave apostles’s, assistant.
“And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.
But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.
And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;”
I really feel Barnabas deserves more attention, as he is in the teacher position to Paul. It seems a situation similar to Nabataea erasure, Paul being a prolific writer to the West gives him credence. I think some origin of the Epistle of Barnabas dates early. Why wouldn’t a Jewish traveler who had owned property (read elite for Palestine) be sending letters? That’s when it’s postcard szn. Why wouldn’t people be saving the work of Paul’s companion?
I also didn’t know that John Mark, not just a Mark, was said to have written the earliest Gospel.
This John Mark was bright and on it. He was also interested in learning more about historical Christianity, I told him about your books.
Hebrews 11 says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
It seems like the definition of faith means believing things without evidence (?).
What does Paul mean when he says faith (eg. ROMANS 10:17) ? Do we need to have “evidence” in faith?
Paul has a very different understanding of the term “faith.” For him it is a relational term, something more like “trust” than “accepting a certain bit of information/knowledge.” It means trusting God when he promises; trusting that Christ’s death brings salvation; trusting the message that salvation has now gone to Jew and gentile. Paul does cite reasons to trust — names witnesses of the resurrectoin, indicates that Christ himself gave him teh message, and so on.
Then, why do we not get competing claims about the names of the authors of the gospels, like we do with Hebrews? You need to engage with Simon Gathercole’s work.
One reasons is because the Book of Hebrews was never entitled “According to X” That is the title of the Gospels: According to Matthew; According to Mark; etc. And that’s one of the reasons the authors did not give them THOSE titles. No one writes a story and calls it “According to Jonathan” That’s not a title, that’s an attibution. So the Gospels have attributions. Hebrews did not. It was called “To the Hebrews” (ΠΡΟΣ ΕΒΡΑΙΟΥΣ). That too is not a title, but it is the designation based on the alleged readership (not the alleged author). (And that too is almost certainly wrong, since the author appears to be writing to gentiles). As to Simon Gathercole, I have indeed dealt with these arguments in my work, though I haven’t named him (others make these kinds of arguments as well). I give an explanation for why I think there were not debates about the authors names in my book Jesus Before the Gospels.
QUOTE:Do we have manuscripts with the traditional attributions prior to 180? Im not sure why there would need to be competing attributions when the references we have prior to 180 are generic like “The memoirs of the apostles” from Justin or “The Gospel” within the Didache?
What makes Papias somewhat believable, he comes across as a humble reporter. He doesn’t seem to embellish. Mark wrote what he heard from Peter, but not in order. Matthew was translated by others “as best they could”. Papius admits the gospel transmission was not perfect; perhaps this provides some verisimilitude?
At the least, Mark and Matthew are the best candidates we have for gospel originators. Certainly somebody wrote those accounts…
One of the problems (as I pointed out in my post yesterday, after you wrote your query) is that Papias says lots of unbelievable things and often through embellishment. He appears not to have been a humble reporter. But then that leads in a different direction for your very interesting observation. Why does he seem to say somewhat less than positive things about Matthew and especially Mark? My guess is that he knew people criticized them and he wanted to explain what they were what they were.
Playing devil’s advocate, I agree that not associating names with the gospels is odd. But why would they accept these gospels as authoritative accounts of what Jesus said and did if they were originally anonymous? The only thing that I can think of is that they had no choice. This was all that was available at the time that brought together all the oral traditions about Jesus.
My theory about that is that throughout the Bible narratives about how God interacts with his people are *normally* anonymous. The entire Pentateuch, the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings. Why aren’t authors’ names attached to them? Precisely because the authors don’t want anyone to think this is just THEIR version. It is instead THE version. The Gospel writers understand that they are writing the continuations of these stories. And so they write them anonymously. So too the readers read them as sacred histories, on the same level as the earlier ones found in Scripture. disabledupes{58651e4a9914a81f79e468779cb56ff4}disabledupes
While reading Suetonius, I came upon this passage which I found to be a bit funny cause I thought of you mentioning that Christian apologists claim that forgery wasn’t a big deal in antiquity.
“ After a man was found guilty of forgery, the crowd shouted: ‘He ought to have his hands cut off!’ Claudius immediately sent for an executioner, with block and cleaver, to act on this suggestion.”
Ah, thanks.
Bart, can you recommend a book on the Apostolic Fathers (Church Fathers)? I see them mentioned and quoted frequently but I wonder why they are considered so authoritative. I know of no books about them. Thanks.
A nice introduction can be found in Clayton Jefford’s book Reading the Apostolic Fathers. He also includes bibliographies for the various books.
Thank you.
Dr. Erhman,
I have a general point and a specific one.
The general: Wouldn’t you agree Papias was rather well located in time and place to know the apostles (or, at least, their immediate disciples) and, therefore, have a good sense of what they were saying about the words and deeds of Jesus? I think Bauckham argues this point convincingly in chapter 2 of his book, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”.
The specific: You say, “In the various Apostolic Fathers there are numerous quotations of the Gospels of the New Testament, especially Matthew and Luke. What is striking about these quotations is that in none of them does any of these authors ascribe a name to the books they are quoting. Isn’t that a bit odd? If they wanted to assign ‘authority’ to the quotation, why wouldn’t they indicate who wrote it?” This isn’t a very convincing argument. These same writers quote a multitude of OT texts and do not attribute authorship, yet we are confident they had a belief about who the author was. The same could be true of NT texts. Also, as you will address, there is early tradition about Gospel authorship.
I don’t think there were a lot of disciples (well, any) going through Hieropolis in the early second century; Papias himself says that he knew people who knew people who were the disciples of the disciples — so he never claims to be close to any eyewitnesses. I discuss Bauckham’s book in my Jesus Before the Gospels, if you want a different view of things. My point is that the early tradition about Gospel authorship is not that early — it first appears a hundred years after the Gospels were put in circulation. As ot the OT text, that’s absolutely right — we don’t know who wrote most of those books either. That’s not much of a debated point….