Loading...On the surface, Mark’s Gospel seems straightforward and simple, a kind of nuts-and-bolts account of Jesus’ life from his baptism to the empty tomb. But is it just that?
Here is my Anniversary post #6 celebrating our 14th Blog anniversary, taken from April 2017, where I dealt with this issue in response to a reader’s question:
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This post focuses on the literary artistry of the Gospel of Mark – is it a fairly unsophisticated account of Jesus’ life and death?
The question itself will require a bit of set-up and explanation. In an earlier post I argued that
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I once encountered the following observation by a Japanese scholar: an analysis of the Gospel of Mark suggests traces of oral delivery. For example, the word “immediately” (εὐθύς) appears about forty-two times, far more often than in the other Gospels. Mark also frequently uses the historical present, the connective palin (“again”), and abrupt asides such as “let the reader understand” (13:14). These features can give the narrative the rhythm of spoken storytelling.
Of course, I understand that an oral narrative style does not necessarily exclude the use of written sources; literary texts can imitate oral performance. Still, Mark often feels unusually vivid and performance-like compared with the other Gospels, which raises a question for me.
Some scholars(again, Japanease scholars) have suggested that the Gospel may have been composed with public reading or narrative performance in mind. If so, might this strong oral texture tell us something about the compositional process of the Gospel itself?
More specifically, does it affect how scholars evaluate Mark’s dependence on earlier written sources? Or is this generally understood simply as a literary technique used by an otherwise fully literate author?
Yes, I believe they are getting this from American scholars from about 20 years ago or so. I’ve never been convinced that we can isolate “oral narratives” based on words like “immediately,” or that we can tell if a text was originally a kind of dramatic production meant to be performed. It’s debated how much Mark relied on earlier written traditoins. My hunch is: not much if at all. I think he heard lots of oral traditions, chose to make a coherent narrative of them, and so wrote what was probably the first Gospel.
In Mark 14:2 the chief priests say, “Not during the festival, lest there be a riot of the people.” Yet they go ahead and arrest Jesus and hand him over to Pilate on Passover itself. Is this an inconsistency, a contradiction, or they changed their minds, or how would you characterize this? (Not that Mark was actually there to hear what the chief priests said.)
In the context of Mark, maybe the idea was they would arrest him quietly while eveyrone was still enjoying their Seder, and crucify him before most peole got up the next morning, so that there would not be the kind of resistance otherwise, if they snatched him in the middle of a sermon. But yup, it does seem odd….
The film had an ending along the lines of: “And nobody really understood what that was all about..”, and even insinuated it was perhaps a sham. I think that’s exactly what Mark was going for. It’s hard for me to believe the similarities are a coincidence.
The movie Powder is also a bit like that.
The Office of the High Priest had promised to kill Jesus if he came to Jerusalem (once Jesus had progressed from being the protege of John the Baptist to the arrival of the prophesied Messiah). The Office of the High Priest controlled the metropolitan police department of Jerusalem. A midnight raid was planned and executed while the residents of Jerusalem slept. Jesus was transferred to Roman authority as a political terrorist from Galilee when the Zealots were a constant threat. (The Zealots first attempt was at the death of Herod. Their second attempt was the Jewish War of 70 CE.) Most of the Gospel narratives are fiction. Jesus and Pilate never met. All of the sentenced prisoners might have been scourged prior to the Roman Triumph. All of them carried a section of the cross to the crucifixion site. Passover Eve was the designated date for the public execution of political prisoners and “enemies of Rome”. Julius Ceasar had a triumph in Rome that celebrated his victories in Gaul and Egypt. Each Passover in Jerusalem, all of the “enemies of Rome” were publicly crucified in a Roman Triumph.
Thank you, Dr Ehrman. That’s very helpful. I was also wondering whether your point about Mark’s underlying sophistication helps to give credence to Morton Smith’s claims of a ‘Secret Gospel of Mark’? Certainly, the fleeing, naked young man reference (Mk 14:51) has always intrigued me as it doesn’t seem to fit with the ‘reader’s digest’ characterization of Mark.
Smith could claim it did. But I don’t see how it logically follows. An interpolator could mimic the theme.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. A very convincing argument. By the way, what is the latest scholarly thinking on the Messianic Secret aspect of Mark’s Gospel? I believe that Wrede’s original theory has long since fallen out of favour but, in the Gospel, Jesus does appear to try to suppress knowledge of who he actually is.
There’s no concensus — lots of opinions. The BASIC view of Wrede, that it is a Markan construction to explain why Jesus wasn’t widely proclaimed messiah until after his death, still has some merit I think.
Do you think that the motif of incomprehension is a deliberate reflection of the early churches then-current struggle to form a coherent view of “what it all meant”? If this question was still not fully resolved, the lb the effect of the abrupt ending – which to me is to thrust the question back onto the reader for contemplation – was truly clever.
On a somewhat related note, have you watched the movie K-Pax? A lot of similarities there in my humble opinion and what Mark does.
It’s hard to say; Mark seems to know whta it all meant, in fairly coherent terms; he seems to be trying to show why others at the time didn’t know…
Nope, having seen K-Pax. Anazing the movies I haven’t seen…
Rereading Mark. Is there a numerological or symbolic significance to the numbers of loaves and fish and baskets and people in chapters 6 and 8?
None that is clear anyway. Among other things, though, it shows why biblical scholars are terrible at math. Taken five fish, add two loaves, and how many baskets of fragments will there be?
In Mark, it seems that Jesus’ own mother does not understand who he is. Presumably she, together with his other family members, thinks that Jesus has lost his mind, chapter 3:21.
That seems to show that Mark had not heard of any virgin birth stories. If Jesus’ mother had known that the pregnancy was miraculous and divinely originated, she would have had some understanding of who Jesus was. At the very least, Mary would have known that Jesus would be extraordinary.
What do scholars think about the role of Jesus’ mother in the gospel of Mark?
That’s recisely one of the points many scholars make! No virgin birth in Mark, and his mother does not appear to realize why he’s so extraordinary! That’s usually taken to show Mark hadn’t heard of a virgin birth…
I have another question about memory, which seems to be an important issue in historical studies. As the Gospel traditions develop from Mark to the later Gospels, I find it interesting that the remembered details of events sometimes appear to be reshaped and become more specific.
For example, in the account of Jesus’ arrest in Gethsemane, the servant whose ear is cut off is unnamed in Mark, but in John he is given the name Malchus. This kind of development makes me wonder why later authors sometimes introduce details that are not found in earlier accounts.
My question is about the motivation behind such changes. The ethical tradition of the Ten Commandments includes the clear commandment, “You shall not bear false witness.” If early Christian authors were adding or reshaping details in the stories they transmitted, how did they understand this in relation to that ethical command?
Did they see themselves as preserving the deeper truth of the tradition rather than reporting strict historical detail? More broadly, how do historians explain the psychology or motivation of people who transmit memories in ways that gradually reshape them?
The commandment in the Torah refers to giving false testimony in court.
ut whether the authors of th NT realized that or not, they were reporting traditoins they had heard, by and large; and it is very (VERY!) common for stories to acquire detail, provide alternative details, “make stuff up” either intentionally or not — all the time. Rarely is it seen as duplicitous. It’s just making a good story better. Or reporting what one has hear dleswhere.
I do have a discussion of “lying” in my books on forgery — maybe I should repost those…
I apologize for asking so many questions. I have also read the observation of a Japanese scholar that, although the Gospel of John is considerably longer than the Gospel of Mark, its range of vocabulary is significantly smaller. From the perspective of Koine Greek style, should this be understood as reflecting a limitation in the author’s Greek ability, or might it instead represent a deliberate stylistic or theological choice?
It’s probably a choice. Neither is high-level Greek by ancient standards; John is easier to read because there is so many repetitions of ideas, thoughts, and words. Probably by choice of the author.
Completely agree. It’s kind of odd, Bultmann thought Mark was not competent enough as a writer to offer a systematic, consistent document. But that was characteristic of the form critics who thought Mark was just a pile of pearls. For me, Rhoads, Dewey, and Michie buried that notion with _Mark as Story_. I’m not sure any other single book transformed my perspective on the gospels than that.
Even though Matthew and Luke polish, edit, and transform Mark, Mark is a masterpiece. There is so much interconnection that gets overlooked. The blind man of Bethsaida episode immediately preceding Peter’s confession that is both right and wrong. The placement of the Feeding of the 5000 immediately after the story of JBapt’s death at Antipas’ A-List banquet. The intercalations. The Parable of the Four Soils as the interpretive key for the characters in Mark (Mary Ann Tolbert). The juxtaposition of Bartimaeus who has nothing and follows Jesus to the rich man who has everything and doesn’t. Etc, etc, etc.
YUP!!
When I was in grad school, I took a year’s leave in 1986-87 to help my father care for my mother who was dying of glioblastoma. When I returned to grad school the following fall, my professors kindly awarded me THE plum teaching assignment for any grad student in the department: I got to teach 3rd-semester Greek, which was always one of the Gospels. It met 3 times a week instead of the 5 meetings of first-year language classes, and the enrollment was small– I had 10 students instead of the 35 I would have had in first-year Latin or the 200 I would have had in the Greek and Latin word-roots course, which were the usual assignments for teaching assistants.
The Gospel on the rotation that semester was Mark. At first I was disappointed; I thought I’d prefer John. But my admiration for Mark’s Gospel grew enormously as the semester progressed. Reading it carefully, with motivated and bright students (almost all of them Christians who had learned Greek so they could read the NT), I came to realize that it is indeed a work of great literary artistry. I was so fortunate to have the chance to teach it.
James Rives, whom you probably know (but for those who don’t: he’s a senior scholar of Classics at UNC and one of the world’s experts on ancient Roman religion), LOVED teaching the Gospel of Mark for his third semester Greek class. Wouldn’t teach anything else. And is now wriitng a commentary on it!
Dear Bart,
Very good observations (I think Ullansey and Motyer brought these to our attention?) R T France also found a “shout” parallel between JBap’s “crying out in the wilderness” and Jesus’ shout at the moment of death.
I’ve also found several parallels between Mk1 and 11 material:
1. Going out / preparing the way: (first visit) The Jerusalemites going out ahead and preparing the way for Jesus’ triumphal entry = JBap going out and preparing the way.
2. The dove image: (second visit) Jesus driving out dove traders from the temple = Holy Spirit in the form of the dove at his baptism.
3. JBap and heaven: (third visit) When Jesus is challenged on his authority, he invokes JBap and asks if his authority is from heaven = JBap and the source of the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism: heaven.
Funnily enough, the same chapter 1 materials are paralleled in both places with an inclusio in the central parallel (Mk 15 – breathed his last, Mk 11 – the fig tree), meaning Mark is probably emphasising this central parallel for attentive readers. In my view, there’s lots of theology going on here!
Lev, it seems like you’re discovering what I’ve been discovering about Mark (and the other gospels too). Over the past couple of years, I’ve been thinking about Mark and trying to understand it. A careful analysis of it reveals that it is a complex and well thought out composition. It may not be that the author necessarily intended that. After many months/years of discussion, reading, talking with other people, studying the Hebrew bible, etc., complex theological ideas enter people’s thinking subconsciously. I suspect that’s what happened with Mark. But Roman authors were well versed in composition too, since Roman playwrights had to keep people entertained in the amphitheaters.
It brings to mind something my linguistics college professor said which is that 90 percent of human understand of syntax and grammar is subconscious. I think that’s true ideologically, and therefore theologically. So, unpacking the gospel of Mark is no small task. My current theory of Mark’s gospel is here:
https://ntstudies.org/f/why-marks-gospel-has-its-content
My older theory, that Mark’s gospel was primarily satirical, I have now abandoned. My older theory is still on ntstudies.org for anyone who is interested.
R_Gerl. I accessed the provided link and browsed thru your paper on Mark’s Gospel. I intend to return and read at my leisure. It destroyed my earlier theory that Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, wrote it. In my opinion, the “Q” Community wrote Matthew’s Gospel. The “Q” Community supplied the Jews whom Luke interviewed for Luke’s Gospel. Luke was a Gentile. We know from the account of Peter with Cornelius the Centurion in ACTS that Jews do not socialize with non-Jews. We know that Peter continued to be sensitive to social traditions in Galatians 2:11-14. Whom did Luke interview? “Former” Essenes. The “Q” Community were “former” Essenes. The “Q” content is present in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The “Q” content is not the “Q” document; it is the “Q” Community of “former” Essenes that existed parallel with the community that was identified with the Twelve Apostles. Flavius Josephus is our most reliable historian of the Essenes. He said that they had “prophets”. These prophets were not predictors of future events but interpreters of past events. The “Q” Community were proto-Gnostic Christians. They joined and influenced the growing Gnostic community. Have a good day.
This is amazing to read. Especially the connection illustrated by the greek words for ripped and spirit. Do you have any book or can you recommend for a lay reader a book which goes into detail about the literary devices, motifs etc like these?
I give a fuller exposition of all this in my chapter on Mark in my New Testament: A Historical Introduction, wiht bibliography added for further reading (also in my Nutshell posts on Mark here on the Blog)
I have a question regarding how Barabbas in Mark 15 should be understood. Your explanation of the ‘ripping’ both of heaven and the temple curtain fits well. Your explanation that no one seemed to really understand who Jesus was fits well. Also, your explanation of the sparing use of ‘Son of God’ fits well.
Barabbas being Aramaic for ‘son of the father’ which Mark’s audience would understand. Seems to me Mark is using/playing a literary contrast by extending these symbolic contrasts, i.e. that the jewish crowds wanted the criminal and earthly son of the father released rather than the spiritual son of god. Most commentaries I’ve read don’t make this connection, settling for the obvious contrast of releasing the criminal rather than the innocent Jesus. Additional support for my position is that the criminal could have been named ‘hey you’ but he was named Barabbas to emphasize this contrast.
Thoughts?
I agree. Matthew hieghtens the irony by naming him Jesus Barabbas! (I don’t think Mark’s readers would know that word play with the ARamaic though, unless someone explained it to them).
Somewhere in a readers’ post was the question that Did Jesus go to heaven after the crucifixion? (Sorry, I can’t find it in this thread.) This was in reference to John 20:17 when Jesus is quoted to say to Mary Magdalene, “Don’t touch me.” From Paramahansa Yogananda: “There is deep significance here… (there are) three phases of expression required to liberate his soul from the physical to the astral plane and then to the spiritual or causal plane, and from there to complete mergence in the Cosmic Consciousness of the Father…Jesus knew the process of descent into flesh that had been required for the incarnation on earth of his previously liberated soul, and with this knowledge and power he needed simply to employ the creative principles that would reverse that process.” I’m adding this from the perspective of a distinguished Hindu yogi’s understanding and insight into the story of Jesus.
Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You (p. 1901). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Hello, tsinclairmd. This beautiful account of Mary Magdalene is fictional (regrettably). Like Paramahansa Yogananda, I had used it as a foundation to a concept. He wrote, “The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You” Evangelist Alice Sanders was recorded delivering a message. That video recording was posted on YouTube. I interpreted her message that when the believer “speaks in the unknown language”, that is the Resurrection of the Christ Within You.
As to the Return of Jesus, in the second chapter of ACTS, Peter said that the Last Days prophesied by Joel had arrived. The Return of Jesus was the fabricated paradigm of the “Q” Community. The Bethlehem Nativity narrative was fabricated by the “Q” Community. Almost all references to Satan and to expelling demons were fabricated by the “Q” Community. Miracles such as walking on the water and the account on the Mount of Transfiguration were fabrications. Have a good day.
Hi, John. So much of what we talk about is how the early followers of Jesus interpreted his teachings and actions, which can all be questioned as “Did this really happen?” We’ll never know. I have difficulty claiming something is a fabrication, e.g., transfiguration, walking on water, when Eastern spiritual writings describe the same type of event. Regardless, for more than two millennia people have been writing about their understanding, and often their experience, of Jesus. My purpose in introducing Yogananda’s writing to these comments is to offer another understanding of Jesus which comes from an Eastern religion/Hindu point of view. In Yogananda’s lineage of masters, Jesus is an integral, essential link.
Hello, tsinclairmd. You solved a puzzle. You wrote, ” . . . the early followers of Jesus interpreted . . .” I propose the existence of the two Jewish sects from 180 BCE when the Seleucid ruler attempted to eliminate the Jewish religion. One sect formed in Judea, and the other sect formed in Alexandria, Egypt. These two sects mingled and shared ideas. They existed separately from the Jews who followed Mosaic Laws including the Temple activities. They behaved like non-Jews to casual observers. They had their own rituals, too. The group in Egypt was the Therapeutae. In 250 BCE, Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan Dynasty established an embassy in Alexandria as “teachers of the Dharma”, a.k.a., Buddhist missionaries (with a Hindu heritage). You wrote, ” . . . Eastern spiritual writings describe the same type of event.” Not a coincidence. Have a good day.
Dear Dr Ehrman-The Markan Passion Narrative in many ways strikes me as the most touching of the synoptic Gospels, displaying total and utter human suffering.
If I may ask, regarding the issue of the crucifixion and its later reception, I would be very interested to understand your view of the portrayal of the Crucifixion in the Second treatise of the Great Seth and the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter. Do these texts truly state that some other unfortunate person replaced Jesus upon the Cross, or was it more a case of ‘possession’ Christology, in which the divine Christ left the man Jesus hanging on the Cross?
Furthermore regarding texts generally (if somewhat inaccurately) referred to as ‘Docetist’ such as the Apocryphal Acts of John, is Jesus truly portrayed as a transcendent being/god incapable of human suffering ? Once again, I am so sorry for the rather long question.
Ah, right. Great texts, amazing stories. They are NOT saying the Romans crucified the wrong guy. (That was the view of the now-lost Gospel of BAsilides). In these texts the divine Christ possesses the human Jesus; when the human is crucified, the Christ has left him. So they are crucifying the human vessel/shell that held Christ, not Christ himself.
I think the key passage in Apocryphal Acts of John you’re referring to really is docetic: Jesus is not a real flesh and blood human being. He doesn’t even leave footprints when walking on the sand.
My sister is an evangelist and she has found Bart Ehrman to be criticized from various intellectuals and scholars of many disciplines who are strong in their faith. Furthermore they see Bart as one who picks and chooses his battles, especially about the inerrancy of the bible. She sent me the following clip which Bart hopefully has not come across, it’s from a YouTube group called the “Christian Coalition” and there is a Michael Kruger who is being interviewed and says that he was a former student of Bart from 30 some years ago. This is the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIhuvVb8LBc
I’m not sure what it means that I pick and choose my battles? Does anyone not?
@in-sterquiliniis
6 days ago
I am so grateful for Dr. Barts work.
He was my introduction into biblical scholarship and the richness of actual academics.
This helped me get free from the lie of Christianity.
Following the scholarship honestly, free of the doctrine and mind control has given me the ability to see through these kinds of apologetics and the bad arguments pastors make to obfuscate true research.
@ncn141953
7 days ago
The interviewer has a very mocking approach and doesn’t look sincerely interested in scholarship
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I have heard numerous critiques of Ehrman’s criticisms. The video pathrose refers to has to be the weakest and most unpersuasive of all. Repeating the same old arguments that have been disproven shows they expect their audience to not know any better. I have never heard Ehrman try to convert or evangelize someone.
the church I grew up in demonized every other denomination & bible commentators.
they said professors such as Dr Ehrman lacked that personal relationship with Jesus & didn’t understand the Bible.
45 years later, I state- they don’t understand Jesus, because they don’t understand the Bible [anthology].
the reason, Dr Ehrman demolishes his debaters is he fully understands the material & is well prepped!
I’m definite when I was undergrad, I would have responded as the other students did to the reporter that the faith based debater won over Dr Ehrman’s thoroughly prepared argument.
Doesn’t this understanding of the gospel, which presumably, some Christian scholars share, undermine the claim that the author of Mark was simply Peters secretary and that he had written down, out or order, the things he remembered Peter telling him over the years?
Not necessarily. Maybe Peter had this theme. Or, since Mark wrote things out of order, he created it from what Peter said?
“Not necessarily. Maybe Peter had this theme.”
What, that everyone knew what Jesus was except the disciples? Was Peter known to be a theologian?
“Or, since Mark wrote things out of order, he created it from what Peter said?”
And it worked out like this, with a theological theme, by accident?
That all sounds like a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t you say?
Yup. It’s a big stretch. I think I was trying to answer if it was *possible*.
Your analysis of Mark’s sophistication resonates with me. I’d like to add a layer: the centurion’s confession is the final moment in a series of ironic confessions that run through the gospel.
Three times, demons identify Jesus — “Holy One of God,” “Son of God” — and each time Jesus responds with the same Greek verb, epitimao: rebuke. Then Peter confesses Jesus as christos — and Jesus responds again with epitimao. English translations hide this connection: the NRSV renders Jesus’ response to Peter as “sternly ordered,” obscuring the fact that Mark uses the identical word he used to silence demons. Peter has done exactly what the demons did — spoken correct words from the wrong understanding.
The centurion completes the pattern. He names Jesus “Son of God” with no more comprehension — or intention of discipleship — than the demons had. In a gospel full of irony, this is perhaps the sharpest irony of all: the one human being who speaks the right words is the soldier who just carried out the execution.
The obliviousness motif doesn’t end with the centurion. It’s consummated by him.
Thanbks. I”m not sure about the centurion though. In his case, he says it precisely because he sees how Jesus has died, and that’s Mark’s point (that Peter etc. don’t get), that Jesus is to be the dying messiah.
Bart, this is the beauty of narrative: the same text can sustain multiple readings. I wonder how yours would have landed for Mark’s congregation — hearing these words from the centurion who was part of the execution team. The irony would have been inescapable.
— David
Another idea. Could the young man in a white robe in the tomb in Mark be the young man who loses his linen cloth earlier? Did Jesus give him a white robe? Has anybody ever speculated that those two are connected?
Yes that has sometimes been argued (but not that Jesus gave him the robe).
Do you know of any pertinent articles or books that talk about that?
I find it interesting that we specifically get mention of a young man whose clothing is specified (and then stripped) following the arrested Jesus, so we know this person is interested in Jesus and in close spatial and temporal proximity to Jesus for the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. We then get specifically a young man whose clothing is described in the tomb shortly thereafter.
If they are different young men, then the inclusion of the first young man is odd to me, because it seems like a random inclusion. If instead, it is the same young man, then there is a payoff to his story, since his faith (shown by following Jesus and being humiliated for doing so by his clothing being torn from him) then pays off because he is given new white robes by Jesus upon his resurrection.
The best place to turn would be commentaries on Mark by scholars who know and discuss the optoins; for my money, the two best available are the ones by Joel Marcus and by Adela Collins.