David Cowles
Jul 15, 2024
“There is no single work more important than the Gospel of Mark…the Intellectual History of the West hangs on it, so its authenticity is of paramount importance.”
How reliable is a 2,000-year-old text? How do we know if the author had any knowledge of his (sic) subject matter? How do we know the book was composed with benevolent intent? Do we know why the book was written in the first place or who it was written for?
Now I’m going to say something completely outrageous but then, we’re not afraid of a little hyperbole here at Aletheia Today, are we? Brace yourself:
“In all of Western literature, there is no single work more important than the Gospel of Mark.” It’s relatively short and not especially poetic, but the Intellectual History of the West hangs on it, so its authenticity is of paramount importance. How so?
The Gospel of Mark tells the story of a guy called Jesus and his adventures in and around a place called Galilee. The story is both spell binding and hair raising. If true, it’s a life changer. But what does it mean to say that a story like this is…or is not….true?
The journey from text (I see it) to faith (I believe it) is a multi-step process fraught with cultural, linguistic and philosophical minefields. But I think we must begin with authenticity: Whatever else Mark may be, is it ‘authentic’? Is it what it says it is?
For example, if it purported to be an academic history but was in fact a work of fiction, it would not pass the test of authenticity. Of course, fiction can be perfectly authentic, so long as it doesn’t pretend to be something else.
Much of what we think we know about Jesus comes from Mark. That seems strange. Mark is the shortest of the 4 canonical gospels and it’s one of 27 books in the New Testament, all of which relate in one way or another to the life of Jesus.
Then, beyond the New Testament, there are dozens of apocryphal texts concerning Jesus and there are a few references to him from non-Christian sources (e.g. Josephus). And yet, it all really comes down to Mark.
Matthew and Luke, important as they are, are early exercises in ‘historical revisionism’. They are examples of a literary genre, popular since 200 BCE, which tries to make ‘difficult texts’ less difficult, i.e. more palatable to casual readers and more relevant to ‘contemporary’ concerns. Sound familiar?
90% of Mark is reproduced in Matthew; 60% in Luke. Both authors add extensive, overlapping quotations from a second, unknown source, sometimes called ‘Q’. Q may have existed merely as an oral tradition. Were it in print today, it would probably be titled something like, “The Sayings of Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ”.
In addition to Mark and Q, Matthew and Luke draw from their own sources (e.g. the Magi in Matthew, the infancy narratives in Luke). More importantly though, the three synoptic gospels are written for three distinct constituencies.
Luke endeavors to make The Jesus Story attractive to his Hellenic audience. Matthew, on the other hand, seems aimed at the Jewish population in Palestine and the Diaspora. The author goes to great lengths to show Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament ‘prophesies’ regarding the Messiah.
Most significantly, Matthew and Luke sanitize Mark. They attempt to make ‘the hard teachings’ and the ‘rustic wisdom’ more attractive to more urbane and educated audiences. There are dozens of examples; here’s just one:
In the Garden of Gethsemane, immediately following the Last Supper, Jesus is at prayer when he is set upon by Judas, the temple guard, and Roman soldiers. One of Jesus’ followers, apparently Peter, reaches for a sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s servant. (Mark 14: 43 – 50)
Mark is happy to leave the story there; but Matthew, Luke, and even John take pains to situate the event in a context more acceptable to the casual reader. In Matthew and John Jesus tells the disciple to ‘sheath his sword’; Luke (a physician) goes further and shows Jesus healing the servant’s wound.
It's an exegetical rule of thumb: whatever is ‘difficult’ in Mark is mollified in Matthew and Luke. And what of John? While John contains details of Jesus’ life, some paralleling the synoptic gospels, others unique to John, the gospel itself is not primarily biographical. It is better read as Systematic Theology, illustrated with events from the life of Christ.
So, if Matthew was written for Jews and Luke for Greeks, who was Mark’s intended audience? Christians. Mark does not set out to prove that Jesus is the Messiah; he assumes it. Mark’s audience already has faith; they want details to supplement that faith and Mark does not disappoint: “This is real, guys!”
Regardless of your religious convictions (or lack thereof), you might agree with me that Jesus of Nazareth is the most important person in all of human history. An extraordinary claim. Out of 100 billion, one. And concerning this man, we have just one primary biographical source? It’s crucial then that we know to what extent its version of events is authentic.
Fortunately, we have a lot to work with. As every parent knows, a well-rehearsed narrative is the surest sign that a miscreant’s story lacks authenticity. Mark is anything but rehearsed. It’s as much ‘notes’ as it is narrative. It is as if one of Jesus’ followers kept a diary. Testimony to Mark’s authenticity is the need Matthew and Luke felt to ‘clean up’ the text. Sometimes, raw data can be too hot to handle; it needs to be ‘spun’.
Welcome to Mark, the unspun! Mark’s story lacks any pretense of grandiosity. Compare Mark’s opening verse, “Here begins the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” to Matthew’s genealogy, Luke’s history, and John’s cosmology.
While the later gospels were meant to persuade unbelievers, Mark takes the reader’s faith for granted. There is no need to ‘situate the story in context’. History has already provided that context and it is well known to Mark’s intended audience.
For Mark, there’s nothing to prove and the lack of something to prove is one mark of the gospel’s authenticity. Were Mark to deviate significantly from events as they occurred, the effect would be disastrous. Most of Mark’s readers already knew the Jesus Story, at least in outline. Had Mark contradicted oral history, the text would have been ignored, rather than copied and elaborated as it was. The Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and even John testify to the fact that Mark was considered canonical (authentic) by the 1st century church.
Your 10-year-old has just come in the door, 20 minutes after curfew. He can’t wait to explain all the reasons for his transgression. “This happened, then this happened, then…” Welcome to Mark’s world! The ‘narrative style’ is staccato, it races breathlessly along to its maddeningly ambiguous conclusion.
Matthew, Luke and John present Jesus as a pretty cool customer, as Larry David might say. Not so, Mark. His Jesus is everyman (sic). The reader is in Jesus’ shoes the whole way: “That’s exactly what I would have done.” Incorrectly, the later Gospels may be read as presenting Jesus as half-God, half-man. Not Mark! Mark’s Jesus is wholly man…and therefore wholly God.
Biographies, whether of heroes or villains, tend to present their subjects as ‘serious dudes’. Otherwise, who’d buy a single copy? Nobody wants to pay good money to read about some ‘fool’. The total lack of such pretense in Mark is one of the preeminent signs of its authenticity.
Consider Jesus’ calling of the apostles. After calling Andrew, Peter, James, John and Matthew, Jesus “…went up into the hill-country and called the men he wanted; and they went and joined him.” In other words, he formed a gang.
Immediately afterwards, “...He entered a house and once more such a crowd collected around them that they had no chance to eat. When his family heard of this, they set out to take charge of him; for people were saying he was out of his mind.”
Hardly a good look for the savior of the world! But a deprecatory detail like this is strong evidence for the authenticity of the narrative. Who would make up something like that? It’s demeaning and embarrassing…so what would be the point?
Of course, it could be intended to throw some 21st century journalist off her scent. But that assumes that the author of Mark had somehow intuited the principles of modern literary criticism – unlikely.
The other evangelists paint a picture of Jesus as a peace loving peripatetic, roaming freely through Galilee and Judea, proclaiming the end of the exiting world order. It is a challenge to reconcile such a libertarian image with what we know of Palestine c. 30 CE.
Let’s set the triangular stage. On one side, the two Herods, Pontius Pilate, and the Roman military. On another side, the Sadducees (Priests), the Pharisees, and the Doctors of Law (Scribes). On a third side, Jewish nationalists, the Zealots, the Essenes, Barrabas, etc. And in the middle of it all, an oasis, Jesus and his followers.
This is a hard scenario to accept, and commentators have been struggling with it for 2 millennia. But Mark poses no such difficulty. Mark is clear. Jesus is a fugitive and a heretic – a fugitive from the Roman political order, a heretic from the Jewish religious order. Jesus is an insurrectionist and a blasphemer…a toxic cocktail.
Mark presents Jesus as a ‘man on the run’…often in hiding. He is forever swearing folks to secrecy and then retreating from cities to hillside villages, eventually leaving Galilee altogether for Lebanon, the Golan, the Greek cities (Decapolis), and the East Bank of the Jordan.
Regarding Jesus’s time in Lebanon, Mark writes, “…He left that place (Galilee) and went into the territory of Tyre. He found a house to stay in, and he would have liked to remain unrecognized, but that was impossible…On his return journey from Tyrian territory he went by way of Sidon (a roundabout route), through the territory of the Decapolis, to the Sea of Galilee (south-east shore).”
Commentators have struggled to explain this route: it’s so circuitous! Exactly! (They just don’t get it. Jesus didn’t have AAA to plan his itinerary.) There is no mention of Jesus’ disciples in this section of the text. Given that he was hoping to remain anonymous, it is unlikely that he was accompanied by more than a few fellow-travelers…if any.
This raises another question: Why did Mark bother to include this episode? It does nothing to advance the narrative. But if Jesus went AWOL for a time, Mark would have needed to account for that absence, as if he were an employment agent accounting for that troublesome 6-month hiatus in your CV.
In any event, there is no false heroism in this account, and these are not the actions of someone who has something to prove. Nor are the stories those of an author trying to persuade a skeptical audience. We have Matthew and Luke for that! Mark’s text is clearly aimed at folks who’d ‘lived through the 60s’…and were in a position to call out any major omissions or inaccuracies.
According to Mark, Jesus only entered Judea once, on his final, Quixotic Million Man March on Jerusalem. Jesus knew the likely outcome (divine omniscience not required). But his disciples were growing restless, and the noose around him was tightening. Jesus reasoned that it was now or never.
So, “they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way; and the disciples were filled with awe and those behind them with fear.” (Mark 10: 32) They approached Jerusalem by way of Jericho and set up base came in Bethany; then Jesus entered the city.
After a ‘royal welcome’ replete with palms and Hosannas! Jesus headed for the temple precincts, perhaps anticipating a penultimate confrontation. He “…went into the temple where he looked at the whole scene; but, as it was now late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.”
In other words, he arrived at his ultimate destination, ready to rumble, and found it virtually deserted. Everyone had gone home. Treason and blasphemy notwithstanding, the High Priest was not going to miss his dinner. So, Jesus heads back to the safety of his ‘stronghold’, Bethany, as he did every evening prior to the Last Supper.
Next day, Jesus did not oversleep. Returning to the temple precincts, he threw out the moneychangers, tipping over their tables, and not allowing anyone to carry so much as a container through the temple. One is reminded of a modern sports event.
From here on, Mark tells the story of Christ’s Passion in terms broadly consistent with the other gospel accounts. Two points worth mentioning: (1) Mark offers the clearest, most unequivocal version of Jesus’ initiation of Eucharist; he leaves no doubt that this is Jesus’ Body and Blood. (2) Mark reprises YHWH in Exodus (3: 14): “I AM,” reinforcing Christ’s divinity.
Because Mark was so scrupulous in his telling of events in Jesus’ life, we are inclined to grant him some credibility on these larger, theological issues. “One who is faithful in small matters will also be faithful in larger ones”. (Luke 16: 10)
In one of his parables, Jesus uses the analogy of a mustard seed: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds find shelter in its branches.” (Matthew 13: 31 – 32)
In the Intellectual History of the West, the Gospel of Mark is just such a mustard seed…and we are they who live in its branches.
David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com.
purpose and devotion.