The Gospel of Mark: Authorship, Theology, and Literary Style

Introduction: Mark's Place Among the Gospels

According to Christian tradition, Mark — who served as both interpreter and disciple of Peter — took responsibility for writing down the teachings of his mentor after both Peter's and Paul's deaths. While Mark's account of the life of Jesus was distinctive in its own right, the writer's connection to Peter through both tutelage and faith provided a foundational bedrock for the gospel. The Gospel of Mark parallels the work of his religious forebears, providing both textual and emotional support for their claims about Jesus. Though it suffers, like the other gospels, from the problem of synoptic recognition, its strength as a religious tool was reaffirmed in the early church, making it an enduring source of rhetoric and culture for the Christian faith — comprehensive to its audience and primary in authority.

The Gospel of Mark is second in the quartet of New Testament gospels. Although the text itself was anonymous, its earliest accepted dates — inferred from implications in the Gospel of Luke — range from AD 65 to AD 80 (Rhoads, 13). The attribution of the text to Mark is a matter of religious tradition, dating back to the suppositions of Papias in the first half of the second century (13). This attribution was a logical inference, since as Peter's disciple, Mark would have had extended access to information about and exposure to the works of Jesus and his expanding ministry. Later, John the Presbyter affirmed the attribution, and Eusebius of Caesarea followed, quoting Papias as saying:

"Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities of his audience, but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore, Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For one thing he took special care: not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into his statements." (Irenaeus, 3.1.1)

With such accreditation, Papias is able to authoritatively connect the words of Mark to a holier source — one not content with giving a "regular narrative of the Lord's sayings," but intent instead on recording his "deeds" (Bultmann, p. 41). This conviction with which Mark is associated — a conviction oriented toward "the necessities" of his audience — was later upheld by St. Clement and has been affirmed through summit, debate, and history as a foremost text of the Christian Bible.

Authorship, Attribution, and Geographic Origin

Before the gospel can be accepted for its contextual strengths, a number of systematic problems within the text must be addressed. Initially, the text was assumed to have been written in Rome, but others now contend that Syria may have been its place of origin. Papias supported the presence of "Latinisms" throughout the text — hints of region and cultural norms embedded in vocabulary — as clues not only to its authenticity but also to its geographic origin (Dewey, 497). The principal source of doubt about its supposed Roman provenance is the gospel's discomfort with Galilean topography, suggesting that the author, unlike the historical Peter, was actually unfamiliar with the geography of the area. Additionally, the gospel's use of persecution as a symbol linking it to Rome remains dubious, since widespread persecution extended well beyond the walls of Rome into the hinterlands of the empire (498).

The textual difficulties identified by carefully examining the gospel's geographic roots are critical to understanding both the social context surrounding its creation and the legitimacy of the writer's connection to Peter. While thorough analysis does confirm a reasonable link between the writer and the disciple of Jesus, it does call into question whether that writer was actually Mark (499).

Language, Oral Tradition, and Textual Coherence

Despite questions of authorial attribution, the text was certainly a Hellenistic gospel intended for audiences in the Roman Empire whose language was Greek. Various linguistic irregularities, like those related to regional knowledge, suggest an unfamiliarity with the Greek in which it was originally written. While Jewish tradition explains and supports the use of inclusive language, the expansion of a Latin-fluent writer into the Greek tongue reveals a series of inconsistencies in vocabulary absent from the other gospels — such as "soldier of the guard" (NRSV, 6:27), "sextarius" for "pots" (7:4), and "centurion" (15:39, 44, 45). Additionally, moments of apparent divergence from the other gospels permitted the condoning of anti-Semitism and the criticism of the Pharisees, content more appropriate for a Gentile audience. Nevertheless, the text shares many similarities with the other synoptic gospels, making detailed use of the Old Testament throughout.

Most biblical historians attribute the original stories of Mark to the passage of oral tradition. Using the literary tool of the "historical present" — connecting actions of the past to the present moment, common in oral histories — the gospel employs the word "immediately" nearly forty times throughout the book to align present-tense verbs with their appropriate place in history (Mack, 153). Matthew links his stories together repeatedly with the phrase "It has come to pass." By employing such literary devices, the transmitters of oral history were able to perpetuate the performance of the storyteller in his traditional setting, reinforcing the compelling argument that the gospel was not directly written by the disciple Mark but rather told by him, then retold and captured by others in his name. Critics of the oral tradition analogy cite the gospel's well-constructed narrative as evidence of coherence — a trait uncommon in oral literature — and regard it instead as a loosely localized textual elaboration of the threefold passion prediction found in the New Testament.

Christology and the Son of Man

The Gospel of Mark, like the other three gospels, recounts the story of the life of Christ. Unlike his peers and predecessors, however, Mark — or his eponymous author — most commonly addresses the figure of Jesus using the title "Son of Man" (2:10, 28; 8:31; 9:9, 12, 31; 10:33, 45; 14:21, 41). This usage draws a strong parallel between the New Testament savior and the messianic figure suggested by the Old Testament, presenting Jesus as the fulfillment of the Jewish Messiah and clearly emphasizing the Christology of Mark. The references draw directly on the suffering servant in the book of Isaiah (52–53): "How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt?" (9:12). More than the other gospels, the Gospel of Mark directly affirms the coming of Jesus Christ as the same Messiah sought and awaited by the Hebrew nations through Daniel and Isaiah — supporting not only the other Christian texts but also serving as a source of evangelism.

References

Bultmann, R. History of the Synoptic Tradition. Harper & Row, 1963.

Crossan, J. D. The Historical Jesus. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

Dewey, J. "The Survival of Mark's Gospel: A Good Story?" Journal of Biblical Literature. Vol. 123, Iss. 3. 2004. pp. 495–507.

Mack, Burton L. Who Wrote the New Testament?: The Making of a Christian Myth. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Against the Heresies. New York: Newman Press, 1991.

Rhoads, David M. Mark as Story. London: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1999.

Schnelle, Udo. The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.