The Gospel of Mark is one of the most important books in the Bible. One might say that it puts the other Gospel narratives in context. Without Mark, they couldn’t be understood properly, nor could we know with any degree of certainty their accuracy and authority as the word of God. When was Matthew’s account written? Mark offers us a reasonable perspective. How does Luke fit into the context of the first century AD? Once more, by understanding how Mark came to be written, we are able to perceive when and why Luke wrote his narrative. While the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four narratives, it packs a powerful punch in terms of influencing the content of and the purpose for which the other two Synoptics were written. It may even have influenced the writing of the Gospel of John, because its author, according to second and third century authorities, was influenced to write down what he preached, simply because Mark wrote down what Peter preached. While Matthew and Luke were written with a purpose in mind, Mark and John are transcripts of what two of Jesus’ disciples preached to the world.
Mark begins his narrative with the words: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…” Some folks want to make this a kind of title for Mark’s narrative, and make the actual beginning at verse-2 with “As it is written…” However, this doesn’t work.[1] The first verse is a statement telling us that Mark was beginning to tell his readers the message that Jesus brought to the world, as it is written (verse-2), meaning, as it was predicted by the prophets. None of the prophets predicted Mark would write a narrative about anyone. Therefore, verse-1 cannot be the title of Mark’s narrative. What they did predict was one such as Jesus would come with a message from God. In other words the Gospel (good news) of Jesus, meaning the good news Jesus brought, had a beginning, and this is it.
A few years ago a Jewish friend of mine mentioned in one of our discussions about the Bible that the Greek word meaning Christ wasn’t Jesus’ last name. I knew what he meant, because, as a child growing up, I thought it was Jesus’ last name, and I have to wonder how many folks today have such a childish or uninformed understanding. The fact is, Mark is telling his readers that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah or Anointed One, which is what the Greek (G5547 – Christos) means. It refers to the promise the Lord made to David that he would establish his throne forever, i.e. the Messiah, whose kingdom would last forever (cp. Daniel 2:44), would be one of David’s descendants (2Samuel 7:12-13, 16; Psalm 89:3-4).
The word Gospel (euaggelion – G2098) as used in the New Covenant text has no context in the Hebrew Scriptures. While the Greek word does appear in the Septuagint, it doesn’t seem to have the same meaning Mark places upon the word. He and the other New Covenant writers may, therefore, have borrowed from its use in the imperial cult of Rome:
“…and since the Caesar through his appearances has exceeded the hopes of all former good messages (euaggelion – G2098), surpassing the benefactors who came before him, but also leaving no hope that anyone in the future would surpass him, and since for the world the birthday of the god (i.e. Caesar Augustus) was the beginning of his good messages (euaggelion – G2098) [may it therefore be decided that…]” (parenthesis mine)[2]
Used in this context, Mark is telling his readers that Jesus, the Messiah, is not only King, but his good news represents the beginning of a new age in history.
Finally, Mark’s use of the term Son of God couldn’t possibly refer to Jesus’ deity. There are other places in the New Covenant text, where it is demonstrated that Jesus is, indeed, God in the flesh, but this isn’t Mark’s point, here at the beginning of his narrative, especially without any contextual evidence to prove his case. Rather, the term is another reference to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. Psalm 2 was a hymn sung at the coronation of the kings of the Jews who reigned after David. In it the King (Messiah) is declared to be the Son of God, and Paul refers to this Psalm in Acts 13:33. There, Paul claimed the Psalm referred to the day Jesus was resurrected (Romans 1:4). This is also Mark’s meaning of the term Son of God. It is not a reference to Jesus’ deity, as some try to claim. Trying to use this text as a proof text for such a thing is easily refuted. As I said above, there are better texts that demonstrate Jesus is God in the flesh, and we’ll probably get to some of those later in the study of Mark’s narrative.
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[1] Later, the Gospel narratives were given “titles” to differentiate them one from another, but this is a different matter entirely. This later effort by others shouldn’t dictate what we understand Mark to be doing.
[2] Jon F Dechow-Gospel and the Emperor Cult; page 64. He quotes Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (1990), which cites an inscription in the Julian calendar from Priene, Turkey (9 BC, Asia Minor), which is south of ancient Ephesus.
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