Some Background on Mark

 Good Morning and welcome to our new and exciting journey-- reading the New Testament in a year! I am looking forward to this and I hope you are too. I will provide some background information for each of the books we will be reading; that may help understand why certain material was written- or why some material was not written! Remember, especially with the Gospels, each of these manuscripts were written with a specific purpose to a specific audience at a specific time. The events of the day and the culture of the time was very important to the authors and we need to try to understand that as well.

Mark was probably the first written Gospel, around 65 to 70AD; the Jews were at war with the Romans; Roman persecution of "Christians" was rampant and Peter, Paul, and several other prominent leaders had been executed. We are not really sure who wrote this Gospel; Mark was a very common name, but there is some strong indication that the author was a Mark that associated with Peter and much of these writings are actually interpretations of Peter's account. There are some indications that the author was a good friend of Paul, as much of the verbiage used is similar to many of the Pauline epistles.

Regardless, what we do know is Mark was a devout "Christian" and is writing to people who already know the basic message of Jesus and Christianity. His audience is probably Roman Christians. Mark probably didn't know Jesus personally, but wasn't too far removed from those who did know Jesus. 

Mark's Gospel reads like an evening newscast-- many stories, told very quickly, with a great sense of urgency. Mark's writing is quite simplistic and not very detailed, unlike Matthew and Luke, and certainly not as philosophical as John's Gospel. Much of Mark is duplicated in Matthew and Luke.

A great deal of Mark is the account of Jesus' passion. The 19th century scholar Martin Kahler described Mark's Gospel as "a passion narrative with an extended introduction."The cross is central to the work of Mark and this seems to be a central underlying theme to the book. Jesus was active in ministry, but Mark's ultimate goal for Jesus is to give His life as ransom. 

Let's get started!

Shalom+
Pastor Paul

(Reference: Introducing the New Testament, Mark Allan Powell; Baker Academics, 2009)