The Man Behind the Words

Katie Wilmouth

RELI 124-08

February 3, 2010

The Man Behind the Words

Believed by most contemporary scholars to be the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, the text of the Gospel of Mark does not specifically identify any certain person as its author. The title “The Gospel According to Mark” was not even originally affixed to this document. It was not until the second century when early Christian communities needed to differentiate the gospels from each other, that names were attributed to them. A number of people in the New Testament are named Mark and anyone of them could have potentially been the author of this gospel.

The name “Mark” was popular in the first-century Mediterranean world, not only among the Greeks and Romans but also among the Jews (Borg 13). There would have been a strong desire to associate this gospel with someone close to Jesus, but none of the disciples or other prominent early Christians was named Mark. Thus there is no apparent reason why second-century Christians would name this gospel “Mark” unless somebody with that name had written it (Borg 13). Tradition has it that a companion and interpreter of the disciple Peter wrote down the Gospel According to Mark. His name was Mark, and was identified with “John Mark” in Acts.

According to Eusebius, a fourth-century Christian historian, Mark wrote his gospel in Rome, shortly after the execution of Peter around the year 64. Eusebius cites a tradition going back to a second-century bishop and martyr named Papias (Borg 13). While the text of Papias no longer exists, it was quoted by Eusebius, “ Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter’s. For he had one purpose only-to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it” (Porter and McDonald 286). Papias’ claims were based upon information he heard from John the Presbyter. However, Papias is not an entirely trustworthy source. Even Eusebius had doubts about Papias, a writer who evidently felt entitled to embellish his works.

In the past half-century, scholars have become skeptical of the Rome-Peter theory acquired from third-hand information. There is evidence that Mark died before Peter, a contradiction to the tradition that Mark wrote down Peter’s stories after his death. Some scholars believe that the Gospel of Mark contains mistakes concerning Galilean geography and customs. This would mean that the author was not familiar with the geography of that area and its customs, unlike Peter (Porter and McDonald 286). Even if Mark did not rely on Peter as a source for his material, there are still reasons to believe Mark wrote his gospel in Rome. Mark calculates time by a Roman method and his language contains a number of “Latinisms”-loan words from Latin to Greece-which would suggest an audience mote comfortable with Latin than in Greek (Cline).

Today scholars seek to deduce what we can know about the gospel’s author from internal evidence within the gospel itself.

Works Cited

Borg, Marcus J. Conversations With Scripture: The Gospel of Mark. Harrisburg: Morehouse, 2009. Print.

Cline, Austin. "Authorship of Mark's Gospel: Who was Mark who Wrote the Gospel?" Agnosticism / Atheism - Free Inquiry, Skepticism, Atheism, Religious Philosophy. Web. 03 Feb. 2010. .

Porter, Stanley E., and Lee M. McDonald. Early Christianity and its Sacred Literature. New York: Hendrickson, 2000. Print.