Most historical critical scholars are certain that Mark's Gospel was written first. Not that they believe that anyone by the name of Mark wrote the Gospel. However, they choose to continue to use the traditional name of this Gospel in order to make it clear to what document they are making reference. Ehrman begins by reviewing the "synoptic problem" and the four-source hypothesis (also covered in my earlier Blog entry on this topic). As I mentioned in my Blog entries on the historical critical method, this whole understanding of the origination of the Gospels presupposes that the material in the Gospels was handed on orally for several decades before anyone thought to write it down. This process of oral transmission begins with the actual words of Jesus, but believes that few words of Jesus that were accurately remembered, and the whole oral tradition reworked the sayings of Jesus to adapt the sayings and actions of Jesus to a new setting. This new setting is the life of the early Christians attempting to define themselves as religious people over against the Judaism out of which Christianity emerged.
An intriguing theory that several scholars came up with about 10-15 years ago is the idea that the Gospel of Mark was originally an oral composition. That is, the entire Gospel was originally composed and transmitted orally before being written down at some point by someone. This theory has the advantage of explaining some of the stylistic peculiarities in Mark, such as the often noted tendency to over use the adverb "immediately" which serves to provide a link between otherwise disconnected passages and also beginning most sentences with "and" which provides an aural cue that a new sentence is beginning.
If it might seem odd that people would memorize the entire Gospel, early Christian Monks committed the entire book of Psalms to memory for their daily recitation. Also, Muhammad's Quran was handed on orally for many years after his death and only written down when disputes arose concerning the exact content of the Quran. Even today it is Not difficult to find Muslims who have committed large portions of the Quran to memory (in Arabic, for there is no such thing as an acceptable translation of the Quran for worship purposes).
When the Jesus material is finally collected into the various Gospels, it has become quite different from what it was when Jesus originally spoke it, and some of the sayings and stories may have been created along the way. At least this is what historical critical scholars tend to believe. In a similar way, the study of the Gospels themselves tends to be more focused on the particular theological interests of the Gospel's author than on the sayings and actions of Jesus.
The old traditional view of the Gospel of Mark is that this Gospel was composed by a companion of the Apostle Peter named Mark in Rome, and the content of the Gospel represents Peter's reminiscences of his time with Jesus. Historical critical scholars believe we do not have any reliable information whatsoever about the authors of the four Gospels or about where the Gospels might have been written, and deciding when they were written is educated guesswork. If Mark was written first, then the others have to be dated later, and allowing sufficient time for Mark to be copied and circulated around the eastern portion of the Roman empire. Ascribing a date of 65-70 CE to Mark is based on the fact that Mark, chapter 13, seems to presuppose the destruction of the temple (and since predictive prophecy is impossible to historical critics), therefore, the Gospel must have been written after the temple was destroyed (or when its destruction had become a foregone conclusion). However, an alternative interpretation of Mark 13 and the destruction of the temple is offered by scholar E.P. Sanders, who points out that when Jesus makes the prediction in Mark 13, he speaks of "not one stone will be left here upon another," whereas the actual destruction of the temple was by fire. And if this particular passage is a fictional prophecy after the fact wouldn't we expect the prophecy to be closer to the historical reality? So, even from a historical critical view, it may be possible Jesus really did make this prophecy.
As we see at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, a central theme is affirming Jesus as both the Son of God and Messiah (Mark 1:1; Christ is simply the Greek word for the Jewish Messiah, meaning "anointed one," see Box 5.1 on page 61). The first two chapters in the Gospel are quite important for establishing this point of Jesus as Son of God and Messiah by emphasizing that Jesus speaks and acts on behalf of God, such as forgiving sins (2:7) and expelling demons (1:27).
Yet, we also find that Mark portrays Jesus as quite harassed by various Jewish groups, in particular the Galilean Pharisees and the Herodians. Many scholars find this odd since we do not hear much about Pharisees in Galilee in Jesus' time from Josephus. The Herodians are not known to scholarship outside of these two references in Mark (3:6 and 12:13) and one parallel reference in Matthew. The mention in 3:6 would seem to be Mark's way of casting a shadow over Jesus' ministry by warning the reader that Jewish leaders, feeling threatened by Jesus, want to be rid of him. This emphasis on the suffering of Jesus does not come to the fore in the Gospel narrative until the middle of Mark when Jesus first predicts his death (8:31). From there to the end of the Gospel, the idea of Jesus as the suffering Son of God seems to be the dominant theme.
Scholars have sometimes described the Gospel of Mark as a Passion narrative with an extended introduction (passion in the sense of the Latin word passio for suffering). While I sometimes think Ehrman is overplaying the opposition to Jesus in Mark (as in this section on page 64), it is clear that the opposition to Jesus (by the Pharisees and others) is an important part of Mark's portrayal of Jesus. It would seem that Mark intends to explain why it was necessary for the Son of God, the Messiah to suffer. The idea of a suffering Son of God or Messiah would not have been readily accepted by anyone from a Jewish background. So it seems that part of Mark's intent in writing his Gospel is to explain how this was all part of God's plan.
A curious feature of Mark's Gospel is the fact that Jesus is so often misunderstood by his disciples (see Ehrman, page 66). Modern scholars are quite certain that this is an intentional literary device on Mark's part (and has nothing to do with how the disciples historically might have behaved while actually with Jesus). What scholars cannot agree on is what this peculiarity means. One popular theory (35 years ago) was that the disciples represented a group of Christian opponents Mark was writing against. This theory is no longer widely accepted. My favorite theory is that the disciples represent what Not to do as a disciple and Jesus represents the ideal disciple, and a model for discipleship. Jesus was willing to suffer for the faith and the disciples ran away when following Jesus became too risky (when Jesus was arrested, 14:50). As I said, the disciples' lack of understanding is a curious feature, and there is no unanimity among New Testament scholars in trying to explain it.
Another curious feature of mark is what scholars is the so-called "Messianic Secret." It has always seemed a bit odd that Jesus would tell people not to tell others about his miracles (see Ehrman, Box 5.3 on page 67). This feature was explained by most scholars as having a purpose in the life of the historical Jesus, until German scholar Wilhelm Wrede in 1901 offered a non-historical explanation as to why Jesus several times orders that no report of his miracles should go out. Wrede proposes that this feature is a theologically motivated literary device employed by Mark in the composition of the Gospel to explain why Jesus was not widely recognized as the Messiah during the course of his earthly life. Jesus did not want the word to get out until after his resurrection, which would of course, explain why the word did not get out during Jesus' lifetime (at least Wrede was quite sure that no one believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah during his earthly lifetime, though even the skeptic Ehrman is quite sure that Jesus' disciples historically must have believed Jesus to be the Messiah). Wrede's explanation fits in rather nicely with the thinking of much of liberal Protestant New Testament scholarship was during the 20th century, most of whom were quite sure Jesus did not proclaim himself to be the Messiah.
As is the case with the apparent lack of comprehension on the part of the disciples, Jesus' commands not to tell anyone about his miracles is a curious feature of the Gospel for which there are numerous theories and not much consensus among scholars.
The overall perspective of the Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God who reveals his true identity in his miracles and teachings, but also in his suffering in which the necessity of the death of the Messiah is a major part of the divine plan for the salvation of humanity. Ehrman does a good job explaining this on pages 68-71.
Regarding the conclusion of Mark's Gospel, most modern scholars are quite sure that for some reason Mark intentionally ended the Gospel at 16:7. This is obviously a very abrupt ending. To say that Mark intended the Gospel to end this way, leaving the reader hanging and wondering what comes next seems to presuppose a very modern way of thinking about the nature of a story. The traditional explanation has been that the original ending (now lost) would have included a resurrection appearance, even though this not present in the earliest existing manuscripts.
The modern conservative theory is that the original ending was lost and information was supplied from other sources outside of the other three Gospels to create the longer endings to Mark in some manuscripts. This is based on the belief that if John (what has no known connection with the other three Gospels includes resurrection appearances, then people expected the story of Jesus to end with a resurrection appearance. The key scholarly question is: does a Gospel require a resurrection appearance or are we only conditional to expect one based on the other three Gospels? Most modern scholars prefer to explain Mark's abrupt ending as part of the manner in which Mark's Gospel makes a distinction between the role of the disciples and the role of the reader (described well by Ehrman at the top of page 73). Thus, for Ehrman and most historical critical scholars, the abrupt ending at Mark 16:7 reflects the original intent of the author.
A couple of alternative explanations for the originality of the short ending that had some adherents in the 20th century were that the lack of a resurrection appearance by Jesus in Mark was because 1) the readers would soon see Jesus because he would return any day now, or 2) to stress the absence of Jesus until he returns, but we know not when. Scholar John Dominic Crossan believed that the author of Mark concocted the story of the empty tomb to emphasize the absence of Jesus until his return. But that theory has found little acceptance among scholars because it presupposes that the author of John's Gospel had access to Mark's Gospel (which few scholars believe true), because then you have to explain why the author of John's Gospel had no interest in using almost all of the other material in Mark's Gospel, except for the story of the empty tomb. Such a supposition strains credulity for most scholars.
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