Study of Mark Part 2 (continued):The Beginning of Jesus' Ministry

¹² The Spirit immediately drove him into the wilderness. ¹³ He was in the wilderness forty days, enduring temptations from Satan. He was with wild animals, and angels were ministering to his needs.

Notice the theme of immediacy again. The pace is picking up, and there will be very few breaks in the narrative from here on. Also notice how briefly all of the information has been presented thus far. John’s entire ministry is dealt with in 5 verses; Jesus’ baptism takes only 3. The wilderness temptation gets 2. Mark is not dwelling very long on any one topic. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke have greatly expanded their accounts regarding the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, but we must remember that we are viewing Mark as standing on its own (as it would have for probably a decade before either Matthew or Luke were penned).

The importance of Mark’s (very brief) account of Jesus in the wilderness is to emphasize his servant nature, and to begin to paint a picture of how Jesus surpasses John the Baptist. Remember that Mark’s Gospel redefines the Christ figure as the suffering servant of God. This episode demonstrates immediately the servant nature of Jesus, as well as placing Jesus in his first circumstance of suffering. The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness forcefully, as though he has submitted himself so fully to the Spirit that he is no longer in command of his own body. The same Greek word (ekballei) used of the Spirit driving Jesus to the wilderness is used in Mark 1:39 in reference to Jesus casting out demons, and in 1:43 when Jesus sends a recently-healed leprous man to present himself to the priest and make offerings. The degree to which Jesus submitted himself to the power of the Holy Spirit is as much power as Jesus will demonstrate in his ministry.

The presence of the Spirit in Jesus, driving his actions and (we will see in greater detail shortly) giving him authority and power, is also a way in which Jesus surpasses John the Baptist, who only declared a coming ministry with power and baptized with water. Furthermore, when Jesus is in the wilderness, he endures temptations from Satan and he is taken care of by angels, indicating a connection to the spiritual world that surpasses that of John, who only lived and preached in the wilderness.

Forty days could be a symbolic connection to the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness for 40 years (Joshua 5:6), or a reference to Moses’ experience (Exodus 34:28 – “So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments), or that of Elijah (1 Kings 19:8 – “...That meal gave him the strength to travel forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God”). This episode could also be seen as a message for followers of Jesus, that there is no such thing as a servant of God who is not tempted, even the Son of God.

Mark also frames this narrative in a way that would have had meaning to a Gentile reader as well. In Greco-Roman myths and epics, the heroes frequently undergo challenges and face temptation from various divine beings. The Aeneid, the Roman national epic, written by Vergil and published after his death in 19BC, was composed (in part) to celebrate the reign of the Emperor Augustus and present all of Roman history as driving ultimately towards his rule. Aeneas, the hero of the epic, will frequently serve as our example of a Roman “divine man” in this study, because the Aeneid was one of the most influential works of all of Roman literature. Although published in the BC’s, the work was still regarded with such prominence and authority in Roman literature during the time that Mark was being written that the next greatest Roman epic, Lucan’s Pharsalia (written from 61-65 AD, during the reign of Nero and roughly contemporaneous to our timeline for Mark), cannot be read as anything but a reaction to Vergil’s work. I will refer to this epic again in the study because there are parallels to be found between Aeneas and Jesus; as well as motifs from the Aeneid that have parallels in the Gospel of Mark.

Aeneas was the son of a god, the result of the union between the goddess Venus and a mortal man, Anchises. The beginning of his mission as the ultimate progenitor of the Roman people can be found in Book 2 of the Aeneid. In this book, Aeneas is living in Troy at the end of the Trojan War. The Trojans (by means of a famous wooden horse) begin to sack the city. The ghost of Aeneas’ dead comrade, Hector, appears in a dream to Aeneas and gives him his divinely appointed mission: Hector entrusts Aeneas with the task of taking the Trojan household gods and the survivors of Troy to a new country. However, Aeneas immediately faces many temptations to neglect his new calling. Without delay he rushes into Troy in an attempt to defend the city or die trying. Then he witnesses the king of Troy murdered with his wife and sons. When Aeneas realizes everyone around him has already died, he starts making his way back to his family. But then he has an opportunity to get vengeance on Helen, the woman whose beauty started the war. His divine mother appears to him and reminds him of his fate, and promises to protect him until he is safely away from the city. Aeneas’ mission is further confirmed by a heavenly omen when his son, Ascanius is “anointed” by the gods with flames that surround his head and lick his hair, but do not burn him. Then, as Anchises prays, a star shoots across the sky and hits a nearby mountain. Aeneas begins to take his family out from the city; but as he makes it out, he realizes that his wife has been separated from him somewhere inside Troy. He rushes back into the city and spends the night searching for her, risking death all over again in a desperate attempt to find her. Her ghost ultimately appears to him and tells him to leave.

While the specifics of this story are not paralleled in the Gospel of Mark, some of the overarching themes are similar: the Son of God/a son of a god who has a specific mission given to him by God/the gods; a period of time in which there is temptation and danger to reject the calling; loneliness and solitude; divine protection; an anointing of the mission through heavenly omens. These epic motifs are present in both stories and would have been recognizable to a Roman audience reading the Gospel.

From a general literary perspective, Mark could be viewed as working inside of a literary framework used from ancient mythology to epics to modern movies:

The Hero (Jesus/Aeneas/Frodo) is called to accept a quest/mission (bring the kingdom of God to the world and suffer and die/found a new city in a strange country/destroy the One Ring). He brings with him one or more Companions (Simon, Andrew, James, John, the other disciples/Achates, Ascanius, Pallas, the Trojan remnant/Sam, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, the rest of the Fellowship). These people leave the normal life they have known behind them and go on a journey. This journey challenges them and involves dangers from nature (storm on the sea of Galilee/storm in the Mediterranean Sea/snowstorm in the Pass of Caradhras), other people (Pharisees/Rutulians/Orcs and men), and, sometimes, opposition from spiritual forces (Satan and demons/Juno and Allecto/Sauron and Ringwraiths). There are sometimes moments where the Hero faces doubt or loses his way (Gethsemane/Carthage/Mount Doom). Sometimes the Companions die or betray the Hero (Judas/Pallas/Boromir). And over the course of the journey, the Hero grows in his power/realizes his true identity/accepts his calling, ultimately fulfilling his mission.   

¹⁴ Now after John was imprisoned, Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed the gospel of God. ¹⁵ He said, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel!”

With his brief mentioning here of John’s imprisonment, the author gives the audience another example of what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus. John, even though he did not know specifically who the person of power would be, declared this person’s arrival, his service to this person, and the gospel message (repentance and forgiveness of sins) all the way to prison and death. For Mark, suffering will frequently precede glory for those who choose the path of the Christ. To a community facing persecution, this message would have been one of encouragement and hope.

The brief mention of imprisonment also serves another point: to highlight that Jesus’ ministry does not actually begin until after John’s ministry finishes. And just as Elisha received a double portion of the Spirit after Elijah departs (2 Kings 2:9), so Jesus surpasses John after John departs. Jesus (in the model of Elisha) takes up John the Baptist’s mantle and proclaims a similar “gospel” message (repent), but takes the message further to include the kingdom of God, and thanks to the omniscient perspective of the narrator, we get inside this information about Jesus before anyone in the narrative is aware of it. We do not yet know what the “kingdom of God” means in Mark (although Jesus will explain it later), but we can make a couple of observations. First, Jesus is speaking of an action completed, not something that will come in the future. The Greek statement is made in the perfect tense, which denotes an action that is completed by the present reality in the narrative – as in, “By the time you are reading this statement (now) you have read the verses (already completed).

The Greek reads “...the time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near”

In other words, by the time Jesus says these words inside the story, the actions he declares have been done. Secondly, as we have seen multiple times already, everything about Jesus’ ministry surpasses that of John. Where John the Baptist presents a time and person to come in the future, Jesus’ arrival marks the fulfillment of that time, and thus his identity as the person of whom John spoke, and the onset of his ministry is that which ushers in the arrival of the kingdom of God.

A Study of Mark: Jesus' Baptism (Part 2 continued)

⁷ He proclaimed, “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals. ⁸ I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John’s message is one of a coming man who will have power; one to whom John has already declared himself a servant (by his unworthiness to untie his sandals); a man whose ministry will surpass his own in every way. Where John is only able to ritually cleanse with water, this person will bring a spiritual cleansing. John’s message of baptism by the Holy Spirit is also a foreshadowing beyond the scope of the Gospel narrative. The Holy Spirit doesn’t make many appearances in Mark. The few times where it is mentioned after this point are in connection with Jesus and the power or authority that he possesses. The baptism of other people with the Holy Spirit is an event that will take place after the resurrection, and is not recorded in this Gospel.

The audience, as believers, would have been familiar with the concept of the Holy Spirit. This is an aspect of theology that was developed by the time Paul was writing his letters (roughly a decade before Mark was written down), and Christian communities all over the Mediterranean, even in Rome, would have understood what was meant when the term Holy Spirit is used in a Gospel. For example:

·        Romans 8:14-16 explains adoption as children of God through the Holy Spirit

·        Romans 8:26-27 discusses the Spirit interceding on behalf of the saints

·        Romans 9:1 indicates that the Holy Spirit can assure one’s conscience of the truth

⁹ Now in those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. ¹⁰ And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.”

We have already been told that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God, so he needs no further introduction. The “prologue,” as it were, is over, and Mark launches directly into the narrative of Jesus’ ministry. The Gospel of Mark is roughly divided into a 3-Act structure, much like an ancient drama. Act 1 (1:9-8:26) is Jesus’ Galilean ministry – it is very action-oriented, it demonstrates Jesus’ authority and identity, and it puts his message at odds with the religious authorities (the scribes, teachers of the Law, and Pharisees). Act 2 (8:27-13:37) transitions to Jerusalem and Jesus’ last week. Here the focus shifts to Jesus teaching his disciples, preparing them for his absence, and forcing them (and the audience) to confront and answer the question, “Who do you say that I am?” Act 3 (14:1-16:8) is the climax of the story, the point that the narrative has been relentlessly pushing toward, the culmination of Jesus’ ministry through his suffering and death, and the ending.

Verse 10 introduces us to one of the first recurring themes we will encounter in Mark: Immediacy. The Greek word meaning “immediately” is used over 40 times in the Gospel. The action in Mark (especially Act 1) is fast paced, constantly driving the audience forward to the climax of the story. There are very few “rest breaks.” Another literary motif presented in these verses is that of Patterns of Three. In Mark, things frequently happen in threes: here, Jesus sees heavens opened, he sees the Spirit descending, and he hears a voice.

Examining the narrative itself, the vision at the baptism is written as a personal experience intended for Jesus alone, and not in any way a demonstration to the crowd. He sees the heavens splitting open. The voice speaks to him and not to the crowd: “You are my son... in you...” No mention is made of anyone else beyond Jesus hearing the voice or seeing the Spirit descend. There is also no indication in the text that John recognized Jesus as the one he had been prophesying about, or that he saw or heard the vision.

The internal narrator of the Gospel, however, allows the audience to take part in an omniscient perspective. Frequently, we are given glimpses into information of which the characters inside the narrative are unaware. This is one such example. We get to experience the vision of the Spirit and voice along with Jesus, and by doing so, we know that Jesus is the one of whom John was speaking. The Spirit descends on Jesus because the audience has been told that he will ultimately baptize with it. And just as the OT quotations in v.2-3 were immediately followed with their embodiment in John the Baptist, John’s declaration of the coming person of power is immediately followed by its fulfillment in Jesus.

Additionally, Mark’s baptism episode contains hints of proto-adoptionist theology. Rather than the belief that Jesus was fully divine from birth or before, Adoptionism believed that Jesus was “adopted” by God at his baptism due to his devotion to God, and that he was given divine status and the Holy Spirit because of this adoption, but that he is not equal to God the Father. This doctrine was declared to be a heresy by the 1^st Council of Nicaea (325 AD), but some ideas in parts of Mark and Paul’s letters can be seen as precursors to this doctrine. Other Gospel writers may have noticed this potential theological issue present in Mark, and dealt with it in different ways. For example, Matthew has the voice at the baptism address the crowd (“This is my son”), rather than Jesus, changing the purpose of the event to a public declaration and indicating that Jesus already knew his identity. Luke includes the account of 12-year-old Jesus declaring God to be his father, years before his baptism. Both Matthew and Luke include birth narratives in which a divine messenger informs Jesus’ parents that he is God’s son by miraculous pregnancy, and thus divine from his birth. John’s prologue places Jesus as the Word, preexistent and coeternal with God.

Mark does not include any of this clarifying information, making his theology a little more uncertain. Does the voice speak because Jesus was not aware of his identity before the baptism? Was Jesus a regular man until God declared his adoption as the Son of God and sent the Spirit into Jesus? Is God simply declaring his approval at Jesus’ submission to God through baptism? Is the voice intended to inform Jesus that it was time to begin his ministry? Is the voice a literary construct intended for the reader and not for anyone inside the narrative, including Jesus? Reading Mark independently, I don’t know that you can fully answer these questions, but try to keep them in mind as we read through the rest of the Gospel to see whether anything can be resolved or clarified.

Another question that may have arisen in your mind is why the Son of God would need to be baptized? Wasn’t John’s baptism one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins? Does this indicate that Jesus had sins that needed forgiveness?  2 Corinthians 5:21 states:  ^“God made the one who did not know sin [Jesus] to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.” Paul wrote this letter most likely between 55-57 AD, which means that this is the earliest point at which we can declare for certain that the doctrine of a sinless Jesus existed in early Christian theology. If we accept the date of Mark as written in the late 60’s then the theological belief of Jesus as sinless would have existed for a decade or more, enough time for the doctrine (even if it was not present everywhere), to be circulated and adopted by the communities around the Mediterranean.  

The other Gospel writers also seem to have noticed this as an issue in need of explanation in the baptism narrative. Matthew 3:14-15 includes an interaction between John and Jesus, in which John tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized and states that Jesus needs to baptize him instead, but Jesus convinces him that it needs to happen “to fulfill all righteousness.” Luke 3:21-23 alters the structure of the events slightly, making the baptism happen after everyone else present was also baptized (v.21 “it happened that, when all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized”); having the vision happen as Jesus prays, rather than as he exits the water, thus taking the emphasis off of the baptism itself (v.21 “and while he was praying, the heavens opened...”); and using the event as a symbolic action marking the beginning of his ministry (v.22-23 “‘...in you I take great delight;’ and so Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years old.”). The Gospel of John does not even record Jesus being baptized.

A common explanation attempting to answer the “why baptism” question is that Mark, who greatly emphasizes the humanity of Jesus, has Jesus undergo a baptism in order to declare himself a full member of humanity. A second explanation paints Jesus’ baptism as a symbolic action announcing his willingness to accept the sinfulness of mankind on his shoulders as part of his ultimate mission to suffer and die as Son of God and Christ. Another explanation highlights one of the main purposes of the Gospel of Mark as teaching what it means to be a true follower of Jesus, frequently using Jesus to model the behaviors expected of his followers. Thus, Jesus undergoes a baptism as a model for what future disciples would be expected to do when following in his footsteps. A final explanation (though not in any way the last) views this narrative as another combination of OT quotations, constructed for the audience and declaring the identity of Jesus to the reader just as the OT quotations in v.2-3 declared who John the Baptist was.

·        Psalm 2:7 -- I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

      He said to me, “You are my son;
      today I have become your father.

·        Isaiah 42:1 -- “Here is my servant whom I support,
my chosen one in whom I take pleasure.
I have placed my spirit on him;
he will make just decrees for the nations.

The placing of the Spirit on Jesus immediately afterward would also serve as a fulfillment of the Isaiah verse for the reader, just as John immediately shows up in the story after Malachi and Isaiah are quoted, and Jesus arrives immediately after John predicts the man of power. Ultimately, whether you think any (or none) of these explanations holds water, I leave it up to you to decide why you think Jesus was baptized.

Study of Mark's Gospel Part 2 (continued): More on John the Baptist

⁵ People from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem were going out to him, and he was baptizing them in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins.

There is definite hyperbole (exaggeration for literary effect) in these verses, as it is highly unlikely that every single person in Jerusalem and the Judean countryside came to see John. The purpose of the hyperbole is not so much to point out that John’s ministry was popular, as is it is to show that countless people were ready for repentance and forgiveness. In other words, by telling us that huge crowds were accepting John’s baptism, the author indicates that John was doing his job (as stated in the quotation in verses 2 and 3); namely, preparing the way for the forgiveness of sins that would come through Jesus by getting people ready to hear the message.

I want you to keep this verse in the back of your mind because I will revisit it later as one of the ways that the author will show how Jesus surpasses John the Baptist (another being the actual ability to forgive sins, rather than just preaching repentance).

It is not known exactly where Mark has John baptizing. It had to be a wilderness place on the Jordan River accessible to people from Judea and Jerusalem, but the Jordan River stretches for more than 60 miles between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. The “traditional” site of Jesus’ baptism is east of Jericho and north of the Dead Sea, within a short travel distance of Jerusalem and in the region of Judea. However, if this is even close to the location Mark had in mind, there will be repercussions for Jesus’ decision to focus his ministry in Galilee (as we will see at the end of this study). Another possible site places John’s ministry in the region of the Decapolis, significantly closer to Galilee but much farther from Jerusalem and Judea. It would still be feasible that people would travel from Judea to be baptized by John, but they would have to travel through Samaria to get there. Another possible explanation is that John moved his ministry, baptizing up and down the Jordan River, and Mark, in his brevity, simply used a city and region that his audience would have known without need for explanation.

⁶ John wore a garment made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

Hopefully as you read through this study, you will also be learning ways in which to critically examine a Gospel narrative. Recall in the introductory post my assumption that the Gospels are intentional. Because of this assumption, I work from the idea that the details inside the Gospels were included for a reason. As a general rule, then, any time you see a specific detail mentioned in a Gospel that seems strange or out of place to you, stop for a moment and ask “why?” Mark makes his statement about John’s dress and diet so briefly and changes gears so quickly that we can be tempted to pass by this sentence without giving it any thought. He does not take time to explain what, if any, significance there is to John’s clothing or eating habits. However, he does mention it, and it is a strange detail if you think about it, so we are left to pause and wonder, “Why does it matter (to the author or the audience) what John wore? Of all the foods John could have eaten, why are those two mentioned? Why does the author give no explanation at all about these details?”

I emphasized in the introductory post that Mark was most likely written to a primarily Roman Gentile audience. This doesn’t mean that there was no Jewish presence in his church community. The Jewishness of Jesus (and the characters surrounding him) is not downplayed in the Gospel. In fact, Mark does an excellent job of presenting his message in a way that appeals to both a Jewish and Gentile perspective. Jesus can be viewed in both the light of a Jewish Messiah (but redefined as the “suffering servant” who dies for mankind) and a Greco-Roman “divine man” (but surpassing any of them because of his suffering and death). As can John the Baptist:

In a Jewish context, the details about John’s clothing would have placed him as a prophet in the mold of Elijah. Elijah was described in 2 Kings 1:8 as a “hairy man” with a leather belt tied around his waist (The NIV translates the phrase as “a garment of hair”). Elijah’s “mantle” (his outer -- possibly “hairy”-- cloak), passed on to Elisha after Elijah was taken to heaven, became symbolic of a prophet’s ministry. Zechariah 13:4 states: “...on that day each prophet... will no longer wear the hairy garment of a prophet...” Mark clearly has John the Baptist working within this tradition, wearing a hairy garment and leather belt and preaching repentance, an image that would have immediately resonated with a Jewish audience as following the Elijah archetype.

John’s food choice, however, has no connections with Elijah at all; so why the locusts and honey?  Since Mark gives no clarification at all as to why John eats what he eats, this is an example of not being able to know what the author had in mind when he was structuring this part of the narrative. There is an explanation, but it involves a lot of conjecture and speculation about authorial intent. This explanation has John working within the tradition of OT prophets who delivered God’s messages with symbolic actions rather than words (e.g. cooking over a dung fire, marrying a prostitute, walking around barefoot and naked, shooting an arrow, tearing a garment, breaking a pot). As such, locusts could be symbolic of either God’s judgment (Deuteronomy 28:38), or the Gentile enemies of Israel (described as locusts in Judges and Jeremiah). Honey brings to mind the Promised Land (flowing with honey) or God’s promise of provision (Psalm 81:16), or possibly Ezekiel’s scroll (that tasted as sweet as honey and contained God’s words to his people). Thus the locusts and honey could be symbolic of God either covering his judgment with provision and promise, or God’s inclusion of the Gentile nations in his provision and promise. But again, this is pure speculation, because there are absolutely no clues inside of the Gospel text explaining the reason for John’s diet. It could also have been something as straightforward as John decrying the material wealth and extravagance of the religious authorities by rejecting comfortable clothes, living in the desert, and eating only food he could find in the wilderness (i.e. by God’s provision).

In a Greco-Roman context, John’s actions could have placed him in the mold of the ascetic Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, who were known for their eccentric behaviors and dress, their rejection of material goods and wealth, and their criticisms of society. To give a few examples, Socrates is said to have worn the same clothes every day, no matter the season, and to have stood still, lost in thought, for days on end, neither eating, drinking, or sleeping. Diogenes (the founder of Cynicism) lived in a barrel, regularly wore no clothes, and is said to have walked around Athens in broad daylight holding a lantern, searching for “a genuine man.” Zeno (the founder of Stoicism) was known for eating food that didn’t require cooking, drinking only water, and wearing thin clothes despite the season. All three of these philosophers were also extremely vocal critics of the societal customs and morals of their day, calling for people to change their ways.

Thus to both a Gentile and a Jewish audience, John’s actions could have had significance. But Mark does not dwell on John’s appearance. Instead, he mentions it and then pushes forward to the message, indicating that although it is a detail that helps to characterize John in some way for the audience, it is also not where the author wants to focus. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not John the Baptizer, the voice in the wilderness. In the Gospel of Mark, John is more of a plot device to allow Jesus to enter the narrative than he is a developed character (as he is in the other Gospels):

A Study of Mark Part 2: John the Baptist and the Beginning of Jesus' Ministry (Section One)

The introductory post in this series examined the first sentence from the Gospel of Mark. This post will continue from where we left off, covering Mark 1:2-20. I encourage you to read the entire section of text ahead of time, more than once and from multiple translations, before you read my analysis. If you don’t, you might find it difficult to hold the “flow” of the narrative, because I will be interrupting regularly to discuss or explain, sometimes on a verse-by-verse basis.

Where I do not work from the original Greek text, I will be using the NET Bible translation for most of my verse citations, a version which I think strikes a good balance between literal translation and equivalent meaning, and which also provides ridiculous amounts of footnotes to explain translator decisions, manuscript variants, linguistic features of the text, and exegesis. I would recommend reading the verses in the NIV (for “dynamic equivalency”) and the NASB (for literal rendering from the Greek). The Holman Christian Standard Bible also does a pretty good job of finding a balance between equivalent meaning and literal translation. All these versions are available on the YouVersion Bible app and on BibleGateway.

² As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way,
³ the voice of one shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”

The author starts the narrative by quoting from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). This quotation is actually blended from a couple of different places. The first half most likely comes from Malachi 3:1 – “‘I am about to send my messenger, who will clear the way before me. Indeed, the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant, whom you long for, is certainly coming,’...”

Only the 2^nd half of the quote comes from Isaiah (verse 40:3) – “A voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight the paths of our God...’” It was very common for Christian writers to take pieces of verses out of context and reframe them or combine them to demonstrate the point they wanted to make (Matthew is best known for this, although it is done in multiple other NT books as well).

As I mentioned in the introductory post, Mark 1:1 could be interpreted as a title in more than one way. Following the “title” with these OT quotations could mean that the author of Mark is stating that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ can be found in the Old Testament prophets.

⁴ In the wilderness John the baptizer began preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

The quote about a voice crying out in the wilderness followed immediately by the statement that John was in the wilderness preaching repentance leaves absolutely no doubt that John is meant to be directly linked to the figure mentioned in the OT quotations. If we interpret Mark 1:1 as a title for the ministry of John the Baptist, then we can read John’s ministry as the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ. With this viewpoint the gospel is the message of John the Baptist: repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

It is important to keep in mind that the audience hearing/reading this Gospel would have already been Christians. The main purposes of the Gospel of Mark are related to Christology (the identity of Jesus), discipleship (what it means to be a true follower), and the “gospel” message (the good news of salvation): it provides believers with a depiction of a Son of God who redefines Messiah and surpasses “divine men” by his suffering; it teaches the community about the cost of authentic discipleship; and it strengthens faith and hope in the face of persecution. As believers, the Markan community would have understood that forgiveness for sins would have come through Jesus. The author is not stating that John the Baptist was forgiving sins; rather, he was preaching repentance. This makes John’s preparation work for the Lord a call for people to recognize their need for the forgiveness of sins.

A Study of Mark - Part 1

Introduction

I used to not like the Gospel of Mark. Over the last several years, however, Mark has grown to become my favorite of the four.

John and Matthew are the most frequently read of the Gospels, and have been since antiquity. Both have episodes that quickly come to mind as unique to each Gospel (e.g., Matthew: the birth story with Wise Men, infant slaughter, and flight to Egypt; the Sermon on the Mount; Peter being named the rock and getting the keys to Heaven; finding the coin in the fish’s mouth to pay taxes; posting of guards at Jesus’ tomb and claim that disciples stole his body; John: pretty much all of it).     

Luke is also frequently read because it is (mistakenly) believed to be the most “historical” (i.e. chronological and factually accurate) in its recording of the sequence of events in Jesus’ life. Luke also has a lot of unique and memorable episodes. Luke's birth narrative features the Christmas story, in which Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for a census, baby Jesus is laid in a manger, and angels announce his birth to shepherds.

Also unique to Luke is John the Baptist's birth story and the story of the 12-year-old Jesus at the Temple. More than a dozen of Jesus’ most memorable parables are unique to Luke, including the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. Luke also tells the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

In contrast, try to think of an episode that is unique to the Gospel of Mark...

...

...

...

It’s hard, isn’t it?

Because Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels and over 90% of Mark is included in some form in Matthew, Mark is an oft-neglected Gospel. Until the 19^th Century, Mark was actually considered to be merely a summary of Matthew (which is why it is placed after Matthew in the Bible), and was read less frequently as a result. A little of this stigma still hangs over Mark: think about it – why read the abbreviated version when Matthew has much more detail and depth? As a result, Mark still lags behind the others in how frequently it is read and how much people know about it.

However, this perspective only focuses on the quantity of events recorded within the Gospel. But each Gospel presents a unique picture of Jesus, reflecting a blending of the author’s perspective, the audience the work was written to, the issues being faced by the community at the time the work was written, and the aspects of Jesus’ character the author wished to emphasize. Even events that are present in all four Gospels (e.g. feeding the 5000) give different representations of Jesus when read in context. To neglect Mark simply because nearly all the events are also in Matthew is to ignore a unique portrayal of the character of Jesus, one that is just as theologically deep, as literary, and as artistic as any of the other three Gospels.

So, this is my chance to support the “underdog” of the Gospels. Hopefully by the end of this study, you will have gained a greater appreciation for the Gospel of Mark, just as I did as I learned to let it stand as a work of literature in its own right.

To introduce the study proper, let me give you some background information to the Gospel:

·         Mark is considered by almost all scholars to be the earliest written of the four Gospels. It was probably written after the start of the Jewish War in 66 AD but before the destruction of the Temple in 70, most likely near 68-69 AD.

·         Mark was written to a predominantly Gentile (Greek and Roman) audience, rather than to Jews. Many scholars think Mark was written to Christians in Rome.

·         Mark’s structure and storytelling show influences of Greco-Roman popular biographies, dramas, novels, and epics.

·         The author is never named within the Gospel, and there are up to three different Marks mentioned in ancient Church tradition: John Mark, traveling companion to Paul and Barnabas (mentioned multiple times in Acts), Mark the cousin of Barnabas (mentioned in the closings of Philemon, Colossians, and 2 Timothy), and Mark the Evangelist, not mentioned in the New Testament but associated in patristic tradition with Peter and not with Paul. Whether or not these multiple Marks were one and the same is somewhat unclear.

·         Mark is frequently described as “a passion narrative with an extended introduction.” The suffering of Jesus is a central focal point to the Gospel, and fully 1/3 of the Gospel is devoted to Jesus’ last week.

I am assuming that, if you are reading this study, you have at least a passing interest in the historical and cultural context of the New Testament. However, for people who may not find this information as incredibly fascinating as I do, why does any of it matter?

·         Knowing that Mark was most likely written during the Jewish War can help give context to some of the more subversive and apocalyptic language in the Gospel. And if it was written to Christians in Rome, the subtle jabs at the Emperor become that much more forceful.

·         Understanding the background of Mark’s audience can help explain some of the ways Jesus is characterized, as well as the Greco-Roman influences on the structure and style of the narrative.

·         Recognizing that even early Christian fathers weren’t sure about how many Marks there were can redirect us to what matters in our reading of the narrative. Regardless of who the author was, what he has to say is ultimately more important.

·         Understanding the central focus helps to explain the author’s decisions about pacing the narrative: namely his speeding up the events in Jesus’ ministry and pushing the action towards Jesus’ Passion Week in Jerusalem.

Finally, before we jump into Mark itself, let me explain a little bit about the standpoint from which I will be writing this study:

I will be looking at Mark from a blending of 3 perspectives:

·         Historical criticism – I will be reading with questioning eyes, treating the text as an intentional document whose purpose is to make the author’s points. The author is writing down what he believes to be the single most important and life-changing message of his age. It is not done haphazardly. He is telling the story to present the message. As such, I will be asking questions about authorial intent (e.g., Why would the author choose to write this episode in this way?). Can we ever completely know what was on “Mark’s” mind when he was writing? Of course not, but we can read between the lines and infer quite a lot about the author’s perspective.

·         Theological – I will be examining the theological message(s) intended for the original audience. Jesus’ teachings were recontextualized as early Christian communities formed their community theologies, dealt with individual struggles, persecutions, disagreements, and splits, and tried to live in a multicultural world. I will not be attempting to determine what the “original” words of Jesus were. This is not a quest for the historical Jesus; this is an examination of how Jesus’ teachings were integrated into the community receiving the Gospel of Mark.

·         Literary – I will be looking at the literary elements of the Gospel; particularly at the characterization of the protagonist, secondary characters, and antagonists, the themes and motifs, the structure, tone and mood, the symbolic and figurative language, and the influences from other literary genres. I will take Mark as standing alone, as much as possible bringing no interpretive clues from outside sermons or theology. I will not “harmonize” (i.e. attempt to reconcile seeming contradictions with other Gospels). I will also do my best to avoid anachronism; that is, the literary interpretation has to make sense in 1^st C. Greco-Roman-Jewish context. In other words, I will not read the Gospel as a 21^st C. American biography.

With that said, we can begin reading the Gospel of Mark:

1:1 The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Despite this being only a single sentence, it is loaded with information. We can learn a lot about the text by unpacking this sentence.

·         We are told this is the “beginning” of something

·         We are told this is a “gospel”

·         We are told that this is a work either about Jesus or recording his message

·         We are told that Jesus has a title, “Christ”

·         We are told that Jesus has another title, “Son of God”

The first verse of Mark appears to function as a title or chapter heading. It is unclear, however, whether this “beginning” refers to the entire Gospel, the ministry of John the Baptist recorded in the next 8 verses, or is intended to make an allusion to Genesis 1:1 (in the context of Jesus’ appearance being a “new beginning”). I think that one of these interpretations is more likely than the other two, but I will come back to this verse and explain my thoughts at the end of the study. For now, you decide which makes more sense to you and go with that.

The word “Gospel” is a translation of the Greek word “evangelion,” meaning “good news.” Mark introduces his book as a “gospel.” It could be enough to say that Mark is recording the “good news” about Jesus. However, Mark does not explain specifically what the message is that would make his book good news (if you have read it, then you know the original ending doesn’t really close on a positive note). This hints at the idea that by the time Mark was written down, the word “Gospel” had evolved into a technical term describing a specific narrative style (as a biography of Jesus’ life, ministry, and death) conveying a specific message (the saving power of God through the death of Jesus), and was something that did not need to be explained to the audience, because they already knew what it was.

The phrase “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” contains a series of genitive cases (marked by “of” in English). Genitives in Greek can show possession/ownership or can be “objective.” These different meanings lead to two possible interpretations of the phrase:

1) the gospel about Jesus Christ (i.e. Jesus’ life and ministry is the gospel message); or

2) the gospel message that belongs to Jesus (i.e. what Jesus himself taught).

This could be an example of an intentionally ambiguous sentence structure by the author. By using the language the way he does, the author is able to convey both meanings simultaneously: that the message that Jesus taught was the message about himself.

The titles given to Jesus in Mark 1:1 (Christ and Son of God) give us an understanding of the Christology (understanding concerning the person or nature of Christ) of Mark’s community. Mark does not explicitly tell us what the title “Christ” means, so it is up to us to figure out from the text. In Jewish context, Christ, “anointed one,” came to mean a king who would come at the end of time, one who would be far greater than all God's previous messengers to Israel, ruling in justice and glory, or a king who would overthrow the yoke of Roman domination and reestablish Israel’s preeminence as a world power. However, we will see through our study that Mark redefines what the term “Christ” means. The Christ in Mark had to suffer and die, suggesting that, for Mark, Jesus can only be fully understood in that context.

Mark also does not explicitly state what he means by the title “Son of God,” nor when sonship was given to Jesus. The term "Son of God" had a specific range of Jewish meanings. One of the most significant of these was a king at his coronation, adopted by God as his son, legitimizing his rule over Israel. But in Greco-Roman culture, the phrase had a different meaning; it meant a “divine man.” Legendary heroes like Hercules, specific Roman Emperors, or famous philosophers like Plato all had the status of “divine men.” I already stated that Mark was written to a Greek and Roman audience. It makes sense, then, that Mark would use a framework that Gentiles would understand. When Mark calls Jesus “Son of God,” the intention is not to identify him as a Jewish ruler but to place him in the class of Greek and Roman divine men, the “sons of God” who were endowed with divine authority and power to perform healings, exorcisms and other miraculous deeds. However, Mark also redefines the title “Son of God,” pushing the character of Jesus beyond just that of another in a series of Greco-Roman heroes, leaders, and miracle-workers. As we read through Mark, keep in mind the ways in which Mark will redefine expectations about these titles (and the others Jesus receives).

Another interpretation puts a more subversive spin on the sentence. A writing from 9 BC known as the Priene Calendar Inscription declares the birth of the “god” Augustus (Caesar) as the “beginning of the good news for the world” and naming Augustus as “savior.” However, by the late 60’s AD, the “Golden Age” ushered in by Augustus had degenerated into chaos and disorder. Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus had been deified after their deaths, but Augustus was the only Roman Emperor to have that status conferred on him (Claudius had his divine status rescinded by the Emperor Nero). Nero was forced to commit suicide in 68 AD, and by that time, the Jewish War had been waging for 2 years, and had been going rather badly for the Romans. After Nero’s suicide, Rome was thrown into a period of civil war and assassination called the “year of four Emperors.” However, even within the period of moral decay, paranoia, instability, and murder, the propaganda of each Emperor’s coronation would have been the same as that of Augustus, a divine herald of a new golden age. If Mark was written around 68-69 AD (which is a very probable date of composition), and written to Christians in Rome (as is thought by many scholars), then this single sentence introducing the Gospel of Mark would have been very powerful and takes on much more significance. Craig A. Evans describes the impact of this sentence very well:

          “the social backdrop [in Rome] would have been one of anxiety and foreboding.   One emperor after another, each seemingly worse and more impotent than his   predecessor, had failed—and each one had been hailed “son of God”! The      emerging cynicism would have been equalled only by the growing fear and alarm.             It was against this setting that the Markan evangelist dared to put forward the           Christian gospel and declare that the true son of God was Jesus, the Messiah of           Israel and “king of the Jews”— not some would-be Roman emperor.”  

Whew! That’s a lot of information contained in one sentence!

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”

(Future postings will cover more verses, I promise.)

At the beginning of this introduction, I had challenged you to think of some episodes unique to the Gospel of Mark. Because you are probably dying to know, here are some examples:

·         The quote, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”

·         Jesus’ family trying to restrain him because they think he is crazy

·         The Parable of the Growing Seed

·         James and John having the name “Boanerges"

·         Jesus using Aramaic in his healing commands

·         The two-stage healing of a blind man

·         The naked young man running away when Jesus is arrested

·         Pilate being surprised that Jesus died so quickly

A Logical Case for the Existence of God Part 3: The Language of DNA

Scenario #3: An archaeologist is digging in the desert when she unearths a stone tablet with writing on it. She immediately knows that a human civilization used to inhabit the area around that location.

                              

Explanation: In Scenario #3, the reason the archaeologist knows that humans inhabited that area is by the presence of language. Other animals have ways of communicating with one another. Dogs bark to warn of danger, bees “dance” to point to food sources, dolphins have calls that “introduce” their pod to another one, but these are all considered “low-level communication,” not language. Complex language, spoken or written, has only ever been created on the Earth by human beings (i.e. the source of high intelligence on the planet); therefore, those things which contain evidence of language are necessarily a product of high intelligence (i.e. human beings).

What is it that defines language as separate from communication? First of all, language itself, as defined by the people who study language itself for a living, is a communication system through which specific and intentional meaning is transmitted by the use of arbitrary symbols (sounds or words). But language is more than this definition. Language also must contain morphology (rules for word formation); syntax (rules for word arrangement); and semantics (word meanings in specific contexts). Most languages also have a written coding system (alphabet), arbitrary and separate from the sounds of the language. The symbols themselves have a material form but they are abstract. i.e., they are not connected in any way to the concept they represent beyond the fact that the speakers agree on the meaning. The letter “a” has no connection whatsoever with the multiple sounds that are associated with it. Bat, Father, Dead, Stairs, Language, Creation, Dollar, all contain the letter “a”, but all represent different sounds altogether in context. Language is also creative and adaptable. That is, it can change over time to accommodate to new experiences.  Language can be infinitely flexible and variable, words can be combined and split apart, speech can be reordered, etc.

DNA is the programming “blueprint” by which the specified complexity of the human body and all life is built and maintained. However, DNA itself deserves a closer inspection, because on its own, DNA is a marker that points to the existence of God.  By the definition of language, DNA transmits specific and intentional meaning (the blueprints and programming for life) through its coding. The coding is a set of arbitrary symbols (a four-letter alphabet, ACGT) that are combined together in different ways to convey different information (semantics). DNA also has specific rules for “word” formation and arrangement (morphology). For example, A only ever pairs with T, and C only ever pairs with G. There are “starts” and “stops” in the genetic code, acting as word breaks and punctuation (syntax). The ways in which the letters and words are combined and the specific context of their combinations change the meaning for the body. The DNA letters combine to make words, the words combine to make sentences, and those sentences tell the cell to make proteins, which perform specific functions in the body.

The DNA symbols themselves have a material form but they are not connected in any way to the concept they represent (alphabet). There is nothing inherent in Guanine, Cytosine, Adenine, and Thymine that convey specific information about how to form a human body, or an oak tree, or a mosquito, or a duck, but when they combine together in specific and intentional ways, they create the blueprints for all life on the planet. In other words, information conveyed by a source cannot be considered in the same category as the source that conveys it. For instance, a book such as the Bible contains information, but is the physical book itself information? No, the materials of the book—the paper, ink, leather, and glue contain the contents, but they are only a means of transporting it. If the information in the book were spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information would not change. The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a computer or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.

Finally, DNA is infinitely creative and adaptable. In much the same way that the human mouth can only make a finite number of sounds and written systems of language contain a finite number of symbols but language is infinitely variable, the same four-letter alphabet composes the genetic code of all life on the planet, from the smallest virus to the most complex person. Furthermore, DNA can change and adapt to different environment changes. Bacteria adapt to become resistant to medication, people can intentionally breed plants to change the types of crops or flowers they produce, etc.

The language of DNA is so complex that it took humans until around the year 2000 to map the 3 billion lines of genetic code in the human genome, and even with the genome map transcribed, scientists still had little idea about how it was used, controlled or organized, much less how it led to a living, breathing human. Over the past decade, scientists have managed to find out that around 1.5% of the genome codes for protein, another 8.5% acts as start and stop markers (punctuation in the genetic sentences), and that roughly 80% has what the international genetic research initiative ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) calls “functional elements,” scientific jargon for, “it does something.” In other words, DNA is so complex that a multinational team made of some of the best geneticists in the world can’t figure out what more than three fourths of our genetic code says or does or how it works.

In light of all this, DNA clearly meets the criteria of a complex language. And although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the fact that no language has been created on this planet apart from a human source, except for the genetic code, and humans can barely figure out what 10% of the genetic code says and does, is strong support for the contention that the genetic code as a language must have been designed by a being much more intelligent than humanity, i.e. a God.

A Logical Case for the Existence of God Part 2: Entropy

Scenario #2: 1000 years from now, long after America has been forgotten, a group of people stumbles across Mount Rushmore, sees the faces carved into the rock, and exclaims, “My! What a fantastic coincidence that wind and erosion patterns shaped this rock into the resemblance of four different people’s faces! Aren’t the random forces of nature amazing?!”

Explanation:

Scenario #2: In this scenario, the group’s reaction to and conclusion about seeing the faces on Mount Rushmore is obviously erroneous. Not simply because we know from experience that someone sculpted Mount Rushmore, but because Mount Rushmore is so specific and complex a pattern that it could not have arisen from random, chaotic forces. It had to have been purposefully constructed by an intelligence with a plan in mind for what the finished product would look like.

A system of any kind can be described in terms of its level of complexity and specificity. Complexity refers to a system that is intricate but has no independent pattern, while specificity refers to a system conforming to an independent pattern. The letter “a” is specified without being complex (i.e., it conforms to an independent pattern but is simple). The sequence of random letters “vnskguthwpalfjtibw” is complex without being specified (i.e., it requires a complicated instruction-set to describe but conforms to no independent pattern). If you were to dump a bag of Scrabble tiles on the ground, you would create a very complex string of letters, but it would not be specified. Your pile of Scrabble letters may even occasionally group to form small words, which are specified but not complex. Your tiles, however, will not randomly fall into this paragraph, which is both specified and complex.

Taking our Scrabble analogy to the primordial Earth, it is perfectly rational and feasible to postulate that the "primordial ooze" of the early Earth may have contained many different kinds of amino acids (complexity), just as the Scrabble tiles contain many different random strings of letters. It is also perfectly rational and feasible to postulate that, in our vast sea of random amino acids, some may have joined together to form simple molecular chains (specificity), just as occasionally our scrabble tiles will make a short word.

However, postulating that the randomly distributed amino acids in our primordial sea would chance to join together into large molecular chain structures (complex) that happened to have arranged themselves in such a way as to make themselves capable of self-replication (specified), which would then combine together to form single-celled living organisms (and not just one, but many different types), which would then combine together to form multi-cellular organisms, which would then diversify into many different types of multi-cellular organisms, which would also begin eating one another and, through a random process of genetic mutations and chaotic chance, would happen to lead to the development of an ecosphere that is self-sustaining, contains all the plant and animal species that fill every biological niche that exists today, and includes a species of animal that is intelligent enough to ponder the meaning of its own existence, all on a planet that, randomly driven by gravity and other physical laws, happened to form at the exact right distance and orbit away from a sun that, by chance, is also the exact right size and temperature to support life, is statistically impossible.

Additionally, one of the most important laws of physics is the law of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics), stating that closed systems tend to move from order to disorder and not the other way around. Screws fall out, sidewalks crack, cars break down, clothes get holes, paint peels, hot meals get cold, the yard constantly needs edging, ice melts, it is easy to spend money and hard to earn it, you can never find a matching pair of socks; all examples of entropy at work in the natural world. And the only way that entropy can be overcome is by some external force inputting large amounts of energy into the system. In other words, once salt dissolves in water (i.e. it moves from a solid, ordered crystalline structure to something more randomized and chaotic), it cannot recrystallize itself again on its own, not without an external force putting enough energy into the system to evaporate all the water.

Entropy is one of the most important physical forces in the universe, alongside gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear binding forces, relativity, etc., and without it the universe would not exist. However, the entire hypothetical process of spontaneously generated specified and complex life that was explained in the paragraphs above is that of a disordered and chaotic system organizing itself into a more and more highly organized and ordered system, seemingly violating the law of entropy.

An explanation for this violation of the second law can be attempted on the small scale, because while the universe as a whole is a closed system, the Earth is not. Since there is an external force inputting energy into the system in the form of the sun, scientists will say that the sun provides more than enough energy to overcome entropy on the Earth, making life on the Earth not a violation of the second law. But simply adding energy to a system doesn’t automatically cause reduced entropy. Solar energy alone does not decrease entropy; in fact, it increases entropy, speeding up the natural processes that cause breakdown, disorder, and disorganization on earth. If this were not so, then frequent sunburn would make you look younger and live longer.

The apparent decrease in entropy found in biological systems on the Earth requires two additional factors besides an open system and an available energy supply. These are: information to direct the growth in organized complexity, and a mechanism for storing and converting the incoming energy into something usable.

Each living organism’s DNA contains all the code (i.e. the program information) needed to direct the process of building the organism up from seed or cell to a fully functional, mature specimen, complete with all the necessary instructions for maintaining and repairing each of its complex, organized, and integrated component systems. This process continues throughout the life of the organism, essentially building-up and maintaining the organism’s physical structure faster than entropy can break it down (though entropy ultimately does prevail, as each organism eventually deteriorates and dies).

Living systems also have the second essential component—their own built-in mechanisms for effectively converting and storing the incoming energy.  Plants use photosynthesis to convert the sun’s energy into usable, storable forms (e.g., proteins), animals use metabolism to further convert and use the stored energy from the plants they eat, and other animals eat those animals to use the stored energy their physical bodies contain.

While the “open system” argument can explain how already existent living organisms may grow and thrive, and it can explain the source of the energy needed to form organized protein chain molecules from random amino acids, it does not offer any solution to the question of how life could spontaneously begin this process in the absence of the program directions and energy conversion mechanisms described above, nor how a simple living organism might produce the additional new program directions and alternative energy conversion mechanisms required in order to produce the vast spectrum of biological variety and complexity observed on this planet.

In light of all of this, we can clearly see that the “open system” argument fails to adequately justify the violation of the second law that is seen in the development of specified and complex life on the Earth, and that a system can have randomly generated specificity, or it can have randomly generated complexity, but not both. Therefore, the premise that living organisms with specified complexity randomly and spontaneously developed within an entropic universe not only violates one of the most important laws of physics, but is so astronomically improbable that it takes more faith and feelings-based, biased, emotional conviction to justify this belief than a belief in a world designed by an intelligent entity existing outside of our “closed-system” universe. Therefore, the specified complexity of the natural world compels the rational person to infer an intelligent designing force guiding the formation of that world.

The burden of proof then falls on the person who is so biased that he or she denies the obvious rational conclusion in favor of the absurd improbability.