Lesson #2

An Urgent Message
In Lesson #1 we began our study of the Gospel
according to Mark by understanding that a gospel
is a unique literary genre that reflects the
understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what he
did, in light of a living faith tradition, guided by the
Holy Spirit, 30-60 years after the events it portrays.

We also learned how the gospels came to be written,
and we placed Mark squarely within the synoptic
tradition as the first gospel to emerge in written
form.









In Lesson #2 we learn that Mark, the traditional
author of our gospel, is the cousin of Barnabas and
traveling companion of Peter; Mark writes principally
to those in the Church at Rome during a period of
intense persecution; he structures his gospel in two
parts, framed by a prologue and an epilogue that
pivots on Peters confession of faith; and his style
creates a sense of great urgency, moving forward at a
blistering pace, ending with an implied call to
action.













In this lesson we take a close look at how Mark
structures his Gospel; how he tells his story; and the
stylistic devices he uses to create a intense sense of
urgency and narrative speedthe hallmarks of the
Gospel according to Mark.

























Every work of artvisual,
musical and literarymirrors
the time and culture from
which it emerges.

The Gospel according to
Mark is no exception!


To understand the Gospel
according to Mark, we need
to examine carefully the
historical and cultural
background from which it
emerges; that is, we need
to understand the Roman
Empire of the 2
nd
half of the
1
st
century.






















The 1
st
-century Roman
Empire is not simply Italy
and parts of Europe;
rather, the 1
st
-century
Roman Empire is the
entire land mass
surrounding the
Mediterranean Sea:
nearly half of which is in
north Africa!
1. By the end of the 1
st
century A.D. the
Roman Empire consisted of 5 million
square kilometers, encompassing 40
different modern-day countries and as
many different cultures.
2. Its three largest citiesRome,
Alexandria and Antiochwere over
twice as large as any city on earth until
the modern-day 18
th
century industrial
revolution.
3. 50-60 million people lived in the
Roman Empire.
4. Although commerce was conducted
primarily by sea, the Roman empire
built over 58,000 miles of roads, many
of which are still evident today, over
2,000 years later!














5. To encourage efficient and effective
commerce the Roman Empire had a
fully-developed banking system and
common coinage.
6. Thanks to Alexander the Great, Greek
was the common language of the
empire until the 4
th
century A.D.,
creating cohesion in a very
geographically and culturally diverse
population, although a plethora of
local languages were also used (e.g.,
Jesus and his friends spoke Aramaic,
the local language of Palestine, but the
entire New Testament was written in
Greek).
7. Unlike most other ancient cultures, the
Roman Empire did not have a rigid
class system, but evidenced a high
degree of social mobility.















8. The Roman Empire practiced slavery.
Overall, 10-20% of the population
throughout the Empire were slaves.
Slaves were primarily war captives or
indentured servants; slavery was not
racially based. Slaves could earn their
freedom or be granted their freedom
by those who owned them.
9. Freeborn women were Roman citizens,
kept their family name (not their
husbands), could own property
independent of their husbands, could
own and operate businesses, could
inherit property and wealth, wrote
their own wills and could travel freely
throughout the Empire.















10. Roman law formed the basis for the
entire Western legal tradition,
including that of the United States.
11. Religion in the Roman Empire was an
integral part of civil life, and it
encompassed practices and beliefs the
Romans considered their own.
Religions of other cultures within the
Empire were respected and protected:
the Jews, for example, were free to
practice their religion and to operate
their temple in Jerusalem.




























On the whole, the Roman Empire was
a great blessing to humanity, bringing
stability and prosperity to millions. Of
course, like any great civilization it had
its share of rascals and rogues, heroes
and villains, wars and brutalities,
scandals and horrors.

The New Testament mirrors a brief
slice of Romes 1,000 year history, a
time of great achievement but also of
great turmoil and strife.

At no time, however, was there
greater strife than during the 2
nd
half
of the 1
st
century, the period in which
the written gospels are written.

Our story begins with Julia Agrippina (A.D.
15-59), great granddaughter of Caesar
Augustus; adoptive granddaughter of the
Emperor Tiberius; sister of the Emperor
Caligula; wife of the Emperor Claudius; and
mother of the Emperor Nero.

Through incestuous marriages, imperial
intrigue and duplicitous assassinations,
Agrippina engineered her sons rise to
power. After poisoning Claudius (her uncle
and 3
rd
husband), her seventeen year-old
son Nero became Emperor in A.D. 54, with
Agrippina controlling the reins of power.

Quickly, however, Neros relations with his
mother deteriorated, ending by Nero
having her murdered in A.D. 59.













Julia Agrippina, Neros mother.
National Museum, Warsaw.
On 18 July A.D. 64 the Great Fire of Rome
erupted, destroying a large portion of the
city. According to the historian Tacitius, the
fire raged for five days. Both Suetonius and
Cassius Dio point to Nero as the arsonist,
who wanted to clear a large part of Rome
so he could build a new palace complex. To
deflect blame, Tacitus writes that Nero
blamed the fire on Romes Christians, thus
initiating the first state-sponsored
persecution against the Church in Rome,
A.D. 64-68.

Both Peter and Paul were martyred during
this time, along with an immense
multitude of others. The persecution
ended with Neros suicide on 9 June A.D.
68, the 6
th
anniversary of his murdering his
stepsister and first wife, Octavia.













Nero,
5
th
Emperor of the Roman Empire.
Capitoline Museum, Rome.












Following Neros death
civil war erupted and four
emperors reigned in quick
succession: Galba (8
months); Otho (2 months);
Vitellius (8 months); and
Vespasian (10 years). The
first three emperors were
dispatched through
murder or suicide within a
year.

Galba, A.D. 68-69
(8 months)
Assassinated
Otho, A.D. 69
(2 months)
Suicide
Vitellius, A.D. 69
(8 months)
Assassinated
Vaspasian, A.D. 69-79
(10 years)
Natural Death

At this time of enormous political chaosin
A.D. 66the great Jewish revolt began in
Palestine. Nero chose the brilliant general,
Vespasian, to suppress it. Fielding more
than 50,000 combat troops, Vespasian
began operations in Galilee; by A.D. 68 he
had crushed opposition in the north, moved
his headquarters to Caesarea Maritima and
methodically began clearing the coast.

Meanwhile, the defeated Jewish leaders in
Galilee escaped to Jerusalem, where a bitter
civil war erupted, pitting the fanatical
Zealots and Sicarii against the more
moderate Sadducees and Pharisees. By
A.D. 68 the entire Jerusalem leadership and
their followers were dead, having been
killed by their fellow Jews, and the Zealots
held the temple complex, using it as a
staging area for their war against Rome.















With Neros death in Rome Vespasians troops
proclaimed him Emperor. Support spread
quickly, and in A.D. 69 Vespasian left Jerusalem
for Rome to claim the throne, leaving his son
Titus to conclude the war in Jerusalem.

By the summer of A.D. 70, Titus had breached
the city walls and captured the temple. During
the fierce fighting the temple complex caught
fire, and on Tisha BAv (29/30 July A.D. 70) the
temple fell: 1,000 years of Jewish temple
worship ended in a single day. The fire spread
quickly to the city itself, destroying most of it.
Tacitus writes that no fewer than 600,000 Jews
fought the Romans in Jerusalem; those
captured were crucified, up to 500 per day;
and historians estimate that 1.2 million Jews













Titus
Capitoline Museum, Rome.
died during the span of the Jewish Revolt, A.D. 66-73. It was the greatest catastrophe
in Jewish history until the Nazi holocaust of 1939-1944.
A generation earlier, Jesus
had said:

Do you see these great buildings?
There will not be one stone left upon
another that will not be thrown
down . . .. Brother will hand over
brother to death, and the father his
child; children will rise up against
parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of
my name . . .. Be watchful! I have
told it all to you beforehand.
Mark 13: 2, 12-13, 23










Henrik. Jesus of Nazareth (pencil on
paper), c. 2006.













This is the background
to the Gospel according
to Mark.
This is the time and
culture from which the
gospel narrative
emerges.
This is the ethos that
informs our first gospel.















The early church unanimously agreed that
John Mark, son of Mary of Jerusalem,
nephew of Barnabas, and traveling
companion of both Saints Peter and Paul,
wrote the Gospel According to Mark.

Papias (c. A.D. 140) quotes an earlier source
saying: 1) Mark was a close associate of
Peter, from whom he received the things
said and done by Jesus, and 2) these things
did not come to Mark as a finished,
sequential account of the life of Jesus, but
they came from Peters preaching.

John Mark wrote for a Gentile audience,
those who lived in Rome, most probably
during the persecution under Nero, in the
chaos and looming catastrophe of the
Jewish revolt of A.D. 66-73.

Mark, from the Lindisfarne Gospels
(Cotton MS Nero D. IV), c. A.D. 700.
London: British Library.














The Gospel According to Mark follows
Matthew in our Bibles, providing a
very different point of view toward the
events that transpire during Jesus
public ministry.

Although Matthew and Mark draw on
the same source material, Mark does
something quite different with his.
Matthews narrative begins with a
genealogy that reaches back into the
Hebrew Scriptures, anchoring the
gospel in the Abrahamic and Davidic
covenants. Like a swinging door,
Matthews gospel reaches back into
the Old Testament and pulls the linear
narrative up into the New,
demonstrating the continuity of Gods
plan of redemption.
Matthew the Evangelist, Grandes Heures of
Anne of Brittany (illuminated manuscript),
c. 1477-1415. Bibliothque Nationale de
France, Paris.
















In sharp contrast, Marks
narrative begins abruptly, and it
moves ahead at break-neck
speed, jolting to a stop with the
women at the tomb who did
nothing, for they were afraid.

Unlike Matthew, Marks gospel
is a sudden and dramatic
proclamation, a thunderclap on
a sunny afternoon. Whereas
Matthews structure is chiastic,
Marks is purely lineara
straight line from beginning to
end.
Mark, Book of Hours (illuminated
manuscript), Rosenwald MS 10, c. 1533.
Library of Congress.














And unlike Matthews prose
style, which uses carefully
balanced parallel components,
Marks is dramatic and abrupt,
dominated by short phrases
linked with and and pushed
forward by the repetitive use of
immediately and the use of
the historical present tense.

Reading the two gospels in the
original Greek produces two
profoundly different
experiences.
Jacob Jordaens, The Four Evangelists
(oil on canvas), c. 1625-1630.
Louve Museum, Paris.

Nicely done, Mark!
Marks gospel has a two-fold
structure, framed by a prologue and
an epilogue that pivots on Peters
confession of faith at Caesarea
Philippi.

Prologue (1: 1-15)
Who is this man? (1: 16 8: 26)
Peters Confession of Faith (8: 27 9:
13)
What does it all mean? (9: 14 16: 8)
Epilogue (16: 9-20)

















Part 1 (1: 1 - 8: 26) takes place on and
around the Sea of Galilee and
concentrates on establishing Jesus
identity. As readers, we know exactly
who Jesus is, for we are told in the
proclamation of 1: 1Beginning of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God . .
..
The demons, too, know who Jesus is:
What have you to do with us, Jesus of
Nazareth? Have you come to destroy
us? I know who you arethe Holy One
of God! (1: 24).
But the characters in the narrative
arent privy to this information; they
have to learn who Jesus is, and that is
the focus of Part 1 (1: 1 8: 26).


























By giving us, the
readersand the
demonsthis inside
information, while
withholding it from the
main characters in the
narrative, Mark creates
an enormous tension
that builds throughout
the first half of the
gospel.














This tension is then amplified
by Marks use of the word
and (there are 11,022 words
in the Greek text of Mark;
1,084 of them are and1 in
10!); his use of the word
immediately (Mark uses it 41
times; Matthew 5 and Luke
only once); and Marks use of
the historical present tense,
suddenly shifting a past event
to the grammatically present
tense, intensifying the sense of
urgency.














Finally, Mark creates a
narrator to tell his story, and
Marks narrator, rather than
his characters, drive the
action forward at a blistering
pace.

Of the 11,022 words in Mark,
the narrator speaks 5,826 of
them, 53%; of the 19,165
words in Luke, the narrator
speaks 7,690 of them, 40%.

In Mark the narrator drives
the action; in Luke the
characters drive the action.














These are all very
deliberate choices on
Marks part to speed the
narrative forward, to
create tension and to
build suspense as the
characters grapple with
the question:
Who is this man, Jesus
of Nazareth, who can say
and do such things?

The turning point in our story
comes in chapters 8: 27 - 9: 13.
Jesus takes his disciples 30 miles
north of Capernaum to Caesarea
Philippi, and there the disciples
finally understand who Jesus is
as Peter confesses: You are the
Christ. Peters statement is
confirmed only 16 verses later at
the Mount of Transfiguration by
the voice of God the Father in
the presence of two credible
witnesses, Moses and Elijah.














Now knowing who Jesus is, Part 2 (9:
14 - 16: 20) moves us 100 miles south
from the Sea of Galilee to Jerusalem
and concentrates on the implications of
Jesus identity: for himself, for the
characters in the story and for us,
Marks readers.
















For Jesus, he must go to Jerusalem
where he will be arrested, tried,
crucified and buriedand on the
third day rise;
For the characters in the story, they
must deny themselves, take up their
crosses and follow him; and
For us, Marks readers, we must be
willing to take up our crosses, follow
him and perhaps die, as well.













The implications are
overwhelming, and the women
at the tomb are stunned by
them.

[At the tomb the angel said]
go and tell the disciples and
Peter, He is going before you to
Galilee; there you will see him,
as he told you (16: 7).

Then they went out and fled
from the tomb, seized with
trembling and bewilderment.
They said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid (16: 8).











POW!
End of gospel













The Gospel according to Mark
is a dramatic call to action.
Faced with political chaos,
deadly persecution, armed
revolt and the very real
possibility of a brutal death,
those in the church at Rome
must decide to either:
1) stand up for the truth of
the Gospel in spite of the
deadly consequences;
2) freeze in fear; or
3) turn and run.

















What would you do?




1. How do the immediate events of A.D. 54-73 (the time during
which the Gospel according to Mark is written) affect how
Mark presents his gospel?
2. Why does Mark begin his gospel with a sudden
proclamation: Beginning the gospel of Jesus Christ, son of
God, rather than a more formal, elegant beginning?
3. Every story must have: 1) an author (who writes the story);
2) a narrator (who tells the story); 3) characters (who enact
the story) and 4) a reader (who experiences the story). Why
does Mark put his narrator on center stage, rather than his
characters, and what are the implications of his decision for
us, as readers?
4. The question of Jesus identity in the first half of the gospel is
fairly straightforward; the implications of Jesus identity are
much more complex. What are those implications for you?
5. Marks gospel ends at 16: 8 when the women said nothing
to anyone, for they were afraid. Why would the epilogue
(the longer ending) be added?






Copyright 2014 by William C. Creasy
All rights reserved. No part of this courseaudio, video,
photography, maps, timelines or other mediamay be
reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage or retrieval devices without permission in
writing or a licensing agreement from the copyright holder.