Mark, the message

The message of Mark – For Whom and Why?

If the text of the Gospels, the order of the stories, and the choice of words indicate that Mark was written after Matthew and Luke, and if Robinson and others are correct that Mark too was written before 70, during the time of the persecutions following the fire of Rome in 64, then the question remains: why? Mark has no birth narratives, no speeches by Jesus; he has an everyday conversational style and lacks the poetic quality of Matthew and the beautiful sentences and narrative style of Luke – who would even think of writing a Gospel in that form and omitting such important passages? Does this form of the Gospel perhaps also have something to do with the substantive message of Mark? Was he forced to do it in this way? Does he have an important message in everyday language that needs to be given voice in the events of the time in precisely this way? These questions still need to be answered, because for many, they are a major stumbling block to viewing Mark as the third Gospel. It is quite a shift in position, if one has learned, as I did with a certain matter-of-factness during my theology studies, to view Mark as the first gospel and now suddenly it would shift to the third place. More important than merely that move to the third place is the question: does Mark’s message come into its own better through this shift? What is that message?

1. Mark can only come after Matthew and after Luke as a compromise between the two

There is a great deal of groupthink going on regarding Mark: it is supposedly a primitive gospel, in colloquial language, with a lively eye for detail, and Matthew and Luke had to work hard to improve his rough Greek and then there is his offensive theology. It must be a first attempt, open to improvement. That is the general view. But in this respect everyone parrots the other, and thus a hypothesis for investigation has actually become a dogma and an irrefutable starting point. You cannot make a career in New Testament scholarship if you do not subscribe to that dogma, according to Dungan [1]. He wrote this in 1983. Something has changed in the meantime. Although the majority still follows the two-source theory, that is still true. It is actually surprising that someone like Bauckham, as broad-minded as he is, simply bypasses the two-gospels approach in his book on the eyewitnesses [2]. Watson, who has also recently written about the four gospels, dismisses the order of origin as irrelevant [3]. And Van Kooten, in his recently published book on the four gospels, also bypasses both the Farrer hypothesis (Mark first, but Luke dependent on Matthew) and the two-gospels approach of Farmer and the team around him [4]. They are not the only ones. Has anything changed then? In Porter’s recent book on the order and sequence of the four gospels, the four hypotheses regarding the order and origin of the gospels are placed side by side in a balanced manner [5]. The two-source theory (Mark first and Matthew and Luke dependent on him), the Farrer hypothesis (Mark first, but Luke dependent on Matthew and Mark), the Farmer hypothesis (two Gospels, Matthew first, Luke largely based on Matthew, Mark a mediation and summary of both), and finally, there is the hypothesis that all Gospels have earlier, often oral, traditions that influenced each other before their final publication.

I have largely left that last hypothesis out of consideration here. The team around Farmer consistently included that hypothesis in their deliberations during their conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. Robinson is a representative of it, at least to some extent. It is quite possible and probable that oral traditions existed that influenced the final text. I consider it as a supplement to the two Gospels hypothesis, which I consider the strongest approach. I consider that hypothesis the strongest approach in three respects: as far as I can see, it does the most justice to a thorough analysis and comparison of the texts (the team around Farmer also went most into detail in this regard), and it does justice to the historical development, and it also does the most justice to the message of the four Gospels and their mutual relationship. Text by text and pericope after pericope, this team has been working with Luke and Mark to determine what the differences are, what their significance is, and what the possible historical order was [6]. This contribution is mainly about those last two, the history and the theological message of the Gospels. By now, it has become clear from the literature gathered here how much the Gospels respond to one another, to each other, and to a new situation with which the authors are confronted. Matthew is the first. He opposes the rigid religion of the legalistic Jewish leaders and opposes the ruthless regime of Herod. Israel has returned to a situation of Egyptian darkness with infanticide and slavery. The new king, the true successor of David, must, moreover, flee to Egypt to escape the Egyptian conditions in Israel. At the same time, Matthew also feels the necessity to outdo and sideline this rigid religiosity and the associated exercise of power by means of a moral interpretation of the Jewish law, the Torah. If Israel has become the new Egypt, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the new Israel. Jesus Christ in his speaking and acting, suffering, death, and resurrection, is the fulfillment of the law. What the law of rules and commandments actually meant takes shape in him, and thus he fulfills all righteousness. He already undergoes baptism by John to “fulfill God’s righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), that is to say: this baptism is already a foreshadowing of his death which brings righteousness to fulfillment. In his life’s journey, he goes through the six stages from Genesis to Joshua, from his birth to the conquest of Jerusalem through his living and passionate fulfillment of the Torah until his death [7]. Death is not a loss or failure but is “fulfillment of righteousness.” So for Jesus, so for his followers.

Matthew responds to the rejection of Jesus by making him visible as the true son of David, the fulfillment of the law, and therefore also as the true Son of God. Matthew does not directly call Jesus the Son of God. He uses the term Immanuel: in him God is with us. This expression appears at the beginning of his gospel and at the end, at the birth, and at the Ascension in Matthew 28. Technically speaking, this is called an “inclusion.” That is to say: it is the framework of the whole. While there is indeed opposition in Matthew to the emperor as the Son of God, his designation of Jesus as the Son of God is colored more profoundly by the kingship of David and the sonship of Israel. For Matthew, the emphasis lies on the true Jewish community of persecuted Messianic believers. That is his context. The Gospel of Matthew reflects their situation in Palestine after the death of Stephen, approximately ten years after the crucifixion. The texts from Isaiah concerning the suffering servant are guiding for Matthew. In the suffering on the cross, Jesus brings the law to fulfillment, and the new community founded by him itself also lives in the time of the fulfillment of the law. The Spirit, therefore, does not erase the letter but is the fulfillment of the letter. In Matthew’s community, there is no need whatsoever to distance oneself from the regulations of the law. However, it must be filled in substance, “fulfilled,” by a life of righteousness that is simultaneously dying, just as Christ did.

Two texts are often emphasized in the interpretation of Matthew as an exclusively Jewish gospel. First, the text stating that not a jot or tittle of the law will be lost: “18I tell you: as long as heaven and earth exist, not one jot or one tittle of the law will remain in force until all is accomplished. 19Whoever therefore breaks even the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18, 19). Luke 16:17 simply states: “17But heaven and earth will pass away sooner than one jot or one tittle of the law falls away.” Second, the words “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). Admittedly, in Matthew, this latter text is situated within a narrative in which the exclusive orientation towards Israel is precisely broken. But it remains true that Matthew is primarily the Jewish rabbi who stands up for the rejected Christ as the true line of sincere Jewish faith in the Torah. This likely played right into the hands of the many Christ-believers who had been admitted into the church community, who were very suspicious of the mission to the Gentiles that started from the Church of Antioch. They knew very well who were “the least” in the kingdom of heaven, as Matthew describes it: Paul and his followers. In Acts 6:7 it states: “…also a large group of priests heeded the faith.” Luke says nothing further about this in Acts, but precisely that suggests that he did not want to push the tensions created by this to the extreme. In doing so, however, he lets the reader know that this explains great reservation regarding the later mission to the Gentile nations. This is evident enough in Paul’s letters, when he opposes conservative Jews who want to bring the Gentile nations within the confines of the law, including dietary laws and circumcision.

That remained a thorny issue in the new congregation. In Acts 15, Luke reports on the apostolic council where Paul and Barnabas had to account for their policy of not imposing circumcision and dietary laws on the Gentile nations. He speaks of a “fierce verbal dispute” (15:7), after which Peter, as the leader, stands up and pleads for the view of Barnabas and Paul. Then James (by now James the brother of Jesus) takes the floor and remarks that when God rebuilds the house of Israel the remaining remnant of Israel will seek him together with the Gentile nations over whom God’s name has been proclaimed (Acts 15:16-18). Thus the prophets foretold. That is what is happening now, according to James. Thus a solution is found that accommodates the approach of Paul and Barnabas, but the motivation James adds to it is significant: “21For in every city the law of Moses has been proclaimed since time immemorial and read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath.” In other words: just let what Paul and Barnabas do happen; it won’t become mainstream anyway.

There are various interpretations regarding the question of whether Matthew advocates a return to the Jewish roots of the Christian congregation, or whether he opens the door to mission among the Gentile nations. Goulder believes the former is the case. Essentially, Matthew is a Jewish rabbi who practices the art of the midrash in his Gospel. A midrash means that a scripture is explained in an actualizing way by means of a story or a parable to make the saying applicable to a new situation. The miracle stories and parables thus bring the Torah to life. According to Goulder, the way Matthew does this has greatly increased tensions between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians [8]. Opposed to this is the view of Orchard, who supported the team around Farmer. According to Orchard, Matthew does indeed reflect the views of the congregation in Jerusalem. However, he himself did not undertake the mission among the Gentile peoples carried out, but the door was opened to those who did. Orchard defends the view that Matthew did not write in Hebrew or Aramaic but immediately in Greek. In doing so, he follows and defends Gundry’s analysis of the Gospel of Matthew [9]. The Gospel of Matthew is therefore from the beginning not merely an internal Jewish event. At the same time, Orchard argues, the Gospel of Matthew also reflects a situation in which that mission among the Gentile peoples has not yet taken place. However, one can imagine that the conservative Jews who were part of the congregation in Jerusalem, and about whom Paul complains so much in the letter to the Galatians, eagerly made use of certain texts in the Gospel of Matthew. That is why Paul, too, felt the need for a different version of the Gospel and undoubtedly supported Luke in his undertaking.

The Gospel of Luke is a response to the threat of exclusivity of that new Christian community. It is not only the strict interpretation of the law that he wishes to abandon, but also the conception of a perfect community that has reached its final state. Time and again, the word “perfect” (teleios – also translated somewhat softening as “purposeful”) appears in Matthew, for example: be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (for example, Matthew 5:48). One can imagine that the ability to remain steadfast in this perfection for the persecuted Christ-believers of Matthew was given with the hour of crisis of the persecution itself, following the stoning of Stephen. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the law, and the church must be that as well. There is no necessity, no need, and no inner space to look beyond that “nunc stans,” that all-determining moment: it is now or never; now it is crucial to be fully truthful. With Luke, it is different. For him, the Gospel becomes a path of change, step by step. This simply cannot be otherwise when believers from the Gentile peoples are allowed to participate in the new community for the first time. They are starting something; one cannot simply ask them for the perfection that Matthew demands of the (too) traditional Jews. What is the endpoint of perfection for Matthew becomes the starting point of the Way for Luke. In Acts, the new community is referred to by that name, the “Way.”

It is no coincidence that the temple service occupies a central position in Luke. Jesus teaches in the temple, the apostles are also constantly in the temple, also in Acts, and Luke begins his story with Zechariah’s service in the temple. But precisely the story of Zechariah, who does not believe the angel’s promise and is struck dumb until the birth of John the Baptist, makes visible that the ritualized temple service is rigid and dead. The temple service represents legalistic Judaism. That is not only a rigid Judaism, but considering that the poor could never meet the purity requirements of the law, it is also a piety that confirms the rich in their prominent positions. It is not only rigid, but it has also become a mechanism of oppression. For Luke, the point is that the Spirit is extracted from there and that the Spirit is now transferred to the Gentile peoples, to whoever is willing to listen. They too are baptized with the Spirit, even without the letter of the law. This focus on the rigid temple service helps Luke not only in his relationship to the Jewish temple service, but also in his relationship to the Gentiles/Roman citizens who, after all, still maintain their own temple service. By critically distancing himself from the rigid temple service of Jerusalem, he kills two birds with one stone. For the believers from the Gentile peoples are now also led away from their rigid temple service. They, generally the middle-class and well-to-do, open their homes to the congregation of the poor. They too thereby leave behind their temple service, the civic duty of an established existence, which was simply part of daily life as a ritual for the prominent landowners in the Greco-Roman world. From now on, the true temple is Christ’s body, the risen Lord. So with Paul, with Luke, and so with Mark.

For Luke and for Paul, it is about the Spirit, or rather, about baptism with water and with the Spirit. Baptism with water, such as that of John the Baptist, is a representation of the journey from death to life: one leaves a past behind and detaches oneself from a way of life and from communities and gods that hold no promise for the future. But to also enter the future, the Spirit that gives life must be added. This manifests itself in enthusiasm and therefore in speaking in tongues. According to some, this speaking in tongues does not belong so much to the early Christian congregation in Matthew, but rather to the congregations of the Greco-Roman world. There is therefore debate about this. Goulder, for example, describes speaking in tongues as an invention of the Jewish congregation in Jerusalem, and when the congregation in Corinth is completely captivated by it and wants to do it that way too, Paul opposes it and insists on translation so that everyone can understand it [10]. Perhaps that is why we encounter speaking in tongues in Acts that is immediately translated into many dialects/languages ​​– as if Luke also wants to say to the orthodox Jewish Christians: this is how speaking in tongues is meant to be.

Whoever is touched by the Spirit and freed from the law through faith in Christ becomes inseparably connected to Him (Romans 8). However much Paul emphasizes a changed life and bearing burdens for one another, and an existence through and with one another as the body of Christ, this spiritual understanding of Jesus Christ can also lead to a certain spiritualization: as long as it has touched you and you are set in motion, it is good. Then you are secretly connected to Christ, even if you cannot realize much of it in the harsh external life. For example, you cannot suddenly change male-female relationships, not outside the congregation. Nor can you change slavery. However, Paul often notes that tribulation is coming and that a difficult time awaits the congregation. Acts 18:18 relates that Paul has his head shaved because of a vow. It is not stated what that vow pertains to, but during the subsequent third missionary journey, Paul works on the collection for Jerusalem and personally takes the proceeds of the collection for the suffering congregation in Jerusalem there, despite all warnings about what awaits him there. He is personally willing to walk the path of sacrifice, and it seems not improbable to me that he does so to set an example regarding the impending tribulation, and that the vow is also related to this.

On his missionary journeys, Paul also achieves a great deal of success despite opposition. There is great interest in his message among the so-called “Jewish proselytes”, the participants in the synagogue from the Gentile peoples. Up until now, they had participated in the synagogue out of admiration for the ethical way of life of the Jews, who lived strictly according to their rituals and thereby impressed the deplorable, cynically ethical—or rather unethical—way of life prevalent in the Roman Empire. That Roman way of life was linked to the tragic realization that one was ultimately swept along by the course of events like a dog tied to a cart thundering on. The image is from Seneca, who recommends running along, as that causes the dog considerably less pain than resistance. A part of the Roman elite attempts to distance itself from this intensely cynical attitude by participating in synagogue gatherings. However, at the Jewish synagogue, these Jewish proselytes were not admitted as members and were considered second-class participants. In the Christian communities, however, they could participate fully.

But full participation was not the only motivation. Here, above all, they found an alternative to the tragic realization that everything is worthless and leads nowhere. There is always a resurrection, and present failures are the seed for the future. This attitude likely also explains Luke’s interest in miracles and parables that offer a way out of a deadlock. Moreover, here they found an alternative religious attitude that does not worship power, but rather devotion and the love feast. In this view, the emperor no longer stands at the top; instead, the suffering Jewish Messiah is now the Son of the Most High. Here, one could save one’s moral integrity (save one’s “soul”) without immediately rebelling against the emperor. The community of the Church kept the new ethics largely internal. Slavery remained outwardly maintained, but within the church, people treated one another differently. The ruling powers in the heavenly realms (as Paul states in the letter to the Ephesians 6:12, and in the context of an imperial culture such as the Roman Empire, this refers to the ideologies of those in power) are internally called into question and stripped of their authority, but outwardly they remain (still) intact. People are even called upon to do all kinds of social good work, for that is something everybody appreciates, and it confers a good reputation. People are even encouraged to acknowledge the given authorities in their role (Romans 13), for the existing order needs improvement, but not deterioration.

The New Testament church has committed to long-term change. By practicing a different ethic internally, a new society is being prepared in the midst of the old society. Whoever makes a revolution but has not changed inwardly reproduces a new version of the existing order in the long run. Insofar as there can be talk of conscious strategy here, one can call it strategy. But Paul also knows to what extent the brakes of power were loosened in the Roman Empire of the imperial era. He foresees a final confrontation with the Roman Empire, just as John later expresses and depicts in the Book of Revelation. He sees a great tribulation coming (for example, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). The New Testament congregation can still grow and flourish now, attract attention, and offer an honest moral alternative, but sooner or later, all those people who feel drawn to a new religious attitude will have to face it when the moment comes that they are no longer tolerated. What happens then? What will happen when the new spiritual and ethical attitude comes at a cost to them?

In my judgment, this is where the origin of Gnosticism lies: Gnosticism is a reduction of the new life to knowledge, and/or to hidden inner change that prepares for the soul’s return to heaven. The Gnostics go so far in their inward embrace of the new life that they no longer have to stand for anything in the outside world. Gnosticism is therefore an attempt to avoid the final confrontation and the great tribulation that Paul foresees. Frankly, I see little of this social and political background reflected in the mainstream literature on Gnosticism. It seems that Gnosticism is viewed as a spiritualization in an extreme form, which was actually already initiated by Paul and the Gospel of Luke. It appears as if Gnosticism is then merely a matter of developing ideas. But ideas never arise spontaneously, and never alone. The spiritualization of the new religious orientation towards Jesus Christ as the suffering servant and Son of God is a way out of the increasing pressure to also have to stand for the word one speaks and believes.

In the later pastoral letters, to Timothy and Titus, Paul emphasizes the proper organization of the congregation, responsible moral conduct, and resistance to Gnostic spiritualization. These letters are often not attributed to Paul because they do not align with the fervent interpretation of Scripture in Galatians and the letters to the Corinthians, nor with the solid treatise of the Epistle to the Romans. However, this judgment fails to take into account that the situation has changed. What is Paul to do when the congregations he has newly won over allow the new religious orientation to evaporate into a hidden inner life, devoid of any form of outward existence? That is, after all, what Gnosticism does. It leads to Docetism, maintaining the pretense of a good moral existence, and viewing the life of Jesus Christ as an imaginary reality as well. Secretly, we are from God and to God, but fortunately, you do not have to do anything or stand for it; it all remains internal and secret. That is not standing firm in tribulation, but escaping tribulation.

2. Mark

Well, it is in that atmosphere that Mark also has his hour of birth. Mark responds to the far-reaching spiritualization resulting from the far-reaching internalization of the new Christian orientation. If you do not physically participate in the Sonship and the suffering of the Son of God/Son of Man, you have understood nothing of Jesus Christ, just as the disciples in Mark have repeatedly understood nothing. In Rome, the moment has arrived when it all matters, in a time of persecution by the Roman rulers. That is the background of Mark.

In a context of internal tensions between followers of Matthew and Luke, and in a context of the threatening evaporation of the new community in Gnosticism, the challenge for Mark is therefore to bridge those contradictions, to make the congregation aware of the gravity of the situation, and to encourage them to persevere in the trial. How does Mark accomplish this?

1. In his Gospel, he creates an interweaving of the Jewish-Christian interpretation of Matthew and the Pauline Gentile-Christian reinterpretation thereof by Luke. He undoubtedly saw that, despite all the differences, Luke treats the text of Matthew with great respect, and in turn, he treats the text of both with great respect [11].

2. He establishes a narrative that preserves as much as possible of what both have in common. To this end, he abbreviates Matthew and Luke and follows now the one, then the other, where it suits his own narrative and version of the message best. All the similarities that Luke and Matthew have in common can also be found in Mark. The words of Jesus in the discourses and the birth narratives show great differences, but Mark omits them as much as possible.

3. The latter, omitting as many words and discourses as possible, also serves another purpose: to set a rapid course of events. There is no separate teaching of Jesus that stands apart from following Jesus and discipleship. That would be too cheap. What Jesus teaches is: discipleship! That means drama. In an hour’s time, you can read the Gospel in its entirety.

4. Mark uses colloquial language, and his many illustrative depictions borrowed from Peter also create a sense of direct involvement. It is a whirlwind of events that leads directly from the calling of Jesus to the cross, without detours. The people are overwhelmed; it is all happening too fast. Everyone is amazed and confused.

5. On the one hand, the voice of Peter, who stands behind the Gospel and whose voice resonates within it, lends authority; on the other hand, the disciples in particular do not understand what is going on, and Peter the least of all. He is the one making the major blunders. If it is indeed the case, as the Church Father Clement already states, that Mark wrote it down after the crucifixion of Peter, this is to be understood as a method also used in Hebrews, where it is said concerning Christ: He experienced all the trials that befall persecuted Christians. Thus in Hebrews 3:18: “18Just because He Himself, when He was put to the test, endured suffering, He is able to assist anyone who is tested.” Clement points out that a true (!) Gnostic person is someone who shares in the “deeds and works” of Christ. Such a person possesses true knowledge. He points out that the secret of the resurrection was given to the four apostles who witnessed the events from the beginning, Peter and Andrew and James and John. They were also present again on the Mount of Transfiguration (so only in Mark). They shared the true knowledge of Christ with the other apostles, according to Clement! Clement may thus be a later offshoot of a tradition that begins with the Gospel of Mark (and with the letters of Peter) [12].

6. The Gospel of Mark ends with a cliffhanger. The last words spoken to the women who want to anoint Jesus and find the tomb empty are: “8They went out and fled from the tomb, for they were seized with fear and terror. They were so frightened that they said nothing to anyone.” Then comes a conclusion, which is missing in many manuscripts. Possibly this is written by Mark after all, possibly not. Perhaps this is comparable to the Book of Job, where a second conclusion with a good ending also rounds off the book. Orchard distinguishes between two phases. He does this somewhat speculatively, but it is possible: Mark, as secretary, wrote down Peter’s lectures. That document (probably) circulated in Rome. Finally, he officially published and reproduced his gospel and then added this conclusion [13]. Mark may have had reasons to avoid that “all’s well that ends well” effect and to end with the attitude of fear and trembling of the women at the empty tomb. The effect of this is, in fact, a question to the reader: and now you! Where do you stand!?

The following further elaborates on this brief overview of Mark’s background and intentions.

3. The beginning of Mark and the power of Jesus as an adopted son

What does the beginning of the Gospel of Mark mean? Matthew and Luke have birth stories. These do not necessarily need to have happened literally as described, but they are intended to depict the broad background and significance of the appearance of Christ. In doing so, they simultaneously provide a foreshadowing of what is coming. The way towards the cross begins with the manger. Matthew speaks of the “becoming” (genesis is the Greek word) of Christ. Mark, on the other hand, begins like this: “1The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” In Mark, “beginning” takes the place of “genesis” in Matthew—the Greek word for this is archè. The translation as “beginning” is not incorrect, but the word is also related to “to rule” and can be found in words such as archaeology and architecture. It is also related to principle and prince (derived from the Latin princeps, which is equivalent to the Greek archoon). The Dutch language also has the word “beginsel”. The prominent ones establish the principles, the ruling principles of reality. Well, it is not without reason that Mark uses that word. We could also translate it as “rule of the gospel of Jesus Christ” or “the principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This is further reinforced by the term that Mark also uses right at the beginning, “Son of God.” Mark is simply saying: this is the gospel of the true Son of God.

Moreover, Mark speaks of “the gospel.” The gospel becomes an independent entity, a generic term. Paul also speaks in this way about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is possible that Mark borrowed this expression in Rome from Paul’s letter to the Romans. That is less important here, but it is important to appreciate the value of that independent use of the word gospel. Matthew and Luke do not know the word in this independent use. The word makes it possible to fully acknowledge both their gospels and yet still add “a gospel” to them. For gospel now becomes a generic term, a genre. Through this, mediation is established between the two of them, Matthew and Luke. Each of them, and now Mark as well, presents the gospel, but in their own version. This is how we still speak of it today: the gospel according to Matthew, according to Luke, according to Mark, according to John. Mark proceeds directly to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by John the Baptist, and as Jesus rises from the water, the heavens tear open, the Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove, and the words resound: ‘You are my beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.’ This word, ‘to tear open,’ Mark 1:9, is a word that appears only in Mark for this event, and it returns once more, also in Mark, when the curtain of the temple tears open from top to bottom in Mark 15:38, after the death of Jesus. This argues for a reading of Mark that is attentive to these kinds of subtleties, especially in this Gospel, which at first glance makes a somewhat sloppy impression. In Mark and Luke, Jesus is addressed directly here in the second person. In Matthew it says “This is my beloved Son…” The difference between the formula of Matthew on the one hand and that of Mark and Luke on the other is that the direct claim is in accordance with the formula with which the Roman emperors declared their adopted son and future successor to be a member of the family [14]. Apparently both Luke and Mark were aware of this, but Mark tightens it up a bit more. After all, the relationship with the “beginning of the gospel” (archè) is clearer. And the meaning too: the Roman emperor, like the Egyptian pharaoh, is regarded as Son of the Gods; he has been adopted into the family of the gods and rules on earth on behalf of the heavenly powers.

Now, for the Romans, the distinction between the human and the divine sphere was not as sharp as it is to our understanding [15]. That this distinction has become so sharp for our time is itself a result of the Christian tradition, in which it was not considered appropriate to place humans on an equal level with Christ. Divine worship for a – we would say – ordinary human being was more common throughout antiquity, both among the tribes and in Egypt among the pharaohs and the emperors in the ancient East. Moreover, the father-son relationship was of extraordinary importance in the Roman world. Octavian, himself Caesar’s adopted son, was the first to claim the title Son of God for himself. This set in motion a development towards the centralization of power, simultaneously with the declining influence of the Senate. In the first 50 years, there was no jurisdiction over this imperial cult and adoptive succession in Rome either. But in about three generations, this imperial cult expanded into a veneration of the entire imperial family. A person’s lineage was no longer the most important factor, but rather whether one belonged to the House of the Emperor [16]. Throughout the world and in history, clientelist systems go hand in hand with the importance of family relationships, but now in Rome, clientelism became more important than the family. The emperor is seen as the “father” of the entire nation. In the year 45 BC, the Senate proclaimed the then still living Julius Caesar as father of the nation. In all local cults, a bull was now sacrificed daily to the emperor’s genius. The emperor himself took his place “under the stars”[17]. In nine BC, the proconsul of Asia Minor had already decreed that the year began on the date of the birth of Emperor Augustus. And in that decree Augustus is called Sotèr (savior) and the good news thereof is called gospel. When Vespasian ascended the imperial throne, that word was also used, gospel.

All the Gospels make Jesus the antitype of this imperial power, but Mark does so the most and most emphatically. Jesus is the anti-emperor, and the baptism by John and the adoption by the Father is the authorization and adoption of Jesus. The people of that time were not at all interested in a divine nature, but in status, power, and authority. And with this Son of the Father, the Christian congregation itself is also incorporated into the divine family; it is itself a new family centered around the Son [18].

Against this background, it is striking that where one would expect Jesus’ father, Joseph, to be mentioned in Mark, his name is missing (Mark 3: 21 – 35). Mark also places an extra emphasis on the power of God in the text, which the other evangelists also possess, namely that what is not possible with humans is possible with God. Mark then adds: “with God all things are possible” (Mark 10: 27). In traditional Roman law, the pater familias has authority over the life and death of every member of the family, and Mark also depicts Jesus’ obedience to the Father in this way. That Mark is concerned with this rule of the Son is also confirmed in Mark 10:42: “42Jesus called them to him and said to them: ‘You know that the peoples are oppressed by those who are considered their rulers and that their leaders abuse their power’” (Mark 10:42). In Matthew, the expression “those who are considered” is missing, so it reads “that the peoples are oppressed by their rulers”. Mark apparently does not want to leave it that way. They are not real rulers because they do not deserve to be [19]! The real ruler has already accepted his appointment in the first verses of Mark. Finally, in Mark 15:16-20, only in Mark is Jesus presented as an anti-emperor and dressed in a purple robe, the imperial color. Immediately after Jesus’s assumption of office as Son of God, the temptation in the desert follows. For Mark, unlike in the other Gospels, it is no longer important to explain what those temptations concretely consist of. He leaves that out. After all, as the true Son of God, Jesus defeats the opposing forces of Satan without hesitation [20]. Right at the beginning, Jesus has already defeated Satan in the temptation in the desert. That is why the demons recognize him as their lord. They now have a new lord. Jesus constantly instructs them to keep silent about this. He demonstrates his power with that authority. It is noted, however, that Jesus is among the wild animals, but also that angels serve Him. Parker points out that, apart from a few scorpions, there are no wild animals in the desert in Israel [21]. He wonders why Mark would have added that, while Matthew and Luke make no mention of it. In Rome, however, those wild animals were present, and if the context of the Gospel of Mark, as described earlier, is indeed Rome with persecutions, it is immediately clear to everyone what those temptations consisted of. They must have thought of the wild animals, for example in the Circus Maximus, that were unleashed upon the condemned.

4. Power over the demons, who do recognize him

In the Greco-Roman world, and likewise in the Semitic world, gods are not distant powers governing the earth from somewhere in the heavens on Mount Olympus. The gods are moral powers. Gods represent life movements. That has always been the case. The distant, all-ruling God is an invention of the Cartesian era, in which there is only room for a God in the supernatural, who then pulls the strings from his high position like a kind of engineer. That is not how it was in antiquity. A growing plant also represents a life movement. Conflict, sexuality—these are life movements, Mars or Aphrodite. In the Iliad, where Greeks and Trojans fight against each other, the gods also stand opposite one another. They support one side or the other. At a certain moment, in the heat of battle (!), the gods themselves enter the battlefield. They also fight with each other. That is to say, they take possession of the warriors, and in that sense, they become demonic powers. The term demon (Greek “daimon”) refers to an animating power that inspires you and by which you are completely possessed—our language still retains this usage of the word. This possession can go so far that the “I” that I am is wiped away by it. Contemporary psychology speaks of dissociation when someone is animated by multiple personalities and is no longer able to maintain the continuity of their person. In our time, with more education, an emphasis on the “I” that I am, and the formation of the self, this does not happen so easily anymore. With everything that makes an impression, we hold ourselves back in a certain sense and do not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it. We compare what makes an impression with a stockpile of other experiences and insights, a frame of reference that upholds the continuity of our person. This does not always succeed, and profound, unexpected, and primal impressions overwhelm us, rendering the situation unanswerable. We are left perplexed. This can be the effect of a declaration of love or of a profound experience to which we cannot find a place. The philosopher Charles Taylor speaks of the buffered self. We have built up a buffer stock of interpretive frameworks and repertoires of action and are not easily thrown off balance. Cultures that place less emphasis on the statement “I am” can treat their experiences differently. Gods and spirits can more easily confuse them and disrupt their identity—or conversely, reinforce it.

Modern humans, too, are often crossword puzzles with a patchwork of reaction patterns, so that one can experience people differently, even in normal existence, depending on how different reaction patterns are activated. But we can also get entangled if we do not quite know whether we should still show loyalty to the group, or break away and listen to another group. We follow many prevailing codes that are the codes of different voices and different groups, which resonate within us and appeal to us. We, too, can succumb to the weight of a hierarchical order in which we are considered a zero. The freedom of responsible speech is then taken away from us. Many people in our time, too, must speak the language of the company, for example when speaking to the customer. That is where the social patchwork of codes already comes into play, for at home we often speak about the boss with a very different reaction pattern than at work. Such considerations may help us imagine what demonic possession meant in the time of the Gospels. You were no longer a responsible and free listener and speaker of the word. To that end, the boldness, and freedom of speech, (Greek “parresia”) that plays such a major role in the Gospels and with Paul is lacking.

Moreover, in the understanding of that time, there is a connection between illness and possession. Illness, too, is seen as the influence of evil powers that weaken and distort a person. The Greek word for illness or weakness is “astheneia,” which literally means “no good spirits” or “no good disposition.” It is no coincidence that the Dutch word “krank” (an old word for illness) and “krenking” (meaning insult, but also injury) share the same etymology. Anyone treated as a doormat in the hierarchy or despised within the group still falls ill from it in our time as well. This also results in all kinds of physical symptoms. How far that can go is not entirely clear. Nor is it clear how far the reverse can go—healing through powers that grant love and recognition, and a new future signaled. Even in our time, there are still remarkable stories of healings circulating, events that are actually “impossible.” I point this out not to argue for the truth of the miracle stories abundantly available in the Gospels. Rather, I advocate for an understanding of the reality of life at that time. For the people of that era, causal connections ran differently. But the causes of diseases that people saw in those times have not entirely disappeared in our time either. The last word on that has not yet been said. Psychosomatic is the cryptic term doctors use to extricate themselves.

That does not mean, however, that we should claim that all miracle stories are “true” in the sense we understand them in our culture. Admittedly, the spoken word has its own healing power, and that healing power extends further than the authority we attribute to it in our culture. But we must not underestimate the freedom of the Gospel writers. They, too, do not recount a series of facts; they, too, do not have the ambition to know Jesus “according to the flesh,” as Paul says; they, too, know Jesus “according to the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 5:16). They may well have invented a miracle, or creatively transformed a miracle to make it fit the “according to the Spirit,” in order to indicate the meaning of Christ. Furthermore, my plea for “miracles” should not be interpreted as a plea for the laws of nature to be overridden by supernatural intervention. Rather, conversely, we must stretch the concept of “laws of nature.” Ultimately, we understand very little about nature. There is much that is unnatural about nature, and the surprises that nature itself presents to us cannot always be captured in laws. Kant already called man himself the “Miracle in the World of Appearance,” to name just one example, and this is not unique to man.

Demonic influence and religious authority are closely related. In any case, every authority is essentially religious, because it is both commandment and offering. Demonic influence is religious authority that is so overwhelming that the possibility of forming one’s own judgment and saying “I” is erased. Especially in Mark, it is precisely the demons who immediately recognize Jesus as the Son of God. They realize right away that an unprecedented new source of religious authority is presenting itself here. They understand even better than the disciples what is at stake.

It is important to see the relationship between demonism and the petrification of the societal orders of antiquity, to which Rosenstock-Huessy repeatedly draws attention. Every form of society began with inspiration. The emergence of the imperial culture, for example, is the solution to an enormous problem. One need only consider the internecine struggle between countless tribes in the Nile Valley. That situation must have been serious before the majority of the population accepted the regime of a central ruler, the Pharaoh. When something new is undertaken with great inspiration, everyone pitches in. Over time, it becomes a success, but from that moment on, the downsides also become visible. There is, for example in Egypt, increasing inequality; the central empire is besieged by tribes attempting to seize the riches and walking in and out whenever possible. There is increasing slavery and exploitation. After a while, no one believes in it anymore. A similar argument can also be applied to the tribes, to Greece, and even to Israel. Every historical achievement can become exhausted and turn into its opposite. New inspiration is then needed, if only to breathe new life into the old institutions. Even the ancestral authority that prevailed in the tribes and fostered solidarity can degenerate into a closed ‘we’ group with its own codes. The result is not that people are empowered, but that they are excluded or forced to adapt to the codes that apply within the tribe.

However much Israel has its origins in resistance against such tribal codes, the enclosure of the law with its 613 commandments has likewise come to function as a petrified code in the hands of priests, scribes, and Pharisees. These commandments no longer give the “I,” the people, room for participation and response, but instead lead to participation and the erasure of the inner space to form and give one’s own judgment. For people live in fear, and it is not without reason that the word “anxious” is related to “anguish”, words which are related to the Dutch “angstig”, “engte” (narrow) and “eng” (narrow). Such circumstances lead to offense (“krenking” in Dutch) and sickness. There is a connection between these words and the word “kreng”. That word simultaneously has the meaning of someone who is offensive, but also of a dead animal.

The social system of the hierarchical imperial culture was adopted by the Roman Empire from Egypt from the moment Julius Caesar visited Egypt. Egypt was one of the first places where an empire was established over thousands of kilometers of land along the Nile River, ruled not by tribal elders, but by the House of the Pharaoh (pharaoh also means “the great house”), who, as the Son of the Gods, was incorporated into the family of the gods. Gods differ from tribal spirits in that they rule by virtue of the power of the stars and the calendar. The agricultural calendar, with its rain and drought, festivals, and rhythms, becomes dominant over agricultural society, and the Son of the Gods, with his retinue of officials and priests, provides the interpretation of what is written in the stars, to carry it out on earth. While such a system was once a liberation from the oppressive bonds of the tribe and also a liberation from poverty thanks to the enormous food production made possible by a centralized system, its hierarchical and ruthless exercise of power also led to slavery and oppression. People often underestimate the social and psychological influence of such a power system because there are still counterforces against it in our society, in the form of parliaments, trade unions, and churches. When one imagines that such a counterforce does not exist, that a hierarchical order is literally what the word says, a sacred order, then one also gets a sense of the pressure and influence that this has on the daily lives, speech, feelings, and thoughts of people. A small example: as late as 40 BC, some villages in Palestine (including Emmaus) were completely evacuated and their inhabitants were sold as slaves because they could not pay the taxes [22]. What does that do to a person? This petrified power system is hurtful and leads to sickness. It leads to sickness in the sense of a violation of one’s own feelings and free judgment. One can no longer speak according to one’s own feelings, one can no longer see and hear with one’s own ears and eyes. That has an inwardly paralyzing effect, and perhaps as a result, an outward one as well. Is that perhaps the reason why the Gospels primarily tell stories of the blind who see, the lame who walk, the deaf who hear, and skin diseases that are removed?

5. The Dionysian Outlet

Both imperial culture and tribal culture, as well as Israel, have become rigid forms. The empire is characterized by oppression, the tribe by exclusion. The enclosure of the Law of Israel ultimately does the same. The tribe robs people of their status, the empire of their means of subsistence. Both legitimize this by appealing to religious authority. Dionysus, as the God of wild life, functions here as an outlet. An outlet: rebellion and wildness have no lasting hold, but they are necessary and, in turn, legitimate as resistance against the iron straitjacket of the system. The wild life of Dionysus culminates in death. This is inevitable with this uncontrolled life force. In his mythology Dionysus has an earthly mother and a divine father. This means he originates from earthly wildness and life force, yet is legitimate and, in that sense, divine as well. According to the myth, his mother Semele is persecuted and killed along with other women in her company, and Dionysus flees into the sea, where he is caught and cared for by Thetis [23]. There is also the myth that Zeus himself brings about his birth after Semele’s death by carrying him in his thigh. These myths show that in its own way, earthly life force also has a divine character, and is legitimate because it is necessary: ​​wine, joy, dance, full enjoyment of life, and even destruction. Dionysus represents creativity, but also uncontrolled wildness that leads to death. One can imagine how women in their marginalized and oppressed position must have been susceptible to the cult of the unleashed Dionysus. The rigid order of tribe or kingdom evidently needs this outlet. Only Mark tells of the accusation that Jesus is possessed by Beelzebub (Mark 3:20-30) and the accusation that he casts out demons in the name of Beelzebub. The demons notice the “Dionysian” aspect of Jesus: he transgresses the strict rules. In a certain sense, that seems “demonic.” But not only Dionysus, but also love and responsibility are willing to transgress the rules and are, in that sense, “rebellious.” Love and responsibility, too, do not adhere to the boundaries of decency and normality. That is the point of comparison between Jesus and Dionysus. Now, his “own people” are also trying to call him to order. His house is packed, so that they do not even get a chance to eat. So we read.

But who are these “own people” who want to intervene? The Dutch New Bible Translation already mentions the calling of the disciples earlier and translates that calling as follows: “14He appointed twelve of them as apostles; they were to accompany Him, and He wanted to send them out to proclaim the good news” (Mark 3:14). This “accompanying” is a description of what is literally written in Greek: “they were to be with Him.” Jesus therefore appointed the disciples to be “with him.” Now, in verse 21, where the people around him want to intervene because Jesus has gone mad, the New Bible Translation renders it as follows: “21When his relatives heard of this, they set out to take Him, if necessary by force, for according to them He had lost his mind” (Mark 3:21). But literally, it does not say “relatives”—this is an interpretive translation. Literally, it does not say relatives, but those who were “with Him,” i.e., the disciples. We know this now because those words had already been used at the appointment of the disciples [24]. They too see that things are getting out of hand. It is only from verse 31 onwards that Jesus’ brothers and sisters and mother also enter into the picture. They are standing outside with the intention of taking him with them. In short, the disciples, his family, and the Pharisees all feel that Jesus has gone mad. Jesus then looks around the circle and says: “Those who do the will of my Father are my brothers and sisters and my mother.” He points out to the Pharisees that a house cannot be divided against itself and that whoever wants to rob the house must first overcome the strong man who lives there (and he has already done so from the moment of the temptation in the wilderness). This also contains an implicit criticism of the Pharisees. For the party of the Pharisees, which is the party of purity and which knows how to mobilize the masses and make an impression, hides behind a façade of holiness a repressed demonic impulse [25].

In three episodes, Jesus subsequently demonstrates his power over the demons. In the story of the storm on the lake, Jesus and the disciples are on their way to the land of Gerasa, an area that is traditionally Jewish but where ten Greek cities can also be found, the so-called Decapolis, cities that hold the cult of the emperor in high regard. Jesus calms the storm that threatens to engulf the ship. In doing so, he shows himself to be the victor over Dionysus, the wild nature that emerges as a power creating chaos. In this story, the Church has also repeatedly recognized its own history: the wild waves of its surroundings threaten to engulf it, but the Lord Jesus Christ exorcises the evil powers. Dionysus reappears in the next story, in the man who calls himself Legion, who was bound time and again and managed to break his chains time and again. In Euripides’ play “The Bacchae,” it is recounted how the menads, the mad women who participated in the Dionysian festivals, were thrown into prison, yet suddenly found themselves free again. Their chains had fallen from their feet and closed doors had opened for them [26]. It is reminiscent of this possessed man in the Decapolis who bears the name Legio (Mark 5:1-20). Moreover, the name Legio confirms our interpretation of possession given above: the man has no ego, he is overwhelmed, and this madman seeks refuge in the tombs of the dead. The evil spirits are eventually allowed to take refuge in a herd of pigs, which then runs down the mountain into the sea, from where Dionysus also comes.

The story of Jairus’s daughter and the woman with the bleeding disorder that follows shows how women, young and old, have no opportunities in a history in which the rigid social order and wild nature alternate, without transition. Dionysus reveals his destructive side in a twelve-year-old girl who dies just as she is about to menstruate, and in a woman with the bleeding disorder who has been subjected to a kind of constant menstruation for twelve years. In the cult of Dionysus, women do have a special connection with this wild nature of Dionysus—they break free, escaping the constricting bonds that keep them restrained. But this wildness and rage inevitably lead to their downfall and oppression as well. It remains rebellion and offers no alternative. The power of Dionysus is an outlet, but it does not relieve the pressure. Just like Dionysus, Jesus also transgresses the rules, and it is not surprising that his family and his disciples, as well as the Pharisees, have the impression that Beelzebub is raging here; but here the rules are broken by love, recognition, and gentleness. “Girl, stand up,” are Jesus’ words as a reference to his death and resurrection. Love, too, can be a wild force, and thus it saves lives, albeit at a price paid by him who demonstrates love. In all this, Jesus proves his divine power, but in a reversal. He does not strike because he is not afraid of death—that was what the Romans, with their worship of Mars, were accustomed to in their own tradition. And yet, in his burning love, he is not afraid of death, and it is precisely this power that brings to life whoever is touched by it.

The healing power of Jesus is therefore a byproduct of his victory over the demons. The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus primarily as reintegrating healer, but Mark shows the healings performed by Jesus as a byproduct of his power. Like Dionysus, Jesus breaks the rules. He stands up for women and asks his disciples for submission, just as women do. Jesus is indeed king, but he is received as king only by four fishermen who now become fishers of men. The civilized but regulated and rigid world is now depicted as a sea, as chaos, as the womb from which the Kingdom of God is born. If the loving chaos of an overcrowded house gives the impression of a Dionysian outbreak, this is merely a surmountable misunderstanding, now that the outlet Dionysus is de facto allowed to go to rest and disappear into the underworld from which he came, because the frenzy of love has come to reign: “Mark opposes the cult of Dionysus by showing that Jesus, a historical person, fully knows the powers and threats of Dionysus firsthand and has overcome them” [27].

6. Son of God and Discipleship

For Mark, the designation Son of God is the most important aspect regarding Jesus Christ. This Son of God is not at the top but rules from the bottom up. During the temptation at the beginning of the Gospel, it is already evident that he is among the wild animals and, in that way, as a persecuted and tortured man, rules over Satan (Mark 1:12). It is a foreshadowing. The teaching of Jesus is often mentioned in Mark, but he never states, apart from a few parables, what that teaching actually consists of. This means that for Mark, the teaching of Jesus consists of discipleship, of following. What Jesus teaches is then not so much the Torah, but he himself is the “object” of his teaching; he teaches following.

Mark has merely adopted the parables of Luke and Matthew that they both possess. He has, however, added a small parable at the beginning, a parable that Matthew and Luke do not have. It is always rewarding to pay attention to such differences:

“26And He said: ‘The kingdom of God is like a man who sows seed on the earth:
27he sleeps and rises again, day after day, while the seed sprouts and grows, even though he does not know how.
28The earth produces fruit of itself, first the stalk, then the ear, and then the ripe grain in the ear.
29But as soon as the grain allows, he puts in the sickle, because it is time for the harvest.’”
Mark 4:26–29

It is an image of the church that has grown like weeds, you don’t know how. But “immediately” (the frequently used word “euthus,” truly a Markian word, is used here) the harvest is there. It is difficult not to think of the persecutions to which the church has been exposed. Following Christ means discipleship and means suffering for the good cause.

There is a text about the Torah in which Mark and Luke together and practically differ from Matthew [28]. In Matthew 19:16-22, the story of the rich young man is rendered as follows (again in the Dutch new Bible translation of 2021):

16Now someone came to Jesus asking: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?”
17He answered: “Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep His commandments.”
18“Which ones?” he asked. “These,” answered Jesus, “do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness,
19honor your father and mother, and also: love your neighbor as yourself.”
20The young man said: “I keep to these. What more can I do?”
21Jesus answered him: “If you want to be perfect, go home, sell everything you own, and give the proceeds to the poor; then you will possess a treasure in heaven. Come back afterward and follow Me.’
22 After this answer, the young man went away dejected; for he had many possessions.

In the above, it is translated as: there is only one who is good ( The Dutch New Bible Translation 2021). However, in doing so, the translation pulls the text too much in the direction of Mark and Luke. Literally, Matthew states something different: “the good is one,” and thus refers to the Torah, the commandments. This is the rabbinic view of the unity of the Torah.

Luke has the following: 18A high-ranking person asked him: “‘Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 19Jesus answered: ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God’” (Luke 18:18,19). Now, in both Mark and Luke, it has become a text that is not about the Torah, but about Jesus Christ. If the two gospels theory is correct, Mark took this from Luke. This then may indicate that both Mark and Luke did not properly understand Matthew’s message. Or, perhaps a better interpretation: Mark and Luke deliberately shifted the question to Jesus Christ because they wanted to emphasize his relationship to the Father. He takes the place of the Torah. This could well be done to translate Matthew’s message about the Torah into the Greco-Roman understanding of life.

This also fits with Mark’s message that Jesus is above all the Son of God. The designations Son of David and Son of Man are of less importance to Mark. According to many exegetes, Mark wants to correct a false Christology, a Christology that makes Jesus a heroic Son of God, and he wants to put the suffering servant in its place. Discipleship also means walking that path [29]. That discipleship is what matters because the congregation in Rome must endure the persecutions. Also, the chapter in which Jesus announces the fall of Jerusalem and the consummation, Mark 13, is much tighter in structure than the same eschatological discourse in both Matthew and Luke. Mark 13, for example, has the words:

9As for yourselves: be very careful. You will be dragged before the court and flogged in synagogues, and you will have to appear before governors and kings for My sake to bear witness.
10For first the good news must be proclaimed to all nations.
11When you are led away to be handed over, do not worry beforehand about what you will say; say what is given to you at that moment, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
12One brother will betray another to be put to death, and fathers will do the same with their children, and children will turn against their parents and have them put to death.
13You will be hated by everyone for my name’s sake, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.
Mark 13:9-13.

Although Matthew also has these words, in Mark they are emphasized more strongly, and moreover, these words appear in a different place in Matthew. He uses them during the sending out of the apostles and not in the apocalyptic discourse. In Mark, the emphasis is consistently on the fact that discipleship entails suffering. This suggests a situation of prolonged persecution, more so than in Matthew or Luke. Being rejected is the inevitable fate of believers. To live for God in the midst of people who, driven by religious zeal, are subservient to Satan is indeed fatal, but only in this way can a person be declared righteous on the day of judgment [30]. The role of the Gentiles is different from that of the Jews. It is the Jews who judge, the Gentiles are the ones who carry out the judgment. The world and its government rebel against God. “God and those who entrust themselves to his government can expect nothing but suffering and death. This is what the way towards life looks like, the Resurrection” [31]. The conclusion of Mark’s apocalyptic discourse also points to a critical situation for Jesus’ followers:
“35So be watchful, for you do not know when the master of the house will come—in the evening, or at midnight, or at the first crowing of the rooster, or early in the morning.
36 Do not let him find you sleeping when he comes suddenly.
37What I say to you, I say to everyone: be watchful!”
Mark 13: 35 – 37

7. Mark and Rome

According to church tradition, Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome, either under the watchful eye of Peter or after his death. Peter had access to soldiers from the cavalry of the Roman army in Rome. It was from there that the request came to Mark to write down what Peter taught. Peter himself calls Mark his son (1 Peter 5:13). Often, and especially from the Protestant side, the ecclesiastical sources mentioning Peter’s presence in Rome are called into question. They are said to be biased because they allegedly want to portray Peter as the first bishop of Rome. However, there are various reasons why these ecclesiastical sources could still be correct. We have already mentioned that there were no wild beasts in Palestine, which are mentioned in Mark’s version of the temptation in the wilderness. But in Rome, they were there. The true disciple is subject to the same martyrdom as Jesus Christ. It is, therefore, a reference to the persecutions. It is noteworthy in this context that the First Letter of Peter (5:8) also speaks of Satan as a roaring lion seeking prey. Here too, an image that fits Rome. According to Longstaff [32], the persecutions under Nero were too short to be the origin of the Gospel. He thinks of the time of Domitian. Van Kooten thinks of the port city of Caesarea, specifically that Mark was supposedly written by a Roman soldier who had converted to Christianity and who wanted to make it clear to his superiors that Christians should not be identified with Jews [33]. Caesarea served as a base for the Roman legions in their fight against the Jewish revolt. But in that interpretation, the meaning of martyrdom in Mark is not made clear. Mark does not want to shield the followers of Christ, but rather wants to ensure that they stand firm even when they are being hit hard. The church in Rome was in possession of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and of the Gospel of Mark. It was customary in the early church to read the letters alongside the Gospel, and many parallels can be pointed out between Paul and Mark. One of those parallels is the sentence that suddenly appears in the extended quote above in Mark 13:9-13 (verse 10): “10For first the good news must be proclaimed to all nations.” There the mission to the Gentile nations is unequivocally justified.

Mark fits very well with the underground church in Rome, which was exposed to persecutions and had to stand firm [34]. And therefore, for Mark, the power of Christ is evidently more important than the doctrine of Christ. This fits well with Dungan’s interpretation of the First Letter of Peter [35]. This letter offers a certain moralization of Paul’s theology regarding sin, law, righteousness, grace, and spirit. Thus Peter writes:

“13Indeed, who would harm you if you devoted yourself fully to doing good? 14But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are still blessed. Therefore do not be afraid of people and do not let anything confuse you” (1 Peter 3:14).

Here, despite the Pauline language, a moralistic twist is given to the dialectic between human lostness and God’s grace. More examples of this could be given. God’s righteousness thus becomes a goal to be pursued. Moreover, this letter actually has nothing original to say. The letter offers a solid summary of the Christian faith in an uncontroversial manner. That may seem a bit bureaucratic, but one could also say that the writer of Peter did his best to avoid heated debates, such as those that existed between the followers of Paul and the strict Jewish Christians. Furthermore, the teachings of Jesus are not mentioned in this letter, but rather the person and his deeds, the example of obedience unto death. Finally, Silvanus is named as the writer of the letter (1 Peter 5:12). This is the same Silvanus who traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys and who also conveyed the letter from Jerusalem to Antioch concerning the judgment of the apostolic council on the law and circumcision for the Gentiles in Acts. He played a mediating role then as well. The Epistle of Peter was written to the congregations in Asia Minor, precisely the area where Paul worked extensively. Could it not be possible that this letter was written to bridge and remove the tensions between the two parties, precisely because it was crucial at that moment to stand firm during the persecutions? Just like Mark, Peter also calls for vigilance (1 Peter 1:13).

This interpretation of the letters of Peter aligns with Orchard’s account of the possible origins of the synoptic Gospels. He dates Matthew approximately ten years after the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Matthew reflects, as I mentioned earlier, the conditions in Israel around that time. Orchard does not go as far as Goulder, who interprets Matthew as belonging to the camp of conservative Jewish Christians who wanted to maintain the dietary laws and circumcision for the Gentile peoples as well. However, he does acknowledge that Matthew does not sufficiently meet the needs of the Christian communities from the Gentile peoples. The Luke-Acts combination provides an interpretation of the way of Christ and of the church that is much more tailored to this purpose. Orchard assumes that Peter and Paul remained in constant contact, precisely because people like Silvanus and Mark supported both Peter in Rome and Paul on his missionary journeys [36]. According to Orchard, Paul’s imprisonment in Rome could have been sufficient reason for Peter to travel to Rome as well. Between 62 and 64, and perhaps longer, they evangelized Rome together. Luke must have had a longer period of rest and reflection to write down the Gospel of Luke and of Acts, and his presence during Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea provided that opportunity. Moreover, it gave him the opportunity also to visit the locations in the Gospel itself. In any case, the geography in his Gospel is much more precise than in Matthew and Mark. One of the reasons for Paul to appeal to the emperor and travel to Rome may therefore have been that he wanted the consent of Rome and of Peter for these writings of Luke, in order to truly offer the Christians from the Gentile peoples an equal place in the church [37]. In his lectures to members of the Roman cavalry, Peter complied with that request, and Mark preserved the notes thereof and incorporated them into his Gospel. In essence, the Gospel of Mark is the result of this. In doing so, Peter actually complied with the request of Paul and his followers. For in his brevity, his colloquial language, his imagery borrowed from Peter, Mark, following in Peter’s footsteps, largely follows the order and wording of Luke. Thus Orchard. He thereby underscores Mark’s middle position between Luke and Matthew, just as Peter also tried to take a middle position to keep the congregation together. That is possible. In his interpretation, Orchard pays less attention to the impending or already ongoing persecutions in Rome. But that could also be precisely Mark’s addition when writing down the gospel after the death of Peter and Paul.

8. The Mount of Transfiguration, Discipleship, and the Empty Tomb

Mark constantly emphasizes the disciples’ incomprehension. They, too, are often among those who are seeing but nevertheless blind. Peter, in particular, comes off badly. It has therefore been suggested that Mark actually has little regard for the apostles and not much regard for Peter in particular. Others argue the exact opposite: it must have been Peter himself who instructed Mark to portray him as a weak and sinful man. He did not want to make himself look too good [38]. This would then show that he has by now learned the lessons of true discipleship: not to rule but to serve, not to sit at the top, but to be the least. The disciples in Mark understand it, but at the same time do not understand it [39]. They understand it only in theory, while practice remains unchanged. They understand it literally, but they are also like the man who has to say: I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24). Mark explicitly notes that Jesus always speaks in parables to the outside world, but only gives explanations to the inner circle of disciples. The demons understand it immediately, but they too are instructed not to speak about the secret. As if it must remain hidden. It is possible that this communication strategy is directed against the Gnostics [40]. After all, the Gnostics always speak of a deeper secret behind reality, of knowledge for initiates. They like to seek out the mystery behind reality, they seek a secret that this world cannot contain anyway, and to which they return after this life. It is possible that Mark is playing with the idea of ​​a mystery to attract the Gnostics, in order to then make it clear to them step by step that there is only one secret in his gospel: that of discipleship and the imitation of Christ in suffering. That is the true secret for initiates! In this secret death and life exchange places and in it Jesus shows his power over death [41]. That is the secret of the crucifixion. Four disciples are chosen at the beginning: Peter, John, James, and Andrew, in Mark 1:16-20. These four also receive the revelation on the mountain. This so-called transfiguration on the mountain takes place at Caesarea Philippi, founded by Philip, the brother of Herod, as the center of government for his territory. Therefore, the transfiguration on the mountain also represents a challenge to the rulers, and at the same time it is the adoption of Jesus as Son of God, as had already happened at the beginning of the Gospel, but now again and in the presence of witnesses, as the Roman custom of adoption also required [42]. But the secret of the transfiguration is the crucifixion. The high point is the low point.

Again, a reference to the letters of Peter is appropriate, this time 2 Peter. There Peter points to the appearance of the Lord on the mountain as the central moment of his life and death, the moment that also authorizes Peter’s own actions.

“When we proclaimed to you the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we did not base ourselves on clever fabrications—on the contrary, we saw His greatness with our own eyes.
17 For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice of majestic glory said to Him: ‘This is my beloved Son, in Him I am well pleased.’
18 We ourselves heard that voice sounding from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
19 Our confidence in the words of the prophets has only increased because of this. You do well to keep your attention fixed on them constantly, as on a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day breaks and the morning star rises in your heart.”
2 Peter 1:16-19

“I was there!” – says Peter. Once again, in this second letter, Peter calls for faithfulness in difficult times. The Bible quote demonstrates, first of all, that this transfiguration on the mountain was of great significance to Peter. After all, he does not mention the resurrection here, which one might expect. Is the transfiguration on the mountain perhaps the resurrection? Secondly, the Bible quote shows that Peter is familiar with the Roman Imperial ideology and the Egyptian heritage, and the significance of the star Sirius within it. Sirius is the Morning Star that heralds the rising of the Nile on the horizon around July 19. But if Jesus Christ is the Son of God instead of the emperor, the clockwork of the Empire and of the cosmos is no longer the ultimate point of orientation. The Morning Star was worshipped in Egypt as a goddess (Isis) because she ushered in the season of the fertility of the earth. The true Morning Star is like a lamp shining in a dark space, and it is that lamp that truly ushers in the day, but now in the hearts of people. The true Morning Star is Jesus Christ. This aligns with remarks in the first letter that also attest to Peter’s knowledge of the Roman Imperial ideology:

“4Join Him, the living stone rejected by men but chosen by God for His preciousness,
5and let yourselves also be used as living stones for the building of a spiritual temple. Form a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God, thanks to Jesus Christ.”
1 Peter 2:4,5

In the Imperial ideology of Egypt and Rome, as everywhere else, a temple is the image of the cosmos. The cosmos is the Imperial machinery of the agricultural calendar that determines the rhythm of life, with the emperor at the head. But here Jesus is the cornerstone of the true temple, and that true temple is not built of stone, but of living bodies. Jesus’ body replaces the temple. The body of Jesus on earth is the church.

Mark actually has no resurrection stories. That is to say, in about half of the manuscripts, the story ends with the women fleeing from the tomb where they thought they would find Jesus to anoint him. But the tomb is empty, and a young man in a white robe tells them that Jesus has risen. Then we read: “8They went out and fled from the tomb, for they were seized with fear and terror. They were so terrified that they said nothing to anyone” (Mark 16:8). It is a curious ending. But perhaps it is intended that way: the gospel ends with a cliffhanger. If the fleeing women are an image of the congregation that is actually supposed to follow Jesus, but takes to its heels in fear and says nothing to anyone, the question is thereby posed to the reader: and now you! Who are you! Where do you stand? It is possible, it is feasible to interpret the gospel in such a way, that this is also what Mark intended. It is in line with his message. Here you must show that you, too, are the one who understands the secret. And understanding is: being a disciple. After that comes a conclusion, which may be of a later date, possibly even by Mark himself. It contains many Markian expressions. Yet it is still a summary of what the other Gospels offer. One can also interpret it as Mark himself adding these words as a kind of second conclusion, as it were to provide a wrap-up after the retelling of the story. That is Orchard’s view. It is possible that the first version of the Gospel circulated in Rome as notes from the lectures Peter delivered for members of the Roman Empire. After Peter’s death, Mark would then have created a second version of the Gospel and eventually published it.

Mark does not attach too much importance to miracles. If the people in Nazareth do not believe in Jesus, he can do nothing; no miracles, so unique to Mark. Here too, in the second conclusion of Mark, Mark speaks of miraculous signs that follow the proclamation. They merely follow. No birth stories, no sermons, no resurrection stories—it is as if Mark wants a gospel without frills. It fits Roman pragmatism. It also fits his resistance to the emerging Gnostic doctrine, with its preference for secrecy and fantasy, and his refusal to take a stand that comes at a cost. It also fits the pragmatism of the moment: do you stand for the cause, even when the heat is on?

9. Mark as a person

In the text “The Fruit of the Lips,” Rosenstock-Huessy pays attention, among other things, to the process of change that the apostles went through. He mentions Matthew, Peter, John, and Luke. He does not mention Mark, but Mark deserves to be mentioned as well! I would like to make up for that here. After all, something must have happened to Mark—at least if ecclesiastical tradition is correct here—that the Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark is the same Mark who associated with Paul for a time.

Mark belonged to the inner circle of the church congregation in Jerusalem. When Peter is miraculously freed, he knocks in the middle of the night at the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12). Apparently, a house church is established at her address, and that testifies to a well-to-do family. Moreover, he is the cousin of Barnabas, who sells a piece of land at the beginning of Acts and makes the proceeds available to the apostles in Jerusalem, and later travels with Paul on the first missionary journey. Mark also goes along, but he does not complete the journey. From Cyprus, the first destination, he travels back – Barnabas was from Cyprus – it is not clear why. Has the ground become too hot under his feet already? Luke mentions no reason, but precisely for that reason one begins to suspect: Luke is sparing him. On the second missionary journey, Paul does not want to take him along. This results in Barnabas and Mark going to Cyprus once again, and Paul taking Silvanus (later the writer of the Epistle of Peter) with him. From that moment on, Luke also enters the story. But Mark comes back into the picture as well. Both he and Luke support Paul during his imprisonment in Caesarea. Paul mentions him in Colossians 4:10 as one of the people from whom he conveys greetings; in Philemon 1:24 he calls him one of his co-workers; in 12 Timothy 4:11 he asks Timothy to take Mark along because Mark is very “useful” in the ministry. And even later, we encounter Mark in Rome as Peter’s secretary and writer of the Gospel. Peter even calls him “my son.”

In Mark 14:51-52, the evangelist—Mark himself, that is—speaks, where the disciples fled during Jesus’ arrest, of a young man who was wearing only a linen garment and who tried to follow Jesus but was seized and left his garment behind in the hands of his persecutors. He ran away naked. Could it be that Mark is inserting himself into the picture here? Could it be meant symbolically: he wanted to follow Jesus, but the ground became too hot under his feet? In Mark 16:5, when the women enter the empty tomb, they see a young man dressed in white sitting there. He proclaims the resurrection to them. Could Mark have inserted himself back into the story here? He is now, in a white robe, the proclaimer of the resurrection. He who was afraid has taken courage and has become a disciple who follows the Lord, in “white robe,” the clothing of the saints. Of course, this cannot be proven here. But it is an intriguing thought. And—could the young man in a white robe still be an angel for embellishment of the story—no one really knows what to make of that curious text about the young man fleeing naked. According to tradition, Mark eventually went to Alexandria, to Egypt, the heart of the imperial culture. He took his gospel with him from Rome.

[1] So Dungan, D. L., 1983. The Purpose and Provenance of the Gospel of Mark according to the “Two-Gospel” (Owen-Griesbach) Hypothesis, in New Synoptic Studies, The Cambridge Gospel Studies and beyond, Ed. William Farmer, Mercer University Press, pp. 411-441, p.412.
[2] Bauckham, Richard, 2006. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses – The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
[3] Watson, F., 2016. The Fourfold Gospel, A Theological of reading of the New Testament Portrays of Jesus, Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 119.
[4] Van Kooten, G.H., 2026. Echo’s van het goede nieuws. De evangeliën in context, toen en nu, Kok Boekencentrum.
[5] Porter, S.E., Dyer, B.R., eds., 2016. The Synoptic Problem, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
[6] See Peabody, B., e.a., 2002. One Gospel from Two; Mark’s Use of Matthew and Luke, Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, London, New York, and:
McNicol, A.J., e.a., 1996. Beyond the Q impasse: Luke’s use of Matthew, Trinity Press, Harrisburg, London, New York.
[7] Matthew in six large parts mirrors the five books of the Thorah plus Joshua. Actually there are five large sermons plus the genealogy which tells the “genesis” of Jesus, see Farrer, A.M., 1955. On Dispensing With Q; D. E. Nineham (ed.), Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955), pp. 55-88, © 1955 Basil Blackwell, on the website from Mark Goodacre: https://www.markgoodacre.org/Q/farrer.htm, 30-3-2026.
[8] Goulder, M. 1994., St. Paul versus St. Peter, A Tale of Two Missions, Westminster John Knox Press Louisville, Kentucky , p. 32 ff.
[9] Orchard, B., Riley, H. 1987. The Order of the Synoptics; Why Three Synoptic Gospels?, Mercer University Press, Georgia, p. 235, see footnote 7.
[10] Goulder, Ibid p. 46 ff..
[11] So Dungan 1983, Ibid. p. 417.
[12] See Davis, C.T., 1983. Mark, the Petrine Gospel, in New Synoptic Studies, The Cambridge Gospel Studies and beyond, Ed. William Farmer, Mercer University Press, p. 461.
[13] Orchard Ibid p. 274.
[14] Peppard, M., 2011. The Son of God in the Roman World, Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context, Oxford, p. 46.
[15] Peppard Ibid p. 26.
[16] Peppard Ibid p. 46.
[17] Ovidius spends a few lines on this, see Peppard Ibid p. 63.
[18] Peppard Ibid p. 101.
[19] Also see Farmer, W.R., 1964. The Synoptic Problem – a critical review of the problem of the literary relationships between Matthew, Mark, and Luke”, McMillan, New York, p. 89.
[20] Davis Ibid 444.
[21] Parker, P., 1983. The Posteriority of Mark, in New Synoptic Studies, The Cambridge Gospel Studies and beyond, Ed. William Farmer, Mercer University Press, pp.67 – 143.
[22] Kippenberg, H.G., 1978. Religion und Klassenbildung im antiken Judäa –Eine religionssoziologische Studie zum Verhältnis von Tradition und gesellschaftlicher Entwicklung, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, p. 116.
[23] The name Semele is etymologically related to the Greek word for the soil, see Otto, W.F. 1939. Dionysos, Mythos und Kultus, Klosterman Frankfurt am Main, p. 66, 67.
[24] See Parker Ibid p. 84.
[25] See for this also Davis Ibid p. 445.
[26] Otto Ibid, 90. Would it be a coincidence that to Peter the same occurs in Acts 12:7 when all of a sudden his chains fall from his hands and feet when an angel liberates him during the night?
[27] Davis, C.T., 1978. Speaking of Jesus; towards a theology of the Periphery, CSA Press Lakemont, Georgia, p 448, see also p. 183.
[28] See on this Longstaff, T.R.W., 1983. Crisis and Christology; the Theology of Mark, in New Synoptic Studies, The Cambridge Gospel Studies and beyond, Ed. William Farmer, Mercer University Press, p. 376.
[29] Longstaff Ibid p. 380.
[30] Davis Ibid p. 190.
[31] Davis Ibid p. 193.
[32] Longstaff Ibid p. 386.
[33] Van Kooten Ibid p. 7.
[34] See also the historian Outler 240 in Outler, A.C., 1983. Canon Criticism and the Gospel of Mark, in New Synoptic Studies, The Cambridge Gospel Studies and beyond, Ed. William Farmer, Mercer University Press.
[35] Dungan Ibid p. 419.
[36] Orchard Ibid p. 257.
[37] Orchard Ibid p. 252.
[38] See also Chapman, in Chapman, J., 1937. Matthew, Mark and Luke – a Study in the Order and Interrelation of the Synoptic Gospels, Longmans, Green and Co., London, pp. 44 – 54.
[39] Dungan Ibid p. 454.
[40] Dungan Ibid p. 441.
[41] Dungan Ibid p. 453.
[42] Peppard Ibid p. 127.