Steven Carr

Mark wrote the first Gospel, and it was used as a source by the authors of Matthew and Luke.

If you are the first person to write a biography of the Son of God, wouldn't that make you famous throughout Chrisendom?

Eusebius says the following '"And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." This is what is related by Papias regarding Mark.'

That's it?

That is all Papias said about the first Gospeller? A bare name, and a statement that he was the interpeter of Peter? If Papias had said more, surely Eusebius would have recorded more about the first Gospeller.

Boswell was famous for writing the Life of Johnson, and yet Mark can write the first Life of the Son of God, and get no more than the barest of mentions, without even any details about how he became the intepreter of Peter, or for how long, or what he may else have done.


This makes no sense.

Surely Papias is just finding a name, any name, to put to an anonymous work and there was no famous person behind the Gospel.

show_no_mercy

According to tradition, Matthew was the first person to write a gospel narrative. But anyway, the same argument holds.

spin

Tradition is prone to getting things wrong. Literary analysis indicates that both Matthew and Luke are dependent on the text of Mark, making Mark the earliest of the three synoptic gospels.

(When you talk about Matthew as a person and not a text you are prone to making ambiguous statements liable to leading you to confuse text with some writer for whose existence you make assumptions about.)


spin

Minimalist

"Mark" is as much of an invention as jesus.

matthijs

The barest of comprehension skills allow that passage to be seen as apologetical. It's either a reply to existing criticism, or preemption of future criticism, but whatever the verdict on that count there's no doubt it's an awkward & phony rationalization of the highest order.

Elske.

aa5874

But, it should be noted that the so-called Papias did NOT claim that the author of Mark was first. The church writers do not acknowledge gMark as the first written gospel.

The gospel according to Matthew was regarded as first and it was claimed to have been written in the Hebrew language before being translated to Greek.

Based on the church writers, the author called Mark was a later writer who, never having heard Jesus, depended almost entirely on the apostle called Peter for information about Jesus.

But, there is a problem there, Peter was a fictitious character, so the author Mark got his information from some other source.

Now, when gMark is read it is very obvious that the author wrote as though the reader is already familiar with the name and origin of Jesus Christ.

The author from the very first verse introduces Jesus Christ as the son of God without any explanation at all, as though it was well known that Jesus Christ did exist and was a popular character.

There is no effort by the author of Mark to properply introduce Jesus to the readers, there is just a single question about his siblings and his occupation, impyling again that the readers were familiar with Jesus and his immediate family.

Mr 6:3 - Those questions are not from an author who first wrote about Jesus Christ at all. The author expected his readers to know the answers to those question.

Now, it is interesting to note that many of the church writers quoted from what appears to be gMatthew and it would seem that they all knew the origin of Jesus Christ as stated in present day Matthew 1.

The church writers wrote about the birth narrative, the Magi, and the fleeing to Egypt as found in gMatthew today, there is hardly any who wrote about the birth narrative as found in Luke, even Tertullian, when claiming Marcion mutilated Luke actually used verses from gMatthew's birth narrative, erroneously mentioning the Magis, not mentioned in Luke at all.

It would appear to me that the author of Mark copied from a source that had already stated the origin of Jesus, and that the story of Jesus Christ was known prior to gMark.

It is my position that the very first writing of the Jesus story must have included his origin, since Jesus did not exist.

GMark may have been first only if Jesus did exist and was well known in the first century during the days of Tiberius.

Now, if gMark was written many decades after the fictious account, it can be seen very easily that no-body would ever even know who Mark's Jesus was.

Mar 1:1 - The first response from a reader to gMark would be, "Who the hell is Jesus Christ?" Where did he come from?"

No Jesus believer could mount any defense of Jesus using gMark. The origin of Jesus would be completely unknown.

But gMatthew answers all those questions and more about the origin of Jesus Christ..

Mat 1:18 - Mt 1:23 - And Justin Martyr is his writings would use information about the origin of Jesus Christ as found in the Memoirs of the apostles to defend his Jesus. This could not be done with gMark alone, but with the memoirs alone Justin made a defense of the origin of Jesus.


First Apology 33 by Justin Martyr. The gospel called according to Mark appears to me to be a heavily edited later version of the Memoirs of the Apostles.The author called Mark did not get his information from Peter at all, Peter was a fictitious character, but the Memoirs did exist before Irenaeus claimed Mark wrote anything about 30 years after Justin who never mentioned Mark at all.

Irenaeus was the first to make Mark second.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Steven,

Good points.

You also think that being the interpreter of the First Apostle of the Son of God, Mark might have thought it important enough to put this fact in his gospel.

Warmly

Philosopher Jay

andrewcriddle

Papias (who preferred oral tradiion to written accounts) is IMO being slightly disparaging of Mark and his Gospel.

One could paraphrase "After Peter was dead his secretary Mark, who had never met Jesus, wrote down in any old order the things he could remember Peter saying."

Details about Mark's admirable qualities are not relevant to such an account.

Andrew Criddle

bacht

Has anyone suggested that Mark had an introduction which is now lost?

mountainman

Just a note to clarify that the "nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books" are in reference to the "Old Testament Apocrypha" and not the "New Testament Apocrypha". Justin's pivotal position in the "fabrication of the Christians" was designed to be the "missing link" to the Old Testament prophecies and "How true they have become".

The New Testament apocrypha and the NT gospels
are not mentioned by Justin.