McGraw-Hill OnlineMcGraw-Hill Higher EducationLearning Center
Student Center | Instructor Center | Information Center | Home
Chapter Outline
PowerPoint Presentations
Multiple Choice Quiz
Web Links
Feedback
Help Center


The New Testament Cover Image
The New Testament, 4/e
Stephen Harris, California State University - Sacramento
Mark's Portrait of Jesus: The Hidden Messiah and Eschatological Judge

Outline


I. Key topics/themes

  1. Mark the earliest Gospel
  2. Portrays Jesus as "hidden Messiah"
  3. Jesus' role: to serve, suffer, and die

II. Mark's historical setting

  1. Earliest external reference: Papias, quoted by Eusebius
  2. Author of Mark not an eyewitness
  3. May derive from variety of oral sources about Jesus
  4. Mark's dual emphasis on discipleship and suffering
  5. May fit well with situation of persecuted Christians in Rome under Nero's rule (ca. 64-65 C.E.)
  6. Palestine a possible place of origin according to some modern scholars
  7. Mark's puzzling attitude toward Jesus' close associates
  1. Historical sources
    1. Mark's apparent distrust of Jesus' companions as sources for his story
    2. Mark's uniform portrayal of Jesus' family as spiritually ignorant of the real dimensions of Jesus' identity and message
  1. The disciples as likewise spiritually weak or ignorant
  2. Mark's possible desire to distance himself and his Gospel from the Jerusalem church leadership

III. Mark as a literary narrative

  1. Organization and bipolar structure
    1. First half of Gospel centered in Galilee
    2. Second half focuses on Jesus' work in Jerusalem
  1. Prelude to Jesus' public ministry (1:1-13)
    1. Mark's introduction of Jesus as "Christ" and "Son of God"
    2. John the Baptist as the wilderness prophet who heralds the coming of Jesus as Messiah
    3. Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness to confront Satan

IV. The Galilean ministry: inaugurating the kingdom (1:14-8:26)

  1. Mark's eschatological urgency
  1. Jesus' early preaching calls attention to the coming eschaton
  2. The urgency of Jesus' message
    1. Use of present tense
    2. Use of expression "immediately"
  1. Mark as apocalypse
  1. Entire Gospel considered an apocalypse by some scholars
  2. Jesus as Son of Man
    1. Term used only by Jesus in Mark
    2. Encompasses three roles of Jesus in Mark
      3. 1.) Earthly figure who teaches with authority
      2.) Servant who embraces suffering
      3.) Future eschatological judge
  1. Son of Man in Hellenistic-Jewish literature
    1. In Book of Daniel originally meant "mortal man"
    2. In 1 Enoch came to refer to messenger from heaven come to earth to judge humanity
    3. Mark's contribution: the Son of Man must suffer and die for others
  1. "The Son of Man has the right on Earth . . ."
    1. Jesus' presumed authority to prescribe revolutionary changes in Jewish law and custom
    2. Jesus' controversial stance toward the Jewish Sabbath
  1. Teaching the mysteries of the Kingdom
  1. Jesus' parables
    1. Term parable comes from word meaning "comparison"
    2. Simplest parables were mere similes
    3. The open-endedness of Jesus' parables, allowing for speculation about their meaning
    4. Other parables as brief stories
    5. The allegorizing of Jesus' parables by Mark
  1. Jesus and the demons
    1. Confrontations with demons as representative of Jesus' battle with supernatural evil
    2. Jesus' recruitment of the Twelve to aid in the battle with evil
  1. Jesus' exorcist power attributed to sorcery by his detractors
  2. The existence of demons and exorcisms assumed in Jesus' culture
  3. Zoroastrianism
    1. Dualism (light vs. dark, good vs. evil) in Persian religion
    2. Influence of Persian religion on developing Jewish understanding of supernatural evil
  1. Belief in supernatural evil and evidence of the "demonic" in contemporary manifestations of evil
  2. Jesus the healer
    1. Jesus' healing a further example of his assault on evil
    2. Restoration to physical health a concrete manifestation that God's rule is dawning
  1. Mark's use of literary techniques
    1. Intercalation: the inserting of one story inside another
    2. Example: the raising of Jairus's daughter (5:22-24, 35-43) interrupted by the healing of a hemorrhaging woman (5:25-34)
  1. Mark's ironic vision
    1. The failure to recognize Jesus by those who could benefit most from his presence
    2. The willingness of demons and forces of nature to obey Jesus' bidding

V. The journey to Jerusalem: Jesus' predestined suffering

  1. Mark's central irony
    1. Chapter 8: the center of the Gospel
    2. Begins with Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ
    3. Ends with Jesus' prediction that he must suffer and die
    4. An attempt to address the suffering of Roman Christian readers of the Gospel of Mark

VI. The Jerusalem ministry: a week of sacred time

  1. The triumphal entry
    1. Riding into town on a beast of burden
    2. Fulfillment of messianic prophecy
    3. Jesus' messiahship revealed by this symbolic action
  1. Focus on the Temple
    1. Overturning of moneychangers' tables in the Temple precincts
    2. Jesus' visit a pronouncement of eschatological judgment on the Temple
    3. Symbolized by the unproductive fig tree (11:12-14, 20-24)
  1. Confrontation at the Temple
    1. Conflict with the Pharisees over paying taxes to Caesar
    2. Conflict with the Sadducees over the doctrine of resurrection
  1. Jesus' prophecy of the Temple's fall
  1. Chapter 13: Jesus' longest speech in Mark
  2. Predicts destruction of the Temple and the coming day of God's judgment
  3. Predicts the coming of the Son of Man as eschatological judge
  4. Seemingly contradictory views of the end
    1. Signs that mark the nearness of the coming End
    2. Time of the coming End unknown to all but God
    3. Resolution: remain watchful
  1. Political and natural disasters in the first century C.E. as context for Jesus' predictions about the end
  2. The "abomination"
    1. A reference from Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11
    2. Recalls the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in second century B.C.E.
    3. May refer to Zealots' occupation of the Temple during Jewish Revolt in 68-70 C.E.
  1. The Last Supper and betrayal
  1. The Last Supper as a Passover meal
  2. Jesus' new interpretation
    1. The bread as Jesus' body
    2. The wine as Jesus' "blood of the [New] Covenant, shed for many" (14:24)

VII. Mark's Passion narrative: Jesus' trial and crucifixion

  1. Ironic contrast between seeming defeat of Jesus at hands of spiritual evil and his actual spiritual triumph
  2. Jesus' suffering in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane
  3. Peter denies knowledge of Jesus
  4. Jesus' admission of messiahship at trial before the Jewish council
  5. Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate and the issue of Jesus as "king of the Jews"
  6. Pilate's releasing of Barabbas and his condemnation of Jesus to death on the cross
  7. Jesus' crucifixion among "thieves"
  8. Irony in Mark's portrayal of the Crucifixion
    1. Jesus' suffering: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (15:33)
    2. Jesus' victory to be seen in God's raising of Jesus in glory
  1. Jesus' burial
    1. Full of specific personal and geographical names
    2. Jesus buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea

VIII. Postlude: the empty tomb

  1. Women arrive at Jesus' tomb to discover it empty
  2. The bewilderment of the women at the tomb on resurrection morning
  3. The original ending of Mark at 16:8
  4. Mark's inconclusiveness: resurrection or Parousia?
  1. Lack of resurrection appearances in original Gospel of Mark and varying interpretations of its resurrection story
    1. Jesus as resurrected
    2. Jesus' resurrection as a "return" (parousia) to Galilee
    3. The addition of other conclusions (16:9-20) more consistent with Matthew and Luke

IX. Summary

  1. Mark's focus on the deeds rather than the teachings of Jesus
  2. Jesus' deeds as evidence that God's rule has arrived and that Satan has been defeated
  3. Written in context of Roman persecution of Christians
  4. Jesus as eschatological Son of Man
  5. Jesus' messiahship revealed in his servanthood, rejection, and death








Copyright2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.