The Gospel of Mark begins with 'the Greek word, 'ARCHE', "beginning", "starting point". Have you ever wondered why?
As one reads through Mark one gets the distinct impression that the reader is supposed to already know the bare bones of the storyline.
e.g.
Chapter 1, verse 14 says:
And after John was put in prison ...
What I surmise is that there was once an Introduction to the story, which gave the reader basic info about the characters and the main events.
As writing materials were expensive texts were then written using all available space - if the end of the line was reached halfway through a word
the word was continued on the next line. There were also no spaces between the words. Picture a page completely covered in characters.
Once one had read it one would naturally want to begin at the starting point of the actual story - so - ARCHE, "starting point", would serve to
identify where to begin reading.
Verse two, in some versions (claimed to be the earliest versions), says:
As is it is written in Isaiah the Prophet .... then there follows a quote from Malachi.
After this quote from Malachi there is then a quote from Isaiah.
Some versions (claimed to be later versions), of course, say:
As it is written in the Prophets ....
Scholars have given a lot of thought to these first few lines of Mark.
Here's my pennyworth:
The title was:
The Gospel of Jesus (Christ was added later)
The original text began with verse 3, the quote from Isaiah (many scholars agree with this).
It continued to the end of verse 5.
Verses 6-8 were added later.
In verses 9-11, "Nazareth", was inserted much later - Nazareth did not exist in the first century ad, The first record of Nazareth is in the later 3rd
century. The text orginally said:
"... came Jesus from Galilee ...."
The Greek of verse 11 clearly says:
"You are the son of me, the beloved, in whom I WAS well-pleased".
This is widely debated by scholars as to what it really means. In order not to confuse us
mere mortals the translators record it as:
"... in whom I AM well-pleased."
The logic of the use of the past tense is that the voice speaking to Jesus from out of
the sky was HIS DECEASED FATHER! (i.e. weren't God!).
Verses 12-13, where Jesus is tempted by Satan, were added later.
The Gospel of Mark is really fascinating .... if one drops one's "faith" and sees it for
what it really is - a product of at least two authors. (Scholars talk of the Petrine and the
Paulinian "influences" in Mark).
Later, in verse 29-31 there is a clear "suggestion" that in the original it was not Peter's
mother-in-law Jesus healed - but his OWN mother-in-law
.
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