What was the message of Saint Mark's Gospel?

Answer 1

Maurice Goguel (Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History?, 1926) remarked that the Gospel According to St Mark is composed of an introduction and of four portions, of which the first may be subdivided into eight sections. It has a 3-part plan: psychological, since it rests upon the idea of the development of the Jewish opposition and the disciples' lack of intelligence; logical and chronological, since it shows in the events the reaction after the welcome given to Jesus; geographical, since it divides the history of Jesus into three periods: Galilean, itinerant, and then Jerusalem. However, in spite of his Gospel being called a well-planned book, Mark seems a poor writer, often writing ungrammatically and hardly knowing how to write a narrative.

Mark frequently stressed that Jesus instructed witnesses to his miracles to keep his true identity a secret. Dennis R MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) argues persuasively that this was the result of Homeric influence, with Jesus a counterpart to Odysseus, who also had to keep his identity secret. A possible further reason could be that Mark, which was the first gospel to be written, needed to show why few people had ever heard of Jesus, who supposedly performed so many great wonders and miracles in the recent past.

Mark's Gospel has also been called a story of the death of Jesus with a long introduction. Far more than the later gospels (Matthew, Luke and John), Mark's Gospel is about the period leading up to and just after the death of Jesus.

AnswerDeath , burial and resurection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark highlights the power of Jesus as the Son of God, and the Messiah.