Who wrote Mark's Gospel and when?

Answer 1

Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, 3.39) tells us that Papias, bishop of Hieropolis in Asia Minor (ca.130), named Mark as the author of the previously anonymous gospel and the 'interpreter' of Peter, presumably as if Mark had written from Peter's memory and notes as his secretary. However, there is no real reason to rely on Papias' assumptions, and scholars say that we do not know the true identity of the Gospel's author.

Scholars have studied of the text of Mark's Gospel and have established that it was written approximately 68-73 CE. Mark chapter 13 says that Jesus told his listeners that the world will end during the lifetimes of those then still living, with Jesus prophesying the end of the world and his own return on clouds of glory. Jesus told them that they would see the great buildings destroyed, and the abomination of desolation (references to the destruction that took place at the end of the First Roman-Jewish War), followed by the Son of man coming in clouds of glory, and that this would take place during their own generation. Of course, this prophecy did not come to pass, but at the time of writing, it certainly seemed as if the end was nigh. If Jesus had really prophesied the destruction in Jerusalem, he would have been correct, but to attribute to him the failed prophecy of his return is to attribute to him the inability to make accurate predictions. The alternative is that the author of Mark's Gospel put these words in the mouth of Jesus, because he knew at the time of writing that the Temple and the great buildings really had been destroyed.