What are some differences between the passion narratives in the Gospels of Mark and Luke?

Answer 1

Luke says that Pilate gave the responsibilty of trying Jesus to Herod, because Jesus was from Galilee. This is a quite different account to that in Mark.

On the cross, Mark says that Jesus said, "My God, My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" and died soon afterwards. Lukesays that Jesus talked to the two criminals who were crucified with him; then when he was about to die, he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Mark is clear in that none of the disciples was at the crucifixion, but women looked from afar off: among them, Mary. Luke says that those of his acquaintance stood afar off with the women. Of course, it could be said that the author of Mark was simply unaware that those of his acquaintance were with the women.

Answer 2

Scholars tell us that the author of Luke's Gospel copied everything he knew about the life and mission of Jesus from Mark's Gospel, adding from the hypothetical 'Q' document some sayings attributed to Jesus, so there really should be no substantive differences in the two passion narratives. Neverless, Luke seems to have added some material of his own.

Garden of GethsemeneMark's Gospel is the most structured account of exactly what happened to Jesus in the last day of his life - perhaps too well structured to be entirely credible. He divided the last twenty four hours up into eight periods of exactly three hours each. To mark off the three hours of time that Jesus spent praying in the Garden of Gethsemene, Jesus goes three time to pray, returning to find the disciples asleep, each time asking could they not stay awake one hour. In Luke's Gospel, this careful ordering is absent, and the disciples are simply left to sleep.

Luke's account takes place on the Mount of Olives, perhaps the location of the Garden of Gethsemene. An angel appears to Jesus as he prays, strengthening his resolve. Jesus' sweat is like great drops of blood as it falls to the ground.

The arrestOnly in Luke's Gospel does Jesus admonish Judas for betraying him with a kiss.

Only Luke has Jesus heal the servant's severed ear. This is copied in John, which actually tells us that it was Simon Peter who cut off his ear.

Only Mark has the elusive young man run naked from the scene.

The trialsIn Mark, Jesus is presumably being held in a cell, while others warm themselves by a fire, when Peter denied Jesus three times. In Luke, Jesus was present and looked at Peter as he denied him.

Only in Luke does Pontius Pilate attempt to pass responsibility for the trial of Jesus to Herod Antipas.

The crucifixionIn Mark, the crucifixion takes place at Golgotha, while in Luke, it takes place at Calvary. In Mark, Jesus is offerred a drink containing wine and the valuable healing resin, myrrh, just before he is placed on the cross. Luke omits this, possibly because of its improbability, but has the soldiers mock him on the cross and offer him a drink of vinegar.

In Mark, Jesus calls out to God, asking why he had been forsaken, whereas in Luke, Jesus calmly ends his ordeal by saying, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

In Mark, when the centurion sees that Jesus had died, just like any other man crucified, he mockingly says, "Truly this man was the Son of God." This is elaborated in Luke, which has the pagan centurion glorify God, saying this truly was a righteous man.

Answer 3

A:Mark was the first gospel to be written, approximately 70 CE, with Luke substantially copied from it, as well as from the hypothetical 'Q' document, so we should expect to see many similarities in the two passion stories. First we should look at the original passion story from Mark, then look at how closely Luke follows it. Mark takes its readers through the events following the last supper in eight intervals of just three hours each.

• The story begins "when it was evening" (Mark 14:17), or when the sun went down (approximately 6 pm), when the Last Supper begins.
• Mark knew that the duration of the Passover meal was three hours and that it concluded with the singing of a hymn, so the first thing Jesus did was to sing a hymn with his disciples. Then Mark says, "And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives". It was about 9 p.m.
• Mark then has Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went to pray. His disciples, Peter, James and John, were not able to remain awake. "Could you not watch one hour?" Jesus asked. The process was repeated two more times. The disciples could not watch one, two or three hours. It was now midnight.
• The act of betrayal, the darkest deed in human history, came next, occurring at the stroke of midnight.
• At 3:00 a.m., Jesus was led away for a trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. This governing body then judged him, on the basis of his messianic claim, to be worthy of death.
• The watch of the night between 3 am and 6 am was called cockcrow. Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, once each hour until the cock crowed, marked the end of that phase of the night. That makes it 6 am.
• "As soon as it was morning", which would be 6 am, Jesus was led by the chief priests, scribes and elders to Pontius Pilate for judgement.
• "It was the third hour when they crucified him," that is, 9 o'clock.
• When "the sixth hour had come" (12 noon), darkness covered the whole earth, reflecting the betrayal at 12 midnight.
• After three hours of darkness, at 3 p.m., Jesus cried out and gave up the ghost.
• Joseph of Arimathea then asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, so that he could be buried before the Sabbath began. Jesus was buried in the final period from 3 to 6 pm, before the sun went down.

Within that detail, Mark says that Pilate could find no wrong with Jesus and offerred to free him or Barabbas, believing that the crowd would choose to free Jesus, but they called for Barabbas to be freed. Simon the Cyrenian was compelled to bear Jesus' cross to Golgotha. A superscription was placed on the cross: 'The king of the Jews'. Two thieves were also crucified, one on each side. The priests and the crowd mocked Jesus, but there is no mention of the two thieves saying anything. At the ninth hour, Jesus' last words were, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," a saying taken direct from the psalms. When the centurion saw that Jesus was dead, he sarcastically said, "Truly this man was the Son of God." Women, including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and of Joses, and Salome, stood afar off, but there was no one of Jesus' acquaintance at the cross.

The author of Luke was unaware of the chiastic structure in Mark's account, but followed it more or less faithfully, without giving the times when some events began. Luke contains some elaboration in the passages about the Garden of Gethsemene and the arrest, but omits the story of the young man fleeing naked. Again, the story of Peter's denials contains some elaborations, but is recognisably similar.

The trial story in Luke is quite close to Mark's, except for the addition of the passage in which Pontius Pilate attempts to get Herod Antipas to take responsibility for the execution of Jesus. There are further elaborations in the crucifixion story, but once again it is recognisably similar to the original. The most noteworthy changes are that one of the two thieves crucified with Jesus repented, and the different last words of Jesus. For Luke, his last words were, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." The pagan centurion spoke the same words as in Mark, not sarcastically but to glorify God.

Answer 4

Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of John was not copied directly from Mark's Gospel. So, being two stages removed from the original account, it naturally differs from Mark more than do Matthew and Luke.

A key difference, that is not readily apparent without reading the gospels carefully, is that Mark places the crucifixion on the day ofthe Passover, thus setting the scene for the Last Supper the evening before, while John says that the crucifixion took place on the day of preparation for the Passover. This allowed the author to place more emphasis on Jesus as the paschal lamb.

The author of John knew that the Sanhedrin would never meet in judgement during the hours of darkness. While Mark and the synoptics have Jesus brought before the Sanhedrin at 3 AM, John has Jesus brought to Annas, then to his son-in-law, Caiaphas.

The author of John was wary of offending the Romans, but also sought to portray Jesus as divine. When Jesus was taken to Pontius Pilate in the morning, John has Pilate tell the priests to try Jesus according to their own law, but they responded that they could not put a man to death. After Jesus was scourged, Johnagain has Pilate say that he found no wrong with Jesus. The Jews said that Jesus had called himself the Son of God, which made Pilate afraid of divine retribution against him, and he sought yet again to free Jesus.

John has Pilate accompany Jesus to the crucifixion and then argue with the Jews about the wording of the sign placed above the cross.

A very important difference is that Mark has none of the women or those of Jesus' acquaintance at the crucifixion - they watched from afar off. John has the mother of Jesus, her sister Mary, Mary the wife of Cleophas and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross, along with the "disciple whom Jesus loved". This provided the opportunity for Jesus to tell the disciple to look after his mother as if she were his own.

In Mark, Jesus refused to drink the vinegar, but in John he drank it before dying.

Mark says that Jesus' last words were, "My God, My God. Why hast thou forsaken me?" This is hardly appropriate for the Son of God, so John has Jesus utter the final words, "It is finished."

In John's Gospel, the soldiers came and broke the legs of the other two, to hasten death, but Jesus appeared to be dead already so they speared him. This is symbolic because the paschal lamb at the Passover feat must be without blemish and have no broken bones.