Why is Marks Gospel referred to as the Good News?

Answer 1

A:It is traditionally held that the New Testament gospels were written by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and so must have been written within the lifetimes of those contemporaries of Jesus, although John is sometimes endowed by tradition with an extraordinarily long lifespan.

By the end of the second century, the Church Fathers had realised that there was a literary dependency among the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) such that two of them must have been copied from the third. They decided that Matthew's Gospel was the first one, and that Mark and Luke were copied from it. This evaluation on the part of the Church Fathers has resulted in the continued belief, widespread among conservative Christians and many theologians, that Matthew's Gospel was the first to be written.

While biblical scholars agree that there was a literary dependency, they now realise that Mark's Gospel was the first of the New Testament gospels and that Matthew and Lukewere copied from it. John's Gospel is believed to have been inspired by Luke's Gospel, with some material taken direct from Mark. This dependency process alone demonstrates that Mark's Gospel was written before the other New Testament gospels.

Biblical scholars say that the gospels were originally anonymous and were only attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear later in the second century. Scholars say that we do not know who really wrote the gospels, but they do tell us that they were written decades later than traditionally assumed. There is clear evidence in Mark's Gospel that it was written approximately 70 CE. In Mark 13:2 Jesus was said to prophesy the destruction of the Temple, an event that occurred in 70 CE. According to Mark, Jesus went on to predict the end of the world within the lifetime of his followers. If Jesus had really prophesied the destruction of the Temple, he would have been correct, but he would have been in error about the imminent end of times. Since it can not be accepted that Jesus made predictions that were capable of being in error, these prophecies must have originated with Mark, writing at a time when he would have known of the destruction or imminent destruction of the temple and when it really seemed as if the world was coming to an end. An apparent reference to the Book of Daniel indicates that it could not have been written later than the early 70s.

Biblical scholars have demonstrated that Matthew and Luke were based on Mark's Gospel with, for example, Matthew having some 600 of the 666 verses in Mark, often using the same words in the original Greek language. Luke's Gospel does not incorporate any material from Mark 6:47 to Mark 8:27a, a total of 74.5 verses that were probably on exactly 13 pages of Greek text missing from the copy of Mark's Gospel relied on by the author of Luke. This 'Missing Block' results in the curious conjunction found in Luke 9:18 "And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them ..." These clauses are more meaningful when found in Mark at the start and end of the Missing Block. This unambiguous evidence of copying establishes the sequence of authorship.

Other evidence, although of secondary importance, supports the conclusion that Mark was the first New Testament gospel. It is interesting of the early Christian writings that an anti-Jewish sentiment developed over the course of the decades. In his epistles, Paul says that he is proud of his Jewish heritage; Mark begins to show some antipathy to the Jews, or at least to their religious leaders; this is more pronounced in Matthew, and more so again in Luke. John's Gospel shows a strong dislike for the Jews. This helps establish the order in which the remaining gospels were written: Matthew, then Luke, then John.

Answer 2

AnswerThe Gospel of Mark is, of course, a part of holy scripture, but it can also be looked at as a work of literature and, from this perspective, it is a work of creative genius.

Mark's Gospel was written in Greek Koine approximately 70 CE by an anonymous author and was attributed by the Church Fathers to the author whose name the Gospel now bears, later in the second century. This is the shortest and earliest gospel, and is now known to have been the principal source of material about the life and mission of Jesus for the authors of Matthew and Luke.

Mark is written in an rough, ungrammatical style, but shows evidence of having been written by someone of considerable literary ability. It has been suggested that the ungrammatical style was intentional, to appeal to adherents of limited reading ability, to disguise the identity of the author, or even that it had a literary purpose.

This book has a remarkably sophisticated structure - perhaps too well structured to be entirely credible. The book as a whole consists of a chiastic structure*. The opening set begins with John explaining the coming of Jesus, followed by the baptism and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with Jesus predicting his death. The contrasting structure begins with the Transfiguration of Jesus and the voice of God from heaven, and ends with the crucifixion, followed by the young man explaining the departure of Jesus. Within these major milestones we find other pairs such as 9:1, in which he told the disciples that some of them would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God coming with power, and chapter 13, in which he described the end of the world and his second coming, on clouds of glory, within the lifetimes of some of those to whom he was speaking.

Mark organises the first narrative account of the death of Jesus in a twenty-four hour cycle, neatly divided into eight three-hour segments. That makes the story of the crucifixion begin to look less and less like history and more and more like liturgy.

• Mark started the story "when it was evening" (14:17). In this ancient world without electricity, that would mean when the sun went down, or approximately 6 pm.
• Mark knew that the duration of the Passover meal was three hours and that it concluded with the singing of a hymn. So at the end of his segment he noted, "And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives". It was obviously about 9 p.m.
• Mark then has Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where his closest 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.
• 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. It was 3:00 a.m.
• The watch of the night between 3 am and 6 am was called cockcrow. Mark now inserted his account of Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, once each hour until the cock crowed, marking 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.
• Mark told his readers once again that this drama has been shaped liturgically, saying, " It was the third hour," or 9 am "when they crucified him".
• When "the sixth hour had come" (12 noon), as if on cue, darkness covered the whole earth for 3 hours, at which time Jesus said "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
• Jesus was buried in the final period from 3 to 6 pm, before the sun went down. That brings us to 6 pm on Friday evening. The holy sabbath had arrived.

Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) finds persuasive evidence that much of the Gospel of Mark was inspired by Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. If so, it is a work of considerable merit for this reason alone.

Others see parallels with Pauls First Epistle to the Corinthians and his Epistle to the Galatians. Since the epistles were written well before Mark, the Gospel might have been loosely based on ideas taken from the epistles.

A further characteristic of Mark's Gospel appears to be the presence of frequent 'flags' that could indicate for the initiated that the relevant passage should not be read literally. For example, 'Arimathea' could also mean "Best disciple town" in the original Greek of the Gospel. If so, it is a play on words, comparing Joseph of Arimathea with the disciples who deserted Jesus, and means that Arimathea was not a real place. If Arimathea was not a real place, then Joseph of Arimathea did not really exist, and he never provided a tomb for Jesus. A persistent tradition is that there was also a "Secret Gospel of Mark". If there was a secret gospel, then the New Testament Gospel of Mark might have been a primer for novices, who could gradually be shown the meanings of the hidden flags, until they were fully initiated and could read the Secret Gospel of Mark. If so, this would imply that not only was Mark a remarkably well structured book in its own right, but that it also formed part of a remarkably well structured set of scriptures.

Footnote:

*A chiastic structure is an circular sequence in which an opening set of events is contrasted with another set of events that mirrors the first.

Answer 3

Mark is the 2nd of 4 gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, John) in the new testament. It was writtin as Mark's accoun of Jesus' life and the work the Jesus did. It is the shortest of the 4 gospels with only 16 chapters.

Answer 4

Mark's Gospel is referred to as the Good News because it presents the message of Jesus Christ's life, teachings, death, and resurrection as a fulfillment of God's promises and salvation for humanity. It conveys the message of hope, redemption, and the coming of God's kingdom on earth, which is considered good news for believers.

Answer 5

The word "gospel" means "good news," or "glad tidings." Not just Mark's, but all the gospels contain the good news of salvation through Jesus.