The Birth of Christianity 5: Gospel of Mark (and Peter)

The Gospel of Mark is undoubtedly the most important work we have with regards to Jesus life, as it is the earliest gospel (and Paul does not discuss Jesus' life at all). It also gives us a snapshot of the beliefs of that moment in time.

It was written around 60 to 80 AD; mention of the fall of the Temple suggests after 70 AD. Even if it was written by St Mark - which is by no means certain - this is not an eye witness account; St Mark joined the movement after the events recorded in the gospel.

Jesus was adopted

When Mark was written, the early Christians believed Jesus was adopted as the son of God at his baptism, following the precedent of earlier Jewish Kings. This is discussed at length here.

Mark's beliefs were very similar to the Ebionites (allowing that we do not know quite what they believed for certain), a group of Jewish Christians considered heretical who survived for some centuries.

The Resurrected Jesus

The gospel originally ended at verse 8, and even some modern Bibles make this clear. Thus, the gospel ended:

Mark 16:5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Note that Peter (aka Cephas) is singled out from the other disciples; this is like the creed in 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 15:5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve.

Mark has no mention of Jesus in Jerusalem after the resurrection, and to the contrary, states that Jesus has gone ahead, and will be seen in Galilee. The Jerusalem appearances were a later invention.

Women in the Tomb

Note that in Mark's telling, only three people saw the tomb was empty -  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome - and Mark states that none of them told anyone about it:

Mark 16:8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

The most likely scenario is that the Empty Tomb was an earlier invention. Mark was writing a new account, based on the earlier passion narrative, and wanted to include the Empty tomb, but also the appearances in Galilee. He therefore invented the women who found the Empty Tomb to forge a link between the two. They were introduced as a literary device.

He used women specifically because women were considered unreliable witnesses, and so could plausibly be said to tell no one. This was necessary because previously no one had heard anything of them seeing the Empty Tomb.

It seems likely that all three were dead by the time of Mark's Gospel (Mary the mother of James would be getting on for a hundred), and so not in a position to refute the claim.

Compared to the Gospel of Peter

There is some evidence that the Gospel of Peter is older than Mark, or at least draws independently on the earlier passion narrative, and so the argument goes that material in Peter must necessarily be earlier than Mark.

The reality is that we do not know what happened to Peter in the way of revisions and additions, and while it may well draw on the passion narrative, it also draws on later gospels.

The gospel finishes abruptly (the only extant copy is missing the end):

[58] Now it was the final day of the Unleavened Bread; and many went out returning to their home since the feast was over. [59] But we twelve disciples of the Lord were weeping and sorrowful; and each one, sorrowful because of what had come to pass, departed to his home. [60] But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, having taken our nets, went off to the sea. And there was with us Levi of Alphaeus whom the Lord ...

This is clearly the Galilean sightings that Mark alludes to, and this fragment is the best we have about what really happened.

It is possible Mark had another ending that included the Galilean sightings, and this has since been lost. Perhaps the endings of both were deliberately removed?

The Women at the Tomb In Peter

The text:

[50] Now at the dawn of the Lord's Day Mary Magdalene, a female disciple of the Lord (who, afraid because of the Jews since they were inflamed with anger, had not done at the tomb of the Lord what women were accustomed to do for the dead beloved by them), [51] having taken with her women friends, came to the tomb where he had been placed. [52] And they were afraid lest the Jews should see them and were saying, 'If indeed on that day on which he was crucified we could not weep and beat ourselves, yet now at his tomb we may do these things.

It is significant that the women are afraid of "the Jews". This tells us that these verses are relatively late. If the women did visit the tomb, then it is the Romans they would be afraid of; it was the Romans who were in charge and the Romans who had crucified Jesus. It is just not credible that three Jewish women would be afraid of "the Jews".

This then is consistent with Mark making up the women. The Gospel of Peter originally had no mention of the women at the tomb, but a later version copied the story from Mark, adding the anti-Semitic slant of the time.