Gospel according to mark text free#

In our free eBook Easter: Exploring the Resurrection of Jesus, expert Bible scholars and archaeologists offer in-depth research and reflections on this important event. In fact, according to Mark, any future epiphanies or “sightings” of Jesus will be in the north, in Galilee, not in Jerusalem. Mark gives no accounts of anyone seeing Jesus as Matthew, Luke, and John later report. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing (Mark 16:6-8) But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. Upon arriving they find the blocking stone at the entrance of the tomb removed and a young man–notice– not an angel–tells them: Like the other three Gospels Mark recounts the visit of Mary Magdalene and her companions to the tomb of Jesus early Sunday morning. He has no appearances of Jesus following the visit of the women on Easter morning to the empty tomb! But even more significant is Mark’s strange ending. In fact, Joseph, husband of Mary, is never named in Mark’s Gospel at all–and Jesus is called a “son of Mary,” see my previous post on this here. He has no account of the virgin birth of Jesus–or for that matter, any birth of Jesus at all. But more important is how Mark begins his Gospel and how he ends it.

First it is significantly shorter than the other Gospels–with only 16 chapters compared to Matthew (28), Luke (24) and John (21). The problem with the Gospel of Mark for the final editors of the New Testament was that it was grossly deficient. Scholars and historians are almost universally agreed that Mark is our earliest Gospel–by several decades, and this insight turns out to have profound implications for our understanding of the “Jesus story” and how it was passed down to us in our New Testament Gospel traditions. The assumption is that this order of the Gospels is a chronological one, when in fact it is a theological one. Most general Bible readers have the mistaken impression that Matthew, the opening book of the New Testament, must be our first and earliest Gospel, with Mark, Luke and John following. Credit: Holy Women at Christ’s tomb by Annibale Carracci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Gospel according to mark text