Many people are unaware that rebels and radicals are included among those who wrote the Bible, and among those who wrote the gospels as well. Of the four gospels found in the Church Testament, the Gospel of Mark is the one I most prefer. The Christ of Mark's gospel is one of these radicals and a rebel. Mark's Christ carried on the radical traditions of the Jewish Prophets in the Bible, and in Mark's gospel nullifying these prophets was the sin of the scribes and the Pharisees who relentlessly persecuted Christ. As one example of this radical stream of of Jewish prophecy, consider the following passage from Jeremiah, in my mind one of the finest short expositions of radicalism in the Jewish Bible, and is representative of that school of thought that informs the gospel of Mark...(For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Bible, note that the burnt offerings and sacrifices were supposedly the Law of God brought by Moses on Mount Sinai and are found in the first five books of the Bible)...In the following passage in Jeremiah, and in the Gospel of Mark as well, the scribes are considered among the chief villains, who, along with the Pharisees, were charged with 'nullifying the prophets'. Mark is alluding to such radical passages as the following...

"Thus says YAHWEH of hosts, the God of Israel, "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh yourselves. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward...Now my people do not know the requirements of God. How can you say, 'we are wise, for we have the laws of God', when, behold, the lying pen of the scribes has worked falsely." (Jeremiah Chapter 7 verse 21, Chapter 8 verse 7)

      To read a short summary of Mark's gospel follow this link. For a short summary of reform and reaction in the book of Jeremiah follow this link.

      The books of the prophets prove on examination to be composed of conflicting source materials, just as is the case in the other books of the Bible, and it is clear that Mark's Christ stood firmly in the most radical tradition of the Jewish prophets. This radicalism was one of the distinctive characteristics of the early church, although the Church Testament proves to be composed of a mixture of radical sources and extremely reactionary and conservative sources, just as the Jewish Testament was before (the more things change, the more they stay the same, it would seem). The radical tradition of Mark was also the radical position of Paul and of the school of Paul in the Church Testament and this radical stand against rigidity in religion and against traditional beliefs about scripture best fits the evidence the Bible presents us with (the Bible is certainly not ‘infallible' nor is it ‘inerrant' and there are serious problems with the supposed ‘Laws of God' (which are so often senselessly dogmatic, cruel, and even hostile to humanity, even violating the most ordinary concepts of common morality and simple kindness and decency) and there are legitimate questions concerning the morality of so much of the violence and inhumanity that confronts us in the presentation of ‘history' and ‘prophecy' on the pages of the Bible). As Thomas Paine said (and I have to agree) the ruthlessness of some of the traditions recorded on the pages of the Bible has been used to brutalize and dehumanize people for long ages, and he said, ‘I thoroughly detest it, just as I detest everything that is cruel.' (Reason enough to be a radical, I say.)

      Mark's gospel has never been one of the favorites of the church. The principle reason for this is probably that Mark preserves very little in the form of parables and doctrinal teachings. For parables the church must turn to Matthew or to the gospel of Luke. Nevertheless, there is certainly teaching in Mark's gospel, but it can only be recognized and received if the radicalism of Mark and Mark's Christ is understood and accepted. Mark's gospel is itself a parable, and the careful sequencing and arrangement of material in his gospel form the method of his teaching, more so than simply delivering teaching parables. Mark constantly drives home the point that Christ stood in the radical prophetic tradition of Jewish prophecy and drives home the point after each radical act by reminding us that ‘they wanted to kill him'.

      Radicalism and crucifixion are thus juxtaposed in Mark's arrangement, to make the point which Mark wanted to make - that Christ was crucified for being radical and leading the people in rebellion against the Torah and the entire system of Temple worship that had developed around these regulations. If one were to ask Mark, ‘why was Christ crucified', Mark's answer would be plain and simple (a point he drives home again and again throughout his gospel) - Christ was crucified for being ‘a heretic' who rejected the conventional ideas about the infallible divine inspiration of the Bible, in particular the Torah. These things are rejected as ‘human commandments' and ‘mere human traditions'. (Mark was an admirer of the prophets, in particular Isaiah, and they are employed as favorable comparisons to Joshua in his book).

      The gospel of Mark is poorly written (some scholars of the original language have even gone so far as to call his grammar atrocious in places). Mark was probably not highly educated (absent here is the High Greek of the gospel of Luke, for example). He was creative, though, and he was ambitious, as his use of symbols carefully placed demonstrates. The meaning of the gospel and the teaching of Mark is found in examining and learning to appreciate his careful arrangement of symbolic stories. When these are examined they reveal that the gospel Mark wrote was not intended to be read as ‘a dry history' of actual events, although there are allusions to real situations underlying his presentation. His gospel should be read as a carefully designed parable, rather than as a type of ‘history' or ‘biography' in order to understand the meaning of what he is trying to convey.

      The gospel opens with the phrase, "the beginning of the gospel of Joshua Messiah the son of God. The phrase ‘the son of God' does not appear in the earliest versions of the manuscript and it would seem to be an example of later harmonization of the gospels introduced by the church redactors. (It is very unlikely that scribes would have neglected to copy this phrase, and its absence is best explained by the fact that originally it was not there, and was added later in an attempt at harmonization of the gospels.) Mark was influenced by the apocalyptic tradition best encapsulated in the book of Daniel, as his mini-apocalypse and explicit reference to Daniel later in his book reveals, and throughout his book he uses the phrase ‘the son of man' (taken from the book of Daniel) to refer to Christ. The ‘harmonizing' addition of the phrase ‘the son of God' here and there throughout his manuscript probably seemed necessary to the church as church dogma and church theology evolved. (As I will demonstrate, this would not be the only example of harmonization to be forced onto the gospel of Mark, for reasons which will become obvious as my investigation unfolds).

      Mark's gospel is absent many of the later mythological developments found, for example, in Matthew and Luke or the mysticism and elements of Greek philosophy found in John. In Mark's gospel there is no virgin birth, no choirs of angels hovering over mangers. Mary does not rise to the status of ‘the Queen of heaven' in Mark's gospel (this harmonization with goddess worship being Luke's contribution to the church). In Mark's gospel, Christ's family considered him insane, and there is none of the pre-birth fluttering angels chatting with Mary, no Mary who was in on the affair all along. In fact Mark takes a shot at Mary in his gospel, and there is no celebration of Mary or Christ's family in Mark's account of events. (Far from it, as you will see.) Christ's birth is not considered unusual enough to be worth relating. He was born in the usual way as far as Mark was concerned, and nothing more needed to be said. Mark's Christ was not ‘sinless', and certainly was not a ‘god', and actually took offence at being called a good man (no one was sinless except God, according to Mark's ‘low Christology').

      Mark's gospel is also absent theological concerns that would become of importance in later versions of the gospel (as you will find out, Mark often made statements that would later prove to be downright humiliating for the church, as their theology evolved and evolved and left the simplicity of Mark far behind). For example, Christ is simply baptized by John the Baptist in Mark's gospel, and no more is said. You can consult the synoptic comparison of this baptism story to see the first signs of later embarrassment in the church surfacing in Matthew's expanded version of the tale, and even more theology which downplays the incident and lowers the status of the Baptist (a polemical reference to any disciples that remained who followed John the Baptist) can be found in the Gospel of John. (Because John's gospel is so far removed from the synoptics, it is not compared on the synoptic pages.) According to Matthew, John begged Christ to baptize him, and did not want to baptize someone ‘sinless' but Christ graciously agreed to be baptized by him just for the sake of appearances, agreeing with John that he really did not need to be baptized. (How embarrassing for Matthew, and for the church. Luke, as you can see when you compare the accounts, followed Mark on this one, and was not embarrassed by the Baptism story.)

      The evidence we have at hand today indicates that the Gospel accounts were subject to interpolations at the hands of the church fathers, interpolations that were intended to help ‘harmonize' the inconsistencies in the gospel narratives. At this point I should note that I consider the story of the ‘dove coming from heaven' and the voice which said ‘you are my son' which are found in Mark's account of the Baptism story to be a possible interpolation by later scribes (it is possible that the original source for this reference was the gospel of Matthew). It can be extremely difficult to disentangle what was original to each gospel, and the evidence that remains today only shows us the ‘tail end' of the process, the last series of changes the church made to the gospels before they finally became ‘canonical' and set in stone. The phrase ‘the son of God' is known to have been interpolated into Mark's gospel in other places, and Mark uses the term ‘the son of man,' and this is enough to suggest (although the evidence being what it is impossible to prove) that this reference to the ‘dove' and the ‘son of God' are possibly the result of scribal harmonization.

      Mark briefly relates a tradition of Christ spending forty days in the wilderness, and then returning and calling disciples, who immediately leave all behind and follow him. (No explanation is given for Joshua's power of persuasion. The calling of the disciples is simply related.) And after this Joshua began to preach in the synagogues, and as Mark relates, he spoke with his own authority, amazing everyone, for he did not teach like the scribes (who relied on the authority of others, most likely Moses in the typical case). Once again I have doubts about this reference to ‘synagogues'. This more than likely was an addition that was taken from the Gospel of Matthew. According to Mark, Christ's missionary activity took place in the Gentile territories to the north, and he only came into Judea at the end of his life, and was promptly crucified. Mark has Christ preaching to entire cities of Gentiles. One school of thought in Matthew insists that Christ was ‘sent only to Israel.' These contradictions could be lamely ‘harmonized' by adding a reference to ‘synagogues' to Mark's gospel (thus suggesting that while perhaps Christ was in Gentile territory, he was visiting synagogues).

      Mark's Christ was so radical and so hostile to the ideology of the synagogue that it is hard to picture him preaching in synagogues for very long. This, by the way, is not the only harmonizing reference to a synagogue to be found in the Church Testament. For example, in contradiction to Paul's autobiographical account in the book of Galatians, the book of Acts portrays Paul being sent by Christ to the synagogues (and then only becoming a preacher to Gentiles after being rejected by the synagogues. The contradictions found in the book of Acts and Gospel of Luke are to numerous to be mentioned here, and in this case the evidence that allows to judge the Acts account remains in place in the Bible.)

      According to Mark, Joshua's ministry was conducted in Gentile territory. This creates problems for the gospel of Matthew later, for according to one school of thought found in Matthew Christ was ‘sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'. Nevertheless, Matthew follows Mark's opening account, agreeing, incongruously it turns out, that Joshua began his ministry in Capernaum, in Gentile territory, and uses this as an opportunity to quote prophecy from Isaiah. Later the Matthew gospel will damn Capernaum to hell (was Caupernaum exalted by being the city in which the ministry of Joshua began. No, it was not exalted, for they were all damned to hell by the gospel of Matthew.) The fact that the gospel of Matthew nevertheless follows Mark on this point indicates that Mark's gospel was written before Matthew's.

      (Note: Since writing this I have come to conclusion that Matthew's gospel shows signs of complex redaction, and it is more likely that Matthew followed Mark, and the references to 'the Jews only' were interpolations by a reactionary element in the Jewish community. For my analysis of this matter consult the page on the origins of the virgin birth story and follow the links discussing the complexities found in the Matthew gospel).

      Joshua then began touring the region and preaching to entire towns. Mark relates a couple of miracle cure stories, and introduces the concept of ‘the Messianic secret'. ‘What new teaching is this man bringing,' the crowds ask in amazement, but Christ would not let anyone, including any demon, tell anyone he was the Messiah. (This appears to be a polemical reference on the part of Mark to Christ's lack of notoriety in his time. For example, Paul had no knowledge of Christ until his experience on the Damascus road. Mark's polemical explanation for this lack of wide spread fame is to suggest that Christ was ‘keeping it all a secret', even forcing demons to keep quiet for fear they might tell the secret around.

      For my discussion of this messianic secret, you might consider consulting my page on the Christ Myth where, based on some personal experiences I have had, I suggest that 'the search for the historical Jesus' is only so hard because Christ was so oppressed. See my personal story page, for some examples of what I mean, based on my own unusual experiences, or consult my site summary page for a brief account.)

      That Mark deals first with the issue of ‘the Messianic secret' shows just how important this issue of ‘the historical Jesus' was in Mark's time, and as it remains today. Mark's gospel is carefully arranged, and this is best illustrated by the fact that after dealing with the issue of ‘the historical Jesus' at the very start, Mark then moves on to deal with the next most important divisive and controversial issue. Christ, who was supposed to be the Messiah, was critical of the Levitical temple system and broke the Sabbath (and thus was a sinner).

      Mark begins his discussion of the Sabbath controversy with a veiled criticism of the Torah system of sacrifice, and thus a veiled allusion to the message of the radical school of Jewish prophecy. (Later in his gospel, Mark will reference this radical tradition directly.) In his gospel, Mark will comment that ‘Christ only taught people in parables, and never said anything without using a parable.' It would appear that Mark, in composing his gospel, thus decided that he, too, would teach nothing without employing parables, and thus Mark employs parables in a carefully arranged sequence to discuss the controversial issue of Sabbath breaking and the Torah regulations.

      According to the dogma of the day, following the Levitical system described in the Torah, sins could only be forgiven through the payment of money to the priesthood in the temple, who would then sacrifice a purchased animal on behalf of a person, thus achieving forgiveness for their sins. According to Mark, in the opening verses of Mark Chapter 2 Christ was in the habit of simply saying to people ‘your sins are forgiven.' Needless to say the priesthood was outraged, for ‘only God could forgive sins', and the methodology for achieving this forgiveness had been explicitly laid out in the Torah regulations surrounding animal sacrifice. When you understand the amount of money generated by the temple system of sacrifice this ‘forgiving of sins' for free was not only a threat to their power base, it was also a critique of the entire Levitical system of religious rules and regulations. (Mark will make his attack on the system, and on the money it generated, explicit near the conclusion of his gospel.)

      Mark follows this parable with two more carefully considered critiques of Levitical ideology, both of which will later be made explicit in his gospel. Christ ‘ate with sinners'. According to Levitical ideology, if someone sinned they became ‘unclean'. Usually this could only be fixed by spending more money, and sacrificing an animal in the temple. Furthermore, if someone was ‘unclean' their ‘uncleanness' was contagious. Often they would be banished from the community until their ritual uncleanness was gone, sometimes for as long as a week, as dictated by the Levitical regulations in the Torah. Anyone who came into contact with them would themselves become unclean, would themselves need to cough up some cash for an animal and hire a priest to kill it, and would themselves be banished.

      Another parable critiquing Levitical regulations then follows. Christ did not keep the required fasts, and neither did his disciples. (The religious leaders were getting angrier all the time. Just how many rules did they plan to break?) In each case (forgiveness of sins for free, ignoring the ritual uncleanness regulations, and ignoring the ritual fasting times) Mark brings forward the religious authorities to attack Joshua.

      Mark then introduces a ‘mini-summation' in which he attempts to make the critiqued embodied in his arrangement of parables more explicit before he ventures to tackle the scandalous issue of Sabbath breaking. No one sews new clothe on some old garment. No one pours new wine into an old wine skin, he suggests. This parable is delivered directly to the religious leaders, who thus are portrayed as the ones serving ‘old wine' and wearing ‘old garments'. Given the context of the parable Mark is thus suggesting that the old wine and old garments are animal sacrifice to pay for sins, notions of ritual uncleanliness, and ritual fasts, all laid out in Levitical regulations in the Torah.) Mark immediately follows this summation with his critique of the Sabbath, indicating that the idea of the Sabbath itself was ‘old wine,' and Mark was not alone in thinking this way. It was a doctrine that was prevalent in the early church.

      Mark introduces his discussion of the Sabbath controversy with a critique of the ideology of sacrifice and ‘clean-unclean' ideology, probably because the monetary demands this system made upon people with all its rules and regulations (that if violated cost money) might have been the source of resentment among some people. Furthermore, people may have had questions considering the validity of sacrifice for atonement, and the radical prophets only encouraged such thinking. Mark thus attempted to exploit these doubts and questions, by using doubts about the sacrificial system to cast doubts upon the validity of the Torah law, by opening his discussion of Christ's habit of breaking the Sabbath with a critique of Levitical practice (behind this lies a veiled reference to radical Jewish prophecy that will only be made explicit later in the following chapters.)

      Having critiqued the Levitical temple ideology (using, of course, parables to do so) Mark deals with the Sabbath controversy by employing two very carefully chosen parables. This indicates first, that Mark's gospel should not be read as a literal, dry ‘historical account'. Mark is following Christ's example and ‘teaching everything using parables'. Nevertheless, there is history in Mark's gospel, it is just not directly related. For example, it would appear that there was great controversy surrounding Christ's habit of breaking the Sabbath laws. This controversy was well known at the time, and Christ's reputation as a Sabbath breaker had obviously gained him some notoriety. The theme is not unique to Mark's gospel. In John's gospel we read,

"Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." "For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He was breaking the Sabbath." (John Chapter 9 verse 16 , John Chapter 5 verse 18)

      The letters in the Church Testament also reveal that the early church had taken up the habit (and the doctrine) of breaking the Sabbath.

"One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind." (Romans Chapter 14 verse 5)

      In the following passages reference is made to the religious authorities who felt that Sabbath breaking ‘disqualified' Christ as being any sort of Messiah (or even a godly person). The writer turns the argument around, and insists that Christ triumphed over the Pharisees, therefore no one should feel that they are disqualified if they follow his example, for the commandments were ‘human commandments'. The ideological position of the writer echoes Mark's theme of the Levitical practice being ‘old wine in old wine skins.' (This notion of Leviticus consisting of ‘human commandments' is also the doctrine found in the radical school of the Jewish prophets and is stated explicitly later in the gospel of Mark, as I will demonstrate).

"Having canceled the law which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. Let no one disqualify you ... according to human commandments and doctrines ... Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians Chapter 2 verse 14)

      The placement of this Sabbath controversy right at the beginning of Mark's gospel shows just how controversial the issue was at the time Mark wrote, and it indicates that while Mark's parable arrangement might not be historical, the Sabbath controversy itself was historical (as the rest of the Church Testament also testifies.) Three controversies are thus immediately addressed by Mark. Was there an ‘historical Christ'. If so why was he not notoriously famous. (‘It was a secret,' Mark suggests. This is not ‘the answer', but rather is Mark's polemical response to the controversy.) Is the Levitical ideology of the temple system valid? The second and third controversies did not involve questions about the historical reality of Christ. It is taken for granted that he did in fact exist and preach, but he was going around ignoring the demands of the Levitical system and, even worse, breaking the Sabbath and teaching other people to break the Sabbath, and thus was an evil wicked human being who broke the ‘laws of God.'

      Mark begins his discussion of the Sabbath controversy by describing an act so scandalous that here it is very possible that we are actually dealing with an historical incident. Christ and his disciples went corn picking on the Sabbath. (Mark Chapter 2 verse 23) When you realize that people were stoned to death for even gathering a few sticks for a fire on the Sabbath, then you can understand just what a serious offence this corn picking episode was in the context of the times in which Mark wrote. As I suggested, the story is so scandalous that here Mark is probably relating some notorious actual event that was being told around by people who were suggesting that ‘this was no man of God. Remember that time they went corn picking on the Sabbath?'

      Mark's polemical response to the incident is to remind people of inconsistencies in scripture, focusing his attention on inconsistencies in Torah practice. He points out that David ate the sacred bread that was only for the priesthood, according to the law. (So there.) Both incidents have in common that they involve violations of the written law code and they both involve eating. (If you are hungry, eat the sacred bread. If you are hungry on the Sabbath, pick corn. Later Mark will summarize his Sabbath argument by suggesting that ‘the Sabbath was made for people, not people created for the purpose of serving the Sabbath laws.' The slogan ‘be more humane' seems to summarize the points he is trying to make here. Be less dogmatic about rules and regulations, and think about people and their needs for a change.)

      Mark is not satisfied to stop with just this polemical response. He carefully arranges sequences of parables to make his points in his gospel. He begins with a critique of Levitical ideology, and here he is making a thinly veiled appeal to the radical tradition in Jewish prophecy, an appeal that will be made explicit in later chapters. He immediately follows the corn picking incident with another Sabbath breaking story. The religious authorities were watching him closely to see if he would heal anyone on the Sabbath. Joshua knew they were watching and deliberately healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. (Joshua, Mark points out, was ‘angered by their obstinate stupidity.') The point Mark is making here is that if Christ picked corn on the Sabbath, and that was a wicked thing to do, well, Christ also healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and this was a demonstration of the great power of God. Only someone who was being ‘obstinate and stupid' would not rejoice to see a man with a withered hand healed, simply because it was ‘the Sabbath.'

      Furthermore, if Joshua wanted to be less provocative, less a radical, less a rebel, and since he knew full well they were ‘watching him,' he could have healed the man on the day after the Sabbath. Here Mark makes the point that Christ healed on the Sabbath deliberately. Christ was radical, and the conventional viewpoint was that God hated radicals. God must have approved of Joshua, Mark suggests, for God consented to heal on the Sabbath, and thus Mark attempts to neutralize the ‘corn picking controversy' by juxtaposing it against ‘the healing of the withered hand' story. He also emphasizes the radical nature of Joshua, his provocative activities, and suggests that those who were complaining were simply hardhearted and dogmatic. (This is a perfect example of the way that Mark carefully arranges parables to make a point indirectly, and this type of careful arrangement is characteristic of his entire gospel. Mark seldom makes a direct statement.)

      Mark's doctrine of the crucifixion is then directly introduced, immediately following this series of violations of Levitical law (with Sabbath breaking presented as the capstone to everything that came before.) The priests immediately got together with ‘the men of Herod's party' and began plotting to kill Christ. Thus Mark begins his gospel with a carefully arranged sequence of parables that, it turns out, foreshadow and summarize everything that is to follow. Christ was a radical and religious revolutionary, a Jewish prophet from the school of radical Jewish prophecy, who led first his disciples, and then the rest of the people, in rebellion against ‘the law of Moses' and he was crucified for this very reason. The rest of Mark's gospel follows the general outline found in this synopsis.

      Joshua then continued his missionary activity in Gentile territory, gathering great crowds from ‘beyond the Jordan' (ie. Syria), from Tyre and Sidon (in Phoenicia), from the Galilee, and people also began to come up from Judea and Jerusalem. Following soon after, the religious authorities ‘came up from Jerusalem' (Mark Chapter 3 verse 22) and began teaching the people that ‘Christ only did miracles because he was working for the devil.' Both Christ and the devil were in on things together. Previously Mark had attempted to dispose of the Sabbath controversy by appealing to a miracle done on the Sabbath. Now Mark will deal with the obvious objection to his defense, indicating once again how carefully arranged the parables are in this manuscript. Was Joshua only doing these miracles because the devil let him do them?

      It was a common belief in the first century that ‘the devil caused epilepsy' or ‘the devil withered a man's hand.' For this reason, Mark makes the defense that if the devil begins fighting with the devil, undoing the doings of devil, then a type of civil war would ensue that would bring about the downfall of a devil's kingdom. In otherwords, it did not make sense to say that devils were fighting against their own cause. Furthermore, Mark insists, if someone wanted to fight the devil, they would surely tie the devil up first, and then plunder his house. In short, it made more sense that Christ was fighting the devil, rather than working for him. By doing these miracles Christ was ‘tying up the devil' and these miracles paved the way for Christ to ‘plunder the devil's house.'

      This devil parable is sandwiched between two references to Christ's family. In the first reference, his family decided that he had gone insane, and tried to seize him and have him incarcerated in what passed for a psychiatric hospital in those days. The devil parable follows, and then this is followed once again by a reference to his mother and the rest of his family, who were once again looking for him. ‘Who is my mother? Who is my family,' he replied. Those who followed God were his mother, his family, even the great crowds were his mother and his family. As I noted the unflattering references to his family are wrapped around this devil parable. First his family considers Christ insane, and then Christ rejects the notion of ‘family,' and Mark even critiques Christ's mother (after trying to have Christ put in a mental ward, Mark suggests that it is those who ‘do the will of God' who are ‘Christ's mother and family.' It is implied here that his mother was not his mother, and his family were not his family, for they did not do the will of God, a point Mark will drive home again later in his gospel. Just what is Mark trying to say here? Mark did not think much of Christ's family. If they thought he was crazy, well, Christ had lots of ‘family'. Those who ‘did the will of God' were Christ's family, even if his own family did not do God's will.) Indeed Mark makes another critical reference to Christ's family later in his gospel.

"And Joshua said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own family, and in his own house." And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief." (Mark Chapter 6 verse 4)

      So then, according to Mark's gospel, Christ's family considered him insane, did not regard him as a prophet, dishonored him and had ‘unbelief'. Mark then claims that Christ's ‘true family' were those who did the ‘will of God,' which, in the context in which it is used, suggests that Mark did not think that Christ's family were doing the will of God, but rather dishonored Christ and had ‘unbelief'. One possible way to understand Mark's critical attitude towards Christ's family is that people were saying, ‘well his own family didn't believe him, so why should anyone else?' thus causing Mark to dispose of this criticism by disposing of Christ's family. As remarkable as this sounds, there is no doubt that Christ's family, even his mother, get short work in Mark's gospel. He did not like them, and found it necessary to criticize them as unbelievers, and this makes one wonder just why Mark found it necessary to do this.

      This cynical attitude towards Christ's family is unique to the gospel of Mark, and most people are probably more familiar with Luke's greatly exaggerated and (obviously) mythological tall tales about the wonderful cooperation and holiness of the virgin Mary than they are familiar with Mark's critical portrait of Mary and Christ's brothers and sisters. (Of course, the church peddles Luke, and not Mark, which would explain the situation, would it not.) The historical background which would explain Mark's hostility towards Christ's family is obscure, but for what you can make of it, there it is. There was a reason for this, something was going on here that provoked Mark, and we can only wonder what it was. If we choose to simply take Mark's comments at face value, then it was the case that Christ's family were a bunch of unbelieving trouble makers, who refused to do the will of God, and were ‘dishonoring' Christ (or so Mark tells us, and maybe the simplest explanation is that, for whatever reasons, and whatever might have been going on that we know nothing about it, that was the way Mark came to view Christ's family, and so they are portrayed in an unflattering manner his gospel and that is what he had to say about the matter. This is after all, ‘the gospel according to Mark,' and this is Mark's point of view. Personally, I am a little shocked by this feud, but you can make out of it whatever you will.)

      As I noted previously, Mark attempted to neutralize the Sabbath controversy by pointing out that Christ healed on the Sabbath, thus proving that he was endorsed by God. Mark then dealt with both the issue of ‘insanity' and ‘working for the devil' and took a few pot shots at Christ's family in the process. Mark then followed this sequence with his own parable about devils in Mark Chapter 4 . When you tried to teach certain people certain things, a devil comes and chokes it off or harden's their heart so that they never learn. He employs the symbolism of ‘teaching' as a form of ‘seed' which is planted and then grows. It is obvious by the arrangement, that Mark was suggesting that it was the opponents of Christ who actually had a devil upon them, not Christ, and this explained why they could never learn anything and why they remained so hostile and unbelieving.

      It turned out that Christ's disciples had problems understanding his parables, and this theme will be repeated again and again in Mark's gospel. ‘If you cannot understand this parable,' Joshua told them, ‘how can you understand any parable?' He then explains the parable by basically telling the disciples that a devil was responsible for making people hard of hearing. The teachings given earlier in the gospel were ‘seeds' but because the doctrine was so radical the devil could take the seed away and nothing would grow. (The disciples were obviously hard of hearing as well, given that they needed to have the parable explained, and thus, Mark suggests, were being deafened by a devil themselves. This seems to be a polemical response on the part of Mark, a frustrated radical, with the lack of understanding and lack of radicalism among the ‘disciples' of his time.) Joshua them summarizes the parable by explaining that no one hides a lamp under a basket (which would be downright foolish). Nothing that is hidden will not be revealed someday. (In otherwords, you just can't hide the truth forever.) If you have ears, then pay attention to what you are being taught, for that determines how much you will actually learn. The seed parable is then repeated in several forms (when you plant seeds you don't have to worry about how they will grow, for they grow by themselves. Even a small seed can grow a great plant.)

      Mark follows this summation with the story of a great storm, which had to be calmed. Christ was sleeping peacefully through the storm, but his disciples were beside themselves with fear. (‘Don't you care that we will all die,' they said, when they saw that he was ‘sleeping through the storm.') Their problem was a lack of faith. With a word you can calm a storm. Mark is making a comment on ‘storms' (the storm in this case the result of the ‘radical seeds' Christ was planting, stirring up ‘a storm' and creating all sorts of trouble for himself and his disciples). Mark is making a comment on faith and the power of words (it is ‘a word' that calms the storm, and Christ ‘sleeps through storms' while disciples ‘worry themselves sick'. You don't worry when you plant seeds, for seeds take care of themselves. Even tiny seeds grow into great plants, and this growth takes care of itself.)

      A parable of demonic possession is then related in Mark Chapter 5 . When the demons were cast out they went into a herd of pigs which then went thundering over the edge of a cliff. (This story is so foolish that it probably is related to some actual incident. In the story the ‘demon possessed' man lets loose a great scream, terrifying a herd of pigs, who stampede, and wind up going over a cliff, ‘amazing everyone' according to Mark.) The people then were afraid and begged Joshua to leave their area permanently. This parable seems to be another reference to Mark's ‘messianic secret'. People were afraid of Christ. They wanted him to ‘get lost.' He was not popular and they just wanted him to leave so they could forget that he ever existed. But those Joshua healed spread stories around about him. Thus, Mark suggests, if only a few people seemed to speak of Joshua this could be explained by the fact that most people were afraid, and just wanted to find some way to forget the whole affair.

      An interesting sequence of parables is then told beginning at Mark Chapter 5 verse 23. Christ had taken a boat and complied with the request of one crowd of people that he leave their territory and not return. Nevertheless another crowd was ready to receive him (on the other shore). One of the religious authorities then came to beg Christ to help his daughter, who was seriously ill. On the way to do this work, Christ was touched by a woman who had been plagued for many years by constant menstruation. Now, according to Levitical law (and thus according to the religious leader who was responsible for seeing that the law was enforced) a woman was ‘unclean' for seven days because of her menstrual cycle, and had to go into isolation, and then, every month, she had to purchase from the religious authorities a pigeon, that would then be sacrificed to ‘atone for the sin of menstruation.' (Mark will later reference these menstruation laws again and roundly condemn this practice, and it is not a coincidence that Mark chooses a woman who was constantly menstruating, and constantly ‘unclean' - an outcast then, and a social pariah who everyone would avoid - and has her touch Christ. It is also no coincidence that Mark sandwiches this story of the outcast between the parable of the healing of the religious leaders daughter. )

      The woman's faith had made her whole. No sooner did this happen, than a report reached the leader and he was he told that he need not bother Joshua anymore, for his daughter was dead. Christ nevertheless pressed on and was mocked to scorn by everyone for not throwing in the towel. Here Mark tells a story of ‘the raising of the dead'. He seems to be making some subtle commentary here. (The very idea of ‘raising the dead' was mocked to scorn, probably reflecting Mark's own personal experience with the response to his faith.) First the religious leader needed help and compassion, and after the leaders had been relentlessly persecuting Christ (even making special trips up from Jerusalem to the Gentile country in the north to persecute Christ), one would think that Joshua would hold a grudge against someone in such a position, but he graciously agreed to assist. This could be contrasted with the sorry state of a woman who was ‘unclean' and under the Levitical ban for many years. (Did anyone ever bother to try to help her? Rather she was one of the victims of the system, through no fault of her own, and because of a state of affairs over which she had no control. The religious system of the day had made her a pariah, but her faith had made her whole) The woman's faith could be compared with the unbelief of the religious leader and those around him, but nevertheless the dead were raised. Rules and regulations are here contrasted with simple faith, and a comment is being made on the religious leadership (their rules were onerous and they had no faith).

      I also find it reasonable to assume that Mark is also making a commentary here on the raising of Christ from the dead (because of the way Mark uses parable to make commentary this seems to be a likely interpretation of the story of the raising from the dead of the rulers daughter.)

      Immediately after having Christ raise the dead (or making reference to the resurrection), Mark takes the opportunity to pick up once again on his feud with Christ's family (and when I say ‘feud', I mean ‘feud' because the placement of this particular criticism of Christ's family at this particular point in Mark's gospel is not a coincidence.) Christ raised the dead. Next Mark includes the unflattering reference to Christ's family and their ‘dishonoring' of Christ and their ‘unbelief'. (Mark Chapter 6 verse 4) (In this context, following such a fantastic demonstration of power as the raising of the dead, you can easily see how poor Mark's reflection on Christ's family really is, and placing this particular parable in this particular position really drives home the point. Christ had just ‘raised the dead' but suddenly his powers were drained by his friends and families ‘unbelief' and because of them, Mark states, ‘he could do no more miracles,' which, given the context, is particularly strong criticism.)

      Furthermore, this ‘unbelief' reflects poorly on any town that will not accept Christ's disciples (he teaches his disciples to ‘shake the dirt of that town off of your feet.') Christ's family and friends had ‘unbelief'. If a town had ‘unbelief' then you should shake off the dirt from that town. It is easy to understand, based on the way these two parables are placed side by side, that, according to Mark, it would be better for that town not to be like Christ's family and have ‘unbelief'. In a sense then, if a town has ‘unbelief' you should ‘shake off the dirt' from that town, and we can see then, that since Christ's family had such powerful ‘unbelief' that they could literally suck the power out of Christ (immediately after he had just raised the dead) then in a way Mark is also ‘shaking off the dust' of the house of Christ, and encouraging everyone, in every town, not to listen to Christ's friends and family and not to behave like they did (they were a particularly bad influence, and Mark points out that they even drained Christ's powers on that one occasion, which isn't saying much in their favor. Furthermore, if the story of the raising from the dead is to be accepted as a commentary on the part of Mark on the resurrection, then it would seem that Mark is also commenting on Christ's family and their ‘unbelief' in the resurrection, and if it was true that they did not believe, then this would go a long way to explaining why Mark is so critical of Christ's family in his gospel. They were a destructive influence, as far as Mark was concerned, and because they were always spreading unbelieving stories, post resurrection, Mark found it necessary to try to ‘neutralize' them. )

      The unbelief of Christ's friends and family may have stopped Christ from working any more miracles, but it could not stop Christ's disciples, who then pick up the ball and begin doing miracles themselves. People begin to wonder about the identity of Christ (in terms of Jewish prophecy.) All this caught the attention of Herod, and Mark takes the opportunity to relate the story of Herod's conflict with John, and the execution of John the Baptist. It is possible here that Mark intends to ‘foreshadow' the crucifixion, because earlier, following the corn picking incident, Mark has the religious leaders conspiring with ‘Herod's men' to kill Christ, and in this incident, Herod executes John the Baptist, which suggests that Christ is heading straight for disaster himself. (Mark Chapter 6 verse 14)

      The sequence of parables which then follows are some of the most interesting and revealing in Mark's gospel. First I should discuss the issue of scribal harmonization, focusing on one parable in this sequence. This is the story of Christ calling a ‘Syro-Phoenician' Gentile woman ‘a dog' who he could not bother to help. (Christ was sent only to Jews, not to the dog Gentiles.) It is a version of parable that appears in the gospel of Matthew, with the difference that in Matthew's version the woman who Christ calls a dog is a ‘Canaanite'. The theme of Christ preaching in Judea, and only to Jews in any case, is a feature of Matthew's gospel, not Marks. Christ does not even go near Judea in Mark's gospel until the very end of his life. Furthermore, in Mark's gospel Christ preaches to entire cities in Gentile territory, and thus it seems strangely out of place for Mark to suddenly sound like Matthew and start calling Gentiles ‘dogs'. Whenever such inconsistencies are found in Biblical manuscripts it is an indication that inconsistent passages have been introduced into a manuscript by scribes.

      In Mark's gospel, Christ is portrayed as preaching to cities of people in Syria and in Phoenicia. Thus in the ‘dog' parable in Mark's gospel the ‘Canaanite' dog of Matthew's gospel becomes a ‘Syro- Phoenician' dog (and this is no coincidence. This is a rather transparent attempt to nullify Mark's earlier presentation by suggesting that while Christ preached in these Gentile lands, violating the dogma and contradicting the presentation of the mission in Matthew's gospel, he really thought that Syrians and Phoenicians were dogs. This ‘harmonization' fails to adequately ‘harmonize' Mark's Gentile mission with Matthew's ‘only Jews' version of events, but such harmonizations in the Bible seldom achieve their ends, and only introduce (so called) enigmatic passages which ‘puzzle' later readers.)

      This ‘dog parable' also draws attention away from a particularly strong attack on the Torah in Mark's gospel and this is no coincidence either, since Mark's radicalism and rejection of the Torah and one school of thought in Matthew's gospel, a reactionary response to Jewish prophecy (representative of one school and only one school of thought in Matthew's gospel are even more irreconcilable than their conflicting version of Christ's missionary activity. So the parable itself is out of place in Mark's gospel since it conflicts with Mark's ideological position, it is no coincidence that it is edited to refer to a ‘Syro-Phoenician dog', and it also interrupts the strongest attack on the Torah in Mark's gospel. There is no doubt in my mind (none, whatsoever) that this ‘dog' parable was an interpolation. The ideological position of this dog parable is the gospel of Matthew's ideology, not Mark's, and the reactionary attitude towards the Torah and Jewish prophecy was the response of one segment, a reactionary segment, of that community that produced Matthew's gospel, and certainly not Mark's, so choice of the placement of this dog parable in Mark's gospel (interrupting Mark's carefully planned critique of the Torah regulations) only strengthens the conclusion that we are hearing ‘Matthew' at this point, the result of gospel harmonization by the church fathers.)

      With that said, I am going to downplay that ‘dog' parable. There are some interesting doublets in Mark's gospel (two versions of the story of ‘breaking bread and feeding thousands'). These two bread parables are used to enclose and wrap around an attack on the ‘clean-unclean' regulations of the Torah as well as an attack on the ‘food regulations' (certain foods were to be considered ‘clean' or ‘unclean'). At the center of the structure is a quotation referring the reader to the radical tradition of Torah criticism found in the Jewish prophets placed side by side with Christ's direct attack on Levitical ideology. (In this way Mark attempts to strengthen Christ's authority to reject the Torah by referring readers back to the radical attacks of the former Jewish prophets.) The sequence is illustrated below.

Mark Chapter 6 verse 35 Christ breaks bread and feeds thousands

   Mark Chapter 6 verse 45 Christ walks on water (disciples fail to understand the bread incident)

      Mark Chapter 6 verse 53 Christ heals the sick (in Gentile territory)

         Mark Chapter 7 verse 1 Isaiah attacked human commandments

         Mark Chapter 7 verse 14 Christ attacks purity laws and food laws - disciples don't understand

      Mark Chapter 7 verse 24 { Matthew's Gentile dog parable, Christ refuses to heal Gentiles}

      Mark Chapter 7 verse 31 Christ heals the sick in Gentile territory

   Mark Chapter 8 verse 1 Christ breaks bread and feeds thousands - Pharisees demand a sign

Mark Chapter 8 verse 14 Summation - Disciples don't understand - beware the teachings of religion

      The story of the breaking of bread is told twice, and between these two doublets an attack on rules regarding ‘eating' is found. The summation on the boat (the disciples only understood what the bread meant, later, on the boat) uses ‘bread' and ‘eating' as symbols to attack the teachings of the religious leaders. (Beware that you don't eat the bread they baked.)

      In addition Christ heals in Gentile territory twice in the sequence (and the interpolation of the ‘dog' parable, wherein Christ refuses to heal Gentiles seems even more incongruous when considered in this light.) For example we are told that Christ landed on Gentile territory and they ‘scoured the countryside, bringing him everyone who was sick.' It is rather unlikely that only Jews got sick in those days in the Decapolis or Gennesarat or Phoenicia. In Matthew's gospel, Christ refuses to even preach to Gentiles, but in Mark's gospel when Christ entered a Gentile town ‘the whole town was there, and he healed them.' Mark Chapter 1 verse 33 That Caupernaum, for example, was a Gentile town, and not a town full of Jewish people, is something even the reactionary elements of the Matthew community had to recognize. The gospel of Matthew then damns those same Gentile towns to hell (demonstrating that they read Mark's gospel, and didn't like it), all this is not ‘harmonized' with the contradictions in Mark's gospel by the ridiculous interpolation of Matthew's dog parable in Mark's gospel. The division is too deep between these two gospels to be so simply fixed by such a clumsy attempt at ‘harmonization' by later scribes in the church.

      Earlier I pointed out how Mark attempted to deal with the Sabbath controversy through the use of carefully arranged parables (and I noted that this indicated that Mark's gospel is not an historical account, or a ‘biography', but rather is itself a carefully designed polemical arrangement of parables.) That Mark employs a doublet of a parable about ‘bread' and ‘Christ feeding people bread' and then wraps this around an attack on food regulations, and then summarizes the sequence on the boat by once again referring to bread (don't eat the bread the religious leaders are baking) suggests that once again we are reading parables Mark has creatively invented in an attempt to make a point.

      Christ was feeding thousands of people his bread. Christ then ‘walked on water' and ‘calmed a storm.' A storm was raging while Christ was ‘calmly walking on the water.' The disciples ‘were laboring' against the storm, and Christ was going to calmly ‘walk on by' but the disciples cried out in fear. When he joined his disciples in the boat the storm was calmed. And Mark points out ‘they did not understand about the bread. Their minds were closed.' The story, like the doublet of the story of ‘breaking bread' is a polemical invention, and not intended to be read as an ‘historical event.' Mark ties in the parable of the storm with the parable of breaking bread, to suggest that first, once again, Christ was stirring up a storm (of controversy) but only his disciples found this to be a problem. This is followed then by another reference to ‘bread', only this time the bread is ‘bad'. You want to ‘beware of the bread' and make sure that you don't eat the bread of the religious leaders.

      First Mark references the radical school of prophecy with a specific reference to Isaiah's critique. This reference to Isaiah precedes Christ's attack on the ‘clean - unclean' regulations in the Levitical law, and his attack on the food laws because this is Mark's attempt to tie Christ to the most radical school of Jewish prophecy, and also to ‘borrow' the authority of Isaiah and transfer it to Christ. It is also a polemical device designed to defuse criticism of Christ by inviting the read to criticize Isaiah (and this the religious authorities would be loath to do. They kept Isaiah's book, even if they rejected his teaching).

"And he (Joshua) said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.' You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men." And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition!" (Mark Chapter 7 verse 6)

      Mark is going to sum up his attack in the boat by using ‘bread' as a metaphor, both for the teaching of the prophets and Joshua (good bread, which can feed the multitudes) and ‘bad bread' which is not to eaten at any costs and is served up to the people by the ‘scribes and pharisees'. In order to drive home the point, after quoting Isaiah, Mark has Christ launch an attack on the ‘food laws' (a perfect example of a ‘human tradition', and, since these laws have to do with eating, a perfect example of ‘bad bread' to contrast with Christ's ‘good bread').

"And he called the people to him again, and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him." If any man has ears to hear then let him hear. And when he had entered the house, and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, "Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.)" (Mark Chapter 7 verse 14)

      Mark's doctrine was the doctrine of the radical elements in the early church and this concept is not exclusively found in Mark's gospel.

"Everything I know about Messiah Joshua convinces me that nothing in itself is unclean (prohibited); but only if someone gets the idea into their heads that a thing is ‘unclean' (prohibited) then for them it becomes unclean." (Romans Chapter 14 verse 14)

"If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" (referring to things which all perish as they are used), according to human commandments and doctrines? ... Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians Chapter 2 verse 20)

      It is a theme running through Mark's gospel that ‘the disciples were to dimwitted to understand.' This appears to be a polemical reference on Mark's part to the unsatisfactory lack of radicalism of certain churches he was familiar with (he considered them ‘dimwitted' disciples who kept eating the bad bread, and like the author of Colossians he asks them, using these devices, ‘why do you submit?') Mark makes two unflattering points in this sequence. ‘The disciples ‘did not understand about Christ's bread. They did not understand about the food laws, having to ask for an interpretation, leading Christ (or Mark, or the author of Colossians for that matter) to ask, ‘are you as lacking in understanding as everyone else?' After all the miracles that had taken place, the Pharisees ‘asked for a sign' leading Christ to ‘sigh deeply' and hop into a boat and ‘head for the other shore.' (Unfortunately) he took his disciples in the boat with him, and, it turned out, they were about as slow witted as the Pharisees. Mark uses this parable of the boat ride to summarize his critique of Levitical law, using the image of ‘bread' and ‘yeast' to contrast Christ's bread (teaching) and the teaching of radical schools of prophecy (such as Isaiah) with the ‘yeast' used in the bread (teaching) of the Pharisees (who he lumps in with Herod's men, a coalition of political and religious forces who relied on these teachings to control people). Mark has Joshua specifically make the point that we are not talking about literal ‘bread' here, but rather symbols are being employed that refer to doctrines. The passage echoes Christ's question to the disciples after his attack on the food laws (‘are you as dull as the rest? Do you not understand?' So then, to discuss the parables of ‘breaking bread' as though they were about ‘breaking bread' is to narrow an interpretation. As Christ would put it, ‘why are you talking about bread?' Mark employs parables to make his points, and these parables are about doctrine, not bread. The boat ride begins with Christ warning the disciples about ‘the yeast of the Pharisees,' a reference to their teachings noted above, and the disciples respond with a literal interpretation - they have no bread.)

"And he (Joshua) cautioned them, saying, "Take heed, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod." And they discussed it with one another, saying, "We have no bread." And being aware of it, Jesus said to them, "Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?" (Mark Chapter 8 verse 15)

      This is followed by a strange parable of the healing of the blind that so humiliated Matthew and Luke that neither one of them wanted to include it in their gospels.

"And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Him, and entreated Him to touch him. And taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes, and laying His hands upon him, He asked him, "Do you see anything?" And he looked up and said, "I see men, for I am seeing them like trees, walking about." Then again He laid His hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly." (Mark Chapter 8 verse 22)

      Both Matthew and Luke delete this parable for theological reasons. (It isn't powerful enough, not miraculous enough. There is a suggestion of weakness in Christ's powers. He has try that over again to get it right. How embarrassing for that church later.) This parable is a kind of doublet of a parable that appears in the previous chapter and that is also deleted by Matthew and Luke for the similar reasons (Christ uses spit as a remedy.).

"Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly." (Mark Chapter 7 verse 31)

      As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Mark opens his gospel account with a ‘miniature summation'. Christ attacks the Levitical regulations and also breaks the Sabbath, and for his radical stand the religious leaders begin to plot with ‘Herod's men' to bring about his murder. This summation is then expanded in later chapters. Mark makes allusions to the radical stream of Jewish prophecy and critiques the Torah regulations, and then makes a more direct reference to these things in chapters seven and eight, as we have just seen. It is at this point that Mark prepares to move Christ out of Gentile territory and into Jerusalem (and it turns out, right straight to the crucifixion). After having satisfactorily established Christ's radical credentials Mark now begins to foreshadow the crucifixion. Mark includes a polemical reference to ‘the cross', a reference that would have no meaning to anyone until after the crucifixion. (Keep in mind that Mark is composing a polemical pamphlet here, and not writing an historical account, nor is it a biography to be taken literally. Mark's point, by juxtaposing this reference immediately after the attack on the Torah regulations noted above, is to once again repeat the pattern established in the opening section - Christ was a religious radical and a rebel against tradition, and this is why he was crucified. The reference to the cross is reference to the persecution people can expect to face (being branded ‘heretics' in their time who were ‘breaking the laws of God.')

"And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men." And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark Chapter 8 verse 31)

      The early church was full of eschatological fervor, and believed that ‘the end was near at any time.' At the beginning of Mark Chapter 9 Mark includes a reference to the near ending of the world (an exhortation to stand firm in the face of persecution). This is followed by the parable of the ‘transfiguration' of Christ. Joshua has committed radical acts. He has broken the ‘laws of God.' Nevertheless the disciples watch as he becomes sparkling white (a sign of innocence, and a polemical reference to the judgment of God in his favor through the resurrection). Mark has Elijah and Moses come to witness the event, thus transferring their authority to Christ (Elijah as a representative of the school of prophets, and Moses representing the Law of God. In this way Mark suggests that Moses would approve of the disposal of ‘human commandments' in favor of the true Law of God. That prophecy would approve needs no comment, as Mark was obviously familiar with the radical traditions in Jewish prophecy, as indicated by his allusions to this tradition, and his direct reference to these traditions with which he links the teachings of Christ.) Mark drives the point home by having God appear in person to tell those disciples to ‘listen to Christ.'

      After the transfiguration, the disciples remain dimwitted, not understanding what ‘raising from the dead' means. This would appear to be another one of Mark's polemical references to the lack of understanding of certain churches in his time. When someone ‘rises from the dead', Mark is suggesting, you listen to them, and that is what ‘rising from the dead' means to churches. Mark's device of employing ‘dimwitted disciples' who ‘never understand' (even after the ‘transfiguration' - a symbolic allusion to resurrection) seems most likely to be a reference to Mark's own radical impatience. These churches claimed to believe in the one who ‘rose from the dead' but, like the disciples, they were caught up in tradition. As the critic in Colossians noted, they were always submitting to human commandments and human traditions, while claiming to have ‘risen with Christ.' They weren't listening and they weren't understanding, both authors suggest. Mark's polemical response is to insist that you listen to him if he rose from the dead, even if he was very radical for his time. (The prophets said it, Moses would agree, and God drove the point home by justifying Christ.)

      Mark pauses to address a controversy over the interpretation of Biblical passages. The scribes attacked the idea of Christ as Messiah because ‘Elijah has to come first.' Mark doesn't appear to have much of an answer for this attack, feeling compelled to agree that Elijah must come, and then, without elaborating on what he means, he suggests that Elijah came and they treated him horribly, as was prophesied of Elijah. Now the prophecy of the terrible treatment of Elijah is nowhere to be found in the Jewish prophets, so just where Mark got this from I don't know. He is hard up for an answer at this point, but he tosses out references to the suffering servant to try and force his critics to come up with an answer to a hard question themselves (lobbing the ball into the other court). (Mark might be referencing some non-canonical source for his prophecy of the persecuted Elijah. Or maybe he was so stuck for an answer he just made up a response - hard to say for sure.)

      Another story of exorcism follows, with Joshua's disciples portrayed as being without faith and unbelieving. This is followed by another prediction of the crucifixion, which the disciples did not understand. Mark follows this by a few teaching parables (very rare in his gospel). The greatest person in the Kingdom of Heaven is as humble and unconcerned with greatness as a little child. If anyone causes a child to sin, they might as well throw themselves into the ocean with a millstone around their neck. Anyone who is not against you is for you (the meaning of this saying is considerably different than if one were to say if they are not for us, they are against us.)

      After establishing Joshua's radical credentials, and twice foreshadowing the crucifixion at the hands of the religious leadership, at the beginning of chapter ten, Mark has Christ finally enter Jewish territory in Judea, only to be immediately attacked and plotted against by the religious authorities. (This being the case you can understand why he stayed away from that place as long as he did, in Mark's version of events.) It is at this point that Mark presents a little mini version of Christ as the Jewish rabbi. Upon entering Judea Christ sets about telling parables, something new in Mark's gospel. It would appear that Mark wishes to establish Christ's credentials as a rabbi, and thus has waited for the entry into Judea to have Christ begin delivering teachings. Mark here suggests that Christ was not against the commandments, but rather against the rules, regulations, and human traditions of the Torah. Christ suddenly becomes quite moral and very Jewish.

      The religious leaders pointed out that Moses allowed divorce, and Christ strictly forbids the practice. Later, this will be softened in another gospel, to allow divorce ‘in case of adultery' and this hardline stand will be further softened in the Church letters to allow divorce ‘if a Christian is married to an unbelieving spouse.' The disciples try to stop a small child from approaching Christ, and Christ delivers the famous speech where he says ‘allow the little children to come to me, and do not try to stop them, for to such as them belongs the Kingdom of Heaven. Anyone who will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven like a little child, shall in no way enter."

      Immediately after this Christ appears even more Jewish than ever before. He strongly endorses the commandments and gets deeply offended when someone calls him good (no one is good except God, a very Jewish sentiment for Christ to express, and due to the collision with later church dogmas about the Trinity, and conflicts with the ‘higher Christology' that begins to emerge in the other gospels of Matthew and in particular John, and notions that emerged about the ‘sinless Christ' who was a ‘sinless god,' all of which collide with Mark's Jewish presentation at this point, for these reasons there can be no doubt that this section is original Markan material.)

"And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'"" (Mark Chapter 10 verse 17)

      Despite Mark's hostility to the Torah regulations, Mark's ‘christology' is very tradtionally Jewish. Even Mark's doctrines on the Torah are very Jewish, coming as they do from the most radical stream of Jewish prophecy after all (nothing really new here, after all). The above statement on salvation is very Jewish, and it is about a million miles away from the later ‘high Christology' of the church theologians. Mark follows the teaching of the earlier Jewish prophets and suggests that salvation consists of keeping God's commandments. Someone asks Christ THE question on everyone's mind at the time, after all. ‘What should I do to be saved.' Now, Mark could give the traditional church style answer, the Gospel of John style answer (John's gospel having crowded out Mark's gospel long, long ago, and being the ‘official' gospel of church theology ever since). ‘Believe in me,' Christ could reply, ‘and you will be saved.' After all THE QUESTION has just been asked, and deserves THE ANSWER. And Christ gives an answer. But this is ‘the gospel according to Mark' so we don't get John's answer here, we get the gospel according to Mark, which is what you would expect, this being Mark's gospel, after all.

      First Christ, a true Jewish prophet, right through to the bone, gets mad that people were calling him good (you can imagine how cheesed off he would have been if some theologian had showed up to start going on about how ‘sinless, divine, and perfect' he was. Christ was JEWISH after all, and that type of polytheistic talking is appalling to Jews, so Mark captures an authentic response in this passage.) Then Christ says, in response to THE QUESTION, ‘you know the commandments.' (In otherwords, why did you even bother to ask. You should already know the answer to that question.) That all this is downright humiliating for the church and endlessly problematic for church theology goes without saying, and that makes this particular section of Mark's gospel invaluable in preserving an early radical Jewish tradition of the church before doctrines got worked over by theologians - it is interesting to note that in the process of creating this ‘high Christology' the theologians nullified the radical prophets of Israel and ‘harmonized' Christ with the Leviticus animal sacrifice, coming up with a ‘perfect God' who was ‘sacrificed to pay for sins' - only a perfect god, it turns out, being an ‘entirely sufficient sacrifice' in the words of theologians. That all this nullification and ‘harmonization' would have provoked Mark to wrath goes without saying when you read what he had to say about such practices, and the prophets who got nullified in the process would not have thought much of it either. Furthermore, if Christ was every bit as Jewish as Mark says that he was, you can understand that those theologians would have provoked his ire as well.)

      Mark once again refers to the great persecutions that will be suffered by the followers of Christ, combined with an exhortation to stand firm, and a promise of reward, and follows this with another reference to the crucifixion (as though to remind his readers that while they may be troubled, they should remember how troubled Joshua was and how he courageously persevered.) After Mark's mini-presentation of Christ as Jewish rabbi, at Chapter 10 verse 32Mark sends Christ down the road to Jerusalem and once again foreshadows the crucifixion at the hands of the religious leaders and ‘Herod's men.'

      Mark follows this was a story about political power. Two of his disciples try to get themselves the two best seats in the Kingdom of Heaven (by being the first ones with enough nerve to ask). All the other disciples are outraged at their boldness. Christ gathers his disciples together and then critiques political power (and in the context of the statement, Herod, and ‘Herod's men' coming as this critique does immediately after a foreshadowing of the crucifixion. Previously Mark had the religious authorities and ‘Herod's men' plotting Christ's death, and then he had Christ warn his disciples to beware of the teachings of the pharisees and of Herod. The teachings of the pharisees were already attacked by Mark in his gospel, and now he attacks the ‘yeast' of ‘Herod'.) Here Mark delivers a sermon on radical egalitarianism, and a critique of authority in politics and in the churches (symbolized by the attempted ‘power grab' by two disciples, who he most likely employed as proxies for certain types in the church of his day who were seeking positions of power and authority in the church. That the churches ignored Mark's gospel on this issue - as on so many others - is obvious when you consider how authoritarian and hierarchical the church leadership became in later ages.)

"And Joshua called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles (ie. Herod) lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all."" (Mark Chapter 10 verse 42)

      Mark follows this in Mark Chapter 11 with two references to Messianic Jewish prophecy. First a blind man refers to Christ as ‘Son of David' (a messianic reference, found in Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and the other prophets). There are numerous references in Isaiah to the coming of a great King to sit on David's throne, whose dominion will extend ‘from sea to sea.' Mark appears to be making a commentary here on the concept of Messiah as ‘king' coming as this reference to ‘David's throne' does immediately after a critique of political power. Mark is interpreting the prophets here, and suggesting that a Messiah will not rule as Gentile kings rule, and to expect an exercise of great power and political authority (to expect Christ to ‘lord it over' people like Herod or Caesar) is wrong.

      This point is further reinforced by a second allusion to messianic prophecy. In this case the prophecy states, ‘you Messiah comes, humble, and riding on a donkey.' Naturally enough Mark reinforces the point he made previously by sending Christ humbling riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while the crowds wave palm branches and hail him as the Son of David, the Messiah. As I noted above, Mark arranges his material with great care to make specific points using parables. (And note that this is the first time Christ has been in Judea and Jerusalem in Mark's account, a fact that becomes significant when you consider Matthew's version of events. Now if Mark could invent parables and use them to teach then there is nothing saying that Matthew could not invent a few things as well, but it would seem to me that Mark's radicalism best captures the truth about the conflicts and inconsistencies in the Bible and is certainly more faithful to the radical stream of prophecy, while Matthew's reactionary response does not correspond to reality, and really serves no useful purpose, other than to serve the Matthew gospel's dogmatic point of view about the sanctity of the Torah.

NOTE: the remainder of this page is currently under construction and will posted in the near future....