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Viviana Penaloza
RLST 232
Professor Fotopolous
August 30th, 2020
The Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Mark is one of the first accounts of the life of Jesus and our earliest
historical heritage links this book to a scribe named Mark. Mark worked alongside Paul and
Peter and according to Papias, collected all of the eye witness accounts and recollections of Peter
shaping them into the story of Jesus. As stated before, Mark was a close associate of Peter, from
whom he received the tradition of things said and done by the Lord, this tradition of
documentation did not come to Mark a complete version of the sequential account of the life of
our Lord, rather as the sermonizing of Peter directed to the early Christian communities. Mark
accurately preserved all of this material and in conclusion, The Gospel of Mark largely consists
of the preaching of Peter arranged and shaped by Mark.
Like the other gospels, The Gospel of Mark was written to confirm the identity of Jesus
as Eschatological Deliverer and or “The son of God”. In the first line of the book Mark makes a
claim about Jesus; “the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah the Son of God”.
Mark’s Gospel stresses the vigor and determination of Jesus, the announcement of the words and
work of Jesus. Mark designed the story with three acts; Jesus ministering in Galilee, Jesus and
the disciples under way to Jerusalem, and Jesus in Jerusalem. In the acts of Galilee, it is then
John the Baptist that appears and Jesus is introduced. It is then Jesus spreads the word of God
and gains a following. Mark then gives blocks of stories showing Jesus’ power as He brings
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God’s kingdom; healing the ill, broken, or under the oppression of dark powers, and most
importantly: forgives people’s sins. Act 2, Mark goes into detail about the meaning of Jesus
being the Messiah. In this act, Jesus has many conversations with his disciples stating he will
become the suffering servant, that following him means rejecting violence and pride, and giving
one’s life out for acts of service and love. The disciples have a difficult time understanding, so in
act 2 Mark places another key story that echoes the introduction he has told of Jesus. Mark
makes an astounding claim that reiterates the purpose of his writings that Jesus, God’s Son is the
physical embodiment of God’s own glory, and Jesus is going to become the king by suffering
and dying for the sins of his own people, which leads to act 3.
When writing the Gospel, Mark had little interest in solving historical problems. When
