What the book is
Mark tells the story of Jesus in sixteen short chapters, and tells it at speed. There is no birth story and no long sermon: the book opens with John the Baptist in the wilderness, and within a few verses Jesus is baptised, tested in the desert and calling fishermen by the lake. The word “immediately” comes again and again. Jesus heals, drives out unclean spirits, argues with the religious teachers and speaks in parables, and the crowds and his own disciples keep asking who he is.
The book’s first line names its subject:
The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ.
Who wrote it, and when
The Gospel does not name its author. From the early second century, Christian writers said it was written by Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter and set down what Peter taught about Jesus. He is usually identified with John Mark of Jerusalem, who travelled with Paul and Barnabas (Acts 12:12, 25) and is later found with Peter in Rome (1 Peter 5:13). Many scholars accept this tradition in some form; others hold that the author cannot be known.
Most scholars think Mark is the earliest of the four Gospels, and that Matthew and Luke both used it, since almost all of Mark is found in one or both of them, often in the same order and words. It is usually dated to the late 60s or around AD 70, near the time of the Roman war in Judea and the destruction of the temple. Mark explains Jewish customs and translates Aramaic words for his readers (5:41; 7:3–4, 34), which suggests they were mostly Gentiles, and an old tradition places them in Rome.
How the book is laid out
- The beginning (1:1–13): John the Baptist, Jesus’s baptism, and his testing in the wilderness.
- In Galilee (1:14–8:26): “the kingdom of God has come near”. Jesus calls his disciples, heals and casts out spirits, teaches in parables, calms the storm, feeds the crowds, and meets growing misunderstanding and opposition.
- On the way (8:27–10:52): at Caesarea Philippi Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?”, and Peter answers that he is the Messiah. Three times Jesus then says that the Son of Man must suffer, die and rise, and three times the disciples fail to understand.
- In Jerusalem (11–15): the entry into the city, the clearing of the temple, the arguments in its courts, the teaching about the end on the Mount of Olives, the last supper, Gethsemane, the trials and the crucifixion. At the cross a Roman centurion says, “This man really was God’s Son!”
- The empty tomb (16:1–8): the women find the tomb empty and are told he has risen, and they run away afraid.
What to look for
Mark shows more than he explains. Jesus often tells those he heals, and even the unclean spirits, to say nothing about him. The disciples are slow to understand, and the first person in the story to call Jesus God’s Son is the centurion at the cross. Jesus’s favourite name for himself is “the Son of Man”, and the saying that holds the book together is 10:45: he came “not so that others would serve him, but to serve them and to give his life as the ransom price for many”. See “Son of Man”: Daniel 7, Ezekiel and the words of Jesus.
How Open Word Bible translates Mark
The text. Mark’s manuscripts differ more often than most books’, and the draft follows the SBL Greek New Testament. Where other manuscripts read differently, a footnote gives their reading. Some verses familiar from older Bibles, such as 7:16, 9:44 and 9:46, are not in that text; the numbering skips them as the source does, and a footnote gives their words.
”The Son of God” in 1:1. Many manuscripts add “the Son of God” to the first line; the oldest do not. The draft follows its Greek text and gives the longer line in a footnote.
Angry or compassionate? In 1:41, when a man with a skin disease asks to be made clean, most manuscripts say that Jesus was “moved with compassion”; a few early ones say that he was angry. The draft follows its Greek text, “stirred with anger”, notes that Mark does not say at what, and gives “moved with compassion” in a footnote.
”I am.” When Jesus comes to the disciples across the water, he tells them, “I am” (6:50). A decision notes that the words echo the name God gave himself, and that they may be only “it is me”. When the high priest asks if he is the Messiah, Jesus answers “I am” (14:62); a few manuscripts read “You say that I am”, given in a footnote.
The ending. The two earliest complete manuscripts end at 16:8, with the women saying nothing to anyone, “for they were afraid”. The longer ending (16:9–20) is in most later manuscripts, and a short ending is in a few. The draft translates both, each set off in square brackets, with notes explaining where they come from, and says plainly that it is an open question whether Mark ended at 16:8 on purpose or his ending was lost. See How does Mark end? and When the manuscripts disagree.
The centurion’s words (15:39). “God’s Son” could also be read as “a son of God”, a godlike man in the Roman sense. The draft reads it as the title Mark has used for Jesus from the start, and footnotes the other reading.