Commentary on Mark: From The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary

By James R. Edwards

Comprehensive, accessible, and fully illustrated--this commentary on Mark is a must-have resource.

You want a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, but the notes in your study Bible don't give you enough depth or insight. This commentary was created with you in mind.

Each volume of The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary is a nontechnical, section-by-section commentary on one book or section of the Bible that provides reliable and readable interpretations of the Scriptures from leading evangelical scholars. This information-packed commentary will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Bible in your own personal study or in preparation for teaching. It tackles problematic questions, calls attention to the spiritual and personal aspects of the biblical message, and brings out important points of biblical theology, making it invaluable to anyone seeking to get the most out of their Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781493424641

James R. Edwards

James R. Edwards's teaching career included teaching Bible and theology at two Presbyterian-related colleges for forty years, during which time he authored five books for Eerdmans, one of which, Is Jesus the Only Savior?, was awarded the 2006 Christianity Today Book of the Year in Apologetics. He is currently completing a major commentary on Genesis, also scheduled for publication by Eerdmans.

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© 2012 by Baker Publishing Group

Published by Baker Books

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Ebook short created 2019

Previously published in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary edited by Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill in 2012

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ISBN 978-1-4934-2464-1

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Abbreviations

Introduction

Commentary

1. Ministry in Galilee (1:1–8:26)

A. Preparation for Ministry (1:1–13)

B. Summary of Jesus’s Message (1:14–15)

C. Galilean Ministry (1:16–7:23)

D. Jesus Travels to Gentile Regions (7:24–8:9)

E. Opposition from Pharisees and Disciples (8:10–26)

2. Journey to Jerusalem (8:27–16:20)

A. Peter’s Confession at Caesarea Philippi and the Transfiguration (8:27–9:29)

B. On the Way to Jerusalem (9:30–10:52)

C. Stories of Conflict in the Temple in Jerusalem (11:1–13:37)

D. The Abandonment of Jesus in Jerusalem (14:1–72)

E. The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem (15:1–47)

F. The Resurrection (16:1–8)

G. Later Resurrection Traditions (16:9–20)

Time Lines

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Abbreviations

Mark

James R. Edwards

Introduction

For the first seventeen centuries of church history, Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels, was regarded as an inferior abbreviation of the Gospel of Matthew. Discussions of the Gospels in the early centuries of Christianity cite Matthew and John most frequently, Luke a distant third, and Mark last and only rarely. Until modern times, church lectionaries likewise included citations from Luke and Mark only when they differed from Matthew and John, which were regarded as the two most important Gospels. In the early nineteenth century, however, careful literary analyses of the first three Gospels led a majority of scholars to hypothesize that Mark was not a servile abbreviator of Matthew but rather the earliest of the Gospels, and the primary source for both Matthew and Luke. This radical reevaluation of Mark has resulted in two centuries of unprecedented attention and a flood of literature devoted to the Gospel of Mark.

Authorship, Date, Place of Composition, and Audience

Like the other canonical Gospels, Mark nowhere identifies its author, nor even, as is the case with Luke (1:1–4) and John (20:30–31), the occasion of writing. Early and reputable witnesses, however, including Papias, Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, attest that the second Gospel derives from John Mark, who, although not an apostle, was a faithful interpreter of Peter, whose testimony was the chief source of Mark’s Gospel. This John Mark, the son of Mary in whose house the early church gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12), was an assistant on Paul’s first missionary journey. Although he quit the journey at Perga (Acts 12:25; 13:4, 13), the New Testament indicates he later traveled with Barnabas (Acts 15:37–41), was reconciled with Paul (Col. 4:10; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11), and finally joined Peter in Rome (1 Pet. 5:13). The aforementioned church fathers state that Mark composed the Gospel in service of Peter’s preaching in Rome, although he took liberties with the chronological order of some events. The Gospel must have been composed sometime after AD 64, when Peter arrived in Rome, but probably before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, for chapter 13, which reflects some aspects of the First Jewish Revolt, does not seem to reflect the fall of Jerusalem.

If Mark composed the Gospel in Rome and for Roman Christians, then his primary audience was Roman Gentiles. This is corroborated by the fact that Mark seldom quotes from the Old Testament, explains Jewish customs unfamiliar to Gentiles (7:3–4; 12:18; 14:12; 15:42), translates Aramaic and Hebrew phrases by their Greek equivalents (3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 10:46; 14:36; 15:22, 34), and incorporates a number of Latinisms.

An icon of Mark from a larger piece entitled Christ and Twelve Apostles (Antalya, Turkey, nineteenth century AD) [Copyright © Baker Photo Archive. Courtesy of the Antalya Museum, Turkey. ]

Style

The second Gospel communicates meaning implicitly rather than explicitly. Readers are not told what things mean; rather, readers must enter the drama of the narrative to experience its meaning. Mark writes in an unadorned though vivid style, maintaining a vigorous tempo throughout by linking sentences with and, again, and immediately. Mark rarely intrudes into the plot of the narrative with his own editorial comment, and he does so only when necessary to establish the meaning of an otherwise obscure point (e.g., 3:30; 7:19). Unlike the other Gospels, and especially John, which rely on long didactic units of Jesus’s teachings and dialogues, the second Gospel is action packed, portraying who Jesus is by what he does. Mark’s modest vocabulary range is augmented by several very effective literary techniques. As master of the unexpected, Mark employs irony and paradox throughout the Gospel in order to challenge false preconceptions of Jesus and the kingdom of God so that readers may experience a new teaching . . . with authority (1:27) and learn that new wine requires new wineskins (2:22). The second Gospel also achieves meaning by its artful arrangement of material. Mark often places stories side by side in order to let them comment on each other (e.g., 4:35–41 // 5:1–20), and Mark is unique among the Gospels in employing the sandwich technique—inserting a seemingly unrelated story into the middle of a story in order to make a third point by implication.

Major Themes

Jesus is the unrivaled subject of every section in the Gospel with the exception of two sections about John the Baptizer (1:4–8; 6:14–29), both of which foreshadow Jesus. The characteristic of Jesus that left the most lasting impression on his followers and caused the most offense to his opponents was his