Love the gospel of Mark and Helen Bonds book over the text. It was influential in my early studies of biblical interpretation. Especially the idea of it possibly being preformed for a public audience at one point. Great work.
Thank you, Bond’s work also opened the door to new ways of interpretation for me. I think the possibility that it was performed is fascinating though I haven’t done much research on that perspective yet.
I just finished reading Islam Issa's new book about the history of the city of Alexandria, and he has a chapter where he focuses on St. Mark (of Alexandria) and his influence on the early Coptic church. My understanding is that the Christians of that time and place (Clement, Irenaeus, Origen, etc) claim that the same Mark was the author of the Gospel, but that more recent scholarship seems to be skeptical of this. Thoughts?
Various figures in the early Church do begin linking someone named Mark to a text about Jesus beginning in the early-mid 2nd century. Part of the difficulty though is that we only have fragmentary bits of the Gospel of Mark from that time and do not have a complete copy until the mid-late 4th century. So, we can't be overly confident that what those figures (Papias, Clement, etc.) are talking about is the same Gospel of Mark that we are familiar with. Another issue, in my opinion, is that the idea that someone named Mark wrote a gospel stems from Papias (early 2nd century), but scholars are skeptical that is trustworthy.
Something I always come back to is this: all of the canonical Gospels are written anonymously, names begin getting linked to them as time passes and debates about textual authenticity and doctrinal disputes begin arising in the early Church. Prominent figures in the early Church elevate certain texts over others in order to promote doctrinal/theological positions, and claiming that a gospel was written by someone who knew Jesus or knew one of his disciples was a good way of validating that text, but the reality is that by the time those debates were happening (100-200 years after Jesus' death), no one knew anything about the origin of those texts. Sorry for such a long response, hopefully it is helpful.
Yeah, that's essentially how I remembered it, but it's been around 20 years since I read any serious scholarship on the topic so I wasn't sure if new information brought anything more to light of which I wasn't aware. Thanks!
Love the gospel of Mark and Helen Bonds book over the text. It was influential in my early studies of biblical interpretation. Especially the idea of it possibly being preformed for a public audience at one point. Great work.
Thank you, Bond’s work also opened the door to new ways of interpretation for me. I think the possibility that it was performed is fascinating though I haven’t done much research on that perspective yet.
I just finished reading Islam Issa's new book about the history of the city of Alexandria, and he has a chapter where he focuses on St. Mark (of Alexandria) and his influence on the early Coptic church. My understanding is that the Christians of that time and place (Clement, Irenaeus, Origen, etc) claim that the same Mark was the author of the Gospel, but that more recent scholarship seems to be skeptical of this. Thoughts?
Various figures in the early Church do begin linking someone named Mark to a text about Jesus beginning in the early-mid 2nd century. Part of the difficulty though is that we only have fragmentary bits of the Gospel of Mark from that time and do not have a complete copy until the mid-late 4th century. So, we can't be overly confident that what those figures (Papias, Clement, etc.) are talking about is the same Gospel of Mark that we are familiar with. Another issue, in my opinion, is that the idea that someone named Mark wrote a gospel stems from Papias (early 2nd century), but scholars are skeptical that is trustworthy.
Something I always come back to is this: all of the canonical Gospels are written anonymously, names begin getting linked to them as time passes and debates about textual authenticity and doctrinal disputes begin arising in the early Church. Prominent figures in the early Church elevate certain texts over others in order to promote doctrinal/theological positions, and claiming that a gospel was written by someone who knew Jesus or knew one of his disciples was a good way of validating that text, but the reality is that by the time those debates were happening (100-200 years after Jesus' death), no one knew anything about the origin of those texts. Sorry for such a long response, hopefully it is helpful.
long responses are appreciated!
Yeah, that's essentially how I remembered it, but it's been around 20 years since I read any serious scholarship on the topic so I wasn't sure if new information brought anything more to light of which I wasn't aware. Thanks!
Check my substack about the Gospel of Mark. I hope you find some value in it.