Christianity: Details about 'Mark 1'
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Home
|
John the Baptist
Mark begins with quotes from Malachi and Isaiah . He assumes these refer to John the Baptist. All four gospels use this quote from Isaiah. It is in Luke , Matthew , and John . He describes John's activities, preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins and baptizing in the desert. He says he wore camel hair, a leather belt, and survived off locusts and wild honey. There has been much specualtion that John was an Essene, perhaps like Jesus Himself, but there is no hard evidence either way. According to Luke Jesus and John were cousins. All portraits of him paint him as certainly an ascetic, but also as a popular and respected preacher. Many people come to be baptized by John. He tells them "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." This portrait of John is somewhat the same but somewhat different than the one Josephus gives us. Josephus states that John baptized, but not for the forgiveness sins and that he was a great leader of the people, making no mention of Jesus regarding John. Jesus's Baptism and TemptationJesus is one of the many who come to be baptized. Mark introduces him without a history or a description, suggesting the intended reader already has heard of him. Mark, like all the Gospels, gives no physical description of Jesus, unlike the previous description of John. John baptizes him and Jesus then sees the spirit of God descending on him, telling him that he is his son whom he loves and is pleased with. God then sends him out into the desert to be tempted by Satan for forty days. Forty is a common numerological device in the Bible, such as the forty days of the flood in Genesis and the forty years of the Isrealites wandering in the desert in Exodus. Unlike Matthew and Luke the number of temptations or what they were are not described. Mark does say that Angels came to minister to him. Calling of DisciplesJohn is put into prison, presumably by Herod. Jesus then goes into Galilee, preaching "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" Jesus goes to the Sea of Galilee and finds Simon Peter and his brother Andrew. He speaks the famous phrase "Come, follow me,..and I will make you fishers of men." Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist according to John They follow him and then soon come upon James and John, who also quickly join the group as Jesus's followers. Mark does not relate that Jesus convinced them to follow him in any way. Mark simply has them follow him without question. John has Andrew and someone else who are with John the Baptist follow Jesus after John calls him the Lamb of God. They then bring Peter to Jesus, who gives him the name Cephas, meaning (rock) Peter. Philip and Nathanael are then called secondly, not James and John. The calling of disciples is also found in Luke and Matthew . Jesus in CapernaumJesus and the group go to Capernaum, which Mark has as Jesus's center of activity and Jesus speaks in the synagogue. He then performs an exorcism on a demon possessed man. The people are amazed. John has the first miracle being turning water into wine in Cana. They go to Peter and Andrew's house and Jesus cures Peter's sick mother-in-law. By this time word has spread and the people have brought the sick and possesed for Jesus to heal, which he does. The demons leaving the possessed people are not allowed to tell people who Jesus is, a common theme of Mark called the Messianic Secret. He then leaves town in the morning for solitary prayer. His disciples come and tell him that the people are looking for him. He instructs them to send them to the nearby villages and he will preach to them there also. He then travels over all of Galilee preaching and curing. He cures a leper and tells him to show the priests and offer the cleaning sacrifes Moses had demanded, but not to tell people that Jesus had done it. The man disobeys and spreads the news, increasing Jesus's popularity even more. He then spends more and more time in "lonely places" but the people follow him there too. This is the first of many times in Mark that Jesus unsuccessfully tries to conceal his workings by telling people to keep what he has done a secret. This passage about the curing of the possessed man and Peter's mother-in-law occurs almost exactly the same in Luke and the calling of the disciples and the leper is then reversed in Luke . The story about Peter's mother-in-law is in Matthew and the healing of the leper is in Matthew . Luke has Jesus going to Nazareth between the temptations and his visit to Capernaum and rejecting the people in the synogogue there. Matthew accords with Mark on Jesus first gaining fame for his miracles before going to Nazareth. Both Matthew and Mark have this occurring later (, Mark ). References
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||