1:1 Jesus is introduced here as “Son of God.” Contrast this with Matthew’s opening line description of Jesus as “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” emphasizing Jesus’s Jewish roots. However, some ancient manuscripts of Mark’s gospel omit the phrase “Son of God.” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, 1973 edition, p. 1213). Note that Mark has no stories about Jesus’s infancy or childhood, as are found in Matthew and Luke.
The word “gospel” translates the Greek euangelion which refers to an announcment of good news. It is not specifically a Christian term, but was used in Greek well before the Christian era.
1:2-3 The quoted Old Testament passage is not entirely from Isaiah, as Mark claims. The first part is from Malachi 3:1 (“Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.”) The second part is indeed based on Isaiah 40:3, which reads in the RSV translation as follows: “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’ ” The “LORD” referred to here is the Hebrew god Yahweh, not “the Lord” in lower-case as Jesus is often referred to in the New Testament. However, Mark is not quoting the Hebrew version of the verse, but the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, which has the Greek word “kuriou” (= lord) instead of the proper name Yahweh.
1:7 John the Baptist foretells the coming of one who is mightier than he, but does not say that it will be Jesus. In fact, according to Luke, John did not know whether Jesus was the expected one, and sent his own disciples to Jesus in order to find out (Luke 7:20).
1:9 Here we are told that Jesus came from Nazareth to be baptized by John, but we are not told that Nazareth is his home. However, in verse 2:1, we find that Jesus was “at home” when he had returned to Capernaum. Also, in Matthew 4:13, we learn that Jesus left Nazareth and “dwelt in Capernaum.” It is very odd that none of Jesus’s recorded activities in Mark or Matthew take place in Nazareth, even though he is referred to repeatedly as “Jesus of Nazareth.”. Mark 6:1 and Matthew 13:54 mention that he returned to his “hometown,” but it is not explicitly identified as Nazareth. Apart from the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, Luke 4:16 is the only recorded instance in the Gospels where Jesus is explicitly reported as appearing in Nazareth. John 1:45 does refer to Jesus as “Jesus of Nazareth.”
Christian apologists have long been at pains to explain why Jesus was baptized by John if it was “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (1:4) Does this mean that Jesus was a sinner before beginning his ministry? Matthew recognizes this awkwardness and in his gospel tries to have Jesus explain. (Matthew 3:15). Luke mentions the baptism of Jesus in 3:21, but does not offer any explanations.
1:11 This voice from the sky is directed toward Jesus himself (“Thou art my beloved son”), unlike the voice in Matthew 3:17, which is addressed to the whole crowd (“This is my beloved son”).
1:14 Now we are told that Jesus “came into Galilee” after John the Baptist was arrested. Where had he been? Both Nazareth and Capernaum are within Galilee. Possibly “the wilderness” where Jesus was tempted was outside Galilee, but there were ample wilderness areas within Galilee that could have served as well.
Both Mark and Matthew (4:17) have Jesus beginning his ministry after John the Baptist is arrested, but in John 3:23 we find that Jesus began his ministry while John was still baptizing.
1:15 Repent and believe in the gospel. This is perhaps the only direct statement in Mark as to what Jesus’s message actually was as he went through Galilee preaching and healing.
1:16-20 The first disciples are called. They are two sets of brothers: Simon (who will later be called Peter) and Andrew, and James and John. The manner of their calling is very different in the gospel of John, where Andrew and Simon seek Jesus out rather than being chosen by him. (John 1:37-42)
1:24 As we shall see, it is often only the unclean spirits who recognize Jesus for who he is. Even here, though, the phrase “holy one of God” does not necessarily imply any divinity on Jesus’s part, but merely holiness. It is the same Greek word (hagios) used to denote the saints.
The Greek phrase translated here as “What have you to do with us?” is also used by Jesus in addressing his own mother Mary in John 2:4 (“O woman, what have you to do with me?”)
The fact that this unclean spirit recognizes who Jesus is creates an awkward connection with 1 John 4:2, which says that “every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.” Is this unclean spirit also “of God,” since it acknowledges Jesus Christ?
1:29 Mark’s description of the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law varies slightly from that of Matthew and Luke. Here, Jesus takes the woman by the hand, lifts her up, and then the fever leaves her. In Matthew 8:14 Jesus touches her hand, then the fever leaves her, then she rises. Luke’s version (4:39) also has the woman being cured of the fever before getting up.
1:30 If Simon (Peter) had a mother-in-law, then he must have had a wife, but we hear nothing about her in any of the gospels. However, we learn in 1 Corinthians 9:5 that “the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord” also had wives. See also the comment to Matthew 8:14.
1:34 Again, the demons recognize who Jesus is, but Jesus does not let them speak, thus contradicting John 18:20, where Jesus claims, “I have spoken openly to the world . . . I have said nothing secretly.” And if Jesus was not identifying himself when he spoke to the crowds, then what message was he preaching? Surely he could not have been preaching himself as Christ and savior if he kept his identity secret. In fact, we are told in verse 1:15 that his message was “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” But obviously this gospel message did not include anything about Jesus being the son of God or the savior of the world.
1:38 The RSV’s “That is why I came out” is the correct translation, and alludes to Jesus coming out of Capernaum in order to go into the neighboring towns. The NIV translation (“That is why I have come.”) by ignoring the verb’s directional prefix, misleadingly implies or at least permits a broader interpretation such as “That is why I have come into the world.”
1:44 Jesus warns the healed leper to “say nothing to anyone,” again hiding his own identity. The Jesus of the John’s gospel is not so shy, however, accepting Nathanael’s hailing him as son of God and king of Israel (John 1:49). Also, Jesus himself states that he said “I am the son of God” in John 10:36.
2:1 Jesus “at home” in Capernaum. See comment to 1:9 on the question of Jesus’s hometown.
2:10 Jesus implies that successfully healing a paralytic man is proof of his authority to forgive sins. While this might have convinced the unschooled bystanders, it would not have persuaded the scribes who questioned his authority, as Judaism held that only God could forgive sins.
But the really important theological question here is: If Jesus already had “authority on earth to forgive sins,” what was the point of the crucifixion? The conventional Christian theology holds that forgiveness of sins was possible only through Jesus’s death. But here we have Jesus forgiving sins without having made the required sacrifice. (See Matthew 9:6 and Luke 5:24 for the parallel versions.) On the role of Jesus’s death as the means of atoning for sins, see 1 Corinthians 15:3 (“Christ died for our sins.”) Also, 1 Peter 3:18, and Hebrews 9:26. Another example of Jesus forgiving sins before being crucified is found in Luke 7:48.
2:14 This Levi whom Jesus called to follow him is often associated with Matthew, one of the twelve disciples. But the verb “follow” in 2:14 by no means necessitates the view that this Levi was one of the twelve. Jesus had many “followers” apart from the twelve whom he named as disciples. And there is no Levi named in the lists of the twelve in Mark 3:16-19, Matthew 10:2-4, or Luke 6:14-16. As for Levi and Matthew being the same person, it would be quite unusual for one man to have two Jewish names, such as Levi and Matthew, as opposed to having both a Jewish and a Roman name, which was common.
2:15 Jesus sits in his house in Capernaum, dining with the tax collectors and sinners, even though in Matthew 8:20, which also takes place at Capernaum, he complained of having no place to lay his head.
2:17 Jesus justifies his association with tax collectors and sinners. Paul appears to advise otherwise in 1 Corinthians 5:9, saying “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people,” but goes on to explain that he means only the immoral people within the Christian community, not those outside the church.
2:23 Picking grain on the Sabbath. The disciples harvest grain on the Sabbath, in violation of the commandment against working on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:14). Jesus’s response in verses 25-26 sidsteps the issue by focusing on the eating rather than on the harvesting of the grain. However, there is no prohibition against eating on the Sabbath. See also the comment to Matthew 12:2. Luke’s parallel version is in Luke 6:1-5. Jesus does not claim that his actions and those of the dsiciples are consistent with the prohibition, but that they qualify as an exception. In John 5:18 we are told explicitly that Jesus broke the Sabbath and that this was why “the Jews” sought to kill him. Breaking the Sabbath is, of course, a sin, as it is a violation of God’s commandment.
2:26 The story of David, cited here by Jesus, is from 1 Samuel 21:1-6. However, “the reference to Abiathar being high priest at the time is wrong.” (Oxford Bible Commentary, p. 893.) Instead, Jesus should have said Ahimelech (1 Samuel 21:1). Also, Jesus speaks here of David “and those who were with him.” But David had no one with him when he “entered the house of God,” as we see from the question which Ahimelech poses to him: “Why are you alone, and no one with you?”
2:27-28 Jesus redefines the law of the Sabbath. Mark’s Jesus is not nearly as attached to the Jewish Law as is Matthew’s. In Matthew there are numerous references to the Jewish Law and the importance of observing it, but the only occurrence of the word “law” in Mark’s gospel is the reference to Peter’s mother-in-law.
3:5 Healing on the Sabbath. Jesus is angry, although the Pharisees have not yet said anything. In Luke’s version, it is instead the Pharisees who are “filled with fury.” (Luke 6:11) See also the comment to Matthew 12:9-13.
The anger displayed here by Jesus puts him into conflict with Paul, who lists anger (along with idolatry, adultery, witchcraft, and drunkenness) as one of the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5:20. Also, see Ephesians 4:31, which advises “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you.”
3:6 The “Herodians” would be associated with Herod, i.e., Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. Antipas became ruler of Galilee following the death of his father.
3:8 The fame of Jesus has spread all the way to Jerusalem and beyond the Jordan. So why in Matthew’s gospel does “the whole city” of Jerusalem ask, “Who is this?” when Jesus enters the city? (Matthew 21:10)
3:11-12 We continue to encounter unclean spirits who recognize Jesus as the “son of God,” but he warns them not to reveal his identity. Again, it is worth noting that if Jesus is hiding his identity from the crowds, he must not be telling them that he is the son of God and the savior of mankind. So when he preaches, what does his message consist of?
3:13-19 The appointment of the twelve disciples. Luke 6:14-16 lists Judas son of James instead of Thaddaeus, as does Acts 1:13. See also the comment to Matthew 10:2-4. In addition to James the son of Alphaeus, the Levi referred to in Mark 2:14 was also described as a son of Alphaeus, although perhaps not the same Alphaeus. Luke draws the distinction between disciples and apostles in Luke 6:13, indicating that Jesus had many disciples, of whom he chose the twelve to be apostles.
3:14-15 The disciples’ mission is to preach and to cast out demons. In Matthew 10:5-8 is added healing the sick and raising the dead. Luke 10:1 has Jesus giving the mission to a group of seventy apostles, and not to the twelve, although the instructions are almost exactly the same as those given to the twelve in Mark and Matthew.
3:19-21 Jesus out of his mind? These verses indicate that someone close to Jesus felt that he was out of his mind (or, “beside himself”) and tried to take custody of him, perhaps for his own protection. Whether these concerned individuals were his family or simply friends or followers is not discernable from the text. The Greek phrase is literally “the ones with him,” which has variously been translated to mean “his family” (RSV, NIV), “his own people” (NASB), or “his friends” (KJV). In any case the passage shows that even those close to Jesus were not fully convinced of his message.
Another variation in translations occurs in verse 19, where Jesus “went into a house,” which is the literal Greek. RSV and NASB take this house as Jesus’s “home” but KVJ and NIV translate literally as Jesus went “into a house.” It is thus unclear whether this dispute is supposed to have taken place at Jesus's home in Capernaum (certainly not Nazareth) or elsewhere at the house of some follower of Jesus.
3:22 The scribes from Jerusalem charge that Jesus’s power is not from God but from the demon Beelzebul. Beelzebul “was originally a divine title, as in the Ras Shamra tablets, and meant ‘Lord of the Mansion.’ In time this primitive baal degenerated into a powerful demon, like other pagan gods surviving in Jewish folklore. Here he is the prince of the devils, i.e., ‘ruler of the demons,’ and is therefore identified with Satan.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, 1951, vol. 7, p. 690, citations omitted.)
3:23-26 Jesus’s defense is illogical, and is based on a false analogy. He reasons that if Satan were to cast out demons, that would indicate that Satan’s house is “divided against itself” and will soon fall. However, there is nothing of the sort implied in the idea that Satan is the ruler of numerous subordinate demons and can command them to do his will. To carry the analogy further, if a general orders his subordinate officers to change course and charge this hill rather than that one, the army is not “divided against itself” but simply following the chain of command.
3:28 All sins will be forgiven. Jesus places no conditions on this forgiveness, provided that there has been no blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He does not, for example, say that all sins will be forgiven to those who believe in him, or who repent, but simply that all sins will be forgiven. In Ephesians 2:8-9 we also read that salvation does not come from any actions on the part of the individual, but that it is “the gift of God.”
But blasphemy against the holy spirit is an exception not found in some of the Bible’s salvation formulas, where Jesus’s forgiveness applies to all sins. See, for example, Acts 13:39; 1 John 1:7; Colossians 2:13.
3:31-35 Jesus denies his mother and brothers. When Jesus’s mother and brothers arrive, he refuses to acknowledge them, saying instead that his followers sitting around him are his mother and brothers. In doing so, Jesus certainly did not “honor your father and your mother” as ordered by the fifth commandment (Exodus 20: 12). By dishonoring his mother, Jesus shows himself to be a sinner, and not the perfectly pure and sinless unblemished lamb required as a sacrifice for the world’s sins.
4:10 Although Jesus was “alone” he apparently had a crowd of followers with him, plus the twelve disciples.
4:2-12 Jesus begins to teach in parables, but the purpose of the parables is to conceal knowledge from those who are outside his chosen group of followers: “so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again and be forgiven.” (4:12) Thus, the purpose of the parable is not to illustrate a point and make it easier to grasp – it is explicitly for the purpose of hiding the truth and preventing Jesus’s hearers from understanding his message, and repenting and being forgiven. That this is the intended purpose is shown by the phrase “so that” (Greek ina), also translated as “in order that” (NASB). The Interpreters Bible comments that “Mark’s theory [of using parables to obscure the truth] can only be described as perverse.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, 1951, vol. 7, p. 700) This use of parables to hide the truth appears to be contradicted just a few verses later, when Jesus says, “For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light.” (v. 22)
4:13 Even though the disciples have allegedly “been given the secret of the kingdom of God” (v. 11), they still do not understand the parable.
4:33-34 Jesus continues to speak in parables, but explains them privately to his own disciples. If the disciples themselves could not understand the parables without further explanation, after spending so much time listening to Jesus preach, how could any of the larger crowd possibly understand them? He spoke the word to the crowds “as they were able to hear it,” which is the basic meaning of the Greek akouein. The context does not imply that they were able to understand the word which they heard, and we must conclude that they did not, given Jesus’s stated purpose in verse 12. However, this is apprarently too much for the fundamentalist translators of NIV, who have substituted “as much as they could understand” in place of “as they were able to hear it.”
4:37-40 Jesus calms the storm. Parallel versions of this episode are in Matthew 8:24-27 and Luke 8:23-25. The three versions are substantially similar in the details, but Mark has the disciples cry out impatiently, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” as opposed to the more reverential tone in Matthew and Luke, where the disciples simply call to Jesus and cry, “We are perishing.” The disciples address Jesus as “Teacher” in Mark, “Lord” in Matthew, and “Master” in Luke.
4:41 As in Matthew and Luke, the disciples still do not understand who this Jesus is. They are amazed at his command of the wind and the waves, which they clearly would not be if they understood him to be the son of God. However, on this point, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all in conflict with the gospel of John, where immediately after meeting Jesus, the disciple Andrew tells his brother Simon (Peter), “We have found the Messiah.” (John 1:41)
5:2 The drowning of the pigs. In Matthew’s version (8:28) of this Gerasene demoniac story, there are two men possessed by demons, rather than just one. Luke 8:27 agrees with Mark on this point. See also the comment to Matthew 8:32. All three gospelists agree that the Gerasene people asked Jesus to leave their region after he performed this exorcism. Perhaps they shared the belief of the scribes in verse 3:22 that Jesus’s power to cast out demons came from Satan himself.
5:7 The cry of the demon, “What do I have to do with you?” is the same Greek expression that Jesus himself uses in John 2:4 when speaking to his mother Mary.
We see once again that the demons recognize Jesus as the son of God, even while his own disciples puzzle over his identity.
5:20 In contrast to his previous healings (e.g., 1:34 and 3:12) where he told his patients to keep quiet, Jesus now commands the healed man to “proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.”
5:22-23 The raising of Jairus’s daughter. This story is also told in Matthew 9:18-25 and Luke 8:41-56. In Mark and Luke we are told that the official’s name is Jairus, but Matthew simply refers to him as “a ruler.” There are several points of discrepancy among the three versions. Here in Mark, the daughter is “at the point of death” (v. 23), in Matthew she “has just died” (9:18), while in Luke “she was dying.” (8:42). Later, Mark and Luke both have messengers arriving to tell Jairus that in the meantime his daughter has indeed died, but in Mark (5:35) there are several who bear the news (“there came from the ruler’s house some who said . . .”) while in Luke (8:49) there is only one (“a man from the ruler’s house came and said . . . “). After the raising of the little girl, Jesus again demands secrecy: “And he strictly charged them that no one should know this.” (5:43). The demand for secrecy is repeated in Luke 8:56, but Matthew has no such warning, and indeed tells us that “the report of this went through all that district.” (Matthew 9:26).
5:25-34 The bleeding woman. On the way to raising Jairus’s daughter, Jesus encounters a woman who has had a hemorrhage for twelve years. The woman touches Jesus’s robe from behind and “immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” At this point, Jesus has not yet spoken to the woman and does not even know who touched him. His question, “Who touched my garments?” (v. 30) is answered sarcastically by the disciples in v. 31: “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” However, this differs from Matthew’s version of the same story, where after the woman touches his garment Jesus immediately turns and notices her, saying “Your faith has made you well.” (Matthew 9:22) According to Matthew, only after Jesus speaks to her is she “instantly made well.” So the order of the speaking and the healing is reversed in the two accounts. Luke preserves the same sequence as Mark.
Jesus’s question “Who touched my garments?” calls into question the the idea that Jesus is actually divine, as it shows that he is not omniscient. If he were really God, he would have known who had touched him. Matthew, obviously uncomfortable with this implication, omits this question from his version of this story.
5:41 Mark translates Jesus’s Aramaic words (“Talitha kum”) for his Greek-speaking audience.
6:1 Jesus returns to “his hometown” but we are not told which town it is – Nazareth or Capernaum. Luke’s parallel version does mention Nazareth explicitly (Luke 4:16). See also the comment to 1:9. Whatever the town, the inhabitants were clearly amazed at Jesus’s works and teaching. They contrast his present fame with his humble past – “Is not this the carpenter?” (v. 3). This is the only reference in the New Testament to Jesus as a carpenter. Matthew 13:55 changes it to “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” In Luke 4:22 the townsfolk ask “Is not this Joseph’s son?” It is striking here that no one has the slightest inkling that Jesus is supposed to be the son of God. Mark’s gospel has no miraculous virgin birth stories, with angels heralding Jesus as a future king and world savior, but Matthew and Luke both have such stories, and yet those in Jesus’s hometown seem to know nothing of them. Luke’s crowd obviously think of Jesus as the son of Joseph, and not the son of God. This story, if taken at face value, strikes another blow to the idea that Jesus was divine, as it shows that the idea was not original with those who knew Jesus best, and was most likely tacked on later to advance a theological agenda.
6:4 Those who know Jesus best give him no honor as a prophet. Luke 4:28-30 goes even farther, with Jesus narrowly escaping an attempt by the townsfolk to throw him off a cliff – further evidence that they did not consider him to be the son of God or even a respected prophet.
All four gospels have a version of the “prophet has no honor in his own country” saying, but John’s is the most puzzling. After passing through Samaria, Jesus “departed to Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.” (John 4:43-44) We are then told that the Galileans welcomed him because of all the work he had done in Jerusalem. So Galilee cannot have been the place where Jesus was dishonored. Thus, according to John’s gospel, “his own country” must have been elsewhere than Galilee, possibly Judah, where Jerusalem was located. This is in direct contradiction to the other three gospels, where Galilee is Jesus’s home region, and where he faced the greatest skepticism. Also, John's is the only gospel to have Jesus going to Jerusalem at any time during his ministry before the final week, when he was crucified there.
6:5 Jesus’s power is limited, as we are told “he could do no mighty work” in his own town. Matthew, obviously uncomfortable with this limitation, revises it to “he did not do many mighty works there.” (Matthew 13:58)
6:8 Jesus’s instructions to the disciples include that they should take a staff and wear sandals when they go out on their mission. But in Matthew 10:10 Jesus orders the disciples to take no staff nor any sandals.
6:10 It is easy to overlook the silliness of this saying. Jesus tells his disciples that when they enter a house, they should remain there until they leave it. Of course, there is no choice. Once you enter a house, you must remain there until you leave it. Where else could you be, if you had not left it? Perhaps realizing the solecism, the translators of the NASB have rendered the saying as “stay there until you leave town.” But no town has been mentioned. The reference is explicitly to a house, and the adverb at the end of the verse is “from there.” “There” would refer to a place already mentioned, and no town has been mentioned – only a house.
6:12 Besides healing and casting out demons, the message preached by the disciples is that “men should repent.” We are not told that the disciples preached of Jesus as the Christ, the savior of all mankind, who sacrificed himself to atone for the sins of the world. The omission is significant, as it suggests that this role was not part of Jesus’s original message but was added later. By the time the gospel of John was written, some decades later, Jesus’s role as savior of mankind had been solidified in that branch of early Christianity which became the orthodox view.
6:14 This Herod is Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great who figures in the birth stories of Matthew and Luke. Antipas was the ruler of Galilee following his father’s death.
6:14-28 The death of John the Baptist is recounted in a flashback, prompted by the rumor among some that Jesus was John the Baptist returned from the dead. The story is also told in Matthew 14:3-12.
6:19 Herodias was the wife of Herod Philip, the brother of Antipas. Here we are told that she was the one who wanted John the Baptist killed, but in Matthew 14:5 we read that it was Herod Antipas himself who wanted John dead. Mark goes on to say that Antipas feared John because he was “a righteous and holy man” (v. 20) but that Antipas nevertheless kept John safe and enjoyed listening to him. But Matthew claims that it was only because he “feared the people” that Antipas did not have John put to death.
6:31 Jesus advises the hard-working disciples to “come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.” Apparently he did not foresee that five thousand people would follow them to this “lonely” place.
6:37 Once again Mark allows the disciples a sarcastic response to Jesus. The 200 denarii would be an absurd sum for the disciples to raise, so their suggestion to go and buy the equivalent amount of bread is not intended to be serious. Presumably, Jesus could just as easily have multiplied the money as the loaves, but perhaps he was concerned about causing inflation of the currency. The remark is not part of Matthew’s version.
6:44 Jesus feeds the five thousand by multiplying the five loaves and two fishes. In the phrase “five thousand men,” the word “men” is not generic for “people.” The Greek word specifically refers to male human beings. Matthew 14:21 tells us that there were - in addition to the five thousand men - women and children, although he does not tell us how many.
This feeding story shares some features with two Old Testament stories in which God multipled small quantities of food in order to feed a group of people. See 1 Kings 17:8-16 and 2 Kings 4:42-44.
6:45 The disciples get into the boat and set out for Bethsaida, which is on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee. In John’s version (John 6:17) they are instead headed to Capernaum, which is several miles to the west of Bethsaida on the shore of the lake. Where the disciples started their voyage is not made clear. But the “sea” is actually a lake and is only about 13 miles long and 7 miles wide, so it would certainly have been possible for the disciples to have started from anywhere along its shore. See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/Galilee.html for information on the dimensions of the lake.
6:52 In Mark’s story the disciples were “utterly astounded” at Jesus’s walking on the water, but they still do not understand who Jesus is. Matthew, on the other hand, tells us that the disciples in the boat worshiped him and exclaimed, “Truly you are the son of God.” (Matthew 14:33)
6:53 Although their stated destination was Bethsaida (v. 45), they eventually landed at Gennesaret instead, i.e., several miles to the west of Bethsaida.
7:3 Another clue that the author of Mark is writing for a non-Jewish audience, as he explains the Jewish custom of handwashing before eating. However, it is also a clue that the author himself was not a Jew and was not personally familiar with the practices of Palestinian Jews, since “it was not true that ‘all the Jews’ observed this rule.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, 1951, vol. 7, p. 748)
7:18 Once again the disciples do not understand, and Jesus, exasperated with their obtuseness, has to give them private instruction. But if his own disciples cannot comprehend the meaning of Jesus’s teaching, how could the masses be expected to do so?
7:19 Jesus declares all foods clean, thus showing that his quarrel with the Pharisees and scribes is not just directed at rituals which they have added to the ones commanded by God. Designation of certain foods as unclean proceeds directly from God himself. Jesus’s argument that “there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him” (v. 15) is beside the point. The prohibition against eating certain foods is based on God’s expressed command, not on some objective standard of defilement. See Leviticus chapter 11 for a list of specific items that Jews are forbidden to eat. Paul agrees with Jesus on this point in Romans 14:14.
7:25-30 The Syro-Phoenician woman. Jesus does not go so far as Matthew, who has Jesus tell the woman that he was “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), but he still has Jesus referring to non-Jews as “dogs,” and his healing of the woman’s daughter is clearly intended as an exception to his normal policy.
7:31 This is another verse that suggests to many scholars that the author of Mark’s gospel was not familiar with the geography of Palestine, and therefore not an eyewitness to the events he describes. Tyre is to the northwest of the Sea of Galilee, about forty miles distant, on the shore of the Mediterranean. Sidon is about twenty-five miles farther up the Mediterranean coast, so in journeying from Tyre to Sidon, one actually travels farther away from the Sea of Galilee. It is, of course, not impossible to travel from Tyre, up to Sidon, and then back to the Sea of Galilee, but it is a very roundabout way to get there and would not be the normal route. Moreover, the description of going “through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee” suggests that the author had in mind that Sidon was on the way from Tyre to the lake.
7:34 Again, the author translates an Aramaic word for his non-Jewish audience.
7:36 Jesus once again commands secrecy, but to no avail, as witnesses to the healing proclaim it around the region.
8:4 Feeding the four thousand. The disciples have learned nothing from the previous feeding of the five thousand, for they are at a loss as to how so many people can be fed in the middle of the wilderness.
8:10 After feeding the four thousand, Jesus and the disciples travel to “the district of Dalmanutha.” Matthew 15:39 has them going to “the region of Magadan” instead. Neither name has been conclusively identified with a specific location. However, the town of Magdala was situated on the west coast of the lake, and we cannot rule out the possibility that both Dalmanutha and Magadan refer either to Magdala or the region surrounding it.
8:11 The Pharisees once again come forth to argue with Jesus. We are not told where they came from, but they keep popping up to oppose Jesus wherever he goes. Although the gospels portray the Pharisees as excessively rigid and legalistic as to ritual observances, in fact they “sought greater flexibility rather than rigidity in matters of Torah observance.” (L. Michael White, From Jesus to Christianity, San Francisco: Harper, 2004, p. 80.) See White, pp. 78-80 for additional background on the Pharisees and the discrepancy between their portrayal in the gospels and their actual teaching.
8:12 Jesus declares that “no sign shall be given to this generation.” Yet in chapter 13, he proceeds to describe many signs of the end which will occur before “this generation” passes away. Luke and Matthew allow an exception, saying that no sign will be given “except the sign of Jonah.” (Luke 11:29; Matthew 12:39). In contrast to Jesus’s statement here, in the fourth gospel Jesus gives many signs to show that he was indeed sent from God. See, for example, John 4:46-50; 12:37; 20:30
8:14 Once again, Matthew’s version tells us that there were women and children, in addition to the four thousand (Matthew 15:38). In contrast to the story of the five thousand (6:44), Mark tells us here that “four thousand” were fed, without specifying that they were all men.
8:15 Speaking figuratively, Jesus warns the disciples to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” In Matthew 16:6, the warning is against the leaven of “the Pharisees and Sadducees,” and in Luke 12:1, the warning is against the Pharisees only. But in spite of these warnings, Jesus tells his followers in Matthew 23:3 to “practice and observe whatever they [the scribes and Pharisees] tell you.”
8:16 The disciples discuss the fact that they have no bread. We are not told what they did with the seven large baskets of leftovers from feeding the four thousand.
8:17 Here and in verse 21 Jesus again scolds the disciples for not understanding his teaching. So why did Jesus choose these particular men as disciples, knowing that they would not understand? How could they have been effective missionaries if they are so lacking in understanding of what Jesus taught? Perhaps Jesus was just not a very effective teacher.
8:23-25 The botched healing of a blind man. Jesus attempts to cure a blind man by spitting into his eyes, but needs a do-over, because the first attempt fails. After the first try, the man tells Jesus that people appear as “trees walking.” Jesus tries again, and the man’s vision is finally restored. This is a very awkward story for Christian apologists, as it suggests that Jesus’s power was limited. Although many of Mark’s stories were incorporated into Matthew and Luke’s accounts, both of them have left out this particular episode.
8:27 The villages of Caesarea Philippi. Jesus takes his movement north. Caesarea Philippi is about twenty miles north of the Sea of Galilee.
8:28 If the purpose of the ministry in Galilee was to spread the word about Jesus as savior, it has failed in a big way, because people still did not know who he was. They variously believed that he was John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the old Hebrew prophets. But we still don’t find in Mark’s gospel a clear description of what exactly Jesus was teaching as he went through Galilee healing the sick and casting out demons – except for the brief statement in 1:15. His emphasis on secrecy indicates that he was not preaching anything close to what we read in John 3:16, which is as succinct a summary of orthodox Christian belief as one can find anywhere in the Bible.
8:29 Many see this as a turning point in Mark’s gospel, as Jesus is finally recognized by Peter as “the Christ.” Note that Jesus does not say whether Peter is correct in this supposition. Also, it is not clear what Peter means, or what the author of the gospel implies, by the term “Christ.” “Christ” is the Greek equivalent of “messiah” which is a Hebrew term whose meaning shifted over time. It literally means “anointed one” and was used in referring to the ancient Hebrew kings, who were anointed with oil when they became king. Later, after the fall of the Hebrew monarchy and occupation of Israel by foreign empires, it came to refer to a future king who would hail from David’s line and lead Israel to independence and glory among all nations. The word “messiah” does not mean “savior” and was not understood as such by Jews in the pre-Christian and early Christian period. It certainly did not mean a divine figure who would sacrifice himself to atone for the sins of the world. However, in Christian hands the term has been modified and applied to Jesus in this sense. So to have Peter identify Jesus as “the Christ” does not tell us a lot about who Peter actually believed Jesus to be, or who the author of Mark believed him to be. It is entirely possible that Peter understood Jesus to be the long awaited Davidic king who would lead an uprising of the Jewish people to take back the homeland from the pagan Roman occupiers. It is also entirely possible that this is what Jesus believed his own role to be. Matthew’s version modifies Peter’s response to “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) Luke’s version has Peter identifying Jesus as “the Christ of God,” i.e., “the anointed one of God” (Luke 9:20).
8:30 Jesus still insists on secrecy, even after Peter has identified him as “the Christ.”
8:31 The Son of Man must suffer. Jesus tells the disciples that he must suffer and die and rise again after three days, but does not explain why. John’s gospel contradicts on this point, saying that even after Jesus’s crucifixion, the disciples still “did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” (John 20:9)
“Son of Man” is the title by which Jesus most often refers to himself in the gospels. The phrase appears in the Old Testament (e.g., Numbers 23:19, Isaiah 56:2), where it seems to be a synonym for “man.” However, this is not the sense in which Jesus uses it in the gospels. For Jesus, the term is clearly intended to imply some type of divine or supernatural nature, as shown in Mark 8:38; 13:26, and 14:62. Thus, the New Testament image is much closer to the use of the phrase in Daniel 7:13, except that the vision in Daniel is not of “the Son of Man,” but “one like a son of man.” Oddly, the title is always spoken by Jesus himself and not by anyone else referring to him, except for two instances. One of these exceptions is found in Acts 7:56 where Stephen claims to look up to heaven and see the “Son of Man” standing at the right hand of God. The other is in John 12:34, where the crowd throws the phrase back at Jesus, asking “Who is this Son of Man?” The phrase appears twice in the book of Revelation (1:13 and 14:14) but the usage echoes that of Daniel (“one like a son of man”) rather than of Jesus. The precise meaning of “Son of Man” as Jesus used it remains a mystery, despite much speculation among the theologians. The Catholic Encyclopedia observes that “in the time of Christ it was not very widely, if at all, known as a Messianic title.” (See the article “Son of Man,” in Catholic Encyclopedia online.)
In saying that he will be killed and rise again after three days, Jesus contradicts the resurrection stories in all gospels, which testify to an empty tomb less than 48 hours after he is taken down from the cross.
8:34 The audience would have had no idea what Jesus was talking about when he challenged them to take up their cross and follow him. Jesus had not yet been crucified, so the cross as a symbol for Jesus’s death and suffering would have had no meaning for those listening to him.
8:35-36 Some English translations (e.g., KJV, NASB, NIV) have for verse 36: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” This sets up an apparent contrast between saving one’s “life” in verse 35, and losing one’s “soul.” However, the Greek text has the same word (psyche) in both instances. The word can mean either “life” or “soul” but the choice is one of interpretation. The RSV renders it as “life” in both verses.
9:1 A failed prediction. One of several verses where Jesus predicts that the kingdom of God will arrive during the lifetime of the generation he is speaking to. Some of the very people listening to Jesus would still be alive when the kingdom of God arrives. This saying also appears in Matthew 16:28 and Luke 9:27. Needless to say, the prediction never came true. See also the comments to Matthew 24:34 and Mark 13:30.
9:2 Mark tells us that the transfiguration was six days after Jesus spoke the words recorded in 9:1. Matthew 17:1 agrees, but Luke 9:28 reports that the interval was eight days, instead of six.
9:3 In the “transfiguration,” Jesus’s garments became extremely bright, and he was visited on the mountaintop by Elijah and Moses. In Matthew’s version, Jesus’s face shines brightly as well. (Matthew 17:2) The theological significance of this event is debated even among Christians. For more background, see the comment to Matthew 17:1-8.
9:7 There are slight variations among the three gospels in the quoted words from the cloud. Here we have “This is my beloved son; listen to him.” Matthew 17:5 has "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." Finally, Luke’s version (9:35) is: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
9:11 In Malachi 4:5, God says, “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.” Jesus claims here that Elijah has already come. In Matthew 17:13 we learn that Jesus was speaking of John the Baptist, but in John 1:21, John the Baptist denies being Elijah.
9:19 Jesus once again shows his exasperation with the disciples, who were unable to cast out the evil spirit.
9:23 Jesus teaches here that “all things are possible to him who believes.” But this contradicts Matthew 19:26, where Jesus tells his disciples, “With men this is impossible,” speaking of whether a rich man can enter into the kingdom of God.
9:29 Jesus tells the disciples that “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” But that is not how Jesus cast it out. In verse 25 he used no prayer, but simply rebuked the spirit and commanded it to come out of the boy. And the reason he gives here contradicts the reason given in Matthew 17:20 where the disciples’ failure was due to their “little faith.”
9:31 Jesus once again predicts that he will be killed and will rise again after three days. But this message is only for the disciples, and not for public consumption. In verse 30 we find that Jesus is trying to avoid the crowds.
9:32 Why were the disciples afraid to ask Jesus what he meant? Could it be because Jesus was always complaining about how dimwitted they were? (E.g., 4:13; 7:18; 8:17; 9:19)
9:40 “He who is not against us is for us.” But in Matthew 12:30 Jesus teaches just the opposite, that “He who is not with me is against me.” Luke has both sayings, either unaware or unconcerned that they are contradictory: “He that is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:50) “He who is not with me is against me.” (Luke 11:23)
9:43-47 These are the only verses in the gospel of Mark where “hell” is mentioned. In the Greek text the actual word is Gehenna, which is not a Greek word at all, but a Semitic name referring to the “Valley of Hinnom.” It was known in ancient times as the place of worship of the Canaanite gods Molech and Baal. “This worship consisted of sacrificing children by passing them through a fire . . . and into the hands of the gods. . . . [It] later contained the continually burning fires of a refuse dump.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, New York: Doubleday, 1992, vol. 2, p. 927.) Over time, presumably through these associations, it became identified as a place of eternal torment for deceased souls.
10:1 Jesus departs from Capernaum and heads for Jerusalem, in “the region of Judea,” where he will meet his end at the hands of the Romans.
10:4 The Pharisees are not quoting a direct commandment of Moses here, but their comments on divorce are based on Deuteronomy 24:1-4.
10:9-12 Jesus rules against divorce. Here he grants no exceptions to the prohibition, but in Matthew’s parallel version, he says that “every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress.” (Matthew 19:9. Also see Matthew 5:32.)
10:14 Note that the language of the KJV – “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” – has nothing to do with suffering children. When the KJV translation was written, “suffer” meant to "permit" or "allow." Thus the RSV translation, “Let the children come to me,” conveys the correct meaning in modern English.
10:18 Jesus asks the young rich man, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Thus Jesus recognizes a distinction between himself and God, while implying that he himself is not good - or at least not as good as God. It is impossible to reconcile this statement with the doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus and God cannot be co-equal parts of a single divinity if they are distinct, and if only one of them is “good.” These words of Jesus are also given in Luke 18:19, but Matthew’s version modifies them to play down the difference between Jesus and God, rendering Jesus’s question as, “Why do you ask me about what is good?” (Matthew 19:16-17)
10:19 Of the commandments quoted here by Jesus, “Do not defraud” is not one of the ten commandments listed in Exodus 20:2-17, and commandments one through four, as well as the tenth, are omitted here. However, Jesus does not specifically say that he is referring to the ten commandments. Leviticus 19:11 does contain a prohibition against “dealing falsely” with another.
10:21 Jesus counsels the young man to sell what he has and give it to the poor in order to be admitted to the kingdom of God. But we learned in Mark 2:15 that Jesus had a house in Capernaum. Why has he not sold his own house and given the proceeds to the poor?
10:30 After telling the disciples how hard it will be, indeed impossible, for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (vv. 23, 25), Jesus now dilutes his message by telling them that whoever gives up his family and possessions for him and for the gospel, will be rewarded not only in the afterlife, but “in this time,” with houses, farms, children, and relatives. So it appears that giving up one’s earthly possessions is only temporary, and that some rich men will make it into the kingdom of God after all.
10:33-34 Referring to himself as the “Son of Man,” Jesus again predicts that he will be captured and killed, and after three days will rise again. This seems to make no impression on his loyal followers James and John, who are preoccupied with their own positions, hoping to sit on Jesus’s right and left hand in his kingdom. (vv. 36-37) Matthew’s version attributes the request to the mother of James and John, rather than to the disciples themselves. (Matthew 20:20-21)
10:40 Jesus states that he does not have the authority to grant privileged positions to the disciples in the kingdom of God, showing once again that he is subordinate, and not equal, to God the Father. Note as well that seats in the kingdom are for those “for whom it has been prepared.” It would appear then that the rolls in heaven have already been drawn up, and that whether we get to heaven does not depend on anything we do, but on whether a place has been prepared for us.
10:45 For the first time, Jesus hints at the reason for his coming death, which will be “a ransom for many.” The same phrase appears also in Matthew 20:28. There is only one other passage in the New Testament where Jesus’s death is described as a “ransom,” and that is in 1 Timothy 2:5-6.
10:46-52 The healing of Bartimaeus. The same story appears in Matthew and Luke, with minor discrepancies. In Matthew 20:30 there are two blind men sitting by the road, and Luke 18:35 has the healing take place as they are entering Jericho, rather than leaving it.
11:1-2 The entry into Jerusalem and the stealing of the donkey. This is Jesus’s first visit to Jerusalem, according to Mark’s gospel, in contrast to the gospel of John, where Jesus makes a total of four trips throughout his ministry. (John 2:13; 5:1; 7:14; 12:12) Preparing to enter the city, Jesus covets another person’s “colt,” (i.e., a young donkey) in violation of the tenth commandment which prohibits coveting another person’s belongings. (Exodus 20:17)
11:3 “The Lord has need of it.” This is one of the very few passages in Mark where Jesus is referred to as “Lord,” in contrast to Matthew, Luke, and John where the title appears numerous times. Two additional instances of its use, in Mark 16:19-20, occur in a section that most scholars do not believe was part of Mark’s original gospel. Note that in verse 9, the crowds hail Jesus as “he who comes in the name of the Lord,” but not as “the Lord” himself.
11:5-6 This passage cannot be interpreted as meaning that the colt’s owners gave permission for it to be taken. The persons mentioned are not the owners, but “some of those standing there” in the literal translation of the Greek – i.e., bystanders. And the verb is correctly translated in KJV and RSV as “they let them go,” not as “they gave them permission” which is the rendering in NASB. In Luke 19:33 the colt’s owners are present, but after asking “Why are you untying the colt?” they do not give any permission for it to be taken. We are left with the fact that Jesus coveted another person’s donkey/colt, violating the tenth commandment, and quite likely took it without permission, violating the eighth commandment against stealing.
11:13-14 Cursing the fig tree. Mark has this event occur before the disruption in the temple, whereas Matthew has the order reversed. (Matthew 21:12-19) Another discrepancy between the two versions: In Matthew the fig tree withers immediately when Jesus curses it, but in Mark the disciples do not notice the fig tree withered until the next morning. (11:20-21) It is not at all clear why Jesus cursed the fig tree in the first place, for as Mark tells us (v.13) “it was not the season for figs.” This passage vividly underscores the fact that the caricature of Jesus as meek and mild is not supported by Mark’s gospel.
11:15 Disruption of the temple. There were good reasons for the presence in the temple of those who sold pigeons and exchanged money. Animals were needed in the performance of Jewish ritual sacrifices (see Deuteronomy 14:24-25), and Roman coins had to be exchanged for Jewish money in order to pay the temple tax. The activities that Jesus disrupted supported Jewish religious practices and were not in any way sacrilegious. There is no evidence from the text that the traders were extorting exorbitant fees from the worshipers, which some apologists have claimed as justification for Jesus’s behavior. See also the comment to Matthew 21:12.
11:18 After Jesus’s disruption of temple activities, the chief priests and scribes look for an opportunity to destroy him. Note that the “chief priests” are a different group from the Pharisees, who have been Jesus’s debate opponents up until this point. However, recall that the Pharisees also were reported to have sought a way to destroy Jesus in verse 3:6, after Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath.
11:20-21 Only now do the disciples see the fig tree withered up, as a result of the curse Jesus placed on it in 11:14.
11:24 Jesus promises that anything asked for in prayer will be granted – if the supplicant only believes strongly enough. Obviously, this is contradicted by experience every time that a believer prays for something that is not granted. It is, of course, easy enough for Christians to wiggle out of this difficulty by simply arguing that ungranted prayers indicate that the necessary belief just wasn’t there. But Jesus repeatedly promises his followers that prayers will not only be answered, but granted. See, for example, Matthew 18:19; 21:22; Luke 11:9. Note that the promise in Luke is not conditional on the strength of belief behind the request.
11:25 This verse implies that forgiving others is a necessary condition to receiving forgiveness for one’s own sins. Verse 26, which is not included in all the Greek manuscripts, goes even further, declaring that “if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” These verses call into question the orthodox view of salvation, which requires only that a person believe in Jesus’s death and resurrection, without requiring any additional action in order to be saved. (See for example, John 3:16, as the classic statement of the orthodox view of salvation.)
11:28 The question is rhetorical. The chief priests obviously do not believe that anyone gave Jesus authority to disrupt the temple activities.
12:12 Unlike Jesus’s disciples, who puzzle over the meaning of his parables, the chief priests and scribes understand perfectly that this parable is directed at them.
12:29-31 Although there is nothing in the Old Testament to indicate that any commandment is more important than any other, Jesus does not hesitate to name the top two. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” is from Deuteronomy 6:4, and “Love your neighbor as yourself” is from Leviticus 19:18. Interestingly, neither of these made it into the Ten Commandments as listed in Exodus chapter 20, and repeated in Deuteronomy chapter 5.
12:35-37 Jesus challenges the notion that the Christ (i.e., the Messiah) will descend from the house of David, or that he can accurately be described as the “son of David.” However, this contradicts Paul’s claim in Romans 1:3 that the Son of God “was descended from David according to the flesh.” Also, Matthew 1:1 refers to Jesus as “the son of David,” and Luke 1:32 foretells that Jesus will receive the “throne of his father David." See also the comment to Matthew 22:44.
13:2 While the disciples admire the buildings of the temple, Jesus predicts their destruction. In verse 4, the disciples ask when this will happen, and Jesus launches into an apocalyptic discourse that leads to a prediction that was supposed to come true during the lifetime of that generation. But the prediction is a failed prophecy, as we shall see.
13:21-22 Jesus warns to beware of false prophets claiming to be the Christ. But how will we recognize the real one? The answer comes in the following verses.
13:24-27 This is what the return of the real Christ will look like, according to Jesus. The sun and moon will go dark; stars will fall from the sky, and the Son of Man will come in the clouds with his angels who will gather all the elect together from the farthest ends of the earth. If it actually happened, it would have been hard to miss.
13:30 The failed prediction. Jesus tells the disciples that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” In other words, some of those alive when Jesus spoke would be witness to the extinction of the sun, the falling of the stars, and the Son of Man (i.e., Jesus) coming in clouds of glory with his angels. It is the same prediction found in Matthew 24:34 and Luke 21:32. Of course, none of this happened, and the apologists have invented many contortious arguments to escape the obvious consequences. In Greek “this generation” means essentially the same as what it means in English, and there is no plausible argument for stretching it to mean anything different. More than any other passage in the New Testament, this verse and the others like it demonstrate the falsehood of the Christian belief in the second coming of Jesus. For more, see the comment to Matthew 24:34.
13:32 Like Matthew 24:36, this verse is cited by the apologists to claim that Jesus was not making a specific prediction after all in Mark 13:30 and Matthew 24:34. However, not knowing the exact day or hour does not nullify Jesus’s prediction that all will be fulfilled within a generation. The prediction still stands, and was glaringly false. There is an additional pitfall for the fundamentalists in this verse, in that Jesus again draws a distinction between himself and God in terms of their knowledge of the exact timing of the end. God the Father knows exactly when the end will be, but Jesus the son only knows that it will occur within a generation. Such a distinction is inconsistent with the Trinitarian idea that Jesus and God share equally in the divine nature. Jesus is not omniscient, even according to the gospel.
13:37 Jesus warns the disciples to remain alert for the coming of the kingdom. But they stayed alert for nothing, for now they are all dead, and the kingdom never came.
14:3-8 The woman with the ointment. This story appears in all four gospels, with major discrepancies in the details. Mark and Matthew (26:6-13) are in substantial agreement: Two days before Passover, while in Bethany at the house of Simon the Leper, Jesus has expensive oil poured over his head by a woman in the house. Some complain that the expensive ointment could have been sold for a large sum of money which could have been given to the poor. (In Matthew the complainers are identified as “the disciples.”) But Jesus maintains that the woman has done a beautiful thing for him, and that they will always have the poor with them, but will not always have Jesus. By contrast, Luke 7:36-50 puts the event in the house of a Pharisee, and makes a point of labeling the woman a sinner. She anoints his feet, instead of his head. The timing in Luke is also different, occurring early in Jesus’s ministry, before the entry into Jerusalem. John’s gospel (12:1-8) has the incident taking place six days before Passover – not two - also in Bethany, but the house is that of Lazarus, whom Jesus had recently raised from the dead. In John's version, the woman with the ointment is identified as Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and she anoints the feet, not the head, of Jesus. Once again a complaint is raised about the wasting of expensive oil that could have been sold to help the poor, but it is only Judas Iscariot who complains, and we are told he had no real concern for the poor, but just wanted to sell the oil and keep the money for himself. There are enough similarities in the four versions to support the idea that they are all intended to be the same story, but the discrepancies are such that the details cannot be reconciled.
Translation note: Apparently having Jesus sit down at table with a leper was too much for the NIV translators to contemplate, as they have rendered the host’s name in 14:3 as “a man known as Simon the Leper,” rather than “Simon the leper.” The NIV version of Matthew 26:6 has the same substitution. “Simon the leper” is the accurate and literal translation of the Greek in both cases.
When Jesus says in 14:7 that “you always have the poor with you,” he is not stating a sociological opinion about the pointlessness of helping the poor. He is simply contrasting the enduring presence of the poor with his own imminent departure. Since Jesus will be taken from them in the very near future, it is justifiable in his view that the oil should be used for his own comfort. It is hard to imagine John the Baptist making the same choice if he were in Jesus’s position.
14:10-11 Judas agrees to hand Jesus over to the chief priests, who “promised” to give him money. Nowhere in Mark’s narrative are we told how much money, nor is the money actually paid out. In Matthew 26:15, Judas receives his thirty pieces of silver right away, as soon as he makes the deal with the high priests. In Luke 22:3-6 Judas also receives only a promise, but Luke adds that Satan entered into Judas right before he sought out the chief priests. John’s gospel also has Satan entering Judas before meeting with the chief priests. Satan does not figure at all in the Judas stories of Mark and Matthew.
What exactly Judas did to “betray” Jesus remains a mystery, because the chief priests and scribes and Pharisees all knew who Jesus was, and he was often seen preaching and healing in public. Acts 1:16 refers to Judas as a “guide to those who arrested Jesus,” but if the authorities had wanted to seize him at any time they could have done so without Judas’s help. We are told in several places that they refrained from seizing Jesus because they “feared the people” (Matthew 21:46; Mark 12:12; Luke 20:19) and not because they needed an insider to “betray” him. The whole notion that Jesus’s capture depended on Judas “betraying” him is illogical.
14:12-18 Jesus joins the disciples in the Passover meal. But in John 19:14, Jesus was already in custody on “the day of preparation of the Passover,” and John 18:28 notes that the Jewish high priests refrain from entering the residence of the Roman governor (Pontius Pilate) with Jesus because they would thus become ritually unclean and unable to eat the Passover meal. So the chronology between Mark and John is inconsistent as to whether or not Jesus ate the Passover meal before he was crucified. Both Matthew 26:18 and Luke 22:8 are in agreement with Mark in reporting that Jesus ate the Passover meal with the disciples before he was arrested. Paul’s brief account in 1 Corinthians 23-26 does not mention Passover at all.
14:13-14 The instructions given here by Jesus are different from those reported in Matthew. In Mark’s account Jesus tells the disciples to follow a man carrying a jar of water into a house, and to ask the owner of the house, “Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the passover with my disciples?” Luke agrees, but Matthew 26:18 has Jesus instructing the disciples to say to the man, “My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.”
14:17 Jesus enters Jerusalem in the evening to eat the Passover meal, meaning that he spent the day outside the city. But according to Luke 21:37, Jesus spent his days in the city teaching at the temple, and customarily left to spend the nights on the Mount of Olives.
Here we are told that Jesus came with the twelve to eat, but he had already sent two of them ahead. So in order for this to be correct, we must assume that the two who were sent ahead and prepared the meal in v. 16, must have left the prepared meal unattended and returned to join Jesus and the other ten, before making the trek back into town to eat.
14:27-29 After the supper, Jesus predicts that the disciples will all desert him, then announces that he will rise from the dead and meet them in Galilee. Amazingly, the disciples all ignore this comment, and Peter continues with the previous topic, responding that he, at least, will not desert Jesus. Some scholars see this as evidence that the prediction of a post-resurrection appearance in Galilee was not in Mark’s original version, but was inserted later by another editor, perhaps to rebut the tradition in Luke where all the post-resurrection appearances were in and around Jerusalem, and in support of Matthew’s version where the risen Jesus meets the disciples in Galilee. A similar insertion is evident in the context of Mark 16:6-8, where in verse 7 an angel tells the women at the empty tomb to go tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee as previously foretold. Again, the women react in verse 8 as though no such instruction had been given. Instead they ignore the angel’s words, and instead are gripped with fear, telling no one what they saw and heard. See further discussion in The Interpreter’s Bible, 1951, vol. 7, p. 879.
14:30 Here Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him three times before a cock (i.e., rooster) crows twice. In the other three gospels, the cock crows only once. (Matthew 26:34, 74; Luke 22:34, 60; John 13:38, 18:27)
14:32-42 Jesus in Gethsemane. It is simply astounding that this episode was allowed into the New Testament, for it shows with striking clarity the human nature of Jesus as an unwilling participant in a divine plan that seems to be going awry. Apologists will claim that this simply reinforces the suffering aspect of Jesus’s mission, and increases the pathos of his sacrifice. But this is not at all what the Gethsemane episode reveals. Jesus is shown to be a man, not a god, with human emotions, distressed at the situation he finds himself in, and asking God to let him out of it if at all possible. This portrayal contrasts so vividly with what became the orthodox view of Jesus’s role (especially as portrayed in the gospel of John) that all the the other gospels modify or completely omit the words of Mark’s Jesus, which show him to be less than fully supportive of the divine plan.
14:33 Jesus is “amazed.” The Greek word here is ekthambeisthai, which is correctly translated in the KJV as “amazed.” Most of the modern translations say instead that Jesus was “distressed.” E.g., RSV, NASB, NIV. However, William D. Mounce’s The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993, p. 171) only lists the following meanings: “to be amazed, astonished, awe-struck.” “Distressed” does not appear in the definition at all. In the New Testament, the Greek word only occurs in Mark, and in each of those other instances the RSV and NASB always translate it as “amazed” while the NIV keeps the same general meaning but uses the synonyms “overwhelmed with wonder” or “alarmed.” (The other occurrences are in Mark 9:15 and 16:5-6.) It is only here in Gethsemane that “distressed” is substituted for the proper meaning.
The translation issue in this verse raises embarrassing questions for the orthodox theologians. From their perspective, it is bad enough that Jesus is distressed and troubled, for this shows that his own desires are not the same as God’s. He admits as much when he says in verse 36, “not what I will, but what thou wilt.” But if Jesus is also amazed, it means that he does not have foreknowledge of what is happening, and that the situation he finds himself in is different from what he expected. This would be perfectly understandable if Jesus thought of himself as the earthly (human) messiah of the Jews, and expected God to send an army of holy warriors to help him free Israel from the Roman yoke. It would also explain why Jesus in Luke 22:36 advises his followers to equip themselves with swords. The fact that the battle was about to be joined, and the heavenly host had not yet shown up, would certainly amaze Jesus and trouble him greatly. However, amazement does not fit well with the notion that Jesus is a divine being, co-equal with God the Father, privy to the plan of salvation, and a willing participant in it. Recall that throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus has not been preaching a doctrine of atonement for sins. This concept of Jesus’s role was added later as the theology developed. Thus the episode in Gethsemane hints strongly that Jesus’s own conception of his position was not what later theology made it out to be. Jesus would no doubt have been “amazed” at at this development as well.
Matthew’s version of the Gethsemane episode substitutes “began to grieve” for Mark’s “be amazed” (Matthew 26:37) Luke abridges the story by eliminating all of Jesus’s emotional distress, and simply having him request that the cup might pass from him, if God wills it. (Luke 22:41-46) John’s account is even sparser, mentioning only that Jesus and his disciples entered a garden. (John 18:1)
14:34 If the divine plan is about to be fulfilled, why is Jesus “very sorrowful, even to death”? His mood is entirely inconsistent with the role that has been assigned to him by the orthodox theology. If you compare this Jesus to the one in John’s gospel, they appear as two totally different personalities.
14:35-36 Another indication that Jesus is less than enthusiastic about the divine plan. He asks that “if it were possible” he would prefer that this time pass him by. Then he goes on to remind God that all things are possible for him, and asks that God “remove this cup” from him. If indeed all things are possible for God, then the sins of the world could have been atoned for without Jesus’s sacrifice. The whole salvation scheme is unnecessary! It is simply something that God “willed” but could just as easily have been avoided if God had willed otherwise. Note that by contrasting his own will with that of God the Father, Jesus highlights the separation between them and calls attention to his own subordination to God’s will.
14:37 Even at this late hour, the disciples disappoint Jesus. They have fallen asleep while Jesus was agonizing over his fate.
14:39-41 Jesus twice repeats his prayer to God, “saying the same words” as before. Each time he returns to find the disciples sleeping.
14:41-42 The hour of Jesus’s “betrayal” has come. However, the Greek word literally means “to deliver up” and does not carry all the emotional overtones of “betrayal” in English.
14:43 Jesus is arrested. A gang sent by the chief priests and the scribes and elders arrives with swords and clubs to seize Jesus. Although the authorities knew who Jesus was from having seen him teach in the temple, perhaps those sent to seize him did not know him by sight, which could account for Judas giving them a sign, by kissing Jesus. Matthew 26:47 also identifies the crowd as coming from the chief priests and the elders, while Luke 22:47 simply says “there came a crowd” without indicating who they represent. John 18:2 differs from all three, and describes the group as “a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and Pharisees,” and again in 18:12. These “soldiers” could only have been Roman, and not a gang sent by the Jewish religious authorities.
14:44-45 Judas identifies Jesus by giving him a kiss, in contradiction to John 18:4-5, where Jesus steps forward and identifies himself to the soldiers. Luke 22:48 seems to have Judas about to kiss Jesus, but Jesus stops him before the kiss is given.
14:47 One of the men with Jesus draws his sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave. Mark does not tell us who wielded the sword, but in John 18:10 we are told that it was Peter. We have not been told before that Jesus’s disciples carried swords. But as Jesus himself said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) In Mark’s version, Jesus does not rebuke Peter for his use of the sword, but the other three gospels all have Jesus telling Peter to put his sword away. However, Jesus’s exact words are different in all three. Matthew 26:52 has, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Luke 22:51 has, “No more of this!” And John 18:11 has Jesus saying, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?"
14:50 “They all forsook him and fled.” Presumably the reference is to the disciples, and the parallel verse in Matthew 26:56 refers explicity to them. This remark is omitted by both Luke and John.
14:51-52 We do not know who this mysterious naked young man is. Some have thought he was the evangelist Mark himself, but this is fanciful, and there is no concrete support for it. Nor is there any credence to be given to the notion that he was a homosexual lover of Jesus. Note that the Greek word for “naked” (gumnos) which is used here, can also mean “clad only in undergarments,” but the type of garment the young man was wearing was a nightgown, and it is unlikely that there would be undergarments worn under it. Thus, Mounce’s Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament gives “naked” as the meaning here, and it is the word used by all the major English translations of this verse. Mark’s is the only gospel that mentions the incident.
14:53 Jesus is led to the high priest, where the scribes and elders are also assembled, to answer the charges against him. Collectively, the assembly is the Sanhedrin, or Council. Commentators have noted many violations of Jewish legal procedure in Mark’s description of this “trial,” calling into question its reliability as a credible record of what happened. These violations include: “holding a trial on a feast-day, not having a statutory second session on the following day to confirm the sentence, Jesus being condemned to death for blasphemy yet technically he has not blasphemed.” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, eds. John Barton & John Muddiman, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 918.) Claiming to be the Messiah would not have been considered blasphemy in the eyes of the Jewish officials. (The Interpreter’s Bible, 1951, vol. 7, p. 890.)
14:56 The testimony of the witnesses against Jesus “did not agree.” This is a touch of unintentional irony, as the testimony of the four gospelists also does not agree in many points.
14:61 Jesus is asked, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" It is assumed by most commentators that “the Blessed” means God. But the Jewish concept of the Messiah (i.e., Christ) did not consider him to be the son of God, so it is unlikely that such a question would have been posed by the Jewish high priest. Could “the blessed” one be someone else? Perhaps David? The question is significant, because Jesus answers it with “I am.” It is the only time Jesus answers “Yes” to such a question from either the Sanhedrin (council) or from Pilate himself. So did Jesus really claim to be the son of God? Or did he only admit to being the son of David, and the heir to his earthly throne?
By contrast, in Matthew 26:63 Jesus is asked directly whether he is “the Christ, the son of God,” but he sidesteps the question. His literal answer is, “You have said so,” although this is sometimes mistranslated as “Yes.” (See, for example, the NIV translation of Matthew 26:63.) Luke 22:70 also has the whole assembly ask Jesus directly whether he is the son of God (without the “Christ”), but again he equivocates, answering them, “You say that I am.” (Also mistranslated as “Yes” by both NASB and NIV, but correct in both RSV and KJV.) John’s authorities pose no such question to Jesus in his version. Thus, at no time during his “trials” before the Jewish authorities or before Pontius Pilate, does Jesus claim to be the son of God.
14:65 After the interrogation, Jesus is spat upon and beaten. Luke 22:63 agrees, but puts this incident before the interrogation.
14:66-72 As predicted, Peter denies Jesus three times. Here, as in Matthew, Peter’s denials come after the interrogation of Jesus by the council, but in Luke, the denials come before the council session. In John’s gospel, Peter’s first denial comes before Jesus’s interrogation, and the second and third come after it. The crowing of the cock (Mark 14:72, Matthew 26:74, Luke 22:60, John 18:27) highlights the differences in the order of events in the various gospel versions. Assuming that the cock crows shortly before dawn, Mark, Matthew and John all have the trial before the Sanhedrin taking place during the night, before the cock crows, while Luke has the trial occurring after daybreak.
15:1 When morning comes, Jesus is led to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. But in Luke 22:66, it is the questioning before the Sanhedrin that occurs at daybreak, and the meeting with Pilate occurs later that morning.
Although all the gospels portray the Jewish high priests as the instigators of Jesus’s trial and execution, it is unlikely that their religious concerns would have made an impression on Pilate. The more plausible scenario is that the arrest and execution of Jesus was a wholly Roman affair, motivated by the concern that Jesus was claiming to be king in a region ruled by the Romans. Thus, he was a threat to the established political authority. It is entirely possible, however, that the Jewish high priests went along with the prosecution in order to ingratiate themselves with the Roman authorities and to distance themselves from the troublemaker.
15:2 Pilate asks, “Are you the king of the Jews,” and Jesus answers, “You have said so,” after which Jesus made no further answer. Note that Leviticus 5:1 requires a witness in a legal proceeding to give testimony, so in remaining silent, Jesus is violating this commandment of God from the Old Testament, which makes him a sinner. (On Jesus as a sinner, see also the comment to Matthew 12:46-50.) John, however, records a rather lengthy, albeit evasive, answer on the part of Jesus, in John 18:34-37. Note that Pilate does not ask at all about charges of religious blasphemy, but only whether Jesus is claiming to be king.
15:3 The chief priests accuse Jesus of “many things,” which are not listed in detail. Luke 23:2 provides some insight into the charges, which do not include the charge of blasphemy which so impressed the Sanhedrin.
15:7 The other prisoner, Barabbas, is identified here as a murderer and an insurrectionist. But in John 18:40 he is called a robber.
15:21 Simon of Cyrene is pressed into service to carry the cross to the place of execution. John 19:17 contradicts the other three gospels in having Jesus bear his own cross.
15:23 Jesus is offered a drink of wine mixed with myrrh, an aromatic tree gum. But Matthew 27:34 says the wine was mixed with gall, a bitter substance secreted by the liver. This is not a direct contradiction, since the wine could have been mixed with both substances. But if that were the case, it seems very odd that both authors would mention only one of the additives, and differ in the one they picked. However, the Christian apologetic website www.carm.org (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) is flat wrong in claiming that the Matthew verse uses the Greek word ozos to mean a mixture of wine or vinegar with water, while Mark uses the normal oinos, which is simply wine. (http://www.carm.org/diff/Matt27_34.htm) In fact, both Matthew 27:34 and Mark 15:23 use the Greek word oinos. (The Greek New Testament, 4th Revised edition, edited by Aland et al., Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/United Bible Societies, 2001.)
Jesus is offered a second drink in Mark 15:36, which agrees with Matthew 27:48 in calling the second drink “sour wine” (oxos in Greek, not ozos).
15:25 “And it was the third hour when they crucified him.” This flatly contradicts John’s account where Jesus was still with Pilate at the sixth hour (John 19:14). The theologians try to wiggle out of this one by claiming that John’s gospel refers to “Roman time” which supposedly began counting the hours at midnight, while the traditional Jewish manner of reckoning time started from dawn. But this rebuttal does not hold water, because the Romans, too, counted the hours from dawn! For more on the Roman manner of reckoning time, see the sources listed in the comment to Matthew 27:45.
15:26 All four gospels have different wording for the inscription of the charges against Jesus. Mark here has the inscription as “The king of the Jews.” But Matthew 27:37 gives it as, “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews," while Luke 23:38 has “This is the king of the Jews." Finally, John 19:19 gives the inscription as “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews," and notes that it was posted in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The inscriptions, though differing in the exact wording, agree in showing that Jesus was executed not for blasphemy, but for claiming to be king, and thus threatening Roman authority.
15:28 Many editions of the Bible do not contain this verse, as it does not appear in most of the early manuscripts. But the alleged prophecy that it mentions is from Isaiah 53:12, which is part of the “suffering servant” section of Isaiah. The servant there is the nation of Israel, not Jesus, as we see in Isaiah 41:8-10; 44:1; 44:21; and 49:3. So even if this verse is considered part of Mark’s gospel, the “prophetic” reference is a false one, as it does not refer to Jesus.
15:32 The two robbers who were crucified with Jesus both revile him, as they do in Matthew 27:44. But Luke 23:42 contradicts by having only one of the robbers revile him, while the other asks Jesus to “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
15:34 Jesus’s last words. Jesus once again displays his human qualities and his sense of separation from God, by crying out in torment “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?” Luke 23:46 tones this down considerably by reporting Jesus’s last words as, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" John 19:30, on the other hand, reports Jesus’s last words as simply, “It is finished.”
15:41 We are reminded that Jesus had many women “ministering” to him during his travels in Galilee. Three are mentioned here by name. Matthew 27:55 says there were “many women” looking on from afar, who had “ministered” to Jesus on his journey from Galilee. In contrast to Mark, Matthew 27:55, and Luke 23:49, all of which have the women standing “afar” or “at a distance,” John 19:25 has them standing “by the cross.”
15:43 Joseph of Arimathea, who arranged for the burial of Jesus’s body, is described here as a “respected member of the council.” Both Matthew 27:57 and John 19:38 add that he was a disciple of Jesus, but according to John, a secret one.
15:46 He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. The stone, which is later described as “very large” (16:4), is apparently not so large that Joseph could not himself push it in front of the entrance. Thus, Joseph himself could have rolled the stone away in the night and taken Jesus’s body, to make it appear that he had risen from the dead. Matthew notes that this rumor was already circulating at the time he wrote his gospel (Matthew 28:13-15). Mark’s version has no mention of any guard being placed at the tomb, as we find in Matthew 27:66.
In this passage, Joseph of Arimathea himself takes down the body of Jesus and lays him in the tomb. But Paul is portrayed in Acts 13:28-29 as saying that this was done by those who asked Pilate to have Jesus killed.
16:1 The contradictions in the post-crucifixion stories of the four gospels are many. Right away we have conflicting stories as to which women went to the tomb on Sunday morning. Here, Mark tells us it was Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Salome. Matthew 28:1 has Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” In Luke 24:10 is it Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and “the other women.” Finally, John’s account only involves Mary Magdalene (John 20:1).
16:2 The women, including Mary Magdalene, went to the tomb “when the sun had risen.” But in John 20:1, Mary Magdalene arrives “while it was still dark.”
16:4 The women find that the stone (see 15:46) which had been placed in front of the entrance to the tomb had already been rolled back. But in Matthew 28:2, the women see an angel who descends and rolls away the stone. Luke 24:2 and John 20:1 agree with Mark in saying that the women found the stone already rolled back.
16:5 When the women enter the tomb, they see “a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe.” We are not told that he is an “angel,” and there is nothing in Mark’s description to suggest that he was. This young man sitting in the tomb contrasts with Matthew’s angel who descends from heaven, rolls back the stone and sits upon it outside the tomb (Matthew 28:2-3). In Luke’s version, it is two men in “dazzling apparel” who appear beside the women inside the tomb (Luke 24:4). In John’s account, Mary Magdalene sees no one at the tomb until she first runs to Peter, who then inspects the tomb along with another disciple. Only after these disciples leave, does Mary Magdelene see “two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain” (John 20:12), after which Jesus himself appears (John 20:14).
16:6 Compare these words of the young man to those of the two men in Luke 24:5-7 and those of the two angels in John 20:13, as well as the conversation Mary has with Jesus in John 20:15-17. The differences are striking, and one would never imagine from reading the words themselves that the gospelists are all trying to describe the same event. The words of Matthew’s angel outside the tomb (28:5-7) are substantially the same as those of Mark’s young man inside the tomb, differing only in minor details.
16:7 The young man in the tomb instructs the women to tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. Contrast this with John 20:17 where Jesus at the tomb instructs Mary Magdalene to inform the disciples that Jesus is ascending to the Father.
16:8 But the women, gripped with fear, ignore the young man’s instructions, and tell no one what they have seen. This flatly contradicts Matthew 28:8, where the women “departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” Once again, Matthew has “improved” on Mark’s version of events in order to support the emerging orthodox theology. Luke 24:9 also contradicts Mark, and reports that “returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” John 20:18 also has Mary informing the disicples that she had seen Jesus.
Thus, the four gospel accounts of the resurrection differ in the following respects:
16:9-20 Mark’s gospel as we have it ends with verse 8. There is no way of knowing whether the author intended to end it there, or whether there is additional content which has been lost. The so-called “longer ending” of Mark (16:9-20) “cannot have been part of the original text of Mark.” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, 1973, p. 1238.) This ending is unlike the rest of the text in style and vocabulary, and the earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel do not contain it. It was likely added some decades after the original gospel was written.
16:11-14 The disbelieving disciples. Among the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, the disbelief of the disciples is a common theme. Even though the disciples were with Jesus throughout his career, and were familiar with his teaching, when they were told that he had risen from the dead they did not believe it. This is one of the few consistent features throughout the four gospels. See for example, Matthew 28:17; Luke 24:11; John 20:9,25.
16:18 Jesus’s followers “will pick up serpents.” It does not explicitly say that they will remain unharmed in doing so, but there is an echo here of Acts 28:3-6 where Paul is bitten by a viper, but suffers no ill effects.