Kindle Notes & Highlights
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October 28 - December 13, 2024
“Messiah” is a less exalted and more functional title than “Son of God.” The latter is the fullest title for Jesus in the NT, conveying his filial origin, nature, and purpose with God.
It is often supposed that Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah triggered the explosion from the high priest and his condemnation by the Sanhedrin. This is not the case. It was no crime to call oneself the Messiah, or to be called so by others; for, as Justin Martyr later acknowledged, the Messiah would be only “a man among men”
It was the claim to be God’s Son (v. 62), not Messiah, that sealed Jesus’ fate before the Sanhedrin.
Although Peter hopes to escape notice, he ends up betraying Jesus by what he says, where he stands, and how he says it!
Peter’s swearing against Jesus is a biting contrast to Jesus’ oath for his divine Sonship.
Peter’s renunciation is the first open denial of Jesus in Mark. The fact that it comes from the chief apostle makes it all the more trenchant. Peter does not face a formal trial, nor is he even questioned directly about his faith. He denies Jesus without ever using his name. Peter’s example is a warning to disciples—then and now—that faithful witness to Jesus is most important (and most easily betrayed) in simple and ordinary actions and words.
the generally sympathetic portraits of Pilate in the Gospels differ somewhat from reports of him by Josephus and Philo.
Pilate’s political instincts tell him that Jesus is a figure to be watched but not necessarily dispatched, at least for the moment.
Jesus remains silent, and his silence in the face of hatred, abuse, and cruelty dominates Mark’s portrayal of the passion from here onward.
Mark twice notes Pilate’s amazement (Gk. thaumazein); in both instances, ironically, it is evoked by what Jesus does not say—by his silence (v. 5) and death (v. 44).
The free sovereign (note the first person pronouns in vv. 9 and 12) loses his freedom to forces he presumes to control, whereas Jesus, the silent prisoner who has no control, remains true to his divinely ordained purpose, and thus alone remains truly free.
In the second century A.D. the gnostic Basilides was so aghast at the idea of a crucified Messiah that he invented the notion that Simon of Cyrene—and not Jesus—died on the cross!
Rufus was a member of the church in Rome in the mid-fifties (Rom 16:13)
the two sons were members of the church in Rome. This is yet a further indication that Mark writes to Romans.
Jesus refused it, perhaps in fulfillment of his vow at the Passover meal not to drink again until his reception in the kingdom of God (14:25).
Both Roman and Jewish custom required the cause of crucifixion to be affixed to the cross,
Amos 8:9, “‘In that day,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.’”
the whole earth (gē in Greek means “earth” as well as “land”) is implicated in Jesus’ death, not just the Jews.
Popular Judaism believed that Elijah had been taken bodily into heaven without dying (2 Kgs 2:11) and that he would return in times of crisis to protect and rescue the righteous.
The NIV places the death of Jesus in 15:37 into a paragraph by itself. The theology of Mark, however, would place it at the beginning of vv. 37-39, for Jesus’ death is not a terminus but the cause of two exceptional events: the tearing of the temple curtain (v. 38) and the confession of the centurion (v. 39).
The Holy of Holies, which was believed to contain the very presence of Yahweh, is made accessible not by the high priest’s sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, but by the atonement of Jesus on the cross.
The Gospel of Mark reaches its climax in the confession of the centurion, “‘Surely this man was the Son of God’” (15:39).
Gentile outsider—
Only angels (1:13) and women (15:41) are said to have ministered to Jesus in Mark. Faith and followers come from unlikely quarters. A Roman centurion makes the first Christian confession, and women, although not Jesus’ most notable followers, have been among his most faithful.
Joseph’s unexpected advocacy is yet another twist of Markan irony, for a member of the heretofore antagonistic Sanhedrin appears as a protagonist of Jesus.
Romans crucified hundreds of thousands of individuals during their centuries in power, not one of whom is recorded as surviving the cross.
“alarmed”
fear and wonder, astonishment and distress;
If the word of grace from the resurrected Lord includes a traitor like Peter, readers of the Gospel may be assured that it includes those of their community who have also failed Christ.
even the visitation of angels at the empty tomb fails to produce faith.
Even at the close of the story, the human characters fail the divine will: in his earthly ministry, Jesus commanded people to silence, and they spoke; in his resurrected state, the women are commanded to speak, and they flee in silence!
Many of the ancient manuscripts that do contain the longer ending, however, indicate by scribal notes or various markings that the ending is regarded as a spurious addition to the Gospel.
Mary Magdalene. The latter, moreover, is introduced as a newcomer (“out of whom [Jesus] had driven seven demons,” v. 9), although Mark has mentioned her three times immediately before (15:40, 47; 16:1).
In vv. 9-20 Jesus is for the first time in Mark referred to as the “Lord Jesus” (v. 19), or simply “the Lord” (v. 20), rather than Mark’s custom of calling Jesus by his given name.
the number of new words that appear nowhere else in Mark.
there are an additional eighteen words that otherwise do not appear in Mark,
The longer ending is a patchwork of resurrection appearances (or summaries) taken from the other three Gospels,7 the chief theme of which is the unbelief of the disciples (vv. 11, 13, 14, and 16).
(c. 145),
the longer ending makes no attempt to conform to Mark’s vocabulary, style, and theology. The
In my judgment, however, the argument is not persuasive. The suggestion that Mark left the Gospel “open ended” owes more to modern literary theory, and particularly to reader-response theory,18 than to the nature of ancient texts, which with very few exceptions show a dogged proclivity to state conclusions, not suggest them.
First and perhaps most important, it is hard to imagine a Gospel that begins with a bold, resounding announcement of divine Sonship (1:1) ending on a note of fear and panic (16:8). The purpose of the centurion’s confession in 15:39 is to bring Mark’s readers to a confession of faith, whereas a conclusion at 16:8 leaves them in bewilderment.
Mark does not end sentences with gar, nor does any of the four canonical Evangelists, and this leads us to assume that the sentence is either broken off or incomplete.
An ending of the Gospel of Mark at 16:8 is thus not only an aberration among the canonical Gospels but also among the diverse and fluid Gospel genres of the early centuries of Christianity.
nor would an open ending be much encouragement to Mark’s readers facing the savagery of Nero’s persecution.
My own judgment is that it probably was not. What might have happened to the original ending we shall probably never know. The most plausible suggestion is that it was lost due to wear-and-tear on the last leaf of a codex.
two things Mark has led us to expect in a resurrection narrative—an appearance of Jesus to the disciples in Galilee and a transferal of his authority to the disciples—constitute the essence of Matthew’s ending in 28:9-10 and 16-20. Those seven verses have as good a claim as any to being the substance of Mark’s original ending.
Many of these phenomena appear elsewhere in the NT as miraculous activities, but they are now regarded as signs of faith.
Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.9) speaks of Justus Barsabas (the disciple not chosen in Acts 1:23), who drank poison without harm.
the longer ending of Mark presents us with a resurrection harmony from an amalgam of NT stories—some of which reflect liturgical and missionary interests—as a later-first-century or early-second-century attempt to compensate for what was regarded as a defective ending of Mark in 16:8.
