Mark has written a Christian apocalypse, in which the events of Jesus’ life—so clearly events of Jesus’ life that the work shares the characteristics of a Hellenistic bios—form the vital theatre in which Israel’s history reaches its moment of ‘apocalyptic’ crisis. From then on, true, that history is to be re-evaluated. But once again, as with Luke and Matthew, it is clear that Mark’s story only makes sense if we presuppose as its backdrop this whole history of Israel, apocalyptically conceived.
