Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels

by J. Warner Wallace

One of my Christian friends told me that Mark’s gospel was really the eyewitness account of the apostle Peter. The early church seemed to agree. Papias (ca. AD 70–ca. 163), the ancient bishop of Hierapolis (located in western Turkey), claimed that Mark penned his gospel in Rome as Peter’s scribe. He reported that “Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ.”21 Irenaeus (ca. AD 115–ca. 202), a student of Ignatius and Polycarp (two students of the apostle John) and the eventual bishop of Lugdunum (now Lyon, France), repeated this claim. He wrote, “Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.”22