Every important detail about the life and ministry of Jesus—as described in the gospel of Mark—has also been painted or sculpted by inspired artists in the earliest centuries of the Common Era. This is also true of the other gospels. Artists looked to every chapter of every gospel for inspiration. Even if all the New Testament manuscripts were gone, the story of Jesus would remain unless, of course, you were willing and able to destroy two thousand years of art. That’s what it would take to erase the evidence of Jesus’s life and ministry. That’s how much Jesus has mattered to artists.
