THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM (Part 4)

INTRODUCTION TO THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS.

Strange as it may seem, if we were to write a history of the development of the books of the New Testament according to their history we would be starting not with the synoptic Gospels but with the writings of Paul.
PARTIALITY OF VIEWS.

How we see things is often determined by our own world-view.

GEOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

Galilee was for Mark more than a geographical designation; Mark invested it with theological meaning. It stood for the disclosure of Jesus as the end-time agent of God. It also represented the inauguration of the mission to the Gentiles (daughter of the Syrophoenician woman. Mark 7: 25 - 30.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK.

Mark is generally regarded as the earliest of the Gospels. The date of composition is set in the range 65 -80 C. E. .
Mark draws on material, containing some sayings of Jesus, that Jesus was a Jewish teacher who had followers including a special group referred to as the “twelve”, and that Jesus has been crucified by the Roman Prefect at the time of the Jewish Passover and had been raised from the dead. This material was available in three forms as we have illustrated before:

Isolated stories handed down independently;
Collections of stories and parables;
An outline of the whole ministry of Jesus designed perhaps as an introduction to the story of the Passion.
Into this outline Mark fitted his other material.

Before we begin to look at Mark’s Gospel in detail, we need to look at the first teaching of Jesus, as given in Mark. In the first words that Jesus says; “Reconciliation and forgiveness and the Kingdom of Heaven is present.”

Mark begins with the words, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God,” (1: 1). “Gospel” does not mean here a “book”. Mark, from the very beginning, affirms that Jesus is the Messiah (the Christ in Greek) and that he is the Son of God.  The author uses the “gospel” for Jesus’ preaching that the reign of God is at hand. The sayings about sufferings for “Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the gospel” (mark 8: 35; 10: 29) link Jesus and the preaching him also (13: 10;  14: 9). Mark’s opening, then, would not have led its readers to expect a reporter’s biography about Jesus. They would expect preaching about Jesus as Son of God. Look at Mark 14: 9. It suggests something more is meant by “gospel” than just repeating stories and sayings. By promising that a particular woman’s action will be remembered wherever the gospel is preached, it makes us think of the story of Jesus as something larger into which the sayings and stories about Jesus fit.
 

(to be continued)