Do the books of the Bible include cases of plagiarism?  Plagiarism is defined as “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own”. My guess is that a lot of school teachers probably wonder why sometimes out of 30 student’s homework papers many of them look alike. That is a case of plagiarism.  In our days, if an author uses another’s work without giving the first author credit, it is called plagiarism. Computers have made it extremely easy to copy pages and paste them in. Colleges and high schools routinely use programs such as “Copyleaks” to check for plagiarism.  In ancient times, it was very different. For one thing, they were a little short on computers or programs. For another using another’s work for good purposes was not considered wrong.  I am sure that a person still would have been offended if the person copying twisted the ideas. 

The New Testament has a classic case where two later authors used word for word parts of the text and the outline from an earlier author. Today we might call that plagiarism. In this case, I suspect that the first author was not offended at all. Most scholars today agree that the authors of Matthew and Luke drew heavily on the book of Mark while writing their books. The three books together are known as the “synoptic gospels”. They each tell the story of Jesus in a similar way and the indication is that the book of Mark was written first.  Mark was the first of what is in essence a new type of literature. This short book is part historical biography and part religious pamphlet – a gospel. For a period of time that we will consider later, this was the story of Jesus.

Some early writers believed that Matthew was the first gospel to be written.  Careful reading says otherwise. This figure shows a few of the points that tell us that Mark was the first to be written.  Here are other websites that discuss this:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark-prior.html

https://bible.org/article/synoptic-problem

The authors of Luke and Matthew obviously valued Mark. On one side, that means that these 3 gospels cannot be considered separate sources for the material that they share. On the other hand, this does show that Mark’s account was held in high regard when these other books were written.  If the writers of Luke and Matthew held the book of Mark in such high regard, they surely thought that he knew what he was talking about. Why would they think that?

Who wrote the book of Mark?

Who wrote this book?  Where did he get his information?  When did he write it?  The book is titled the “Gospel of Mark” or some variation on this.  It never names Mark internally, yet in every ancient manuscript that includes a title, it always includes Mark in the name, no matter what part of the empire it originates from. Obviously, the ancient Christians believed that someone named Mark wrote it.  The next question has to be: who was Mark?

Whoever the author was, he had a good knowledge of first century Israel and Judaism. It so happens that while the book of Mark never names Mark, Acts and some of the NT epistles (letters) do name a Mark, either calling him John Mark or just Mark.  John Mark is an interesting name.  John is a Jewish name while Mark is a Roman name. (Remember Mark Anthony.) It is speculated that John Mark’s mother was Jewish, and his father was Roman.  If so, this would have been helpful as he traveled around the Roman Empire. The New Testament Mark has a chain of connections that would look like this:

• Luke was one of Paul’s fellow workers who traveled with him on his journeys, starting with what is known as his second missionary journey.
• Mark also traveled with Paul and was with Luke and Paul while Paul was in prison and wrote Colossians and Philemon.
• Luke and Mark had opportunity to know each other well.
• Luke used Mark’s gospel in writing the book of Luke

This seems reasonable to me and explains much in the story of the books of Mark and Luke.  As in previous posts, I find timelines invaluable in putting the history together.  Here is a timeline for Mark from the New Testament:

Thus, from the Bible we have a book named Mark and a candidate “John Mark” who would have known Luke.  No other Marks are named in the Bible.  This Mark’s mother had a home in Jerusalem that was well known to Peter. This means that Peter may have known Mark for some time. It is reasonable to assume that the home was known to all of the apostles, including Levi who was also known as Matthew.  If this Matthew was the author of the book by that name, then Matthew and Mark probably knew each other.  This would explain one reason why Matthew used Mark.  It also may reflect his respect for Peter and thus Peter’s testimony through Mark.

External Clues

Just as all ancient sources attest to Luke being the author of Luke/Acts, all ancient sources attribute the second gospel to Mark.

The ancient sources tell us more than just the name of the author.  We learn some things they believed about him, including where he got his material. Here are some of the insights.

• Mark had a close connection to the Apostle Peter (Irenaeus, Papias, John the Elder, Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Origen of Alexandria, Tertullian, Epiphanius). That is consistent with the reference in the book of I Peter.

  • Referred to as an interpreter for Peter. The Galilean fisherman may have needed some help at times. (Eusebius quotes Papias citation of John the Elder)

  • Requested to write Peter’s gospel (Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius)

• Mark was connected to the Apostle Paul (Hippolytus reported that Matthew connected Luke and Mark as fellow laborers with Paul)

• Went to Alexandria and established a church there. (Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius) This eventually became the Coptic church and was an important piece of the early church. Many of our earliest manuscripts come from Egypt.

• Born in North African city of Cyrene, now Libya. (approximately 5 AD) (Coptic tradition)

• Stump fingered (Hippolytus, Toletanus). The source doesn’t describe in any detail or explain whether he was born this way or made this way.  In either case, though he was probably a Levite, he would have been disqualified from serving as a priest, but well-qualified for the work of evangelist.

• Mark is reported to have been martyred in Alexandria by being dragged around the city. (Coptic tradition)

If Mark’s gospel was seen as the testimony of the Apostle Peter, that would further explain why Matthew and Luke used it so strongly.  Peter was reported to have been a major leader among the apostles and in the early church.  He certainly had firsthand knowledge that was critical.  The church fathers recognized that the order of events in Mark sometimes differs from the others, but they saw Mark’s gospel as based on the teachings of Peter that were not claimed to be in chronological order.  They were in the order that suited his purpose.

Against John Mark as the author

Most modern critical scholars reject John Mark as the book’s author.  It is popular to question the traditional ideas and it is fine to challenge ideas. No external data supports another author and the internal information is very open to interpretation. This quote from Wikipedia on the author of Mark shows that thinking:

“Early Christian tradition attributes it to the John Mark mentioned in Acts, but scholars generally reject this as an attempt to link the gospel to an authoritative figure. It was probably written c. AD 66–70, during Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome or the Jewish revolt, as suggested by internal references to war in Judea and to persecution. The author used a variety of pre-existing sources, such as conflict stories (Mark 2:1–3:6), apocalyptic discourse (13:1–37), and collections of sayings (although not the Gospel of Thomas and probably not the Q source). Scholars accept that parts of Mark, such as the Passion Narrative, date as early as AD 40.”

Various models are put forward for how early Christianity developed.  Making the traditional authors the actual authors does not fit their model.  It is not clear to me what the actual support for their model is.  For instance, Muslim author, Reza Aslan wrote a book entitled “Zealot, the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth”.  In it, he proposed to reveal what Jesus was really like.  His book reveals that with a few bits of modernization and revision, Jesus was much like the Muslims have believed for generations.   Aslan characterizes himself as a historian, though that is disputed.  How did he decide what was authentic from the gospels?  He does draw on critical scholars for much information. Here is a quote that shows an important criterion:

“The gospel of Mark makes the astonishing claim that John was offering at the Jordan was “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4).  The unmistakably Christian nature of this phrase casts serious doubt on its historicity.”

This criterion suits the Muslim view but is also typical of the critical scholarly view.  One’s presumptions going in are important. Models are useful but need to be re-examined regularly. If it is the case that the Christian theological ideas arose later, then the gospels do not reflect the real story of Christ, but what is the proof that this was the case. A later post will talk about what the information from the earliest parts of the New Testament tell us about Jesus and Christianity.  At this point, I am comfortable that the data supports the case that John Mark wrote the gospel of Mark. Historians for most ancient documents would love to have the kind of support for authors of other documents that there is for John Mark as the author of the gospel.

When was it written?

Mark didn’t tell us when he wrote the book, not that most modern scholars would have believed him if he had.  We do have some clues. If the tradition is true that Mark died in 68AD, then before that is pretty sure.  Can we say more?

The gospel of Mark represents Peter’s testimony given to his protégé. Some infer the writings the apostolic fathers to indicate that Mark’s gospel was written with Peter’s knowledge and tacit approval but other cases indicate it to have been after Peter’s death.  This gives a range of uncertainty but if Luke was written in 60-62AD, then Mark was earlier, perhaps 5 years or so. 

The book of Mark is early testimony of the life of Jesus by any scholarly view. If my view is correct, then Mark’s testimony is very early and based on an eyewitness report. The case can be made that Mark was an eyewitness to parts of his story. His report was expanded by Matthew and Luke, but not changed.  Mark saw Jesus as God.  He saw him as active and dynamic, demonstrating his identity in many ways. Mark and Peter had a different view of Jesus than the other authors in the NT.  They focused on features in Jesus’ message and ministry that were most important to them.

Mark’s gospel ends abruptly.  This was recognized so long ago that someone tacked on the verses found in the King James Bible as Mark 16:9-20.  Why didn’t Mark record more about the resurrection?  We can speculate but we just don’t know.  Did Mark know about the claims of resurrection appearances? Of that we can be certain. He knew Paul and Luke. The appearances were not a recent addition when Mark was written regardless of when it was written.  More on this when I write on the resurrection.

Aslan, Reza, 2013, Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, New York, Random House

Awad, Najeeb G., 2008, How the Church Fathers Read the Gospel of Mark as a Reliable Theological Text, Theological Review,

Blomberg, Craig L., 1987, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, USA, InterVarsity Press

Hengel, Martin, 1985, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, Philadelphia, Fortress Press

Jones, Timothy Paul, 2007, Misquoting Truth, Downers Grove, Il, InterVarsity Press

Jones, Ron, 2010, The Authorship and Publication of the Gospel of Mark, in Jesus Evidences, The historical literary evidences for Jesus: http://jesusevidences.com/originntgospels/authorshippublicationgospelmark.php

Swete, Henry Barclay, 1897, St. Mark in Early Tradition, in The Expositor, 5^th series, p. 268-277, http://hbswete.co.uk/art13_b.html

Warner, J Warner, 2013, Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective InterVarsity Press Investigates the Claims of the Gospels, Colorado Springs, David C Cook