Is Mark’s Gospel Historically Reliable?

Dr Peter Williams, PhD, was raised in a Christian home and came to faith aged about 12. He increased in the intellectual understanding of the faith during his university years. He obtained his doctorate from Cambridge and is currently engaged in research on the early translations of the New Testament. He is warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge, an international centre for biblical research.

It is impossible to prove that an ancient account is fully reliable, and the very fact that Mark’s Gospel records miracles is enough for some people to reject it as a reliable record. However, provided one is prepared to be open minded about the possibility of miracles, there are a number of arguments that, I believe, combine to indicate the historical reliability of Mark’s Gospel.

The name Mark

If it were not for Mark’s Gospel, Mark would be a very minor figure indeed in the beginnings of Christianity. He is certainly not someone you would ascribe Mark’s Gospel to in order to give it more authority, because according to the book of Acts (13:13 and 15:37) he abandoned Paul, one of the early Christian leaders, during a mission. We can take it therefore that the Gospel is ascribed to him because it genuinely is by him. If it is by him then it has to be written within the lifespan of someone who was an active adult in the 50s and 60s of the first century AD.

Mark’s Gospel is held by most scholars to be the earliest gospel. According to Papias, writing in the early second century, it was composed in Rome, based on information provided by the Apostle Peter. In other words it is not written by an eyewitness, but its author was provided with information by an eyewitness. It was probably written some time during the 60s of the first century.

The range of languages in Mark

Mark’s Gospel is written in Greek, yet its language fits well with the idea that it was written in Rome. The Latin word speculator is used for the executioner (6:27) and the Latin word centurio occurs rather than the Greek word for centurion (15:39, 44, 45). A Latin name is also given for a coin, the quadrans (12:42). Yet at the same time, the author knows Palestine sufficiently that he can quote a number of words in Aramaic, which was spoken there. These appear in 5:41; 7:11, 34; 14:36; 15:22, 34. He even knows that speech is different in different parts of that country. Latin was hardly used in Palestine (except by the Roman military) and Aramaic was hardly used in Rome. The range of language knowledge displayed by the author fits well with the traditional account that the Gospel was written in Rome on the basis of information given by a native of Palestine. It would have been very hard for anyone who had not spent time in Palestine or at least been with some from Palestine to have composed this narrative.

No attempt to cover embarrassments

Though the Gospel makes extraordinary claims about Jesus’ miraculous activities, it seems to make no attempt to cover up the failures of the early Christian leaders. The disciples are said to misunderstand (8:14–21), argue about who is the greatest (9:34), get angry with two of the leading disciples (10:41), and ultimately abandon Jesus (14:50). The leading disciple, Peter, denied Jesus three times (14:66–72). The most unusual claim that it makes is that someone who underwent a shameful execution designed by the Romans to show that he was a loser, was in fact the Son of God.

It is not just the narrative which tells embarrassing stories, the things said by Jesus could also be profoundly embarrassing. According to 15:34 Jesus died asking why God had forsaken him. It is not likely that people would make up such a saying if it hadn’t really occurred. According to 7:27, Jesus told a non-Jewish woman (a Gentile) that it was not right to take that which belonged to the Jews and throw it to ‘dogs’, meaning Gentiles. This is not something you would make up if you were writing a Gospel and wanted gentiles to become Christians.

Lack of embellishment

The Gospel is written in a simple, straightforward style. Even when miraculous events are reported, the accounts are generally brief and without a fanfare. In fact the miraculous events are not the object of focus in themselves, but are used to highlight the question of the identity of Jesus.

Hallmarks of the teacher

Mark contains three major sections of teaching by Jesus (chapters 4, 7, and 13) as well as shorter accounts of teaching. Various features of what is attributed to Jesus suggest that Jesus’ teachings were not invented by Christians, since they use forms of speech and expressions either not found or rarely attested among early Christians, and they do not show many of the features of early Christian discourse. For instance, positively, Jesus regularly referred to himself regularly as the Son of Man, a phrase not common amongst early Christians, amongst whom he was called the Christ, Lord, or the Son of God. Or again, Jesus used parables, though these were not common amongst early Christians either. Negatively, Jesus’ teachings do not use the titles that were later used of Jesus. Nor do they explicitly cover many of the issues that early Christians spent time discussing such as the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, whether or not Christians could eat food that had been sacrificed to idols, or how churches should be organized.

Manuscript evidence

The manuscript evidence for Mark’s Gospel is far better than that of most classical works, even though there are fewer early copies of Mark’s Gospel than of the other Gospels (Matthew, Luke, and John). The earliest extensive copy of Mark’s Gospel is probably the manuscript of all four Gospels known as P45 and held in Dublin. It is generally dated to around AD 225. The gap between the time of composition of a piece of classical Latin or Greek literature and the earliest extensive copy is usually much greater than for Mark, and yet classical scholars accept the basic reliability of the text as transmitted in later manuscripts. However, there are also indications that Mark’s Gospel was in continuous use among Christians from the time it was written to the time of our earliest copy.

Conclusion

We have just reviewed a few of a number of converging lines of argument supporting the view that it is reasonable to take Mark’s Gospel as historical. The evidence is actually stronger than for many of the works upon which Greek or Roman history is founded. If it were not for the extraordinary subject matter of Mark’s Gospel, it is conceivable that there would not even be debate among historians as to whether or not it is reliable.

© Peter J. Williams 2008
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