one conversation has dominated the work, and that has been a conversation with William Barclay himself through the text. There has been a real sense of listening to his voice in all the questioning and in the searching for new words to convey the meaning of that text. The aim of The New Daily Study Bible is to make clear his message, so that the distinctive voice, which has spoken to so many in past years, may continue to be heard for generations to come.
Linda Foster
London
2001
INTRODUCTION
(by John Drane)
Our understanding of the Gospel of Mark has undergone several significant developments since William Barclay wrote about it. At one time, its position as the first gospel to be written was assumed to give it a historical primacy over Matthew and Luke, whose gospels were more obviously crafted in accordance with the interests of their authors. In 5:40–3, Barclay confidently connects Mark with eyewitness accounts from Peter himself, but today even those who hold that opinion would acknowledge that the finished text is just as much a redactional product as the other synoptics, shaped by the concerns of Mark and his readers in the middle of the first century.
The overall picture of Jesus would also be slightly different today. During Jesus’ childhood and teenage years, the Hellenistic city of Sepphoris was under construction not far from his home town of Nazareth, which suggests that people in the construction industry (like the household of Joseph) would be quite prosperous – and also that Galilee was not a cultural backwater, but central to Hellenistic Palestine, with Greek regularly spoken on its streets. Barclay’s understanding of the Pharisees as legalists, while still defensible, has also been challenged in recent discussions, while the role of the synagogue has undergone some redefinition.
At the same time, Barclay’s exposition of Mark still speaks to today’s concerns. He emphasizes the importance of community for Jesus (on 3:13–19, ‘It is significant that Christianity began with a group . . . a very mixed group’), and his comments on the miracle stories are infused with an insistence that, with Jesus, even life’s crises can be transcended. During his lifetime, he was regularly criticized for what some took to be rationalizing ‘explanations’ of the miracles, though his approach was actually more subtle. The comment on the stilling of the storm (6:45–52) is typical, where he inquires if there might be a ‘scientific’ explanation, concludes that we don’t know – and then asks whether it matters anyway. In some ways, he was ahead of his time by refusing to assume that science could answer such questions.
People today are unlikely to imagine that science ever could say anything worthwhile on matters of faith. For those familiar with the mystical claims of the New Age on the one hand, and charismatic Christianity on the other (neither of which was significant during Barclay’s lifetime), his approach of offering background information and then inviting readers to decide such things for themselves is likely to have considerable appeal.
John Drane
University of Aberdeen
2001
INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL OF MARK
The Synoptic Gospels
The first three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are always known as the synoptic gospels. The word synoptic comes from two Greek words which mean to see together; and these three are called the synoptic gospels because they can be set down in parallel columns and their common matter looked at together. It would be possible to argue that of them all Mark is the most important. It would indeed be possible to go further and to argue that it is the most important book in the world, because it is agreed by nearly everyone that it is the earliest of all the gospels and therefore the first life of Jesus that has come down to us. Mark may not have been the first person to write the life of Jesus. Doubtless there were earlier simple attempts to set down the story of Jesus’ life; but Mark’s gospel is certainly the earliest life of Jesus that has survived.
The Pedigree of the Gospels
When we consider how the gospels came to be written, we must try to think ourselves back to a time when there was no such thing as a printed book. The gospels were written long before printing had been invented, and compiled when every book had to be carefully and laboriously written out by hand. It is clear that, as long as that was the case, only a few copies of any book could exist.
How do we know, or how can we deduce, that Mark was the first of all the gospels? When we read the synoptic gospels even in English we see that there are remarkable similarities between them. They contain the same incidents often told in the same words; and they contain accounts of the teaching of Jesus which are often almost identical. If we compare the story of the feeding of the 5,000 in the three gospels (Mark 6:30–44; Matthew 14:12–21; Luke 9:10–17), we see that it is told in almost exactly the same words and in exactly the same way. A very clear instance of this is the story of the healing of the man who was sick with the palsy (Mark 2:1–12; Matthew 9:1–8; Luke 5:17–26). The accounts are so similar that even a little parenthesis – ‘he said to the paralytic’ – occurs in all three in exactly the same place. The correspondences are so close that we are forced to one of two conclusions. Either all three are taking their material from some common source, or two of the three are based on the third.
When we study the matter closely we find that Mark can be divided into 105 sections. Of these, ninety-three occur in Matthew and eighty-one in Luke. Only four are not included either in Matthew or in Luke. Even more compelling is this. Mark has 661 verses; Matthew has 1,068 verses; Luke has 1,149 verses. Of Mark’s 661 verses, Matthew reproduces no fewer than 606. Sometimes he alters the wording slightly but he even reproduces 51 per cent of Mark’s actual words. Of Mark’s 661 verses, Luke reproduces 320, and he actually uses 53 per cent of Mark’s actual words. Of the fifty-five verses of Mark which Matthew does not reproduce, thirty-one are found in Luke. So the result is that there are only twenty-four verses in Mark which do not occur somewhere in Matthew and Luke. This makes it look very much as if Matthew and Luke were using Mark as the basis of their gospels.
What makes the matter still more certain is this. Both Matthew and Luke very largely follow Mark’s order of events. Sometimes Matthew alters Mark’s order and sometimes Luke does. But when there is a change in the order Matthew and Luke never agree together against Mark. Always one of them retains Mark’s order of events.
A close examination of the three gospels makes it clear that Matthew and Luke had Mark before them as they wrote; and they used his gospel as the basis into which they fitted the extra material which they wished to include.
It is thrilling to remember that when we read Mark’s gospel we are reading the first life of Jesus, on which all succeeding lives have necessarily been based.
Mark, the Writer of the Gospel
Who then was this Mark who wrote the gospel? The New Testament tells us a good deal about him. He was the son of a well-to-do lady of Jerusalem whose name was Mary, and whose house was a rallying point and meeting place of the early Church (Acts 12:12). From the very beginning Mark was brought up in the very centre of the Christian fellowship.
Mark was also the nephew of Barnabas, and when Paul and Barnabas set out on their first missionary journey they took Mark with them to be their secretary and attendant (Acts 12:25). This journey was a most unfortunate one for Mark. When they reached Perga, Paul proposed to strike inland up to the central plateau; and for some reason Mark
