Against Matthean authorship: why would an eyewitness rely so heavily on the work of someone who was not an eyewitness? Matthew 9.9 is another thing. There is a lack of info on Matthew (especially if the author is supposed to be Matthew. 3/20 manuscripts only have their title attached. Original codex may have been untitled…

Papias’ descriptions of gospels of Mark and Matthew? 📜Eusebius of Caesarea’s Church History, book three, chapter 39. Eusebius’ work dates to the 4th century, so Papias’ original work, presumably titled Expositions of Oracles of the Lord, was available to Eusebius while he was writing his history and he copies down a portion of it and…

Mark is a polemic against Peter. It may have tried to reconcile its otherwise uncompromisingly negative perspective on Peter by positing that Mark was written by a Peter follower. This provides an explanation for the commonly cited** “internal evidence”** of a Peterine connection, such as the fact that Peter is the character other than Jesus…

Zeichmann gives some additional compelling arguments for post 70 CE gMark composition:It may raise suspicions that after first dismissing the relevance of Latinisms, I would now uphold Semiticisms as evidence of Markan provenance. While much about the languages of Palestine remains debated, there is little doubt that Aramaic and Hebrew were uncommon outside of the…

How to find dating (a) What kind of historical events are mentioned in the text and what is the latest historical event, the text narrates (= level of narration)? To what kinds of historical data as a historical context does the text refer (= synchronistic elements)? What kind of historical material (e. g., documents, literary…

Where gMark was written Galilee as the Gospel’s place of origin has been defended by, e.g., W. Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (FRLANT 67), Göttingen, 1956, esp. pp. 41, 89, and 146; idem, Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Eine Einführung in ihre Probleme, Gütersloh, 19784, p. 148; W.H. Kelber, The Kingdom…

Scholars who date Mark after the fall of the Jerusalem temple: 1. Burton Mack in A Myth of Innocence says “Southern Syria in the seventies would be about right for such an intellectual labor as the Gospel of Mark. Jesus’ apocalyptic instruction in Mark 13 is the important evidence for a post-70 CE date and…

According to Zeichmann 2017, Mark was written after August 29, 71 AD. Despite the fact that it is a recent article and hardly a “commonly used” argument, I read it all and found Zeichmann’s central arguments to be persuasive. His theory is based on what Jesus said about taxes in Mark 12:13–17. He argues that…

Approaching 5:1–20 as an Apocalyptic Story Approaching 13:5–37 as an Apocalyptic Speech Power according to the Kingdom of God (8:27–10:45) The Manifestation of Power at the Transfiguration (9:1–8) & the Imminent Parousia

The Literary Character of Mark 3:22–30 The Apocalyptic Character of Mark 3:22–30: Mark as a narrative written by a creative author led later scholars to view the evangelist himself as an apocalyptic thinker and the Gospel itself as an apocalyptic narrative (Norman Perrin, The New Testament: An Introduction, 237–39; Adela Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of…