While reading Mark and with a prior knowledge of the 4 gospels, some interesting nuances appear about the people that are mentioned in the text. Some times they mention a person in passing: a man with a withered hand or a woman with an issue of blood or even a man possessed of a demon. While others they mention by name: Jairus, whose daughter he raises from the dead, Lasarus, Mary, Mary and Salome who witnessed the death and burial and then went to the tomb. We’ve discussed in class why this might be; the people mentioned by name may have been the witnesses that were consulted to write the text. Like Mark talking to Jairus and him saying “yeah Jesus came to my house and raised my daughter from the dead.” While if they weren’t mentioned it’s because some one else told the story. In the case of Jairus he might have also said “On the way a woman with an issue of blood detained us and Jesus healed her,” which is why Jairus is mentioned by name while the woman is only referenced. Another interesting thing is that in the Gospel of John he doesn’t mention himself, he says a disciple that Jesus loved, or Jesus’s beloved or things to that effect. I think a similar approach was used in the other Gospels or at least in Mark. After Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane and his capture, we get an interesting story in the Gospel of Mark that isn’t located in any of the others.  There is a disciple wrapped in a sheet that follows the group that captured Jesus, but when confronted he runs away leaving his sheet behind—fleeing naked into the night.  This appears to be Mark himself fleeing the scene, as in John he doesn’t mention the disciple by name, yet none of the other Gospels mention anything about it, not even John who was present at the time. So what other eyewitness could there have been, this witness would have also shared the story with the other Gospel writers, but he doesn’t. it also appears from the reading that no one else saw the naked disciple, but a couple of the guards. However they were against Christianity and so probably wouldn’t have shared the story. Which leaves the disciple himself to tell Mark the story, but with the prior analysis of when people receive names, this disciple would have gotten a name—yet he doesn’t which leads me to believe that it was Mark himself, but not wanting to place himself in the text for similar reasons that John uses.

Tags: New Testament Witnesses

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