# Did Peter write the book of Mark?



## Ben_Ives (Jan 12, 2015)

Hello

Paul W Barnett's book, "Bethlehem to Patmos" is required pre-reading for the Bachelor of Theology at Trinity Theological College in Leederville WA.

He says, Peter wrote, 1st and 2nd Peter and the gospel of Mark.

I don't believe this. Could someone shed some light on this, and if anyone is able to reply and assert that it is Peter who wrote Mark, could you also please state if there is a differing view that Mark actually write the gospel of Mark, and why might that consideration be/not be valid?

Thanks


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## Contra_Mundum (Jan 13, 2015)

There's no evidence I know of that Mark's Gospel ever circulated under Peter's name. All four Gospels' provenance is exceedingly ancient, so as far as we know all four attributions (MML&J) are original.

Eusebius, the 4th century church-historian, quotes the 2nd century Papias crediting the substance of Mark to Peter, "The Elder used to say: Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled....." This may have led to the statement you are questioning. I don't know if what you report is verbatim; does the man say Peter wrote _Gospel of Mark_ or was responsible in some way for its content?

1Pet.5:13, and church-tradition, put Mark together with Peter at some point. The _Gospel of Mark_ contains many, many "Petrine" details, which it makes good sense to interpret as coming directly from him.

I personally suppose it to be true that we hear much of Peter's unique voice in _Mark_. But Mark should still get credit for authorship.


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 13, 2015)

Contra_Mundum said:


> There's no evidence I know of that Mark's Gospel ever circulated under Peter's name. All four Gospels' provenance is exceedingly ancient, so as far as we know all four attributions (MML&J) are original.
> 
> Eusebius, the 4th century church-historian, quotes the 2nd century Papias crediting the substance of Mark to Peter, "The Elder used to say: Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled....." This may have led to the statement you are questioning. I don't know if what you report is verbatim; does the man say Peter wrote _Gospel of Mark_ or was responsible in some way for its content?
> 
> ...



Hello, 

The exact words used by Barrett are,

"Peter is associated with the writing of three documents that became part of the New Testament, First and Second Peter and the Gospel of Mark. But while the fisherman from faraway Capernaum may have achieved some competence in Greek speech by the mid sixties it is unlikely that he would have been capable of writing the fluent Greek of these books. There is evidence, however, that he had colleagues who could have written this literature in association with him. We may think of this group as the Perrine Circle."

He then goes on to mention Silvanus; and also uses Josephus's translation of, "The Jewish War" from Aramaic to Greek by scribes to explain how Silvanus would have been more than a mere scribe but would have expressed things in his own way, as Peter would not have had the ability to use such excellent Greek.

He states it is an issue how such an unlearned fisherman could become such a powerful witness, and credits the resurrection for this.

He states that the author of 2 Peter is clearly different from 1 Peter due to the style, and says, "One inspired guess that fits well with certain strands of evidence, is that the secretary-writer of 2 Peter is Jude the brother of James.

RE Mark:
Barnett cites 2 Peter 1:14,15 and asks what was Peter referring to..

He refers to Irenaeus, and as you did Papias.

I guess I'm just amazed because I never thought that the gospels could have been hearsay evidence. I had always though they were written from first hand witnesses. Its not troubling to my faith in the least, I mean a lot of the Old Testament was written by Moses.

I'm not sure if I've done proper credit to Barnett, but thank you for your help and insight. I remember you answered a question I asked about the gospel of Luke a few months back as well, and I was surprised when you said that he wasn't an apostle! I have so much to learn over the next 3 years at College!


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 13, 2015)

I was going to say, what about the gift of speaking in tongues, wouldn't that have transferred into Peters ability to write in Greek also?

Barnett seems to completely skip over many (to me) obvious rationalising which could be explained from understanding things from God's perspective, whilst he states conclusively that the miracles occurred, it seems as if he tries to rationalise everything from a completely human perspective.

One thing that stood out to me above everything else, was his description of the conversion of Saul of Tarsis to become Paul. He states that Paul would not have chosen to become a Christian, had he not understood certain facts, and that he was commission to be an apostle on the Damascus Road, but not converted until soon after in the city. Just seems odd, what's your perspective on that?


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## whirlingmerc (Jan 13, 2015)

I believe Mark wrote the book but drawing heavily from Peter

A list of reasons is here https://earliestchristianity.wordpr...ostle-Peter-a-source-for-marks-gospel-part-3/
Peter is the first and last named disciple in Mark (1:16; 16:7)
Peter's mother in law's healing 
etc..


(for some reason I thought that some early sources called the gospel from Peter but I am probably mistaken)


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## Contra_Mundum (Jan 13, 2015)

Ben,
For anyone to think or describe the Gospels as "hearsay" is just to put so damning a slight as he can upon the testimony that the result (if one was consistent) would be to call virtually everything _reported_ from antiquity suspect. When, in fact, the testimony found in the Gospels is among the BEST preserved of ALL ancient witness! In fact, it is in a class by itself.

Two Gospels are putative first-hand accounts (although, Matthew certainly must have drawn on certain specific or collective memories for events that occurred before he joined the disciples, where direct inspiration did not supply him). John's Gospel is a self-declared first-hand account of everything it presents.

The triple-witness Synoptic accounts all together bear witness to one collective experience, which well in advance of its inscripturation fell into a typical "form" due to its repeated rehearsal for years in the presence of all Twelve (and verified in parts by many others). This combined and consistent witness is the real reason for the similarity in MM&L; and not some isolated, mythical "Q"-source now lost that renders the whole account actual hearsay.

Mark, from what we can tell, is at worst a terrifically faithful amanuensis for Peter's presentation. In fact, Mark was himself most likely a personal (though very youthful) eyewitness of quite a bit of Jesus' ministry. My belief is that Mark is the "certain young man" who fled naked from Gethsemane (Mk.14:51-52).

Luke stands for all of antiquity as its noblest historian. If his account (for instance) of Mary and Joseph's frantic search for the 12yr old Jesus is "hearsay," then so is Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day" (a gripping modern account of the Allied Invasion of Normandy). Luke is a reporter of peerless integrity; his incidental details and oblique references have supplied investigators with literally hundreds of data points by which to probe his veracity. He has come out of the fire sterling. History isn't hearsay.

And, partly because Luke is so abundantly verifiable--though he is an admitted second-generation follower--his integrity lends credibility to both Matthew and Mark's account. Furthermore, the consistency of these three plus John renders the several spurious, counterfeit, pseudonymous Gospels a joke. Fake stories can't get strange place and geographical names right. Fake stories can't get people's names right, or the percentage of names right. Why are so many women in the Gospels named "Mary?"

Today we know, based on computerized crunching of data scrounged from thousands of gravesites found in archaeological Palestine, that (If I recall correctly) somewhere between 10-20% of the women in that era were named Mary. Forgers writing a couple hundred years later and a couple hundred leagues away could not possibly have gotten that percentage correct (and it is correct in the Gospels); let alone want to "confuse" readers of their fictitious account by assigning multiple characters the same designation. But the genuine Gospel writers risk this confusion because those are the facts. They just report them.

Richard Bauckham's recent book, "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses," goes far to demonstrate that what the Gospel accounts state as first-person testimony is (so far as any later investigator can tell) just what it purports to be.

Faithful reportage of first-person accounts is media, and we may question the quality of the media. Like today we might question the quality of tape-recordings (audio or video). But did the event happen the way those participants in the record claim it did? The Gospels purport to be reportage of those events, focused on Jesus, by those participants who were surrounding him. It's history, not hearsay.


It doesn't sound to me that your author does other than explain where the biblical material comes from, when the main question he addresses is historical and mundane (rather than spiritual). Peter isn't ignorant; he was probably a fairly intelligent man before Jesus met him (since education and intelligence aren't synonyms) though he was not a scribe or scholar. He then spent three years in the Seminary of Christ; plus afterward he had the Spirit's special endowments.

Paul was both intelligent and educated, and he still apparently used a scribe. So, why should Peter's use of scribes disturb us in the least? As Paul confidently declares in 1Cor.15, if anyone in the later half of the 1C wished to prove the truthfulness of the reported Resurrection (and by extension, lesser miraculous claims), there were still alive the majority of above 500 witnesses to the one fact; and countless others--including hostile witnesses--to Jesus' wonderful works and teaching.

For the sake of their conviction of the truth, those who trusted Christ would suffer the loss of all things earthly; for which devotion they expected him to acknowledge them as his before his Father.



In answer to the last question, it seems as if your author has some theological interest in fixing Paul's moment-of-conversion. I don't think Luke (writing Acts) or Paul has much interest in dividing the events on the road and the events that followed in the city. There was a fundamental change of Paul that took place _*in*_ the encounter with Jesus on the road. Why he needed to wait three days in blindness and fasting before Ananias came to show him Christ's mercy and to baptize him is not fully explicated; but most of us have had the experience of enforced waiting, and the benefit it can be to our mental reflection if we make use of it.

I suppose Paul knew more than enough facts well before he set out for Damascus. Facts weren't his problem, but his lack of grace and his consequent inability to see the facts correctly and exercise faith in Christ. His earthly eyes were then darkened, so that he could see clearly spiritually. He saw Christ truly and accurately for the first time on the road, and in that light (though inured to the sun) he finally saw his guilt and death desert, and knew that death had been suspended at least for the moment. Was there grace for him also? If so, in what form? These were questions he was left with in the privacy of his mind for three days. Perhaps, this specific period of time was also needful to comport his experience in some way with the three-days wait by the first disciples, having their Lord Jesus in the tomb.

Conversion isn't "information based," though information generally precipitates conversion, and imbues it with meaning, and conditions it's results. I'm fairly confident that Paul heard the gospel proved from the OT by Stephen before his martyrdom. Such were the goads against which he kicked. In Damascus, he received clarification and confirmation from earlier believers (than he) concerning the Son of God; which he then took straightaway into the synagogues to confront the very people whom he had originally intended to enlist against the Way, of which he now counted himself a member. Act.26:19, when he rehearses his experience, I understand him to identify "the heavenly vision" of the road as his hour of conversion.

Anyway, that's my  on Paul's conversion experience.


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 13, 2015)

Contra_Mundum said:


> Ben,
> For anyone to think or describe the Gospels as "hearsay" is just to put so damning a slight as he can upon the testimony that the result (if one was consistent) would be to call virtually everything _reported_ from antiquity suspect. When, in fact, the testimony found in the Gospels is among the BEST preserved of ALL ancient witness! In fact, it is in a class by itself.
> 
> Two Gospels are putative first-hand accounts (although, Matthew certainly must have drawn on certain specific or collective memories for events that occurred before he joined the disciples, where direct inspiration did not supply him). John's Gospel is a self-declared first-hand account of everything it presents.
> ...



Dear Bruce,

Thank you very much for your reassuring and comforting reply, God bless you.


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