Mark
INTRODUCTION
MARK
I. HOWARD MARSHALL
By almost universal consent this is the oldest written account of the life of Jesus which we possess, composed some thirty years after his death in or for the church at Rome by John Mark, the “interpreter” of Peter.
The book presents Jesus as the Son of God who gave his life as a ransom for many, in terms obviously geared to the Roman, Gentile mind.
This, the shortest of the Gospels, is a vigorously written evangelistic tract, portraying Jesus as the early Christians saw him. And like every tract its contents call for a response to the facts it presents. While it is true that almost everything Mark records has been scrutinized by skeptical critics who are prepared to deny the historicity of the major proportion of Mark’s story, there are excellent historical grounds for accepting the reliability of his record.