{"id":1403,"date":"2014-08-18T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2014-08-18T10:59:11","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T14:59:11","slug":"gaining-a-deeper-understanding-of-the-new-testament-20140817","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=1403","title":{"rendered":"Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20140817"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last installment of this article I introduced the Gospel of Mark, the next chronological piece written for the New Testament (NT). If you have been following this article, you know that seven books, all written by St. Paul and now included in the NT, were written before any of the four Gospels were written. These seven books in chronological order are:<\/p>\n

First Thessalonians
\nGalatians
\nFirst Corinthians
\nPhilemon
\nPhilippians
\nSecond Corinthians
\nRomans<\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s story of Jesus is challenging to read as the first gospel – as if the other gospels didn\u2019t exist and this is our first encounter with the story of Jesus. It requires imagining that we haven\u2019t already heard about Jesus from the other gospels, from Christian preaching and teaching and from what is taken for granted about Jesus in Christian and popular culture.<\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s story is striking because of what it does include and what it does not include. What does Mark\u2019s Gospel leave out? Mark has no stories of\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 birth or early years. It begins with Jesus as an adult going to a wilderness prophet named John and being baptized by him.\u00a0 Although Mark includes some of Jesus\u2019 teaching, there is much that is not present. In particular, the collection of teachings (about 200 verses) shared by Matthew and Luke from a common manuscript (\u201cQ\u201d), do not appear in Mark – perhaps because Mark knew they had already been put into\u00a0 writing and thus felt no need to include them in his narrative.<\/p>\n

The Lord\u2019s Prayer is not in Mark. It is found in different versions in Matthew, Luke and the apostolic document called the Didache<\/em>, a late first century writing not included in the NT.<\/p>\n

\"Gospel-of-Mark-Graphic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many of Jesus\u2019 best-known parables are not in Mark. Missing are:<\/p>\n

The Good Samaritan
\nThe Prodigal Son (Luke
\n<\/em>The Unmerciful Servant
\nThe Vineyard Workers
\nThe Sheep and Goats (Matthew)
\n<\/em>The Talents and Lost Sheep(Matthew & Luke)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The best-know parables in Mark\u2019s Gospel are:<\/p>\n

The Sower and the Seed
\nThe Wicked Vineyard Tenants<\/p>\n

Further, Mark does not\u00a0\u00a0 portray Jesus as publicly proclaiming his identity as Son of God <\/em>or Messiah. <\/em>Of course Mark affirms that Jesus is both, but he does not present the titles as part of the message of Jesus Himself. Something which makes much more sense. Two affirmations of Jesus\u2019 exceptional status are cast in private settings and not a part of Jesus\u2019 public teaching. According to Mark, Jesus is Messiah and Son of God but this was a secret during Jesus\u2019 lifetime, known as the Messianic Secret.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last installment of this article I introduced the Gospel of Mark, the next chronological piece written for the New Testament (NT). If you have been following this article, you know that seven books, all written by St. Paul … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-look-at-the-new-testament","category-gosple-of-mark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}