Gospel of Mark Chapter 1

Historical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark

Chapter 1

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Mark 1:1-8

1: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2: As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; 3: the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight -- " 4: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5: And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the

people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6: Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. 7: And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8: I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

NOTES

1: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

v1: Ehrman (1996, p72-5) makes a strong case that the phrase "Son of God" in v1 is a later interpolation. See also Head (1991). Adella Yarbro Collins (1995) concludes in her review article that the field is evenly split on the matter. It is important to keep in mind, as Koester once pointed out, that texts are generally far more variable before they are canonized. Several exegetes have argued, based on the grammar of v2 and other arguments, that the beginning of the Gospel has been lost (see discussion in Willker 2004, p9-10).

v1: Dewey (2004) observes of the text of Mark:

"Comparing the seven modern reconstructions of the Greek NT texts from Tischendorf's last (1872) edition through the 25th edition of Nestle-Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland found that the Gospel of Mark had the lowest number of variant-free verses of any NT text-45.1 percent. The figure for the entire NT is 62.9 percent, and all other NT writings show agreement of over 50 percent, with Matthew and Luke being nearer 60 percent. Another way of looking at it is to count the number of variants per printed page of Nestle-Aland, 25th ed. Here again Mark leads with 10.3 variants per page. John has 8.5, and both Matthew and Luke just under 7; the rest of the NT is lower still."

v1: The term "gospel" (euangelion) seems to have been in general use as part of a standard phrase arche tou euangeliou (the beginning of the gospel) known from proclamations and inscriptions from the time of Augustus. The phrase "Son of God" (theou hyios) was also used of Roman emperors (Helms 1988, p28-9). Craig Evans (2000, p69-70) offers a translation of one such inscription, the Priene Inscription:

"It seemed good to the Greeks of Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: "Since Providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior [swthvr], both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance [fanei'n] (excelled even our anticipations), surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good tidings for the world that came by reason of him [h\rxen de; tw'i kovsmwi tw'n di? aujto;neujangelivwnhJ genevqlio" tou' qeou'],"which Asia resolved in Smyrna..."

Evans observes:

"Comparison of Mark's incipit with this part of the inscription seems fully warranted. First, there is reference to good news, or 'gospel. In Mark the word appears in the singular, while in the inscription it probably appears twice in the more conventional plural. Secondly, there is reference to the beginning of this good news. In Mark the nominal form is employed, while in the inscription the verbal form is employed. Thirdly, this good news is brought about by a divine agent. In Mark this agent is 'Jesus the Anointed', (either in the incipit, or as declared elsewhere in the Markan Gospel), while in the inscription the agent is 'Augustus', the 'savior' and 'benefactor'...." [Greek removed].

v1: The writer of Mark avoids the Greek verb euangelizomai ("to proclaim the gospel"), common in Matthew and Luke.

v1: Does the opening phrase "Gospel of Jesus Christ" mean the Gospel about Jesus, or the Gospel preached by Jesus? Or some combination of both? Weeden (1971) along with other exegetes, argues that for the writer of Mark, Jesus is the Gospel.

v1: Mack (1995) writes:

"Catching sight of the Markan community is not easy....The Markan community is not described, is not directly addressed, and only reflected opaquely in the story as if in a dark reflecting pool" (p153).

Despite the total lack of direct evidence for any community appearing in the Gospel, it is an article of faith among exegetes, (including Mack himself) that the writer of Mark had, or was addressing, a community. A number of places have been proposed for the location of the Gospel, including Rome, Alexandria, and Southern Syria/Northern Palestine. No real evidence exists for either a specific community or a specific location, though the Greek of Mark, peppered with Latinisms (of a military, legal, and economic nature associated with Roman colonial power) and idiomatic usages, is that of a second language user. Tolbert (1989, p305), who identifies Rome as the locale of the writer of Mark, speculates that as the Flavian persecutions made public preaching of Christianity impossible, a text capable of being read in a household setting by someone of moderate literacy, such as the Gospel of Mark, was an useful alternative to dangerous public preaching. Ted Weeden, a ranking Mark scholar, argues that the writer's home base was Caesarea Philippi. Against this Beavis (1989, p39), observes that essentially the writer could have written the Gospel of Mark anywhere in the Empire, since the kind of education necessary to write such a work was available wherever Rome held sway. For a quick overview of what this education might include, read this book review of a pair of books on the topic. For a more detailed discussion of community, geography, and Mark, see the Excursus on Community and Geography in the Gospel of Mark at the end of Mark 13.

v1: Robert Grant (1963) comments on the writer's style:

The most distinctive feature of Mark's vocabulary, syntax and style is its almost complete lack of distinction. Mark uses 1,270 words and has all but 79 of them in common with other New Testament writers; of these 79 words, 41also occur in the Septuagint. He is fairly fond of using diminutives and words of Latin origin; both kinds of words are typical of colloquial speech. Similarly, he uses the verb 'to be', especially in the imperfect tense, with a participle, instead of other verbs in the imperfect; his usage thus resembles the English 'he was going' rather than the best Greek. He likes to crowd a sentence with participles, and he enjoys double negatives. Examples of the historical present occur 151 times, seventy-two of them with the verb 'he says' or 'they say'. This usage gives his work a certain vividness, enhanced by twenty-six examples of 'he began to' or 'they began to'. For connecting his sentences he usually contents himself with a simple 'and', although in forty-two instances he uses the word 'euthus', which can be translated as 'immediately', but may mean little more than 'then'.

Edward Hobbs (1998) in a post on B-Greek, observes:

Mark writes with remarkable attention to his wording! He is often accused of writing poor Greek, and/or of woodenly reproducing his sources. On the contrary, IMHO, he builds theme after theme upon careful choice of words, a characteristic which is usually missed. The commonest reason for missing it, I believe, is that most readers today know Mark in their own language (English or whatever), and then when they read Mark in Greek, are constantly "translating" in their minds, missing the distinctive features of his Greek text. One aspect of this arises from the fact that few of us grow up reading the LXX as our OT--we read it in English, and then some of us learn Hebrew and read it in that language, but ignore the OT in the language used by Mark. Hence, we seldom catch the frequent-in-Mark quotations, allusions, and hints of the OT text, all of which are essential to understand his full meaning.

v1: George Aichele (2003) writes:

"In the Old Testament, euaggelion appears only in 2 Samuel (LXX 2 Kings) 4:10, where David kills the messenger who brings the “good news” of Saul’s death. In addition, the plural form, euaggelia.appears four times in 2 Samuel 18:20, 22, 25, and 27, where it is used in the description of David’s reception of the “tidings” of Absalom’s death, and in 2 Kings (LXX 4 Kings) 7:9, where lepers discover the abandoned camp of the Syrian army. With the exception of this last instance, the message that is brought is not clearly a good one. None of these texts throws much light on the gospel of Mark’s use of the term, unless one wishes to argue that Mark is using the term ironically."

v1: "Jesus." Jesus (IHSOUS) is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua and was used to translate that name throughout the Greek version of the OT, the Septuagint. Many exegetes have commented on the fact that the Savior of the Christians had the name of Moses' successor. Robert Kraft (1992) writes:

"(1) It seems likely to me that in one or more schools of pre-Christian Jewish eschatological speculation, the idea had been entertained and developed that God's expected Messiah would fulfil or at least reflect the role of Moses' successor Joshua.

(2) This Joshua messianology was primarily based on the eschatological exegesis of passages such as Ex. 23.20f (the Angel), Num. 24.17 (the Star & Scepter), and Dt. 18.15ff (the Prophet like Moses).

(3) Because of the expectation of a priestly as well as a military/royal Messiah, later Greek interpretation could also integrate the high priestly Joshua figure into this Joshua messianology by means of the A)NATOLH/-A)NATE/LLEIN similarities between Zech 3-6 and Num 24.17 ("a scepter shall
arise..."). Probably the royal and priestly figure of Melchizedek also influenced this development, especially through the use of Ps 110(109) in messianic speculation.

(4) As to its origins, if indeed it had any one place of origin, the Northern Kingdom and particularly Samaria is the most likely candidate with its reverence for Joseph-Ephraim and its antipathy to any suggestions of a Davidic Messiah. From Samaria, and perhaps by means of diaspora Samaritan communities such as we encounter in Alexandria, the rudimentary Joshua messianology came to influence Greek as well as Semitic Judaism.

(5) When emerging Christianity, in the early stages of development, came into contact with this Joshua messianology, it applied and adopted it with respect to Joshua/Jesus of Nazareth, its resurrected Lord and Messiah. At first, this influence is most noticeable in early Christian traditions associated with Alexandria, central Palestine, and perhaps Eastern Syria -- this may explain why the NT is relatively silent -- but in the second, third and fourth centuries, the use of this Joshua/Jesus Christology spread throughout the Christian world as we know it."

As Kraft points out, Exodus 23:20, which the writer of Mark uses in the very next verse, Mark 1:2, contains a reference that links the name Joshua to the name of God:

20 "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.

Kraft also notes that the link between Jesus and Joshua was made by the early Christians. For example, Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, argues

(Dial 120.3): A ruler shall not fail from Judah and a governor from his thighs until he comes for whom it is kept. And he shall be the expectation of the Gentiles.' And this is clear that it was not said concerning Judah but concerning the Messiah. For all of us from all the Gentiles do not expect Judah, but IHSOUS, the one who also led your fathers from Egypt! (cited in Kraft, 1992)

v1: Aichele (2003) observes:

"Although the phrase, “the beginning of the gospel” (arch. tou euaggeliou), appears in so many words in Philippians 4:15, in the letter to the Philippians these words denote the beginnings of Paul’s missionary activity and lack any hint of the self-referentiality of Mark 1:1.(p10)"

In both Paul and Mark, arch. tou euaggeliou denotes a beginning.

v1: "Son of God." In Judaism before, during, and after the time of Jesus there was a heresy of "two powers" in heaven that was opposed by later rabbis, and which Christians were accused of. This consisted of interpreting scripture to say that there was a principal angel or entity in Heaven that was equal to God. This "heresy" was common enough that those who advocated it did not feel the need to justify their beliefs, indicating that they were writing to audiences comfortable with such beliefs. James McGrath (2001) writes:

Let us begin with the earliest evidence available to us, namely the writings of Philo and the NT. What is immediately striking is that there is no real indication in the writings of Philo and Paul that they felt their beliefs, which resemble the ‘two powers’ belief in rabbinic literature, were controversial.

2: As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;

v2: Although the writer of Mark is often accused of "error" in reference to the scriptures at this point (the citation is from Malachi rather than Isaiah), as some commentators have noted, the first two verses may form a complete statement:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet.

with reference to Isaiah 40:9:

You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!" (NIV)

"Good tidings" is of course euangelion (gospel) in Greek.

v2: Helms (1997, p3) points out that this verse is built out of Exodus 23:20 and a paraphrase of Malachi. 3:1.

Here is my herald whom I send on ahead of you
Idou, apostello ton aggelon mou pro prosopou sou

taken directly from the Greek of the Septaugint version of Exodus:

Idou, apostello ton aggelon mou pro prosopou sou

The passage in its entirety reads:

Exodus 23:20 "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. (NIV)

v2: Malachi 3:1 says:

"See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. (NIV)

The last section of Malachi's prophecies, Mal 4:5, contains a reference to Elijah:

"See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse." (NIV)

Elijah will play an important role in the gospel of Mark. Note also that Malachi 3 refers to those who rob the House of God, a reference to Jesus' action of cleansing the Temple in Mk 11:15-19.

v2: "the way." "The way" is an important motif in Mark. Things are always happening "on the way." Isa 35:8, which appears to lie behind many of the healings in Mark, refers to "the holy way."

3: the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight -- "

	v3: the first thirteen words are taken from the Septaugint Isaiah 40:3, but Mark changes the last two words, "our God," to "him."
	v1-3: the writer of Mark ensures that the reader knows Jesus is the Son of God. The "messianic secret" is a secret only from other characters in the story; the reader is in on it at the beginning.

4: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

v4: Mark's claim that John taught "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" is directly contradicted by the Jewish historian Josephus:

Antiquites of the Jews 18.5.2
"Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so come for baptism; for that the washing would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the remission of some sins, but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness."

5: And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

	v5: the Jordan is an important location in the Elijah-Elisha Cycle in 2 Kings 2 and 2 Kings 5. The writer of Mark will make extensive use of the Elijah-Elisha Cycle in his gospel.
	v5: McVann (1994) argues that, based on the importance of baptism in the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel was composed for a baptismal context. Many exegetes have seen the gospel as having an initiatory flavor.

6: Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey.

v6: Mark has presented John as an Elijah figure with a leather belt (zonen dematinen) around his waist (peri ten osphyn autou), using the same language the Septaugint uses to describe Elijah, a hairy man, girt with a leather belt (zonen dematinen) around his waist (ten osphyn autou) (Helms 1988, p35). Zech 13:4 states that a hairy mantle is the sign of a prophet.

v6: Price (2003, p44-5) points out that "hairiness" (camel's hair) is an ancient symbol of the sun's rays, found in numerous biblical characters (Samson, Elijah, Esau). Arthur Drews (1998) and Joseph Campbell (1962, 107) both link John to Oannes, a name for the Babylonian god Enki who was responsible for purification through water rituals (compare Greek Ionnaes, Latin Johannes, Hebrew Yohanan, English John). While this does not sunder John the Baptist from history, it does show how deep the roots of this character may go.

8: I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

v8: Meier (1994, p106) observes the clear link to Isaiah 61:1:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the blind, (NIV)

In the next verse the prophet declares "to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor." In the Gospel of Mark Jesus' ministry lasts one year, at least by some calculations.

v8: both J.J. Collins (1995, p205-6) and Tomson (2001, 130-1) observe the remarkable affinities between the Dead Sea Scroll labeled 4Q521 and the career of Jesus. 4Q521, an expansion of Isaiah 61, refers to the anointed one who shall revive the dead and preach salvation to the meek. Traditions of a healing prophet who preaches salvation and has the power to raise the dead predate Jesus in Judaism.

Historical Commentary

The question of the historicity of the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist will be discussed in the next pericope.

Santiago Guijarro (2003, p1), arguing that Mark is writing an ancient biography, sees this pericope as intended as a prologue:

"Regarding its length several hypotheses have been advanced; those with a wider acceptance place the end of this beginning either at Mark 1:13 or at Mark 1:15. The first theory, mainly based on narrative grounds, underlines the peculiar Connotations of time and space, and the fact that Jesus appears in these verses as a passive character (Struthers Malbon: 306-10). The second, which will be adopted in this study, is grounded on the analysis of its literary structure, thus distinguishing a prologue (Mk 1:1-3) and a "diptych" where John (Mk 1:4-8) and Jesus (Mk 1:9-15) are introduced in a parallel way. The unity of this beginning is reinforced, from a literary viewpoint, by the use of the term euaggelion both at the beginning (Mk 1:1) and at the end (Mk 1:15) of the passage; as well as by the parallelisms found between the presentation of John and Jesus: egeneto ... baptizo ... en te eremo ... kerysso (Boring; Klauck: 19-34)."

Josephus scholar Steve Mason (1992) gives another view of the issue.

"In sum, then, Josephus' account of John the Baptist, independent as it is from the tendencies of the Christian tradition, forces us to ask whether the wilderness preacher has not been posthumously adopted by the church in a way that he did not anticipate. It seems clear enough that he did immerse Jesus, among many others, and that this event marked a watershed in Jesus' life. Jesus' immersion by John caused problems for early Christians, for they then had to explain why Jesus was immersed for the forgiveness of sins. It is unlikely, therefore, that Christians created the story of Jesus' baptism. But since the renowned Jewish preacher had immersed him, the early Christian retelling of the story increasingly coopted John into the Christian story, gradually diminishing his own message and making him a prophet for the church. This kind of process seems inevitable with famous and well-liked people: notice how Jesus himself has been adopted by Marxists and Capitalists, Enlightenment thinkers and fundamentalists, not to mention virtually every world religion. Josephus' account of John helps us to see another side of him, independent of the young church's perspective."

Scholars generally see this section as a creation of the writer. Responding to arguments that this pericope existed in a pre-Markan form, Gundry (1993, p40) asks "What function could it have had apart from Mark's book?" Tolbert (1989, p307), argues that the Gospel of Mark is the result of creative effort on the part of its author, and not the end product of development in an oral tradition. Standaert (1978) and Smith (1999) apparently concur, arguing that the prologue follows the conventions of Greco-Roman tragedy, in which an actor comes out on stage at the beginning to familiarize the audience with the story. The actor plays the role of a messenger, often from the gods. After the introduction he disappears. Typically, while the audience is aware of what is going on, the characters remain in the dark until the recognition scene at the end.

Because of the impossibility of knowing how to handle the first three verses of Mark, no chiasm has been constructed for this pericope.

Mark 1:9-11

9: In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10: And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending
upon him like a dove; 11: and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."

NOTES

9: In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

v9: "Nazareth." The problem of Jesus' origin in Nazareth is really two problems. First, what does the author of Mark say is the relationship between Jesus and Nazareth? Second, was there a village by that name existing in the first century?

The first question is the more easily resolved of the two. Here in Mark 1:9 "Nazareth" is apparently a later addition to the text.

First, it does not appear in the parallel passages in Matthew or Luke. In Luke Jesus goes to the baptism from Galilee, but there is no Nazareth.

Second, this is the only use of the word "Nazareth" in Mark; all other usages are a Greek word, nazarhnos, generally translated as "Nazarene." "Nazarene" can mean either a sectarian designation, or "of (the location of) Nazara," but it cannot mean "of Nazareth." How the ending "th" became attached to it is a mystery that no one has yet solved. The key idea here, as a friend pointed out, is that if the writer of Mark really thought that Jesus was from Nazareth, why does he keep saying that he is "of Nazara?"

In Mark 2:1 the writer identifies Capernaum as Jesus' home, not Nazareth. This identification of Capernaum is supported by Matthew 4:13: "Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali--." Why else would Capernaum have appeared here, if Matthew did not understand that Jesus had a home there? Against this Painter (1999) argues that the use of en oiko -- "at home" in Mark 2:1 is supposed to reflect back to Mark 1:29, where the home in question is that of Peter's mother-in-law, not that of Jesus. Yet the writer has the news of Jesus' being "at home" reported, as if his connection with the place were known. This implies that we should read 2:1 as referring to Jesus' home, not the home of Peter's mother-in-law. Further, the writer of Mark does not clarify whether Nazareth or Capernaum was Jesus' home, indicating that perhaps he did not write "Nazareth." This is supported by Zindler's (2000) observation that Capernaum should be read as "Home of the Paraclete," a signifying name that would well suit Jesus' mission.

It should also be noted that one editor of Matthew removed all the references to nazarhnos in his original source. This is usually done when terms were found to be obscure. If the writer of Mark had mentioned nazaret at 1:9, would the editor of Matthew have removed the references to nazarhnos from the text? Had both terms been present in the text, nazaret would have explained nazarhnos.

Yet another strike against the presence of "Nazareth" in this verse originally is that the writer of Mark never explains or apologizes for the identification of Nazareth as Jesus' hometown in his gospel (compare Matthew 2:23: "and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: 'He will be called a Nazarene'.")

Further, the usage of "Nazareth" is apparently untypical of the writer's style. Gundry (1993, p388) notes that in Mark's entire gospel only in v9 does he place a geographical location in a larger context (Nazareth....of Galilee).

A clue that this passage has been redacted is that the writer of Mark characteristically uses the name "Jesus" with the definite article -- "the Jesus" -- but here in v9 there is no definite article, perhaps indicating that the text has been tampered with. Gundry (1993, p47), however, argues in a very strained way that the definite article was dropped to emphasize "Nazareth" and "Galilee" in v9 against the Jerusalemites and Judeans in v5. Additionally, Andrew Criddle (2004) points out that some Greek lexicons say that the first appearance of a character in a narrative may lack a definite article. However, Jesus has already appeared in v1 above.

In sum, the historical fact of Jesus' origin in Nazareth cannot be deduced from this passage (or anywhere else in Mark, since the place-name "Nazareth" is never used). "Nazareth" only crops up later in the tradition, in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, both of whom copied Mark, and in John, who also appears to have known Mark's gospel. Here in Mark 1:9, its only appearance in the Gospel, it appears to have been interpolated.

"Nazara" was understood to mean "truth" in certain quarters in the second century. The Gospel of Philip 47 says:

The apostles who were before us had these names for him: "Jesus, the Nazorean, Messiah", that is, "Jesus, the Nazorean, the Christ". The last name is "Christ", the first is "Jesus", that in the middle is "the Nazarene". "Messiah" has two meanings, both "the Christ" and "the measured". "Jesus" in Hebrew is "the redemption". "Nazara" is "the Truth". "The Nazarene" then, is "the Truth". "Christ" [...] has been measured. "The Nazarene" and "Jesus" are they who have been measured.

The problem of Nazareth's existence in the first century is more ambiguous. The Old Testament and Josephus, the Jewish historian who lead armies in Galilee and whose base was a scant few miles away, along with other ancient writers, never mention Nazareth. Archaeological work (summarized in Reed 2000, 131-2) has uncovered evidence of human activities, but no evidence of habitation. Perhaps it never existed, but then again, perhaps it was so small it never left any mark on history.

v9: parallels v5 (adapted from Camery-Hoggat 1992, p9):

Mark 1:5	Mark 1:9
And there went out to him	In those days Jesus came
....of Jerusalem	....of Galilee
they were baptized	he was baptized
by him	by John
in the river Jordan	in the Jordan
confessing their sins	("Thou art my son")

v9: Jesus simply appears, without parents or antecedents. Many exegetes interpret the Christology of Mark as Adoptionist (Jesus is a human adopted as God's son) as opposed to Matthew and Luke, who posit Jesus as the Son of God from the beginning. Brenda Schildgen (1999), commenting on the silences in Mark, and the early lack of interest in, and low reputation of, the Gospel of Mark among the Patristic Fathers, notes:

"The 'absences' in the Gospel of Mark may well have been responsible for its egregious early reputation. The lapses are linguistic, literary, and narratival. That is, Mark has grammatical errors, it lacks any sophistication in rhetorical style, and, as noted above, it has specific narrative gaps. For example, there is no genealogy, no motivation for Judas, no reconciliation between Peter and Jesus after Peter's denial, no concrete teaching like the Sermon on the Mount or the Lord's Prayer. These absences may well have been disconcerting to early readers...but our own era finds Mark's gaps and silences precisely the source of its interest, as commentators seek to understand these absences literarily or intellectually."(p21)

v9: The Gospel of Mark is pre-eminently a narrative. Moderns tend to view narratives as essentially story-oriented in nature, whether fictional or not, but as Blount (1993) points out, the ancients saw narratives as a form of argument. The first century teacher of rhetoric Quntillian, for example, defined narrative as useful for persuading, whether it has actually occurred, or is only supposed to have occurred.

10: And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove;

v10: Probably related to Isaiah, a favorite author of both the early Christians and the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Donahue and Harrington 2002, p65; Meier 1994, p107). Isaiah 64:1 says:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! (NIV)

v10: Another possible source (Hoskyns and Davey, 1931) is Psalm 91:4

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge (NIV)

v10: The Marcosians and perhaps certain other gnostic groups saw the "dove" here as representing "God." In Jewish alphabetical numerology, the Greek letters for 'dove' total 801, same as for "alpha" (1) plus "omega" (800) (Ehrman 1996, p142). The underlying numerological meaning may well be a pointer to the constructed nature of the passage.

v10: The writer of Mark uses the Greek preposition eis (into) while Matthew and Luke use epi (upon) to describe how the Spirit comes to Jesus. Robert Fowler (1996) pointing out that the understanding of the later writers is often read back in Mark, observes:

"...Mark is portraying for us a person being invaded and possessed by a spirit. In Mark, Jesus becomes spirit-possessed."(p16)

Fowler also points out that in Mark the Spirit is not specified as Holy, though Matthew and Luke are careful to make that clear.

11: and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."

v11: taken partly from Psalm 2:7, a coronation psalm:

7 I will proclaim the decree of the Lord : He said to me, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father/begotten you." [YLT]

v11: Price points out that v11 is cobbled together from 3 OT texts, including Psalm 2, Isaiah 42:1, and Gen 22:12 (LXX):

"The theological point of this rich mosaic of conflated texts is to combine in Jesus Christ the roles of king, servant, and sacrifice. It is both clever and profound. But it is not historical, unless one wishes to imagine God sitting with his Hebrew Psalter, Greek Septaugint, and Aramaic Targum open in front of him, deciding what to crib." (2003, p 120-1).

v11: Helms (1988, 47) points out that for the ancient Hebrews the anointed King was understood as the "Son of God." Not only does Psalm 2:7, a coronation psalm, imply this, but it is also found in 2 Sam 7:14, where the Lord promises to David:

I will be his father, and he will be my son. (NIV)

v11: Helms (1988, p32) suggests that this verse is based on Ezekiel 1:1 mediated through the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs:

The heavens shall be opened
And from the temple of glory shall come upon him sanctification
With the Father's voice...
And the glory of the Most High shall be uttered over him. (Levi 18:6).

v11: is frequently seen by exegetes as signaling that Mark believed Jesus became God's son through baptism by John (for example, Sanders 1995, p244).

v11: Darrell Doughty (2000) writes:

"First of all, we must recognize that in the Gospel of Mark being "baptized" is a way the writer refers to being put to death. In Mark 10:38, Jesus asks James and John whether they are "able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized," where, as the allusion to Socrates indicates, the reference is clearly to Jesus' death -- and that of James and John as well. I would suggest, therefore, that when Jesus is baptized by John at the very beginning of Mark's Gospel and comes up out of the water what is portrayed, in a figurative way, is Jesus' death and resurrection. Thus, in the same way as Paul says that Jesus was "designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:4), so also in Mark 1:10, after his "resurrection," the Spirit descends upon Jesus and a voice proclaims "Thou art my beloved Son.""

v11: Joel Marcus (1995) points out that it is odd that, if Jesus really heard this voice, we don't hear him refer to himself as "Son of God" more often in the Gospel. If Jesus presumably told this to his followers, why do they not show more awareness of it?

v11: in Galatian 4 Paul refers to believers as God's sons by adoption, into whom he sent the spirit of his son as proof.

Historical Commentary

This pericope, like so many passages in Mark, is built out of the Old Testament, as evidenced by v10 and v11.

At the structural level, Jesus' location in Galilee at the start of this narrative is determined not by history but by the writer's literary dependence on the Elijah-Elisha narrative in the OT, and the connection to Isa 9:1. Brodie (2000) writes:

"...Mark's essential geographic structure is relatively simple -- a basic north-to-south movement: Jesus begins in Galilee and eventually (ch. 11) enters Jerusalem.

This corresponds significantly with the overall structure of the Elijah-Elisha narrative: the two great prophets work in (northern) Israel, but near the end, in the events concerning the Temple, (2 Kings 11-12), the focus switches to Jerusalem" (2000, p94).

This dependence on the Elijah-Elisha cycle is also reflected in Mark's more chronological feel. William Sanday (1876), discussing Papias' comments that Mark had written out of order, noted:

"It appears then that, so far as there is an order in the Synoptic Gospels, the normal type of that order is to be found precisely in St. Mark, whom Papias alleges to have written not in order."

Verses 10 and 11, the focus of the passage, are supernatural in nature and automatically ahistorical. Many exegetes see the title "Son of God" as a later Christian invention, yet another strike against this passage being historical.

The tight relationship of the events here, in the laconic style characteristic of the writer of Mark, signals that v9 is ahistorical as well. Verses 10 and 11 are natural follow-ons from v9; without them there is no reason to mention the baptism of John. Hence, v9 stands or falls with those verses.

The remaining major historical question is v9. Did John baptize Jesus? Most exegetes concede that the scene itself is not historical, but they argue that it may contain a historical kernel that records either a baptism by John, or a relationship with John. One problem with these positions is their complete subjectivity: absent a clear historical account, all of the evidence of Jesus' relationships with John are contained in what are generally acknowledged to be fictions from the hand of the writer of Mark. One may "feel" there is a historical kernel there, but no evidence exists to support that subjectivity -- other than the appearance of John the Baptist as a bare fact.

As noted above in v4, Josephus flatly contradicts the idea that John's baptism was for remission of sins. Further, Acts 19:1-6 contains the strange tale of Paul meeting disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus:

1While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?" "John's baptism," they replied. 4Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus." 5On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 6When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. (NIV)

The writer of Acts records a situation in which disciples of John are unaware of Jesus' relationship to John. It is hard to see this as anything other than historical in the time of the writer of Acts, which brings into doubt any connection between John and Jesus. Steve Mason (Fire) concurs:

"What it shows us incidentally is: (a) that John's followers were still known as an independent group, and that they had spread to the Diaspora by the middle of the first century, and (b) that John's preaching was not contingent on either the arrival of Jesus or a future spirit-immersion. This confirms our earlier conclusion that John's original message offered a straightforward choice between water-immersion now or an imminent baptism of fire."

The authentic Pauline epistles do not mention John the Baptist either. Earl Doherty (1999) notes:

"For Paul, baptism is the prime sacrament of Christian ritual, through which the convert dies to his old, sinful self and rises to a new one. In Romans 6:1-11 he breaks down the baptismal ritual into its ritual and mystical parts. Yet never do any of these parts relate to the scene of Jesus' own baptism. The descent of the dove into Jesus would have provided a perfect parallel to Paul's belief that at baptism the Holy Spirit descended into the believer. The voice of God welcoming Jesus as his Beloved Son could have served to symbolize Paul's contention (as in Romans 8:14-17) that believers have been adopted as sons of God. Yet from first century writers like Paul we would never have even known that Jesus had been baptized." (p58)

See the Excursus on Mark and Paul at the end of Chapter 10 for another point of view on possible links between Mark and Paul.

In a famous but incorrect application of the embarrassment criterion, many exegetes, led by John Meier, have argued that v9 records a historical fact of Jesus' baptism by John. Ostensibly, this is because later writers such as the authors of Matthew, John, and Luke, as well as certain non-canonical gospels, all of whom depend on the Gospel of Mark, were uncomfortable with the straightforward narration of Jesus' baptism at John's hands, since it implied that Jesus might be both subordinate to John and sinful. Note, for example, that in Matthew John first demurs, then finally agrees only after Jesus reassures him that it is permissable.

Matthew 3:12-16
12Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.14 But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 16 Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. (NIV)

.
In the Gospel of John this "embarrassment" peaks, as John the Baptist merely witnesses to Jesus, and does not baptize him.

Meier's (1987) defines the "embarrassment" criterion thusly:

"The criterion of embarrassment (so Schillebeeckx) or "contradiction" (so Meyer) focuses on actions or sayings of Jesus that would have embarrassed or created difficulty for the early Church."(p168).

After reviewing the progressively greater degree of embarrassment evinced by the Gospel writers, Meier concludes

"Quite plainly, the early Church was "stuck with" an event in Jesus' life that it found increasingly embarrassing, that it tried to explain away by various means, and that John the Evangelist finally erased from his Gospel. It is highly unlikely that the Church went out of its way to create the cause of its own embarrassment."(p169)

Meier makes several obvious errors. The story of John the Baptist comes from the writer of Mark, not the early Church. There is no evidence that the writer of Mark was the least bit embarrassed about the connection. He treats the Baptist with reverence throughout the Gospel, and notes that at his death his body was taken care of by his disciples, in sharp contrast to Jesus. Whatever later writers may have thought of the story that the writer of Mark recorded/invented, it has no bearing on whether the writer of Mark found the story "embarrassing" In fact, his use of it may be regarded as prima facie evidence that he did not find it objectionable. Further, Meier dates Mark at about 70, when no "Church" was in existence. Meier is thus simply retrojecting his Church back into history. It should also be noted that the assumption here is also that early Christians were proto-orthodox Christians, and that the Gospel of Mark does not emerge from some non-proto-orthodox tradition which was perfectly comfortable with a baptism by John. In other words, the scholarly axioms used in constructing the embarrassment criterion privilege certain forms of Christianity over others in understanding the text. In sum, based on the embarrassment criterion, there is no reason to imagine that Jesus' baptism by John is historical.

The most likely explanation, based on the facts assembled above, is that the writer has grabbed John the Baptist out of history, perhaps from a source like Josephus' Antiquities, and inserted him here to play the role of OT prophet whose purpose is to anoint the True King. As a number of exegetes have pointed out, the writer's Christology is Adoptionist. This means that the writer of Mark probably did not believe that Jesus was born the Son of God, but presents him as an ordinary human being whom God adopted as his Son. Because Adoptionism came to be considered heretical, as Bart Ehrman (1996) notes, v11 spawned many variants in the textual traditions as scribes struggled to overcome its heretical tendencies. Many exegetes have observed that the later writings preserve a tradition of conflict between the followers of John and the followers of Jesus. Perhaps the writer of Mark knew of that tradition and was simply attempting a solution to the problem: "If you can't beat 'em, assimilate them to your tradition." Or perhaps he intended to reply to that perception of a problem, and claim that actually there was no trouble between them at all, and each respected the other.

In sum, looking at the overall dependence of the pericope on the OT at both the structural and detail levels, the presence of the supernatural, the lack of external witnesses to the story, and the contradiction by later sources that picture John and Jesus as heads of rival sects, there is no support for any relationship between Jesus and John in the Gospel of Mark.

The structure of this pericope is quite simple:

A	In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
	B	And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove;
	B	and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."
A	The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

Mark 1:12-13

12: The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13: And he was in the wilderness forty days,

tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.

NOTES

12: The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

v12: Fowler (1996) points out that it is the spirit that is driving Jesus here, consistent with the theme of Jesus being possessed.

13: And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.

v13: It was a common motif in anquity (Gundry 1993, p55) for divine men to find themselves in the wilderness with the wild beasts.

v13: Some exegetes have seen Isa 11:6-9, which posits a paradise in the future, as laying behind this scene.

6: The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7: The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8: The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 9: They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (RSV)

v13: Exodus 23:20 also contains a ministering angel. The writer of Mark has just cited that verse at the beginning of the gospel.

20: "Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. . (RSV)

v13: Van Henten (1999) points out that the writer of Mark does not specify that Jesus actually passed the test. Instead, the motif of testing returns at other points in the Gospel, such as in the Garden of Gethsemane. Ven Henten concludes;

"Jesus' testings in the wilderness and in Gethsemane show, of course, that Mark's Christology was far removed from Jesus' status as homo-ousios, 'being of the same nature' with God, as decided during the Council of Chalcendon (451 CE). Although Son of God, Jesus' nature was human; otherwise his testings would have been superfluous."(p365)

v13: A few conservative exegetes believe that Matthew was the first gospel, and argue that the use of the definite article the (angels) indicates that the writer was thinking of Matthew, since no angels have been mentioned in Mark prior to this point. However, as will be seen below, angels are present in any of several OT source passages for this pericope.

Historical Commentary
As noted, the motif of divine men with the beasts in the wilderness is a common one in antiquity and serves as the broad foundation of the passage. Another common motif, of course, is the motif of testing that occurs at the beginning of the careers of many famous heroes and leaders.

At the intermediate level this appears to be a creation of the writer of Mark using the story of Elijah, based on the 1 Kings 19, where Elijah is visited by the Lord on a mountain. Additionally, the angels serve Elijah food, just as they "minister" to the needs of Jesus:

5 And he lieth down and sleepeth under a certain retem-tree, and lo, a messenger cometh against him, and saith to him, `Rise, eat;' 6 and he looketh attentively, and lo, at his bolster a cake [baken on] burning stones, and a dish of water, and he eateth, and drinketh, and turneth, and lieth down. 7 And the messenger of Jehovah turneth back a second time, and cometh against him, and saith, `Rise, eat, for the way is too great for thee;' 8 and he riseth, and eateth, and drinketh, and goeth in the power of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God -- Horeb. (YLT)

Robert Grant (1963) notes that angelic guardians and wild beasts are also found in Psalm 91:11-13:

11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; 12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. (NIV)

Dale Allison (1998) has argued that the Temptation story is a reading of the Myth of the Fall.

"In paradise Adam lived in peace with the animals and was guarded and/or honored by angels. There too he was fed by angels or (according to another tradition) ate the food of angels, manna. But after succumbing to the temptation of the serpent he was cast out (the verb is ekebalon in Gen 3:24 LXX).

This sequence of events is turned upside down in Mark. Jesus is first cast out. Then he is tempted. Then he gains companionship with the animals and the service of angels."(p187-8)

Allison concludes:

"If T. Levi 18:10 prophesies that the Messiah will open the gates of Eden and remove the sword that had guarded it since Adam and Eve fell, then in Mark 1:12-13, Jesus by his victory over Satan, sees paradise restored around him."(p198)

Dart (2003, p52) lays out the underlying chiastic structure by using keywords. I have simplifed his chiasm.

Structure of Opening of Mark
John Dart (2003, p52)

A:1-16
Messengers/message: gospel, Jesus, God, messenger (anggelos) John, wilderness

B: 1:7-9a Recognition: water, spirit

C: 1:9b
Nazareth of Galilee

D: 1:9c
and baptized

C':1:9d
in the Jordan by John

B': 1:10-11
Recognition: water, spirit

A': 1:12-14
Messengers/message: gospel, Jesus, God, angels (anggelos) John, wilderness

This pericope also has a simple ABBA structure.

A
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

B
And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan;

B
and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.

A
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."

Due to the omnipresence of the supernatural, the presence of motifs that are common in antiquity, and the presence of the elements of OT creation, nothing in this pericope can be used to support historicity.

Mark 1:14-20

14: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15: and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." 16: And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. 17: And Jesus

said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men."18: And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19: And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20: And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

NOTES

14: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,

v14, "Jesus came into Galilee" without any hint that Jesus is returning (v9) is often seen as a continuity error. Indeed, some have seen in this the real beginning of the Gospel, arguing that the earlier verses are later interpolations, up to and including "Now after John was arrested...."

v14: the RSV has chosen "arrested" to translate the Greek verb paradidomi, which more correctly means "handed over" and echoes the language later to be used of Jesus' fate (Senior 1987, p17). This common mistranslation is a good example of the way doctrinal interpretations of the text affect the way the text gets translated.

v14: Galilee: debate continues over whether and how stable Galilee was during this period. Several Jewish rebels, such as Judas of Gamala and Judas of Galilee and his sons, Simon and Jacob, came from this area (note the curious coincidence of names -- Simon, Jacob (James in English) and Judas -- some scholars have speculated that Judas' "Fourth Way" was actually Christianity, but there is no solid evidence for that (see Raskin 2002). During the revolt of 66-70CE, Galileans around John of Gischala formed the core of an anti-Roman army. Herod Antipas' construction of a new capital at Tiberias may also signal that he felt uneasy (see discussion of Galilee in Theissen and Merz 1998, p173-5). None of this unrest makes its way into the gospel of Mark. In this Gospel Jesus drifts across a landscape bereft of political ferment and economic tension.

v14. Galilee: Burton Mack (1995) writes:

"It is important to remember that Galilee was ruled by the kings of Jerusalem only twice in the preceding one thousand years, and then for only brief periods of time. David did add Galilee to his kingdom, it is true, and the old stories tell about the tribes of Naphthali, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, and Dan settling there. However, these stories also say that the tribes of Israel were not able to drive out the indigenous inhabitants. And as for belonging to the kingdoms of David and Solomon, an arrangement that lasted less than eighty years (1000 to 922 BCE), Solomon gave twenty Galilean cities back to Hiram, king of Tyre, in exchange for building materials. Then, what was left of Galilee was part of the old northern kingdom of Israel centered at Shechem (Samaria), not Jerusalem. After that kingdom came to an end in 722 BCE, Galilee was ruled by Damascus, Assyria, Neo-Babylonia, Perisa, the Ptolemies, and the Seleucids before it was again overrun by kings in Jerusalem (the Hasmoneans) in 104 BCE. There is nothing to suggest that the Galileans were happy about this annexation. The people who live in Galilee were Galileans, not Syrians, not Samaritans, not Jews. It was, as the later rabbis would say, the "district of the gentiles."

During the Hellenistic Period, Galilee was introduced to Greek language, philosophy, art, and culture through the founding of cities on the Greek model in strategic locations up and down the Jordan river valley (Caesarea Philippi, Philoteria, Scythopolis), on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee (Bethsaida, Hippos, Gadara), along the seacoast to the west (Ptolemais, Dora , Caesarea), and eventually within Galilee itself (Sephhoris, Tiberias, Aggripina). With them came Greek learning, Greek schools with their gymnasia, theaters, forums, and political institutions. During the time of Jesus there were twelve Greek cities within a twenty-five mile radius of his hometown, Nazareth" (p38-9).

Nicholas Taylor (2003) sums up this point:

"Whether or not Galilean adherents to an Israelite heritage should be considered Jews, in other words to share a common identity with the population of Judaea, is contested."

Against this, recent work by Mark A. Chancey (2003) has called the idea of a strongly gentile-influenced Galilee a myth, pointing out that both archaeological and textual evidence confirm a Galilee that was overwhelmingly Jewish:

" The actual evidence for gentiles at first-century CE Sepphoris is extremely limited, however. There are no first-century inscriptions that record vows, offerings, or dedications to deities, no grave inscriptions that identify the backgrounds of the interred. No figurines or other cultic objects have been found in first-century contexts, save one bronze plaque depicting a winged figure (and the exact function of this plaque is unknown). There is no sign of a pagan temple dedicated to a local deity, an Olympian god, or the emperor....."

<> When we look for signs of Jews at first-century Sepphoris, however, we find ample evidence. Jewish ritual baths (mikvot) reflect an interest in ritual purity, as do the fragments of stone vessels (which at least some Jews believed could not convey impurity to their contents). An analysis of the animal bones excavated on the western side of the city's acropolis revealed a surprisingly low proportion of pig bones, a food commonly eaten by gentiles but prohibited by Jewish dietary laws. Fragments of ceramic incense shovels, similar to those depicted in later Jewish art, probably also reflect a Jewish ethos."

v14: Galilee: Except for Jesus' prediction of where he will return to after his resurrection in 14:28 and 16.7, all other instances of this word occur in verses apparently created by the writer of Mark. Since 14:28 and 16.7 are obviously Markan creation as well, and 6:21 is about Herod, not Jesus, there is no reason to assume from the evidence in Mark that Jesus and Galilee have a connection. Again, nowhere does "Galilee" occur in a place where scholars think the writer of Mark was working off of an earlier source. Here are the mentions of Galilee in Mark (all cites RSV):

1:9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.	6:21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and the leading men of Galilee.
1:14: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,	9:30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it;
1:28: And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.	14:28 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee."
1:39: And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.	15:41 who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered to him; and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.
3:7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed; also from Judea	16:7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee

Note that of these ten mentions, two are supernatural in nature and are historically meaningless, being creations of the author or his source (a few exegetes think one or both are interpolations). Of the remaining eight, one relates to Herod (6:21), and one refers back to the ministry in Galilee in a retrospective (15:41). Of the six left, four instances occur in Chapter 1. "Galilee" in Mark is essentially a feature of Mark 1.

The problem of instances of "Galilee" in verses created by the writer is sharpened by the existence of a strong basis for creation off the OT: Isa 9:1.

Isa 9:1 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan- (NIV)

Note the mention of important themes in Mark, including the sea (in the gospel of Mark, the narrative function of the Sea of Galilee is to divide the Jews and the Gentiles. When Jesus crosses it, he is crossing from one ethnos to the other), gentiles, and the Jordan. In the Gospel of Matthew this association is made plain in Mt 4:15. Additionally, the rest of Isaiah 9 provides the writer of Mark with the motivation to place Jesus in Galilee:

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.(NIV)

Isaiah appears to predict that the Davidic Messiah will honor Galilee in the future. A minor piece of support for this is that the writer has Jesus preaching in "their" synagogues, implying some degree of separation between the writer and Galilee. Synagogues are unknown in the archaeological record for this period from Galilee. Another interesting piece of support for this is the fact that Jesus is never called Jesus of Galilee in Mark, but rather, Jesus the Nazarene (Peter, however, is identified as a Galilean). The writer of Mark is vague on Galilean geography and never mentions its two major cities, Sepphoris and Tiberias. Finally, the Pauline letters are silent on Jesus' association with Galilee, as are important early writings such as Barnabas and 1 Clement. Given the key role played by the Old Testament, especially Isaiah, in the formation of the Gospel of Mark, it seems most probable that Jesus' association with Galilee is a creation of that author using the Old Testament.

Additional influences on the writer of Mark may have been popular ideas of demonology contained in works like 1 Enoch and the Book of Tobit, in which Galilee plays a key role. George Nickelsburg (1988) points out that the first part of Tobit is set in Upper Galilee, which is also the location of key episodes in the Enoch cycle. Both of these books discuss angelic clashes with demons. The writer of Mark appears to be aware of the Book of Tobit, which may form part of the background to the Tomb scene in Mk 16:1-8. 1 Enoch was influential on Christianity and is actually cited in the New Testament.

v14: Galilee. While the non-Jewishness of Galilee is stressed in some accounts, Myers (1988, p57) argues that that when Caligula attempted to install a statue of himself in the Jerusalem Temple, there was an agricultural strike in Galilee. Here is what Josephus says of the affair (Antiquities 18,8,3):

"When Petronius saw by their words that their determination was hard to be removed, and that, without a war, he should not be able to be subservient to Caius in the dedication of his statue, and that there must be a great deal of bloodshed, he took his friends, and the servants that were about him, and hasted to Tiberias, as wanting to know in what posture the affairs of the Jews were; and many ten thousands of the Jews met Petronius again, when he was come to Tiberias. These thought they must run a mighty hazard if they should have a war with the Romans, but judged that the transgression of the law was of much greater consequence, and made supplication to him, that he would by no means reduce them to such distresses, nor defile their city with the dedication of the statue. Then Petronius said to them, "Will you then make war with Caesar, without considering his great preparations for war, and your own weakness?" They replied, "We will not by any means make war with him, but still we will die before we see our laws transgressed." So they threw themselves down upon their faces, and stretched out their throats, and said they were ready to be slain; and this they did for forty days together, and in the mean time left off the tilling of their ground, and that while the season of the year required them to sow it. Thus they continued firm in their resolution, and proposed to themselves to die willingly, rather than to see the dedication of the statue."

However, the passage in question, while stating that the Jews met Petronius in Tiberias (in Galilee), fails to state where those Jews came from. Originally the "many tens of thousands" of Jews had gone all the way to Ptolemais, a city in Syria outside of Jewish territories, to complain about Caligula's statue. Josephus then has Petronius hasten to Tiberias in Galilee, where the "many tens of thousands of Jews" meet him again. When Petronius warns them that continued defiance will only result in war, they offer their necks to the sword, in protest. Josephus avers that they did this for 40 days, even though it was the planting season. While it is easy to imagine a small embassy of Jews following Petronius around, imploring him to turn away from the plan to put the statute in the Temple, it is difficult to imagine hordes of ordinary Jews trekking across Judea, Galilee, and Syria to meet with Petronius twice, and remain in a position of suicidal non-violent protest for forty days during the time when they needed to be planting. The details of crowds, the telltale fairy-tale motif of 40 days, and refusal to plant, are in all probability inventions of Josephus (though he twice further mentions the failure to plant, and Roman concern with it, in subsequent sections). In any case, although a portion of the events take place in Galilee, nowhere does Josephus state the Jews came from there.

v14: "Jesus." Jesus' character and personality as portrayed in the Gospel of Mark follow ancient literary conventions of Hellenistic popular literature in showing Jesus as an essentially one-dimensional being in the Son of God role. After reviewing ancient literary conventions for how they can throw light on the Gospel of Mark, Mary Ann Tolbert (1989) concludes:

"The illustrative characters of ancient literature are static, monolithic figures who do not grow or develop psychologically. They have fundamentally the same characteristics at the end as at the beginning. They may, of course, change state, from good forture to bad, from unknown to known, or from insider to outsider, for example, but such shifts are always implicit in the actions or principles the characters are illustrating."(p77)

v14: Theodore Weeden (1971) writes

"In Roman education the authors studied were often Roman rather than Greek, but the methodology for elucidating a text was a mimicry of the Greek procedure. In fact, the Roman grammarians appear to have been more interested in an erudite study of characters and events than were the Greeks. One is certainly struck by the way in which Hellenistic education sought to understand the purpose of a work and the mind of the writer through the characters and the events which engulfed them."(p14)

In Weeden's view, the characters and events are the medium through which the Hellenistic writer expresses the ideas of his composition. Weeden also notes that the writer of Mark never comments personally or speaks directly to the reader, with the exception of Mk 13:14.

v14: "Gospel of God." The phrase also occurs in Romans 1:1 and 15:16, as well as 1 Thess 2:2 and 2:9.

15: and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."

v15: The Greek for "believe in" occurs nowhere else in Mark, once in John, and then nowhere else in all of Greek literature or Greek papyri (Gundry 1993, p70).