↼Jesus Christ]
[the Son of God⇀
We take gospels for granted. They’re everywhere available. Every hotel has one in its nightstand. Yet Mark has done something unique. Never before has there been a piece of literature like this written before. When Mark was written, the literary form of gospel hadn’t been invented. No one had ever written an extended crucifixion story before, and certainly not used a crucifixion story to make the case that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. This was completely new.
He’s not making this up from scratch, of course. He borrows the parts he likes from the genre of ancient biography. He has a lot of Hebrew narrative on his mind: quoting the prophets Micah (1:2) and Isaiah (1:3), subtle references to Joshua crossing the Jordan (1:9), Noah’s dove (1:10), the Exodus (1:11, cf. Exodus 4:22-23), the ever-present wilderness (1:12). Throughout his introduction Mark draws on the long history of the people of God but he makes his case, he tells us what he wants to accomplish with this work in his first few words: this biography-gospel is going to show that (1) Jesus is the Christ and (2) the Son of God.
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