Peter's Preaching

The message of Mark's Gospel

Jeremy Duff

• Publisher: BRF
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780857463524
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Do you know who wrote Mark's Gospel? At first glance, it may seem a ridiculous question. 'Mark, of course!' I hear you shout? But who was Mark? Mark's name doesn't appear on the list of disciples, as Matthew's does. His Gospel doesn't start with a clear statement of investigation, as does Luke's, offering credibility. Yet, remarkably, large chunks of Mark's Gospel appear in both Matthew's and Luke's work. What's going on? Jeremy Duff provides insightful answers in his new book Peter's Preaching, revealing how an ancient source describes Mark as Peter's translator to a Greek-speaking world. Intriguingly, though, this source also tells us that while Mark recorded Peter's preaching 'accurately', he did not record it 'in order'. Mark devised his own order of the stories, for his own purpose, using a structure and format that were as radical in the first century as ebooks are today. But that is only the start of Jeremy's detective work in this stimulating book, which moves on to uncover Peter's thought on the key themes of the Christian message, found distributed throughout the Gospel. Jeremy pieces these themes together like a jigsaw to reveal how Peter understood them, and how that understanding helps us to appreciate the radical nature of first-century Christian faith.

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Text copyright © Jeremy Duff 2015

The author asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work

Published by

The Bible Reading Fellowship

15 The Chambers, Vineyard

Abingdon OX14 3FE

United Kingdom

Tel: [phone]

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.brf.org.uk

BRF is a Registered Charity

ISBN for eBook (ePub) 978 0 85746 352 4

ISBN for eBook (Mobi) 978 0 85746 351 7

First published 2015

All rights reserved

Cover image:

Leonardo Correa Luna/Gettyimages

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

1 Peter’s preaching

2 The disciples

3 Following on the way

4 Miracles

5 Who is Jesus?

6 The law

7 Parables

8 God’s reign

9 The death of Jesus

10 Mark’s Gospel

About the author

Chapter 1

Peter’s preaching

‘Who told you that?’ is an important question. The office gossip and, even worse, the ‘Twittersphere’, are constantly producing crises, scandals and conspiracies, but most of them melt quickly away as soon as you ask, ‘Who told you this?’ Of course, this is nothing new: the courts have long since known not to accept evidence that starts, ‘A friend of mine met this man in the pub who said…’

So what about Mark’s Gospel? Who is this Mark? He doesn’t introduce himself in the Gospel, and he certainly isn’t one of the twelve disciples. Was he there when Jesus went around doing all those miracles, or is he the first-century equivalent of a ‘friend of a friend who met a man in the pub’?

Fortunately, we have a revealing piece of evidence about the identity of Mark, the man responsible for Mark’s Gospel. It’s a shaft of light from the very earliest days of Christianity, which illuminates the origins of this Gospel and, as we shall see, of all the Gospels. Furthermore, there is intriguing evidence from the very way in which early Christians wrote—creating a system of abbreviations and adopting the latest technology (which could be described as the ancient world’s equivalent of the ebook). When all this evidence is put together with the surprising way that the earliest church used and honoured Mark’s Gospel, there is a fascinating story to be unearthed.

Our starting point is a revealing snippet of information directly about Mark. It comes from a man called Papias, who was bishop of the city of Hierapolis, Turkey, in the early years of the second century AD. (Hierapolis is close to Colosse and is mentioned in Colossians 4:13. It’s the modern-day town of Pamukkale, a popular tourist site because of its hot springs.) Scholars normally date Papias’s life to about AD60–130. In comparison, Jesus was most probably crucified in AD30, and Mark’s Gospel written AD60–65. So Papias was a young man around the time when Mark’s Gospel began to circulate.

Sadly, Papias’s own writings have not been preserved. Much from the ancient world is lost to us, long since having rotted away or been destroyed in one disaster or another. Other than in chance finds, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, authors from that era reach us only if, throughout the many centuries before printing was invented, monks dutifully copied and recopied their work as the originals wore out. That only happened if the writings were highly valued. Unfortunately, Papias seems to have fallen out of favour, condemned by a key authority—the first ‘church historian’, Eusebius (who finished his work in AD324)—probably because Papias wrote interpretations of the book of Revelation that linked ‘the beast’ with Rome. This use of symbolic language did not go down well in the Roman imperial church in Eusebius’ time.

All is not lost, though, for, in his historical works, the same Eusebius twice quoted Papias’s words. First, we can read Papias’s description of how he was always seeking out information from Jesus’ disciples and those who had personally learnt from them.

Whenever anyone who had been a follower of the elders came, I would investigate the elders’ words—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples said, and the things which Aristion and John the elder, the disciples of the Lord, were saying.

Papias’ words recorded in Eusebius, History of the Church, 39.4

Papias wanted to know! This is hardly surprising: people in the ancient world were just as curious as we are today. Furthermore, this was still about a century before any real concept of the ‘New Testament’ emerged, so a man like Papias had no ready-made source of accepted, authoritative books to rely on. For comparison, we see a similar focus on seeking out accurate sources for what Jesus did and said in the opening four verses of Luke’s Gospel: Luke searched out the eyewitnesses to Jesus, so that his readers could be assured that they were hearing the truth.

You’ll notice that the word ‘elder’ occurs three times in this quotation. It’s a difficult word to pin down. It really means an ‘old respected man’ but the word was also used for a Christian leader, and, when you read what Papias says, it is clear that he is using it to talk about Jesus’ disciples—Andrew, Peter, James and John and others. Peter uses the same word to describe himself in 1 Peter 5:1–2, where he also exhorts the ‘elders’ of the churches to shepherd God’s flock willingly and eagerly.

So whenever someone who had learnt from one of Jesus’ disciples (a ‘follower of the elders’) came to Hierapolis, Papias would ask them about what the disciples had said. This makes sense, for some of Jesus’ disciples would certainly have lived until about AD60 or 70, and there would have been people still around in AD100, who had heard them. By AD100, Papias himself would perhaps have been 30 or 40. Indeed, if he was born in AD60, he himself would have been just contemporary with Jesus’ disciples, although he would have been only a child and perhaps none of them ever came to Hierapolis in person. (There was a tradition in the early church that Papias heard the apostle John, who is said to have been the last apostle to die. Maybe he did, but Papias’ own words here don’t make this claim: he states only that he listened to the people who had learnt from the disciples.)

So far, so good in this detective story. Papias got his information from good sources—but what did he say?

The elder also said this: after Mark became Peter’s translator, he wrote down accurately, though not in order, everything he remembered that the Lord had said or done. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward he followed Peter, as I said. Now Peter used to shape his teaching according to what was needed, and was not making an ordered arrangement of the Lord’s sayings. So Mark did nothing wrong when he wrote down the individual stories as he remembered them. For he did pay careful attention to one thing—to leave out nothing that he heard, nor to include anything false.

Papias’ words recorded in Eusebius, History of the Church, 39.15

So Papias is quoting ‘the elder’—one of these foundational figures from the earliest days of Christianity, perhaps one of Jesus’ disciples or perhaps one from the same generation. He is quoting someone who was there when Mark was writing—and what does he say?

Perhaps surprisingly to the cynical mind, he doesn’t tell us that Mark was a super-accurate eyewitness to what Jesus did and said; nor does he claim that Mark was inspired by some heavenly vision. His report is somewhat more modest. Mark himself, so Papias tells us, did not hear Jesus or follow him before his resurrection. However, he became a follower of Peter. Presumably that means he became a Christian in response to Peter’s preaching, becoming one of his supporters and looking to him for leadership. Twice in this passage we read that Mark wrote down ‘as/everything he remembered’. Technically we could argue about whether ‘he’ is Mark or Peter. However, since the passage also tells us that Mark wasn’t an eyewitness but got his information from hearing Peter, it comes to the same thing: Mark wrote down Peter’s account of what Jesus had said or done.

Papias also tells us that Mark was Peter’s translator or interpreter. The Greek word used here can mean a translator in the straightforward sense, but it can also mean someone who helps by explaining someone else’s words. Indeed, the word ‘interpreter’ in English can carry both meanings: for example, ‘the foreign diplomat was accompanied by her interpreter’ and ‘the BBC is offering an interesting interpretation of the Prime Minister’s speech’.

Why did Peter need a translator/interpreter? Well, because he was, as the book of Acts puts it, ‘an uneducated, ordinary man’ (Acts 4:13). More to the point, he was a Galilean fisherman, so his first language would have been Aramaic (the language of the region in Jesus’ time). He may have been able to speak some Greek; people often do learn enough of the language of the ruling classes and of international trade to ‘get by’. Peter spent his later years preaching to Greek speakers and even Latin speakers in Rome, and guiding the Greek-speaking church there. More generally, he was a central figure in the Jesus movement, which, during Peter’s lifetime, became mainly Greek-speaking. So maybe he learnt some more Greek, but it would be no surprise if he used translators or interpreters.

Perhaps you are wondering about the two letters Peter wrote in the New Testament. Were they written in Greek? Yes, they were, but look at the way 1 Peter ends:

I have written these few words to you through Silvanus, whom I consider a faithful brother, to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Take your stand on it. The church in Babylon, chosen alongside you, sends greetings, as does Mark my son.

1 Peter 5:12–13

Peter has written 1 Peter ‘through Silvanus’. He didn’t write the clear, attractive Greek that we find in the letter himself: he had a helper, a secretary—quite possibly a translator—called Silvanus, presumably because he couldn’t have managed it himself. We are used to this sort of writing in our own context. When we see the published autobiography of a famous footballer or pop star, we all know that they will probably have been helped by a ghostwriter. Someone more adept at writing will have listened to them and worked with them to produce a good-quality written product that communicates what the famous person wants to say.

Did you notice that final reference in 1 Peter 5:13 to Mark as ‘my son’? It is a tantalising glimpse into the circle of people around Peter. While we cannot be sure, this may well be the same ‘Mark’ that Papias tells us about. Peter certainly seems close to him, as he would be to the one who acted as his translator/interpreter when he preached. Interestingly, 2 Peter is written in a Greek style very different from the style o...

Table of contents

• Peter’s preaching
• The disciples
• Following on the way
• Miracles
• Who is Jesus?
• The law
• Parables
• God’s reign
• The death of Jesus
• Mark’s Gospel
• About the author