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Lesson #3 The Prologue (1: 115)
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Lesson #3
The Prologue (1: 1-‐15)
In Lesson #2 we examined the historical and cultural context from which the Gospel according to Mark emerged, learning that it was an extraordinarily tumultuous and dangerous :me.
• The Roman Emperor Nero had launched the first state-‐sponsored persecu:on against the Church in Rome (A.D. 64-‐68);
• Nero commiLed suicide in A.D. 68, followed by a quick succession of four emperors, three of whom were murdered or commiLed suicide; and
• the Great Jewish Revolt blazed across Pales:ne (A.D. 66-‐73), resul:ng in the destruc:on of the Temple in Jerusalem and much of the city, along with the death of 1.2 million Jews.
We learned that Mark addressed his gospel to the Chris:ans in Rome during this :me of great persecu:on, and that his gospel is a drama:c “call to ac:on.”
We learned that Mark designed his gospel as a 2-‐part structure that pivots on Peter’s confession of faith, and that a Prologue and Epilogue frames the 2-‐part structure.
We also learned that Mark employed a unique prose style that creates an intense sense of urgency, speeding the narra:ve forward at a blistering pace and bringing it to an abrupt halt in its final verse.
In Lesson #3 we will closely examine Mark’s “Prologue,” 1: 1-‐15.
In these first 15 verses Mark sets the narra:ve pace, creates spring-‐:ght tension and begins building an urgency that reaches fever-‐pitch by the gospel’s end. This is dazzling technique, bathing Jesus and the gospel message in a white-‐hot light, incandescent—and dangerous.
Few things are more important to a story than how it begins!
In the first few pages of a story the author sets the stage for what will follow:
• he introduces the major characters;
• he lays the groundwork for their rela:onships with one another;
• he plants seeds of conflict; and • he creates a mood that will shadow the rest of the story.
In the first few pages the author also establishes his own rela:onship with those who par:cipate in the story:
• the author (the person who actually writes the story);
• the narrator (the person who tells the story); • the characters (the people who are in the story); and • the reader (the people who read the story).
In the first 15 verses of Mark the narrator:
• roots his story in history and prophecy;
• iden:fies John the Bap:st as the forerunner of the Messiah; and
• he establishes Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
This is cri:cal informa:on to the story, and the narrator provides it to us (his readers), but he withholds it from the main characters: as the story opens we become privy to informa:on that the main characters will have to discover.
Providing us with such cri:cal informa:on while withholding it from the main characters creates a tension that builds throughout the Gospel according to Mark.
I realize that all of this is “literary stuff”—the mechanics of how a story is told. But if we’re to become “educated readers of Scripture” it is important to understand what Mark had in mind when he wrote his gospel, how he constructed it and why he constructed it as he did.
Only then can we truly understand Mark’s gospel, and only then can we begin to probe its spiritual meaning and its applica:on in our own lives.
Studying Scripture is much like studying music—or any other art. Anyone can appreciate the Gospel according to Mark, just as anyone can appreciate Mozart’s famous String Quartet #19 in C Major, K. 465.
But knowing that Mozart’s string quartet is nicknamed “Dissonance”; that it was composed in 1785; that it was stylis:cally modeled aker Joseph Haydn’s Opus 33 series; and that it is the last in a set of 6 string quartets dedicated to Haydn, Mozart’s friend and colleague, deepens our understanding of what we hear.
Further, once we know that Mozart’s string quartet was composed in four movements—as are most of his later quartets—we understand how it is built: its architecture.
Then, knowing that the 1st movement opens with ominous quiet Cs in the cello, joined successively by the viola (on A♭moving to G), 2nd violin (on E♭) and 1st violin (on A), thus crea:ng the “dissonance,” which finally resolves into a bright C major of the 1st movement’s Allegro sec:on, deepens our understanding—as well as our apprecia:on—of what we hear.
And so it is with the Gospel according to Mark.
So, turn with me to Mark 1: 1-‐15, and let’s have a look at this extraordinary gospel!
Kurt Aland, et al., editors. The Greek New Testament, 4th edi:on. London: United Bible Socie:es, 2001.
I have translated the Greek text as closely as possible to highlight Mark’s prose style and rhetorical devices, capturing as best I can the effect that Mark’s gospel produces on his readers.
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God, as it has been wriLen in Isaiah the prophet:
Look! I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way;
a voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord; make straight paths for him.”
John, the one bap:zing in the desert, appeared proclaiming a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins, and the en:re Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were being bap:zed by him in the Jordan river confessing their sins and John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey and he spoke out saying: “Aker me comes one who is migh:er than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy of stooping down to loosen; I have bap:zed you in water, but he will bap:ze you in the Holy Spirit.”
The Prologue, cont.
And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was bap:zed in the Jordan by John, and immediately coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit like a dove descending into him, and there was a voice out of the heavens: “You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well-‐pleased.” And immediately the Spirit drives him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him. Aker John had been arrested Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying: “The appointed :me has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is fast approaching; repent and believe in the gospel.”
“Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God . . .”
The Greek text is:
=Arch; touæ eujaggelivou =Ihsouæ Cristouæ ui∆ouæ qeouæ . . .
The first word “Arche” = “Beginning ” (as in “archeology,” the study of beginnings), and it lacks the definite ar:cle one would expect: “The beginning . . .”
This is very deliberate, although most transla:ons wrongly supply “The”: in Greek grammar this lack of an expected definite ar:cle is called an “anarthrous” construc:on, and it emphasizes the quality or character of the noun that follows.
When Mark omits the expected “The,” and begins his gospel gramma:cally with an anarthrous construc:on, it is a proclamaSon, a sudden trumpet blast on a quiet akernoon:
“Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God!”
As readers we know precisely who Jesus is at the outset of our story, for we are told in the gospel’s opening seven words that he is the “Son of God,” and by telling us in the form of a proclama:on, there is no room for doubt.
Consider the effect on Mark’s persecuted audience in Rome in the 2nd half of the 1st century . . .
• Nero may be the Emperor of the Roman Empire, but Christ is the Son of God. • Rome’s Chris:ans may seem puny and helpless in the face of the greatest empire on the face of the earth, but Rome is aLacking heaven itself, and Nero is aLacking God. • In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus Christ, Son of God, enters history drama:cally as King of kings and Lord of lords, and Nero is no match for him!
For Mark’s audience—the persecuted Chris:ans in the Church at Rome—this is good news, indeed.
As a herald, Mark proclaims God’s entrance into history, and he calls it the “gospel” of Jesus Christ, Son of God. “Gospel” is the key word in Mark’s Prologue: it is his theme, the very substance and message of his narra:ve. In Mark, the word “gospel” embodies the enSre Chris:an message—the person, works and words of Jesus Christ.
So important is the “gospel” in Mark that it frames his en:re Prologue, and it provides the launching pad for the story proper: “Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God . . . repent and believe in the gospel” (1: 1, 15).
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God, as it has been wriLen in Isaiah the prophet:
Look! I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way; a voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord; make straight paths for him.”
Not only has Jesus Christ, the Son of God, entered dramaScally onto the stage of history, but Isaiah the prophet had foretold the event 700 years earlier, validaSng Mark’s claim!
It is this “gospel,” which is rooted back in the Old Testament and that bursts forth in the New, that so frightens the characters who people Mark’s story.
The intrusion of the gospel into daily life shocks and disorients those it touches: they draw back, frozen with fear, bewildered. Like a vector shot from eternity into history, the gospel intersects reality at precisely Mark’s moment in :me.
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
“John, the one bap:zing in the desert, appeared proclaiming a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins, and the en:re Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were being bap:zed by him in the Jordan river confessing their sins and John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey and he spoke out saying: “Aker me comes one who is migh:er than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy of stooping down to loosen; I have bap:zed you in water, but he will bap:ze you in the Holy Spirit.”
A desert landscape sets the opening scene. The first half of the prologue moves the story’s ac:on from the desert to the fringes of civiliza:on. We hear “a voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way of the Lord . . ., and John appears from deep within the desert, clad as the prophet Elijah, and bap:zing “the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” in the Jordan River.
Juan de Juanes. St. John the BapSst (oil on canvas), c. 1560. Joan J. Gavara CollecSon,
Valencia, Spain.
The second half of the Prologue then moves the story back from the edge of civiliza:on to the desert: Jesus is bap:zed in the Jordan River and he is immediately driven deep into the desert “with the wild beasts,” where he confronts Satan—and defeats him.
As Israel passes through the Red Sea in Exodus and faces conflict in the desert for forty years before entering the Promised Land, so does Jesus reverse the movement in Mark, leaving the Promised Land and passing through the Jordan River to face conflict in the desert for forty days.
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
“John, the one bapSzing in the desert, appeared proclaiming a bapSsm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins, and the enSre Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him . . .
As we begin verse 4, John the Bap:st enters the story as abruptly as our narrator begins it. In the original Greek, the verse starts with a strong verb, “appeared.” In Mark we know nothing of John’s history: he simply walks out of the Old Testament and appears on the pages of the New, proclaiming “a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins.” Placing a strong verb at the head of the sentence intensifies the ac:on and the suddenness of John’s appearance. A literal transla:on would render the verse: “Appeared John, the one bap:zing in the desert . . ..”
John’s mission is dis:nct and well-‐defined: he prepares “the way of the Lord” making “straight paths for him,” and he does so by “proclaiming a bapSsm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins.”
The phrase is rich in meaning. “Bap:sm” is an act signifying “repentance,” or metanoia, a deliberate turning away from sin and toward God. It is not a casual move but a deliberate one, accompanied by a cleansing with water. First one repents; then one is bap:zed. Together, bap:sm and repentance point toward the “forgiveness of sins.”
In Mark, repentance and bap:sm precede “the forgiveness of sins” and point toward it; they do not accompany it or cause it.
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
“John, the one bap:zing in the desert, appeared proclaiming a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins, and the en:re Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were being bap:zed by him in the Jordan river confessing their sins . . .
John’s message at the Jordan is so compelling that “the enSre Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him.” Again, the verb sits at the head of the verse in the Greek, stressing acSon: a literal transla:on reads, “and were going out to him the en:re Judean countryside . . ..” The imperfect tense (“were going out”) stresses the con:nuous stream of people flowing out to hear John. “The enSre Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” is striking in its sheer boldness. John’s preaching does not draw a curious few, but thousands flock to him.
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
“John, the one bap:zing in the desert, appeared proclaiming a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins, and the en:re Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were being bap:zed by him in the Jordan river confessing their sins and John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey . . .
Dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist and ea:ng locusts and wild honey, John presents a striking prophe:c figure, vividly recalling Elijah in 2 Kings 1: 5-‐8:
“The king [Ahaziah] asked them [the messengers], ‘What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?’ They replied, ‘He was a man with a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist.’ The king said, ‘That was Elijah the Tishbite.’”
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
and John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey and he spoke out saying: “Aker me comes one who is migh:er than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy of stooping down to loosen; I have bap:zed you in water, but he will bap:ze you in the Holy Spirit.”
When John says, “Ader me comes one who is mighSer than I . . .. I have bapSzed you in water, but he will bapSze you in the Holy Spirit,” he supports the sequence of his “bap:sm of repentance” preceding Jesus’ “forgiveness of sins.” John’s bap:sm in water precedes Jesus’ bap:sm in the Holy Spirit; it prepares the way, and it ushers on stage Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Verse nine then moves us into the second half of the prologue. John and Jesus move from opposite direc:ons and meet in the Jordan River.
In the waters of bap:sm the messenger meets the Lord. The scene is striking:
. . . and immediately coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit like a dove descending into him and there was a voice out of the heavens: “You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well-‐pleased.”
Piero della Francesca. The BapSsm of Christ (egg on poplar), c. 1450. Na:onal Gallery,
London.
Picture a horizontal plane: all human history leads into this moment, to the coming of the Messiah; all future history flows out of this moment, a :me of redemp:on for all people on earth. On the ver:cal plane, Jesus comes up out of the water, and the Spirit goes down out of the heavens. As the horizontal and ver:cal intersect, God announces, “You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well-‐pleased.”
This is a dazzling moment!
C.S. Mann remarks that when God declares: “You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well-‐pleased” its importance “can hardly be exaggerated.”
As readers we have now been told of Jesus’ iden:ty twice in eleven verses: once by the narrator and once by God.
Jesus, having been acknowledged and his authority proclaimed, the Spirit then drives Jesus into the desert where he engages Satan, is with the wild beasts, and the angels minister to him.
The Greek word translated “drives” is ejkbavllei (“ekballei”), a compound of the preposi:on ek (“out of”) and the verb ballo (“to throw”). It is a very aggressive word, unlike MaLhew and Luke’s more passive “was led.”
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
“You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well-‐pleased.” And immediately the Spirit drives him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him.”
No:ce that in verse thirteen we have a sequence of three events, just as we have in the bap:sm, anoin:ng and proclama:on of verses nine through eleven. The symmetry of the two events, linked together as they are with “and immediately” in verse twelve, suggests an in:mate connec:on between the two.
Indeed, we may visualize the events as a :ghtly kniLed chias:c unit:
A John bap:zes Jesus in the Jordan (v. 9) B The Spirit descends into him (v. 10) C God proclaims Jesus as Son (v. 11) D And immediately the Spirit drives him into the desert (v. 12) C’ Satan tempts Jesus (v. 13a) B’ The wild beasts are with him (v. 13b)
A’ Angels minister to Jesus in the desert (v. 13c)
The three events of verses nine through eleven are mirrored by their opposites in verse thirteen. The whole structure turns on verse twelve, moving Jesus from commission to acSon.
The tempta:on scene in Mark is lean, lacking the details given in MaLhew and Luke. Nevertheless, it presents a powerful picture. In a very real sense, Mark portrays Jesus’ tempta:on as the opening salvo in a war. The scene is set in the desert with the wild beasts, and it is fraught with danger.
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
. . . and the angels were ministering to him. Aker John had been arrested Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying: “The appointed :me has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is fast approaching; repent and believe in the gospel.”
When we reach verses fourteen and fikeen, Jesus moves back into Galilee, “Proclaiming the gospel of God and saying: ‘the appointed Sme has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God is fast approaching: repent and believe in the gospel.’” Our narrator prefaces Jesus’ movement by no:ng that “John had been arrested . . ..”—a clear foreshadowing that the ensuing life and death eschatological conflict will not be without heavy casual:es.
Jesus’ message picks up where John’s lek off. John came in from the desert “proclaiming a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins”; Jesus comes in from the desert “proclaiming the gospel of God.” There is a sharp dis:nc:on between the two: John’s proclama:on lays the groundwork for Jesus’ proclama:on.
“The gospel of God” is the gospel that proceeds from God; Jesus is the messenger who both announces the gospel and who embodies it.
In the first fikeen verses of his gospel—what I have called the “Prologue”—Mark’s narrator accomplishes three things:
1. he drama:cally proclaims the beginning of a new era in history;
2. he creates dramaSc tension by providing us with important informa:on that the rest of the characters in the story lack; and
3. he presents a dangerous terrain, and we move through it at break-‐neck speed.
To produce the speed and the drama:c forward movement, Mark employs an unusual set of stylis:c devices, not only in his Prologue, but throughout his gospel:
• The repe::ve use of the connec:ve “and”; (of the 11,022 words in Mark, 1,084 are “and”)
• The repe::ve use of “immediately”; (Mark uses it 41 :mes, oken in combina:on, “and Immediately”; MaLhew uses “Immediately” only 5 :mes; and Luke only once); and
• The use of the “historical present” tense (suddenly shiking a past event to the gramma:cally present tense, intensifying the sense of urgency).
The Gospel According to Mark The Prologue, 1: 1-‐15
Beginning of the gospel [inclusio with v. 15] of Jesus Christ, Son of God, as it has been wriLen in Isaiah the prophet:
Look! I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way;
a voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord; make straight paths for him.”
John, the one bap:zing in the desert, appeared proclaiming a bap:sm of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins, and the en:re Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and they were being bap:zed by him in the Jordan river confessing their sins and John was clothed with camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey and he spoke out saying: “Aker me comes one who is migh:er than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy of stooping down to loosen; I have bap:zed you in water, but he will bap:ze you in the Holy Spirit.”
The Prologue, cont.
And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was bap:zed in the Jordan by John, and immediately coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit like a dove descending into him, and there was a voice out of the heavens: “You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well-‐pleased.” And immediately the Spirit drives him [historical present] out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him. Aker John had been arrested Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying: “The appointed :me has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is fast approaching; repent and believe in the gospel [inclusio with v. 1].”
So, what does all this mean to Mark’s audience, the Chris:ans in Rome at the :me Mark writes his gospel?
There is a price to be paid for the Kingdom of God—and the :me to pay it is NOW.
I know you’re afraid, but the :me has come to stand up and be counted, no maLer the cost, for this is war and Christ will be victorious!
1. Why is it important to examine so minutely Mark’s opening 15 verses, the Prologue?
2. What does Mark accomplish by telling his readers who Jesus is, while withholding that informa:on from his characters?
3. What stylis:c devices does Mark use to create a sense of speed and urgency in his gospel?
4. What insight do we gain by learning that Mark addresses his gospel to the Chris:ans in Rome who are being systema:cally persecuted under Nero?
5. How might we apply what we have learned about Mark’s Prologue to our rela:onship with Christ today?
Copyright © 2014 by William C. Creasy
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