Almost everybody who knows anything about it agrees that Mark was the first gospel written and that it was most likely written following Vespasian’s ascension to Emperor of Rome via the genocidal Siege of Jerusalem (70 of the common era) during which the rather famous “second” temple was razed (“second” because I suspect that Solomon’s Temple fits into the same category of things as Arthur’s Camelot).
The later “synoptic” gospels, Matthew and Luke, copy vast swathes of “Mark” verbatim (“Mark” because it was anonymous when first published†, just like the other gospels – fun trivia: the name “Mark” derives from Mars, the Roman God of War).
Over 90% of verses in Mark have direct analogues in Matthew
Over 50% of verses in Mark have direct analogues in Luke
On account of the above two facts (seeing as John came much later), I put it to you that in order to determine whether the Jesus of the New Testament was a real boy what question one really ought to be asking oneself is whether Mark (the original gospel) was based upon a real person or not.
So… what do we know about the writing of what we now know as the Gospel according to Mark? Well…
- It was written in the language of the eastern Roman Empire (koine Greek)
- It was written for a Roman audience
- It was composed after 70 CE
- It was most likely composed in Rome
- It was written from an all-seeing narrator’s perspective (i.e. it is fiction)
- It builds on existing myths
That last item was last but not least and I’d like to elaborate it:
There’s a great deal of “anything your god can do mine can do better” going on and I’d like to give you a couple of examples
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Healing the Blind
- Mark 8:22–26
- Mark 10:46–52
These miracles are one-upmanship to elevate Jesus above Serapis (The Egyptian God, the original heal-the-blind-by-spittle magician)
First Jesus heals as Serapis would (with spittle)
Next Jesus proves he can do it without the spittle (thus being not just equal to Serapis but one better) -
Feeding a crowd
- Mark 6:30-44
This miracle is one-upmanship to elevate Jesus above Elisha (see 2 Kings 4:42-44)
A special mention should go, at this point, to the Wedding at Cana scene from John – it’s having Jesus trump Dionysus.
I didn’t include Jesus calming the storm because I’m largely persuaded by Professor Dennis MacDonald’s take on where that mythical passage of events was borrowed from:
(the following from a chat with Google’s Gemini)
I’d like to consider next the translation fable involving an empty tomb; a trope explored, as I believe (I haven’t read it yet), by Professor Richard C. Miller in Resurrection and Reception in Early Christianity
It would seem as though the whole “empty tomb” trope was somewhat to be expected for myths about gods and demigods around that time… and heck, I’m pretty sure that ‘Arima from the mythical entombment site of Typhon was the etymological reason for ‘Arimathea (which would read like Arima-view or view over Arima).
If so many of the details in Mark are explicable as evolving from earlier myths or serving a purpose (as I think Mark 13 does which is where I’ll end this OP) where is there any room for influence from some real-life character who spoke a different language on a different continent in a bygone time by the time Mark was published?
Finally we arrive at the pièce de résistance: Mark 13
I claim that the most obvious interpretation of what Mark 13 is doing is laying out the secret (in words attributed to a man who supposedly died forty years previously) that Vespasian IS another face of the Son of Man from Daniel:
At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory
Bear in mind that the “at that time” Jesus was talking about was in response to the disciples’ question at the beginning of the chapter:
13 As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”
2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”
The notion that Vespasian was the fulfilment of OT prophecy is to be found in at least three contemporaneous Roman historians’ writings and I’ll end with snippets to illustrate the point:
Josephus [37 CE – 100 CE] — The Jewish War, 6.5.4
But what more than all else incited them to the war was an ambiguous oracle… that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. […] It actually signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed emperor on Jewish soil.
Tacitus [56 CE – 120 CE] — Histories, 5.13
The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests contained a prophecy that… men starting from Judea would possess the world. These mysterious predictions had pointed to Vespasian and Titus.
Suetonius [69 CE – 122 CE] — Lives of the Caesars, Vespasian 4.5
There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judaea to rule the world. This prediction, referring to the Roman emperor, as the event afterwards proved, the Jews applied to themselves.
Are you entirely certain that there was a real boy behind the writing of “Mark”?
† The first verse of Mark was its original title:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God