Mark: Study Questions for Mark 1:1-3

  Evangelium Secundum Marcum

Instructor:  James Ransom

September 6, 2013

Study Questions for Mark 1:1-3

1.      Compare Mark 1:1 with:  Matthew 1:1; Genesis 1:1;  John 1:1.

2.      What is the significance of Mark’s use of the noun evangelium?

3.      Where is the verb in line 1?

4.      What is the significance of opening the gospel with a prophecy from the Old Testament?  But wait: Mark does not really quote just one prophet, but splices together three different Old Testament passages.  Why?

 Read:  Isaiah 40:3; Exodus 23:20; Malachi 3:1; at least scan briefly the whole chapter of each.

5.      Who is the intended referent of “angelum meum (1:2)?”  Is he an “angel,” or just a messenger, or both?

6.      One early writer comments on “vox clamantis in deserto”:

“But it is called ‘the voice of one crying,’ for we are wont to use a cry to deaf persons,

And to those afar off…; for ‘salvation is far from the wicked,’ and they ‘stopped their ears like deaf adders’…the voice and the cry is in the desert, because they were deserted by the Spirit of God, as a house empty, and swept out…” 

            

Which of the three biblical prophesies Mark is applying seem to support this interpretation?  The interpretation is pessimistic; is it therefore off target or incomplete? How does it fit with the concept of “evangelium?”