A Perspective on the Distinctiveness of Mark’s Gospel.

Abstract. For many years many scholars all but ignored the Gospel of Mark, assuming that it was a subset of the Gospel of Matthew. Later criticism argued that Mark predates Matthew and inspired a flurry of research that both defended and attacked this theory. What is found is that the Gospel of Mark is, indeed, a unique and powerful presentation of the identity and power of Jesus. It is written in the form of a narrative that is fast-paced and to the point, disregarding many details of events in order to highlight their main purpose for presentation. The main emphasis of the gospel centers around Jesus as the Son of God who came as his agent to suffer on the cross to atone for the sins of mankind for all ages. Mark presents the plan of salvation through Jesus ' teaching rather than his own statements; a plan that is sufficient, complete, and secure. He also presents a Jesus who tends to keep his true identity a secret that is to be revealed through the context of his passion and prophesy rather than his own testimony. Though the Gospel of Mark is written in Greek, many of its forms are of a low, or common, Greek that includes many of the word forms and idioms commonly used that come from other languages, including Latin and Aramaic. Just as some early scholars di