40 Fun Facts About Gospel of Mark

At what time does Mark 15:25 put the crucifixion, a detail that clashes with John's account of the trial?

Nine in the morning is Mark's 'third hour', while John 19:14 still has Jesus before Pilate at about noon. Mark then marks darkness at noon and death at three, a tidy three-hour grid.

What did the women do on leaving the empty tomb in Mark 16:8, the verse where the oldest manuscripts stop?

Said nothing to anyone, 'because they were afraid', is how the earliest text of Mark ends, with no resurrection appearance at all. Verses 9 to 20 were added later, which is why modern Bibles bracket them.

What, says a promise found in Mark's disputed longer ending, 'will not hurt' believers at all when they drink it?

Deadly poison, along with picking up snakes, is promised in Mark 16:18 to do believers no harm, and the poison clause has no parallel anywhere else in the New Testament.

About how many pigs drowned after the demons called Legion entered them in Mark 5, a count only Mark gives?

2,000 pigs 'rushed down the steep bank into the lake', a figure Matthew and Luke both drop from their versions of the Gerasene story. A herd that size hints at a Gentile region, since Jews kept no swine.

What did the blind man at Bethsaida say people looked like after one touch from Jesus, in Mark 8?

Trees walking around is what he saw until a second touch restored his sight fully, the only healing in the Gospels that takes Jesus two attempts. The story appears in no other Gospel.

On what was Jesus sleeping in the stern when the disciples woke him in the storm, a detail only Mark 4 gives?

A cushion, probably the helmsman's seat pad, is the kind of eyewitness touch that made early readers think Mark was writing down Peter's memories. Matthew and Luke simply say he was asleep.

Under what did two Venetian merchants hide Mark's body when they smuggled it out of Egypt in 828?

Pork, which the Muslim customs officers would not touch, reportedly covered the basket holding the evangelist's relics. The stolen saint gave Venice its patron and, eventually, St Mark's Basilica.

Which creature, seen on flags all over Venice, stands for Mark the Evangelist in Christian art?

A winged lion, 'a figure of courage and monarchy', is Mark's emblem in the scheme that matches the four evangelists to the four living creatures of Ezekiel and Revelation. Venice took the lion as its own once it held his relics.

To which year do most scholars date Mark, reading its prophecy of the Temple's fall against the war that fulfilled it?

AD 70 is when the legions of Titus destroyed the Second Temple, and Mark 13's forecast of that disaster is the main clue scholars use to place the Gospel just before or after it. That still makes Mark the oldest Gospel by a decade or more.

In which city was Mark most likely written, given that it explains Jewish hand-washing customs to its readers?

Rome is the traditional and still the most widely accepted setting, which also explains the Latin loanwords and the note in Mark 15:21 naming sons apparently known to the readers. Galilee and Syria are the main rival guesses.

Which adverb, the Greek 'euthys', is Mark so fond of that it sets the breathless pace of the whole Gospel?

Immediately hurries Jesus from scene to scene in Mark, which also chains most of its verses together with 'and' and keeps slipping into the present tense, as if the story were being told aloud.

Who, says Mark 1:13 alone, kept Jesus company during his forty days in the wilderness, besides Satan and the angels?

Wild animals share the desert with Jesus in Mark's two-verse temptation, which never lists the three temptations Matthew and Luke spell out. Readers have seen either Eden restored or the beasts of the arena.

What did Herod swear to give Herodias's dancing daughter, in an oath Mark 6:23 records but Matthew's version leaves out?

Half his kingdom echoes what King Xerxes offers Esther, a royal cliche Mark lets a petty ruler borrow. Matthew says only that Herod promised 'whatever she asked', and the girl asked for John the Baptist's head.

Which observance did Jesus say 'was made for man, not man for' it, a line only Mark 2:27 preserves?

The Sabbath saying comes after the Pharisees objected to the disciples picking grain, and Matthew and Luke both drop the punchline while keeping the argument. It is also missing from the Western text of Mark itself.

What did Jesus's own family say about him when they went 'to take charge of him' in Mark 3:21?

He is out of his mind is a verdict so awkward that neither Matthew nor Luke repeats it, and some manuscripts blame 'the scribes' instead of his relatives. Mark follows it with his mother and brothers standing outside.

Which onlooker is the lone human voice in Mark's Gospel to call Jesus 'the Son of God', speaking as Jesus dies?

A Roman centurion, a Gentile soldier, declares what demons and a voice from heaven have declared and no disciple manages in Mark. Whether he meant it or sneered it is a long-running argument.

What does Mark 11:13 admit about the leafy tree Jesus cursed for having no fruit, an excuse Matthew drops?

Figs were out of season, Mark says flatly, which makes the curse read as a staged parable of the fruitless Temple rather than a temper tantrum. Mark wraps the Temple cleansing inside the two halves of the tree story.

Which apostle refused to take John Mark on a second journey because he had deserted them in Pamphylia, in Acts 15?

Paul fell out with Barnabas so sharply over John Mark that the two missionaries split up, Barnabas sailing for Cyprus with his kinsman. Years later Paul's letters call Mark 'helpful to me', so the rift healed.

What kind of miracle opens Jesus's public ministry in Mark, performed on a shouting man in the Capernaum synagogue?

An exorcism comes before any healing in Mark, whose Jesus is recognised by an 'impure spirit' shouting 'the Holy One of God' before any human works out who he is. John's Gospel has no exorcisms at all.

Which term did William Wrede coin in 1901 for Jesus's repeated orders in Mark that nobody be told who he is?

The Messianic Secret covers the silenced demons, hushed-up healings and parables told to conceal, which Wrede argued Mark invented to explain why so few had hailed Jesus as Messiah in his lifetime.

Which woman, named only by Mark, watched the crucifixion with the two Marys and brought spices to the tomb?

Salome appears in Mark 15:40 and 16:1 and nowhere else in the Gospels, and tradition often identifies her with the mother of Zebedee's sons whom Matthew places at the cross. She is not the dancer who asked for John the Baptist's head.

Which Aramaic word, meaning 'Be opened', did Jesus sigh while healing a deaf man in the Decapolis, in Mark 7?

Ephphatha was spoken after Jesus put his fingers in the man's ears and touched his tongue with spit, a hands-on cure that looked enough like magic for no other Gospel to repeat it. Mark translates the word for his Greek readers.

Which nickname, meaning 'sons of thunder', did Jesus give the two sons of Zebedee, in a detail only Mark 3:17 preserves?

Boanerges suits a pair who later offered to call down fire on a Samaritan village, and Mark gives the word right after the verse that renames Simon as Peter. No other Gospel mentions the nickname.

Which blind beggar, named only by Mark, threw off his cloak and jumped up when Jesus called him outside Jericho?

Bartimaeus is one of very few people Jesus heals who gets a name in the Gospels, and Matthew turns him into two anonymous blind men. Jesus asks him just what he had asked the sons of Zebedee: 'What do you want me to do for you?'

What did Jesus do right after Peter declared 'You are the Messiah' at Caesarea Philippi in Mark 8?

Warned them to tell no one is all Mark offers, with no 'on this rock I will build my church' and no keys, both of which belong to Matthew. Within a few verses Peter is being called Satan for rejecting a suffering Messiah.

How does Mark 9:3 describe Jesus's dazzling clothes at the Transfiguration, in a homely image the other Gospels skip?

Whiter than bleach could make them is a laundry-day comparison typical of Mark's plain style, where Matthew compares the clothes to light and Luke to lightning. Peter then offers to build three shelters, 'not knowing what to say'.

Which two sons of Simon of Cyrene does Mark 15:21 name, apparently because the Gospel's readers knew them?

Alexander and Rufus are named for no reason the story needs, which suggests the cross-carrier's sons were known in the church Mark wrote for. A Rufus also gets greetings at the end of the Letter to the Romans.

What did the women ask each other on the way to the tomb in Mark 16:3, a worry no other Gospel records?

Who will roll the stone away is a practical fret that Mark answers in the next verse: it 'had been rolled away' already, though he never says by whom. Matthew supplies an earthquake and an angel to do the job.

Whom do the women find sitting 'on the right side' inside the tomb in Mark 16:5, where Matthew's account has an angel?

A young man in white is all Mark calls him, and readers have long paired him with the youth who fled naked at the arrest. Luke upgrades the figure to two men and John to two angels.

What was mixed into the wine Jesus refused at Golgotha in Mark 15:23, where Matthew's account says gall?

Myrrh in wine was a known narcotic, so Mark's Jesus is turning down a painkiller, while Matthew swaps in gall to match Psalm 69. The same spice had been offered to him as a baby only in Matthew's Gospel.

Which coin does Mark 12:42 use to explain the widow's two lepta, a conversion made for readers far from Judea?

A quadrans was the smallest coin of the empire, worth a quarter of an as, and Mark's need to convert Jewish small change is one of the Latinisms that point to a Gentile audience. Luke keeps the lepta but drops the conversion.

Which 2nd-century bishop of Hierapolis is the earliest witness that Mark wrote down Peter's preaching?

Papias, writing about AD 110 to 130, quoted 'the Elder' that Mark set down Peter's memories accurately 'though not in an ordered form', the line on which the whole idea of Mark as Peter's mouthpiece rests. The Gospel never names its author.

Which high priest does Mark 2:26 name in David's consecrated-bread story, though 1 Samuel names Ahimelek?

Abiathar was Ahimelek's son, and the slip is so awkward that Matthew and Luke both quietly drop the name while keeping the David story. Defenders argue 'in the days of' can mean the era of a famous figure.

Which Hebrew word, glossed in Mark 7:11 as 'devoted to God', let a man dodge supporting his parents?

Corban was a vow dedicating property to the Temple, and Jesus accused the Pharisees of using it to cancel the commandment to honour father and mother. Mark translates the term because his readers would not know it.

Which fourth disciple joins Peter, James and John to question Jesus privately about the Temple's end in Mark 13:3?

Andrew, Peter's brother, rounds out the two pairs of fishermen called in chapter 1, and only Mark names the questioners who prompt the Olivet discourse. Matthew has 'the disciples' ask and Luke leaves them unnamed.

Which two 4th-century codices, the oldest complete Greek Bibles, end Mark at 16:8 and lack the last twelve verses?

Vaticanus and Sinaiticus both lack the last twelve verses, and Vaticanus even leaves a blank column after 16:8 as if its scribe knew something was missing. Eusebius and Jerome reported that the best copies of their day stopped there too.

With which part of speech does Mark 16:8, which many scholars take as the original ending, famously finish in Greek?

A conjunction, 'gar' meaning 'for', closes the sentence 'they were afraid for', an ending so abrupt that some argue the last page was lost and others that Mark meant to leave readers hanging.

What do scholars call Mark's habit of nesting one story inside another, as with Jairus's daughter and the sick woman?

Intercalation, nicknamed the 'sandwich story', lets the two tales interpret each other, here linked by a twelve-year illness and a twelve-year-old girl. The cursed tree wrapped round the Temple cleansing is the other famous example.

Which early 3rd-century manuscript in the Chester Beatty collection is the oldest with more than a scrap of Mark?

Papyrus 45 keeps only six battered pages of Mark, from chapters 4 to 12, out of a codex that once held all four Gospels and Acts. It surfaced from the Egyptian antiquities trade in the 1930s and now sits in Dublin.

Which item does Jesus let the Twelve carry on their mission in Mark 6:8, though Matthew and Luke have him forbid it?

A staff is the one thing Mark's Jesus allows, 'no bread, no bag, no money in your belts', while Matthew 10:10 and Luke 9:3 list the stick among the banned items. Mark also lets them wear sandals.