The way I was introduced to studying the gospels was that Mark was first, notes from Peter’s sermons taken by John Mark, a young man who was a camp follower so to speak. Matthew was based on Mark, containing references to appeal to Jewish followers of Jesus. Neither were going to incite the wrath of devout Jews by proclaiming a blasphemy, that Jesus was God or God’s son. Mark hints, Matthew builds a case, then Luke expands it to the Gentiles.
Consider how Mary’s role in Mark is merely a footnote. Matthew acknowledges her & Joseph as Jews of good standing with the Magi discovering Jesus’ portent in the stars. Luke fleshes out the backstory with a narrative that smacks of the Greek gods procreating with mortals but immaculately. One might question whether a young girl would be able to extemporaneously produce the Magnificat & remember it vividly when interviewed by Luke. The story also provides for Mary avoiding being stoned for becoming pregnant out of wedlock or having to marry someone other than Joseph.
I think the important part of the Gospels isn’t the ripping yarns or plot twists, but the message of loving & taking care of your neighbor. Jesus was always telling his disciples to feed, heal, & comfort people, don’t worry about who’s first because the first will be last.
Your read on the escalation is something most people never notice. Mark barely gives Mary a role, Matthew gives her a husband with a pedigree and a sign in the sky, and Luke hands her a full speech.
On the Magnificat, have a look at Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2 sometime. The parallels are close enough that Luke almost certainly built the speech on that model, which spares us the problem of a teenager improvising poetry and recalling it decades later.
As for the idea that Mark was based on Peter’s sermon notes, I wouldn’t give it much weight. It comes from a second-century bishop writing long after the events, and most scholars have moved away from it. Part of the reason is that the author of Mark writes in fairly good Greek for a non-Jewish audience and makes some mistakes about Galilean geography.
For me the most telling feature of Mark’s gospel is the original ending, which had no resurrection account, simply the women finding an empty tomb and fleeing. If we had no other gospel account, we might conclude Jesus was simply a failed prophet whose sacrifice came to naught. Maybe at the time Mark composed his gospel that was the prevailing opinion. There are other peculiar aspects of Mark, like the mysterious young man in white linen, that suggest large parts of the narrative have been lost or redacted out. Perhaps one day a scroll or papyrus will turn up that is close to the autograph version. How many biblical scholars would sacrifice their first-born to get the keys to the Vatican archives?
I once read a viable hypothesis about this. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon for the final pages of a manuscript to get lost due to the binding methods used. Therefore, Mark may have had an ending that we will never know about.
And speculations are all you can get since there is no consensus.
Burton Mack in A Myth of Innocence argues Mark was drawing on a sayings collection similar to Q, plus earlier written or oral accounts of the passion already circulating. Helmut Koester did substantial work on pre-Markan sources, arguing the passion account in particular looks like it was assembled from earlier independent units rather than composed fresh.
John Dominic Crossan went further and proposed a "Cross Gospel" embedded in the Gospel of Peter as a source Mark used, though most scholars don't buy it.
For the miracle stories specifically, Paul Achtemeier made an influential argument that Mark inherited two pre-existing collections of miracle stories, each following a similar pattern, and combined them into a single sequence.
The NRSV is the standard scholarly choice; it's what most of the academics I cite use, and the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV) gives you the notes that flag where the text is doing something interesting.
"The oldest and best Greek manuscripts of Mark, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus from the fourth century, end at 16:8"
Those two manuscripts are corrupt, and utterly worthless as a means of determining the original text. Tischendorf, the discoverer of Sinaiticus, counted thousands of places were multiple scribes had tried to correct errors in the text because they had no confidence in it. Entire lines are skipped, some lines are repeated twice.
A faithfully copied MS from the 9th century is a better witness to the text than a sloppily and carelessly made MS from the 4th century.
And no one can explain how many manuscripts from the areas where the originals were most accessible should be in error while the real and most authentic manuscripts were lost and forgotten in Egypt.
Thanks for reading and engaging. You're right that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus both carry corrections; Tischendorf did count them. However, correctors working on a manuscript is evidence that people were checking it against other copies, which is a normal part of transmission rather than a sign of a bad exemplar. The Byzantine tradition is more uniform because it was copied later within a standardized system, and uniformity is downstream of standardization rather than proof of accuracy.
Ultimately, what you're saying sounds more like a personal position than scholarly consensus, and that's an approach I stay away from in my pieces, because what I find most plausible isn't the definition of truth.
As you said, "correctors working on a manuscript is evidence that people were checking it against other copies."
That is certainly true. However, is literally thousands of corrections normal? I don't think so. The fact that a manuscript needed to be constantly corrected shows that the men doing the checking thought it was wrong, and did not have confidence in it.
Byzantine transmission is more uniform because it was "copied later within a standardized system"? Or because there was more immediate access to the originals, and because it was more reverently copied by people who did try to make heretical changes (such as removing references to the deity of Christ)?
True, uniformity MAY be downstream of standardization, but it may also be the result of careful and accurate copying of the originals by people who had great reverence for the text and were careful to copy it accurately.
Also, you ignored this point: "No one can explain how many manuscripts from the areas where the originals were most accessible should be in error while the real and most authentic manuscripts were lost and forgotten in Egypt."
Until a plausible scenario can be demonstrated, the idea that the most authentic texts were lots and forgotten in a Sinai monastery or a library of the Vatican should be rejected.
Such a position is outside of the "scholarly consensus," but what if the many scholars are wrong?
That was an argument against Luther at the time of the Reformation - "How can all of the scholars and authorities of the Roman Church be wrong?" But they were wrong - and much of modern scholarship is wrong. In fact, much of that scholarship has been deeply influenced by secular methodology.
Many modern textual scholars are not even orthodox in their approach to basic doctrines, and what many "scholars" find plausible, with their "almost certain" or "nearly certain" or "almost nearly certain" conclusions is not truth.
Tanner, I think you've noticed something important in Mark, but then flattened it into a story of theological embarrassment and later repair.
Mark really is strange. Jesus conceals His identity. The disciples repeatedly fail to understand. A blind man receives sight in two stages. Peter identifies the Christ and almost immediately demonstrates that he doesn't understand who the Christ is. Everyone flees. Jesus cries the opening of Psalm 22 from the cross. The women receive news of the resurrection and flee in fear.
But before concluding that these are rough edges later writers found embarrassing, try asking whether Mark has deliberately related them to one another.
Consider the “failed” healing at Bethsaida. Just before it, Jesus rebukes the disciples: “Having eyes, see ye not?” Then He heals a blind man who first sees indistinctly—“men as trees, walking”—and afterward sees clearly.
Immediately after that enacted sequence Jesus asks the disciples who He is. Peter answers correctly: “Thou art the Christ.”
Peter can see.
But only partially.
Jesus immediately begins teaching that the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, die, and rise again. Peter rebukes Him.
Peter sees the Messiah, but he cannot yet see the Cross.
Suddenly the strange two-stage healing isn't evidence that Jesus' first attempt failed. It is sitting exactly where Mark needs it to interpret what happens to Peter:
blindness → partial sight → clear sight.
And that changes the so-called “Messianic Secret” as well. Peter has correctly named Jesus and still has the wrong Christ in mind. Announcing “Jesus is the Messiah” before understanding the Cross can proclaim precisely the Messiah Jesus has come to overturn. So Jesus silences them and begins teaching them His death.
Mark's secrecy and Mark's blindness are not two embarrassing problems. They are related. You cannot see who Jesus is until you see the Cross.
The same problem appears in your treatment of Jesus' cry from the cross. You acknowledge that He is quoting Psalm 22, but then suggest that reading the Psalm is a way Christians avoid what Mark actually says. Why would we isolate a quotation from the Scripture being quoted—especially when Mark's crucifixion scene is simultaneously displaying the imagery of that Psalm? The mockery, the challenge concerning God's deliverance, and the division of garments are not later Christian attempts to rescue Jesus from His words. They are part of the scriptural world in which Mark tells the crucifixion.
Even if we grant Mark 16:8 as the ending, the same structure remains. The women are given revelation: He is risen. They are commissioned to speak, and human beings fail again. Yet their failure doesn't undo what God has done.
And there is a tiny detail there that your reading doesn't account for very well:
“Tell his disciples and Peter.”
Peter—the disciple who misunderstood Him, rebuked Him, abandoned Him, and denied Him—is specifically summoned by the risen Jesus.
That isn't a writer embarrassed by a failed movement who hasn't yet developed a triumphant Christianity. Mark's triumph is precisely that human failure never defeats what God is doing.
I agree with your invitation to stop blending the four Gospels long enough to let Mark speak for himself. I would just go further than you did. Don't flatten Mark into a primitive historical layer either. Let his odd details speak to each other.
Mark isn't giving us an inferior Jesus whom Matthew, Luke, and John needed to repair.
He is teaching us how to see Him.
And there is a wonderful irony in the title Hidden in Eye-Sight: Mark put a blind man in the middle of the Gospel to show us exactly how easy it is to look directly at Jesus and still only see men as trees walking.
A really interesting essay. My two cents: for the traditions I'm most sympathetic to, the thought that the rough edges must be more authentic or less theological doesn't fit for me - Mark is doing profound theology: the blind man who saw but didn't see clearly, but then saw clearly, the disciples not seeing clearly, the 'don't tell anyone' theme, the Nazarene locals who didn't see Jesus except as a carpenter's son: a theme of spiritual blindness, that nobody really knows Christ until the Cross and Resurrection. Matthew, Luke and John are contemplating this mystery, perhaps, from other angles. Mark's ending, rather than a failure/nobody "seeing" the resurrection: it seems like it's asking whether you (the reader) will go to Galilee, which feels intentional/theological.
Thanks, George. I agree that roughness doesn’t equal authenticity, and Mark is clearly doing deliberate theological work. But a historical reading of these texts isn’t about reconstructing what actually happened but about understanding what people believed or claimed had happened and what we can deduce from that. Deciding what the truth really is belongs to theology, not history.
He did not do many miracles there.....Do you think it was from a lack of ability?
"I see things like trees moving around".....Jesus had just asked him a question - "Do you see anything?" And he saw. Then he touched him again. Do you think Jesus's power meter wasn't set high enough?
To me, the most remarkable thing about Mark is that it is the only gospel where Jesus commands a "teacher of the law" (Mark 12:28-34).
There are many examples of what I refer to as 'buffionary' in the Old Testament: Moses pleading with God to pick somebody else, Lot trying to placate the mob by offering his daughters, etc.
Rather than considering these details as weak points, I think they highlight the fact that these guys in the Bible are normal people with normal failings, and are there to reassure us that we are not excluded on the basis of not being a modern-day hero, ie. that there is hope for us too.
Peter is certainly a buffoon too, but for the same reason I think, and it doesn't diminish my respect for any of them.
As for the other points you've made, I was aware of them, so I must have read Mark better than I had thought!
Raschke interprets the two-stage healing of the blind man thus: Jesus’ disciples are not yet completely ‘healed’ of their attachment to old Jewish concepts. The pericope is indeed bracketed by Jesus’ warning about the teachings of the Pharisees, and the disciples' judaic misidentifications of Jesus.
Mark 8:30-32, with its Olivet (i.e., Matthaean) material, is an interpolation to obscure the actual reason for the rebuke: Peter identifies Jesus as the Jewish Mashiach. >”But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ.” But he, turning around, rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you have in mind not the things of God, but the things of men.”<
If Mark 13 alludes to the destruction of the Temple, all we can say for certain is, it was written sometime after AD 70 but before the earliest extant manuscript. _The Red Badge of Courage_ describes the battle of Chancellorsville. It was written in 1894, not ‘around’ 1863.
From your recount, I see a man declining the title of messiah. And yes, as most humans of faith do in the end, he proclaims he is forsaken by a “god” he has given his soul to.
As we all should know, the mythology of Abraham is not god’s own but that of a collection of tales as acquired through travel… as a merchant. Most garnered from the region of Mesopotamia.
Religion is fiction retold. Along the way redaction, additions and politics alter the story to suit the editor.
“could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Mark says directly that Jesus couldn’t perform miracles in Nazareth because of the locals’ lack of faith.
This makes sense, if people dont knock he cannot open the door. God cannot interfere with our free will.
The way I was introduced to studying the gospels was that Mark was first, notes from Peter’s sermons taken by John Mark, a young man who was a camp follower so to speak. Matthew was based on Mark, containing references to appeal to Jewish followers of Jesus. Neither were going to incite the wrath of devout Jews by proclaiming a blasphemy, that Jesus was God or God’s son. Mark hints, Matthew builds a case, then Luke expands it to the Gentiles.
Consider how Mary’s role in Mark is merely a footnote. Matthew acknowledges her & Joseph as Jews of good standing with the Magi discovering Jesus’ portent in the stars. Luke fleshes out the backstory with a narrative that smacks of the Greek gods procreating with mortals but immaculately. One might question whether a young girl would be able to extemporaneously produce the Magnificat & remember it vividly when interviewed by Luke. The story also provides for Mary avoiding being stoned for becoming pregnant out of wedlock or having to marry someone other than Joseph.
I think the important part of the Gospels isn’t the ripping yarns or plot twists, but the message of loving & taking care of your neighbor. Jesus was always telling his disciples to feed, heal, & comfort people, don’t worry about who’s first because the first will be last.
Just one person’s opinion.
Your read on the escalation is something most people never notice. Mark barely gives Mary a role, Matthew gives her a husband with a pedigree and a sign in the sky, and Luke hands her a full speech.
On the Magnificat, have a look at Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2 sometime. The parallels are close enough that Luke almost certainly built the speech on that model, which spares us the problem of a teenager improvising poetry and recalling it decades later.
As for the idea that Mark was based on Peter’s sermon notes, I wouldn’t give it much weight. It comes from a second-century bishop writing long after the events, and most scholars have moved away from it. Part of the reason is that the author of Mark writes in fairly good Greek for a non-Jewish audience and makes some mistakes about Galilean geography.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment!
For me the most telling feature of Mark’s gospel is the original ending, which had no resurrection account, simply the women finding an empty tomb and fleeing. If we had no other gospel account, we might conclude Jesus was simply a failed prophet whose sacrifice came to naught. Maybe at the time Mark composed his gospel that was the prevailing opinion. There are other peculiar aspects of Mark, like the mysterious young man in white linen, that suggest large parts of the narrative have been lost or redacted out. Perhaps one day a scroll or papyrus will turn up that is close to the autograph version. How many biblical scholars would sacrifice their first-born to get the keys to the Vatican archives?
I once read a viable hypothesis about this. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon for the final pages of a manuscript to get lost due to the binding methods used. Therefore, Mark may have had an ending that we will never know about.
I have been trying to come up with scholarship that has some kind of speculation as to what sources the author of Mark may have used.
And speculations are all you can get since there is no consensus.
Burton Mack in A Myth of Innocence argues Mark was drawing on a sayings collection similar to Q, plus earlier written or oral accounts of the passion already circulating. Helmut Koester did substantial work on pre-Markan sources, arguing the passion account in particular looks like it was assembled from earlier independent units rather than composed fresh.
John Dominic Crossan went further and proposed a "Cross Gospel" embedded in the Gospel of Peter as a source Mark used, though most scholars don't buy it.
For the miracle stories specifically, Paul Achtemeier made an influential argument that Mark inherited two pre-existing collections of miracle stories, each following a similar pattern, and combined them into a single sequence.
What version of Mark do you recommend reading from your sources?
The NRSV is the standard scholarly choice; it's what most of the academics I cite use, and the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV) gives you the notes that flag where the text is doing something interesting.
NRSV is one of the worst translations.
I don't speak Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek well enough to evaluate translation choices myself, so I go with what the scholars I cite use.
Genuinely curious what your evaluation is based on. Textual criticism? A specific passage? Or a general reputation you've picked up somewhere?
"The oldest and best Greek manuscripts of Mark, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus from the fourth century, end at 16:8"
Those two manuscripts are corrupt, and utterly worthless as a means of determining the original text. Tischendorf, the discoverer of Sinaiticus, counted thousands of places were multiple scribes had tried to correct errors in the text because they had no confidence in it. Entire lines are skipped, some lines are repeated twice.
A faithfully copied MS from the 9th century is a better witness to the text than a sloppily and carelessly made MS from the 4th century.
And no one can explain how many manuscripts from the areas where the originals were most accessible should be in error while the real and most authentic manuscripts were lost and forgotten in Egypt.
Thanks for reading and engaging. You're right that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus both carry corrections; Tischendorf did count them. However, correctors working on a manuscript is evidence that people were checking it against other copies, which is a normal part of transmission rather than a sign of a bad exemplar. The Byzantine tradition is more uniform because it was copied later within a standardized system, and uniformity is downstream of standardization rather than proof of accuracy.
Ultimately, what you're saying sounds more like a personal position than scholarly consensus, and that's an approach I stay away from in my pieces, because what I find most plausible isn't the definition of truth.
As you said, "correctors working on a manuscript is evidence that people were checking it against other copies."
That is certainly true. However, is literally thousands of corrections normal? I don't think so. The fact that a manuscript needed to be constantly corrected shows that the men doing the checking thought it was wrong, and did not have confidence in it.
Byzantine transmission is more uniform because it was "copied later within a standardized system"? Or because there was more immediate access to the originals, and because it was more reverently copied by people who did try to make heretical changes (such as removing references to the deity of Christ)?
True, uniformity MAY be downstream of standardization, but it may also be the result of careful and accurate copying of the originals by people who had great reverence for the text and were careful to copy it accurately.
Also, you ignored this point: "No one can explain how many manuscripts from the areas where the originals were most accessible should be in error while the real and most authentic manuscripts were lost and forgotten in Egypt."
Until a plausible scenario can be demonstrated, the idea that the most authentic texts were lots and forgotten in a Sinai monastery or a library of the Vatican should be rejected.
Such a position is outside of the "scholarly consensus," but what if the many scholars are wrong?
That was an argument against Luther at the time of the Reformation - "How can all of the scholars and authorities of the Roman Church be wrong?" But they were wrong - and much of modern scholarship is wrong. In fact, much of that scholarship has been deeply influenced by secular methodology.
Many modern textual scholars are not even orthodox in their approach to basic doctrines, and what many "scholars" find plausible, with their "almost certain" or "nearly certain" or "almost nearly certain" conclusions is not truth.
Tanner, I think you've noticed something important in Mark, but then flattened it into a story of theological embarrassment and later repair.
Mark really is strange. Jesus conceals His identity. The disciples repeatedly fail to understand. A blind man receives sight in two stages. Peter identifies the Christ and almost immediately demonstrates that he doesn't understand who the Christ is. Everyone flees. Jesus cries the opening of Psalm 22 from the cross. The women receive news of the resurrection and flee in fear.
But before concluding that these are rough edges later writers found embarrassing, try asking whether Mark has deliberately related them to one another.
Consider the “failed” healing at Bethsaida. Just before it, Jesus rebukes the disciples: “Having eyes, see ye not?” Then He heals a blind man who first sees indistinctly—“men as trees, walking”—and afterward sees clearly.
Immediately after that enacted sequence Jesus asks the disciples who He is. Peter answers correctly: “Thou art the Christ.”
Peter can see.
But only partially.
Jesus immediately begins teaching that the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, die, and rise again. Peter rebukes Him.
Peter sees the Messiah, but he cannot yet see the Cross.
Suddenly the strange two-stage healing isn't evidence that Jesus' first attempt failed. It is sitting exactly where Mark needs it to interpret what happens to Peter:
blindness → partial sight → clear sight.
And that changes the so-called “Messianic Secret” as well. Peter has correctly named Jesus and still has the wrong Christ in mind. Announcing “Jesus is the Messiah” before understanding the Cross can proclaim precisely the Messiah Jesus has come to overturn. So Jesus silences them and begins teaching them His death.
Mark's secrecy and Mark's blindness are not two embarrassing problems. They are related. You cannot see who Jesus is until you see the Cross.
The same problem appears in your treatment of Jesus' cry from the cross. You acknowledge that He is quoting Psalm 22, but then suggest that reading the Psalm is a way Christians avoid what Mark actually says. Why would we isolate a quotation from the Scripture being quoted—especially when Mark's crucifixion scene is simultaneously displaying the imagery of that Psalm? The mockery, the challenge concerning God's deliverance, and the division of garments are not later Christian attempts to rescue Jesus from His words. They are part of the scriptural world in which Mark tells the crucifixion.
Even if we grant Mark 16:8 as the ending, the same structure remains. The women are given revelation: He is risen. They are commissioned to speak, and human beings fail again. Yet their failure doesn't undo what God has done.
And there is a tiny detail there that your reading doesn't account for very well:
“Tell his disciples and Peter.”
Peter—the disciple who misunderstood Him, rebuked Him, abandoned Him, and denied Him—is specifically summoned by the risen Jesus.
That isn't a writer embarrassed by a failed movement who hasn't yet developed a triumphant Christianity. Mark's triumph is precisely that human failure never defeats what God is doing.
I agree with your invitation to stop blending the four Gospels long enough to let Mark speak for himself. I would just go further than you did. Don't flatten Mark into a primitive historical layer either. Let his odd details speak to each other.
Mark isn't giving us an inferior Jesus whom Matthew, Luke, and John needed to repair.
He is teaching us how to see Him.
And there is a wonderful irony in the title Hidden in Eye-Sight: Mark put a blind man in the middle of the Gospel to show us exactly how easy it is to look directly at Jesus and still only see men as trees walking.
This 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
A really interesting essay. My two cents: for the traditions I'm most sympathetic to, the thought that the rough edges must be more authentic or less theological doesn't fit for me - Mark is doing profound theology: the blind man who saw but didn't see clearly, but then saw clearly, the disciples not seeing clearly, the 'don't tell anyone' theme, the Nazarene locals who didn't see Jesus except as a carpenter's son: a theme of spiritual blindness, that nobody really knows Christ until the Cross and Resurrection. Matthew, Luke and John are contemplating this mystery, perhaps, from other angles. Mark's ending, rather than a failure/nobody "seeing" the resurrection: it seems like it's asking whether you (the reader) will go to Galilee, which feels intentional/theological.
Thanks, George. I agree that roughness doesn’t equal authenticity, and Mark is clearly doing deliberate theological work. But a historical reading of these texts isn’t about reconstructing what actually happened but about understanding what people believed or claimed had happened and what we can deduce from that. Deciding what the truth really is belongs to theology, not history.
He did not do many miracles there.....Do you think it was from a lack of ability?
"I see things like trees moving around".....Jesus had just asked him a question - "Do you see anything?" And he saw. Then he touched him again. Do you think Jesus's power meter wasn't set high enough?
To me, the most remarkable thing about Mark is that it is the only gospel where Jesus commands a "teacher of the law" (Mark 12:28-34).
There are many examples of what I refer to as 'buffionary' in the Old Testament: Moses pleading with God to pick somebody else, Lot trying to placate the mob by offering his daughters, etc.
Rather than considering these details as weak points, I think they highlight the fact that these guys in the Bible are normal people with normal failings, and are there to reassure us that we are not excluded on the basis of not being a modern-day hero, ie. that there is hope for us too.
Peter is certainly a buffoon too, but for the same reason I think, and it doesn't diminish my respect for any of them.
As for the other points you've made, I was aware of them, so I must have read Mark better than I had thought!
Great piece! Thank you.
Raschke interprets the two-stage healing of the blind man thus: Jesus’ disciples are not yet completely ‘healed’ of their attachment to old Jewish concepts. The pericope is indeed bracketed by Jesus’ warning about the teachings of the Pharisees, and the disciples' judaic misidentifications of Jesus.
Mark 8:30-32, with its Olivet (i.e., Matthaean) material, is an interpolation to obscure the actual reason for the rebuke: Peter identifies Jesus as the Jewish Mashiach. >”But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ.” But he, turning around, rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you have in mind not the things of God, but the things of men.”<
If Mark 13 alludes to the destruction of the Temple, all we can say for certain is, it was written sometime after AD 70 but before the earliest extant manuscript. _The Red Badge of Courage_ describes the battle of Chancellorsville. It was written in 1894, not ‘around’ 1863.
From your recount, I see a man declining the title of messiah. And yes, as most humans of faith do in the end, he proclaims he is forsaken by a “god” he has given his soul to.
As we all should know, the mythology of Abraham is not god’s own but that of a collection of tales as acquired through travel… as a merchant. Most garnered from the region of Mesopotamia.
Religion is fiction retold. Along the way redaction, additions and politics alter the story to suit the editor.
Okaaay. There goes decades of catechism. Thank you for the eye opener.
“could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Mark says directly that Jesus couldn’t perform miracles in Nazareth because of the locals’ lack of faith.
This makes sense, if people dont knock he cannot open the door. God cannot interfere with our free will.