This statement by Papias has been accepted as reliable by most New Testament scholars, for it very reasonably explains the contents found in the first half of Mark. Papias, an early church father writing about 140 A.D., tells us that Mark obtained much of the material for his gospel from stories related to him by Peter, one of Jesus' disciples. One of these, according to a well authenticated tradition, was an oral source. That Mark survived these attempts to replace it is probably due to the fact that its origin was regarded as more authentic than the others and that it was highly prized by the church at Rome, which was destined to become one of the leading churches in the entire Christian movement.Īlthough the Gospel of Mark became one of the main sources for the writings of Matthew and Luke, it, too, was based on older source materials. The authors of both Matthew and Luke appear to have included in each of their gospels all that was necessary to be remembered from Mark, in which case the oldest of the Gospels would be replaced by later and more complete accounts. A relatively short gospel, most of the material contained in it is reproduced in the Gospels that were written later. That this gospel has been preserved in the form in which we have it today testifies to the importance attached to it from its beginning. A record of this kind furnished evidence to support the belief that Jesus was the true Messiah by believing in Jesus, people could obtain salvation. The Gospel of Mark records with as much accuracy as possible the main events of the life and teachings of Jesus. Believed to have been a relative of Barnabas, who was one of the leaders of the church in Antioch, Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas on one of their missionary journeys and was a companion of Peter during the time when that disciple spent his last years in the city of Rome. The author of Mark was a Christian named John Mark, a relatively obscure person so far as New Testament records indicate. From a historical point of view, Mark, being the oldest of the Gospels, is the most reliable, the reason for which is not merely that it is closer in point of time to the events that it records but that less interpretation concerns the meaning of these events than in the other Gospels.
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