We should note that this book of Mark has had a very checkered history. That is the book of Mark was immediately received with enthusiasm when it was first published. And the first Christian reaction to Mark’s gospel was quite enthusiastic, it was accepted, it was acknowledged as being authoritative, it was a witness to the life of Jesus, it was used perhaps by the other synoptic writers. But after a period of time, it seemed to become less popular. That is we don’t have any commentary written on the gospel of Mark that we know of before the fifth century, by Victor of Antioch. Ao, in a period of time, the book began to be neglected. The feeling was, that everything in Mark was also found in amplified fashion in Matthew or Luke, so why bother with Mark. And besides Mark is not as stylistically interesting as Matthew or Luke or John. Thus, if Mark is just a condensed account of Matthew, if he was the one who followed Matthew’s footsteps and shortened his gospel, then why pay much attention to Mark?

It is interesting though that within the last 50 or 60 years or so, that Mark has come once again back into prominence, there has been a resurgence of interest in this particular gospel, because of the critical work that has been done in showing perhaps it may be if not the earliest at least one of the early gospel accounts. It was quite popular originally it degenerated as far as interest was concerned it, and now it has a resurgence once again back into prominence.

Let’s come back then to the author again we say that the external evidence, internal evidence agrees that John Mark was the author what do we know about this man Mark? Well, we know that his name occurs something like ten times in the NT and his full name is John Mark. John being his Jewish forename, and Mark or Marcus being his Latin sir name. His father is not mentioned in the Bible but his mother was named Mary and apparently, she was a well-to-do widow a—women of some considerable means, quite wealthy who lived in Jerusalem, and whose house in Jerusalem seems to have been the place of rendezvous for many of the early church people. They must have had singspirations at her house or something but a place where many of the Christians assembled together in Jerusalem.