90 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, 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, like picking up snakes, is promised in Mark 16:18 to do believers no harm, the verse that Appalachian snake-handling churches cite for the serpents and poison of their worship.

What do the demons call themselves in Mark 5 before entering a herd of about 2,000 pigs?

Legion, 'for we are many', is the name Jesus is given when he asks, and only Mark puts a number on the herd that then rushes into the lake, which Matthew and Luke leave uncounted.

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 vivid touch often taken as an eyewitness memory, perhaps Peter's. 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 is Mark's emblem in the scheme that matches the four evangelists to the four living creatures of Ezekiel and Revelation, and Venice took the lion as its own once it held his relics.

Most scholars date Mark to which conflict, reading chapter 13's doomed Temple as an echo of it?

The First Jewish–Roman War saw Titus's army destroy the Temple in AD 70, and Mark 13's forecast of that ruin is why scholars place the Gospel just before or after it.

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', does Mark use about forty times to keep his story moving?

Immediately hurries Jesus from scene to scene in Mark, which also 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 desert, 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, a detail 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's Herod swears only to give '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.

What did Jesus's own family say of him in Mark 3:21, coming to take him away?

He is out of his mind is a verdict so awkward that neither Matthew nor Luke repeats it, and Mark follows it with his mother and brothers standing outside, sending for him.

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 bearing no fruit?

Figs were out of season, Mark says flatly, which is why the curse is often read as an acted parable of the fruitless Temple: 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 the way Mark's Jesus silences demons and the people he heals?

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 came after Jesus put his fingers in the man's ears and touched his tongue with spit, a hands-on cure that no other Gospel repeats. 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?'

Which promise to Peter in Matthew's account of his confession at Caesarea Philippi is missing from Mark 8?

The keys of heaven, like 'on this rock I will build my church', are promised only in Matthew 16; in Mark, Peter is being called Satan within a few verses of his confession.

How does Mark 9:3 describe Jesus's clothes at the Transfiguration, in an 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?

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 inside the tomb in Mark 16:5, where Matthew 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 is usually read as a drink to dull the pain, so Mark's Jesus is turning down a sedative, while Matthew swaps in gall to match Psalm 69. Only Matthew has the spice offered to him as a baby.

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 a Roman bronze coin worth a quarter of an as, and Mark's need to convert Jewish small change into it 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 quoted 'the Elder' that Mark set down Peter's memories accurately though not in order, 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 near-complete Greek Bibles, end Mark at 16:8 without 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 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.

Which future American president built a speech on Jesus's saying in Mark 3 that a house divided cannot stand?

Abraham Lincoln used it in 1858 to argue the Union could not endure split between slave and free. In Mark, Jesus says it to scribes who claim he drives out demons by the prince of demons.

Which trade do Jesus's hometown neighbours give him in Mark 6:3, where Matthew calls him the son of one?

A carpenter is what the synagogue crowd calls him as they take offense. Mark adds that Jesus could do no miracles there except heal a few sick people.

In Mark 10, what does Jesus say would fit through a needle's eye more easily than a rich person is saved?

A camel makes the point so sharply that the amazed disciples ask who then can be saved. Jesus answers that all things are possible with God.

Which prisoner, held with rebels who had killed in an uprising, did Pilate free instead of Jesus in Mark 15?

Barabbas walked free because the chief priests stirred up the crowd to ask for him. Pilate, wanting to satisfy them, had Jesus flogged and handed over to be crucified.

What signal had Judas arranged with the armed crowd so they would know which man to seize, in Mark 14?

A kiss marked him out: Judas walked straight up, called him 'Rabbi' and kissed him. In the scuffle that followed, a bystander's sword cut off the ear of the high priest's servant.

What does Mark 15:22 say is the meaning of Golgotha, the name of the site where Jesus was crucified?

The place of the skull is Mark's own gloss on the Aramaic name. The Latin Bible's version of the phrase, Calvariae locus, gave English the word Calvary.

Which plant's seed, called the smallest on earth, grows into the largest of garden plants in a Mark 4 parable?

Mustard is his picture of how God's reign grows: from a speck to a plant with branches big enough to give shade. Mark says Jesus spoke to the crowds only in parables and explained them to his disciples in private.

How was John the Baptist's head brought to the girl who had danced at Herod's birthday banquet in Mark 6?

On a platter, exactly as she had asked at her mother's prompting. Herod was greatly distressed, but would not refuse her in front of his dinner guests.

What did the terrified disciples take Jesus for when he came across the lake to their boat at night in Mark 6?

A ghost was their guess, and they cried out in terror. Only Mark adds that Jesus 'was about to pass by them' before he spoke and climbed into the boat.

Which part of Jesus's life, told at length by Matthew and Luke, is missing from Mark's Gospel altogether?

His birth and childhood never appear: Mark opens with the adult Jesus arriving from Nazareth to be baptized in the Jordan, and gives him no family tree either.

Like what did Jesus see the Spirit descend on him as he came out of the Jordan in Mark 1?

A dove is the image, and a voice from heaven calls him 'my Son, whom I love'. Straight afterwards the Spirit sends him out into the wilderness for forty days.

Which insects did John the Baptist eat along with honey while preaching in the wilderness in Mark 1?

Locusts were his food, and a leather belt held his rough clothing. Mark says the whole Judean countryside went out to be baptized by him in the Jordan.

What illness kept Simon's mother-in-law in bed until Jesus took her hand and helped her up in Mark 1?

A fever left her as he lifted her, and she began to wait on them. After sunset that evening the whole town gathered at the door with its sick.

In the parable of the sower in Mark 4, what ate the seed that fell along the path?

Birds stand for Satan in Jesus's own decoding: he takes the word from people as soon as they hear it. The seed on good soil yields thirty, sixty or a hundred times what was sown.

What did Jesus say the traders had made of the temple when he overturned their tables in Mark 11?

A den of robbers was his charge, set against scripture's 'house of prayer for all nations'. The chief priests began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him.

Whose image was on the denarius Jesus asked to see when opponents tried to trap him over taxes in Mark 12?

Caesar's portrait let Jesus slip the trap: give back to the emperor what is his, and to God what is God's. Mark says his questioners were amazed at him.

Which creature's second call made Peter break down and weep after he had disowned Jesus in Mark 14?

A rooster crowing twice was the sign Jesus had given him earlier that night: before it did, Peter would disown him three times. The first to challenge him was a servant girl of the high priest.

Where, in Mark 14, did Jesus tell his drowsy disciples that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak?

Gethsemane is where he prayed that the cup be taken from him, and three times came back to find Peter, James and John asleep.

What came over the whole land from noon until three in the afternoon as Jesus hung dying in Mark 15?

Darkness lasted three hours and ended with Jesus's loud cry and last breath. Matthew's account adds an earthquake at that moment; Mark's does not.

What in the Jerusalem temple was torn in two from top to bottom at the moment Jesus died in Mark 15?

The curtain split from top to bottom as Jesus breathed his last. Mark's story begins with a tearing too: at the baptism Jesus sees heaven itself being torn open.

Which prominent member of the Council went boldly to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus in Mark 15?

Joseph of Arimathea got the body only after Pilate, surprised that Jesus was already dead, had checked with the officer in charge. He then laid it in a tomb cut out of rock.

To whom does Mark's disputed longer ending say the risen Jesus appeared first, early on the first day of the week?

Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons, went and told his mourning followers that he was alive. They did not believe her.

Whom did Jesus call his brother, sister and mother while his relatives waited outside in Mark 3?

Whoever does God's will counts as his kin, he said, looking at those seated in a circle around him. The crowd in the house was so thick that he and his disciples could not even eat.

What does Jesus say would be better hung round the neck of anyone who trips up a humble believer, in Mark 9?

A millstone and a drop into the sea would be the kinder fate, he warns. The same speech tells hearers to cut off a hand or foot that makes them stumble.

What did a man plant and rent out to tenants who went on to kill his son, in a Mark 12 parable?

A vineyard, complete with wall, winepress and watchtower. The chief priests and elders knew the story was aimed at them and looked for a way to arrest him.

Which group, who deny any resurrection, asked Jesus whose wife a woman widowed seven times would be, in Mark 12?

The Sadducees built the puzzle on seven brothers who each married her in turn. Jesus told them they were badly mistaken: the risen do not marry, but are like the angels in heaven.

On which hill, facing the temple, did Jesus sit to foretell its destruction to four of his disciples in Mark 13?

The Mount of Olives gave him a view of the buildings a disciple had just admired. Jesus said that every one of them would be thrown down.

Where does Jesus tell people in Judea to flee when the 'abomination that causes desolation' appears, in Mark 13?

To the mountains, and without delay: nobody on a housetop should go inside for belongings, and nobody in a field should go back for a cloak.

What colour robe did Pilate's soldiers put on Jesus to mock him in Mark 15, where Matthew's account says scarlet?

Purple, with a crown of thorns and mock salutes, made a parody of a royal court. The soldiers put his own clothes back on him before leading him out to be crucified.

Which prophet did bystanders think the dying Jesus was calling when he cried out 'Eloi, Eloi' in Mark 15?

Elijah's name sounded like 'Eloi', which Mark translates as 'my God'. One bystander ran to offer a sponge of sour wine, saying they should wait and see whether the prophet came to take him down.

Which Aramaic words did Jesus speak to raise a synagogue leader's twelve-year-old daughter in Mark 5?

Talitha koum means 'Little girl, I say to you, get up', and she stood and walked about. Jesus then told her astonished parents to give her something to eat.

What did Peter offer to put up when Jesus appeared in dazzling clothes with Moses in Mark 9?

Three shelters, one for each figure, was his offer. Mark explains that Peter did not know what to say, because the disciples were so frightened.

What did the father of a boy seized by a spirit ask Jesus to help him overcome in Mark 9?

His unbelief sat beside real faith: 'I do believe', he cried in the same breath. Jesus had just told him that everything is possible for one who believes.

As what, in Mark 10, did Jesus say the Son of Man came to give his life?

A ransom for many is how he sums up his death, right after telling the Twelve that whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

How did Jesus group the Twelve when he first sent them out with authority over impure spirits in Mark 6?

In pairs, 'two by two', they went out to preach that people should repent. They drove out demons and anointed many sick people with oil.

What did a follower leave in his captors' hands when he fled naked from Jesus's arrest in Mark 14?

A linen garment was all he had on, and he slipped out of it when they seized him. No other Gospel has the scene, which has led some readers to wonder whether the runaway was Mark himself.

Whom were two disciples told to follow through the city to the Passover room in Mark 14?

A man carrying water in a jar would meet them and lead them to a house with a large upstairs room, furnished and ready. They found everything just as Jesus had said.

Where did the messenger at the empty tomb say the risen Jesus was going ahead of his disciples in Mark 16?

Galilee, where the story began, is where they are promised they will see him. The message singles out one disciple by name: 'tell his disciples and Peter'.

Which prophet does Mark 1:2 name as the source of its opening quotation about a messenger preparing the way?

Isaiah gets the credit, though the quotation's first line echoes Malachi 3:1. Many later manuscripts read 'in the prophets' instead.

Which Mediterranean port's church, led by the Coptic pope, claims Mark the Evangelist as its founder?

Alexandria's church traces its line of patriarchs back to Mark as its founder. Tradition adds that he was martyred there, dragged through the city's streets.

Which letter names the lost sayings source that scholars pair with Mark to explain Matthew and Luke?

Q, short for the German Quelle ('source'), is the name for sayings Matthew and Luke share but Mark lacks. If it existed, every copy has been lost, so scholars rebuild it from those two Gospels.

Which Greek word, translated 'good news' or 'gospel', stands in the very first verse of Mark?

Evangelion, literally 'good news', is how the author labels his work in its first line. He uses the word more often than any other Gospel writer.

In whose region did Jesus meet a man who lived among the tombs and snapped his chains in Mark 5?

The Gerasenes pleaded with Jesus to leave their region once the man was cured. He was sent home to tell his own people, and spread the story through the Decapolis.

What does an aside in Mark 7:19 say Jesus declared clean during a dispute over unwashed hands?

All foods, the narrator adds in brackets. Jesus had argued that what a person eats only passes through the stomach, while evil comes from within, out of the heart.

With what does Jesus say everyone will be salted, in a cryptic one-line saying at Mark 9:49?

Fire, he says, in a line that closes his sayings about hell, where the flames never go out. He then adds that salt is good, and tells the disciples to be at peace with each other.

Which costly perfume did a woman pour on Jesus's head at Bethany, to complaints about the waste, in Mark 14?

Pure nard worth more than a year's wages filled her alabaster jar. Jesus said she had prepared his body for burial, and that her act would be retold wherever the gospel is preached.

To which mystery district did Jesus sail with his disciples after feeding the four thousand in Mark 8?

Dalmanutha has never been pinned down on a map, and Matthew's parallel names Magadan instead. There the Pharisees demand a sign from heaven and Jesus refuses with a deep sigh.

What Latin name does Mark 15:16 give the governor's palace where soldiers mocked Jesus before the crucifixion?

The Praetorium is how Mark glosses 'the palace' for his readers. The whole company of soldiers gathered there to dress the prisoner up and strike him before leading him out.

Which church father dubbed Mark the 'attendant and abbreviator of Matthew', the reverse of the modern view?

Augustine of Hippo assumed the Gospels were written in their Bible order, Matthew first. Modern scholarship mostly reverses it: Mark came first and Matthew expanded it.

By which prince of demons did scribes from Jerusalem say Jesus was driving out demons in Mark 3?

Beelzebul was their explanation for his power over spirits. Jesus replied in parables: how can Satan drive out Satan, and who robs a strong man's house without first tying him up?