 |
Back to Books of the Bible |
index | |
Back to Deley's Homepage | |
| Mark 1:9 | Jesus submits to baptism by John the Baptist. |
| Mark 1:16 | Scholars have noticed that all passages that mention Galilee are later additions.(50) Here the words "by the sea of Galilee" are placed quite ungrammatically in the Greek syntax.(52) This has led most New Testament scholars to believe that they were added to give a geographical location to a story that previously lacked it.(53) |
| Mark 2:27 | Jesus orientates the Law on human beings. |
| Mark 3:14-19 | Jesus surrounds himself with 12 disciples. This is usually taken to be symbolic
of the 12 tribes of israel. This notion of 12 tribes, however, is itself a symbolic
reference to the 12 signs of the zodiac in Babylonian astrology, which the Jews adopted
while in exile in Babylon.[119] The Zodiac was an extreamly important symbol in the
Pagan world. Osiris-Dionysus is symbolically represented as the still spiritual center
of the turning wheel of change represented by the 12 signs. As Mithras, Dionysus, Aion,
and Helios, he is often depicted at the center of the circling zodiac.[120] During the
initiation ceremony in the Mysteries of Mithras, 12 disciples surrounded the godman, just
as the 12 disciples surrounded Jesus. The Mithraic disciples were dressed up to represent
the 12 signs of the zodiac and circled the initiate, who represented Mithras himself.[121]
The circle of 12 around a centeral one derives from sacred geometry and for the followers of Pythagoras contained profound mystical meaning. Pythagoreans, who were renowned in the ancient world for their knowledge of mathematics, conceived of God as a perfectsphere.[122] The ancients discovered that if a sphere is surrounded by others of exactly the same dimensions, so that all the spheres are in contact with each other, the central sphere will be surrounded by exactly 12 others.[123] The image of the godman and his 12 disciples encodes such teachings from sacred geometry.[2] |
| Mark 4:3-20 | The parable of the sower and its interpretation. |
| Mark 4:30-32 (Matthew 13:31-34) (Luke 13:18-19) |
The parable of the mustard seed. Mustard does not grow into a tree with branches that a bird could make a nest in. (This passage contains the same message as the parable of the seed that grows by itself.-Ref:[5,p.86]) |
| Mark 4:35-41 | Jesus stills the storm. The story relates a nature miracle which displays
the typical elements of a verbal threat (v.39) and a description of its impact on the witnesses (v.41).
The drama is heightened by the fact that not only does the storm pose great danger but the
only person who could help is asleep and doing nothing
(cf. Jonah 1:4-6).
The modern picture of the world has no room for this so-called nature miracle, and one cannot change one's picture of the world at will, like a costume; the attempt to take refuge in the ancient picture of the world simply because this is presupposed in the Bible is mistaken in every respect. Jesus did not still a storm, even if the early Christians dreamed that he had and made it into a historical event.[5,p.70] |
|
Mark 5:1-20 (Matthew 8:28-34) (Luke 8:32-39) |
"Are we drawn to a Lord who would destroy a herd of pigs and presumably a person's
livelihood In order to exorcise a demon?"[1,p.21] "The gospels tell us that on one occasion Jesus exorcized a man of demons who called themselves Legion, because there were "about 2,000 of them." These demons are cast by Jesus into a large herd of pigs, which rush over the edge of a hillside and are drowned. Exactly the same motif is found in the rites of the Mysteries at Eleusis. As part of the purification ceremony before initiation, some 2,000 initiates all bathed in the sea with young pigs. This bathing ritual banished all evil into the pigs, which were then sacrificed, as a symbol of the initiates' own impurities, by being chased over a chasm."[2] Pigs were unclean animals for Jews. |
| Mark 6:3 (Compare with Matthew 21:18-22) |
Scholars have noticed that all passages that mention Galilee are later additions.(50) Here the words "by the sea of Galilee" are placed quite ungrammatically in the Greek syntax.(52) This has led most New Testament scholars to believe that they were added to give a geographical location to a story that previously lacked it.(53) |
| Mark 6:35-44 | Jesus miraculously multiplies loaves and fishes. (See Magic Numbers Under Construction) |
| Mark 7:1-23 | Jesus supposedly bests his Pharisee opponents by quoting a verse from the LXX, that of Isaiah 29:13. Unfortunately, the Hebrew version, the original as it were, says something entirely different! As G. A. Wells dryly observed, 'That a Palestinian Jesus should floor orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely'. Instead, we have a good example of 'created history' here. |
| Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:32b-34 | Jesus forecasts his suffering and death. The Markian predictions of the passion and resurrection. |
| Mark 9:1 | Jesus forcasts that some of his disciples will survive until the coming of the kingdom of God. The early Christian expectation was that the end of the world and thus the advent of the Lord Jesus from heaven was imminent. A serious problem nowadays for literalists since its been 2000 years and the rapture still hasn't occurred. |
| Mark 9:2 | The reference to "snow" gives us a clue as to where and to whom the Gospels were written. It was written by people familiar with snow for people familiar with snow. Have you ever seen it snow in the dry sandy desert of Egypt? |
| Mark 10:11-12 (Matthew 5:32) (Matthew 19:9) (Luke 16:18) (1 Cor. 7:10-11) |
The logion here states that the marriage continues after the divorce, which is a contradiction. |
| Mark 10:25 |
I have heard 3 explanations for this passage: 1. It is impossible for a rich man to get into heaven. 2. When the word camel is translated into Aramaic, one sees that in Aramaic the word for camel and the word for rope are almost identical.[1.p16] 3. Some scolars have pointed out that in Jerusalem there was a very low and narrow gate through the city wall. When a caravan entered through the gate, the camels had to be unloaded, led through the gate crouching down, and then reloaded inside the city wall. That gate was supposedly called "the eye of the needle".[3,p31] |
|
Mark 11:12-14 (Matthew 21:18-22) |
"Are we impressed when the one we call Lord curses a fig tree because it did not bear fruit out of season?"[1,p.21] |
| Mark 11:15-19 | Jesus cleanses the temple. |
| Mark 12:17 | Jesus accentuates the Law. |
|
Mark 12:36 (Luke 20:42) |
Jesus seems to have accepted the Davidic authorship of the Psalms, an attitude and concept quickly dismissed in the circles of biblical scholarship today.[2,p.42] |
|
Mark 13:24-35 (Matthew 29:29-51) |
This could be a description of a solar eclipse. "The sun will be darkened." is the solar eclipse. "The moon will not give it's light" because the moon is in front of the sun. "The stars will fall from the sky." During a total solar eclipse it's so dark that the stars become visible. The day and hour unknown. Today we can predict solar eclipses years in advance down to the minute, but back then their astronomy wasn't as good and solar eclipses could take them by surprise. The text essentially says, "Don't panic. The sun will reappear and everything will be alright." The reappearance of the sun after a solar eclipse could be thought of as the sun's "second comming." |
| Mark 14:17-21 | The announcement of Judas' betrayal. |
| Mark 14:26-31 | The announcement of Peter's denial. |
| Mark 14:51-52 | This strange character appears nowhere else in the New Testament. Many readers down the centuries must have wondered about the identity of this naked young man and what he was doing with Jesus and the disciples. The Secret Gospel of Mark suggests that he was a candidate for initiation.[2,p.99] |
|
Mark 15:6-11 (Matthew 27:15-21) (Luke 23:18-19) (John 18:39-40) |
Spong: The custom of releasing a prisoner as part of the Passover celebration is mentioned nowhere else in the literature of either Roman or Jewish history of which I am aware. This appears to be the sole reference to something called here "a custom". This custom seems to be a gospel invention, a literary device created to help exonerate the Roman governor. The irony of this story is so often missed by readers who do not understand that the name of the murderer who was offered for release, Barabbas, literally meant son of God (bar, son, and Abba, father or God). In all three synoptic Gospels, Pilate was portrayed as trying to release one whose very name meant son of God, only to be thwarted by the Jews. No text in any religious sacred literature has ever been the cause of as much pain and suffering in history as has this one. In these words a killing anti-Semitism found its biblical and therefore, in the eyes of many Christians, its justifying legitimization.[3,p.271-2] |
|
Back to Books of the Bible |
index | |
Back to Deley's Homepage | |