From Peter’s Lips to Mark’s Pen: The Gospel of Mark’s True Origin
History and the making of the second Gospel
What would it feel like to sit at Peter’s feet and listen to him tell stories about Jesus?
What would it be like if someone in the first century sat down in the same room as Peter and wrote down all of his Jesus stories for us to read, all these years later?
What if you could read that document today?
You can. It’s the Gospel of Mark.
Many voices today will claim we do not know who wrote Mark. But this clashes with history.
Multiple ancient historians record exactly who wrote Mark, where, and why. It’s a pretty good story.
Here are four:
Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215 AD; Adumbrationes in Epistolas Canonicas on 1 Peter 5:13):
“Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter was publicly preaching the gospel at Rome in the presence of some of Caesar’s knights and uttering many testimonies about Christ, on their asking him to let them have a record of the things that had been said, wrote the Gospel that is called the Gospel of Mark from the things said by Peter, just as Luke is recognized as the pen that wrote the Acts of the Apostles and as the translator of the Letter of Paul to the Hebrews.”
The Old Latin Prologue to Mark (recension 2; ca. 150 AD):
“…Mark, who was also called Stubfinger because he had shorter fingers with regard to the other dimensions of the body. He had been the disciple and recorder of Peter, whom he followed, just as he had heard him relating. Having been asked by the brethren in Rome, he wrote this short Gospel in the regions of Italy. When Peter heard about it, he approved and authorized it to be read to the church with [his own] authority. But after the demise of Peter, taking this Gospel that he had composed he journeyed to Egypt, and being ordained the first bishop of Alexandria he founded the church there, preaching Christ. He was a man of such great learning and austerity of life that he induced all the followers of Christ to imitate his example.”
Eusebius (ca. 260–340 AD; Ecclesiastical History 2.15.1–16.1):
“To such a degree did the flame of true piety illuminate the minds of Peter’s hearers that, not being satisfied with having just one hearing or with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, with every sort of entreaty they urged Mark, whose Gospel it is reputed to be, being the follower of Peter, to bequeath to them also in writing the record of the teaching handed on to them by word [of mouth], nor did they let up before convincing the man. And by this means they became the cause of the Gospel writing that is said to be ‘according to Mark.’ They also say that when the apostle learned what had happened, the Spirit having revealed this to him, he was pleased with the enthusiasm of the men and authorized the writing for reading in the churches. Clement in the sixth book of The Outlines relates the story, and the bishop of Hierapolis, Papias by name, bears joint witness to him. He also says that Peter mentions Mark in his First Letter, and that he composed this in Rome itself, which they say that he himself indicates, speaking figuratively of the city of Babylon, by these words: ‘The Elect [Lady] in Babylon greets you, along with Mark my son.’ Now they say that this Mark was the first to be sent to Egypt to preach the gospel that he had also committed to writing, and was the first to establish churches in Alexandria itself.”
Finally, we have my favorite: Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis; c. A.D. 120 AD, quoted by Eusebius:
“This too the Elder [John the Apostle] used to say: Mark, having become the recorder of Peter, indeed wrote accurately albeit not in order whatever he [Peter] remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord. For he [Mark] had neither heard the Lord nor was a follower of him, but later, as I said, of Peter, who used to deliver his teachings in the form of short stories, but not making as it were a literary composition of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark did not err at all when he wrote down certain things just as he [Peter] recalled them. For he had but one intention: not to leave out anything he had heard nor to falsify anything in them.”
Do you know why this one is my favorite?
Read it again. Look at who Papias listened to, and what he recorded.
Papias recorded the very words of John the Apostle — the disciple Jesus loved, who was closest to Jesus out of all the Twelve.
This same John verified that Mark recorded the eye-witness testimony of Peter.
Do you know what that gives us? An unbroken chain of eye-witness testimony, with one Gospel author verifying the origin and source of another Gospel.
All this means what the first line of this article declares: if you want to hear Peter himself personally talking about his memories of Jesus, simply read the book of Mark. That’s what it is.
Yet even with the evidence of history, some push back. They claim Mark can never be the work of Peter, because Peter never looks good in Mark. Rather, Peter always seems to be failing.
This clashes with what the world expects of a leader. We expect leaders to puff themselves up and only talk of their successes. Mark is not what a worldly leader would record of themselves.
But it’s exactly what a follower of Jesus would record of themselves.
Peter’s journey with Jesus humbled him. In the pages of Mark, Peter goes from brash and foolish to humble and well aware of his flaws.
At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus establishes Peter as the leader of the early church, charging him to feed Jesus’ sheep.
But Jesus does so only after confronting Peter about his failure, and asking Peter if he truly loved Jesus.
Peter’s entire position as leader is dependent on him acknowledging his failures, being forgiven, and leading out of that broken humility.
It makes all the sense in the world that Peter’s own stories of Jesus highlight Peter’s own failures. Peter’s failures are his qualifications to lead — the very evidence that he is not viewing success as the world does, but instead that he is leaning entirely on Jesus’ own model of humble servant leadership.