What if the Earliest Extant Gospel Promotes a Form of Judaism

The reading that the Gospel of Mark’s vision of ideal practice, belief, and expectation is a form of Judaism, rather than something else, is able to better explain the full narrative of the Gospel and is fully comprehensible within the context of the first-century ancient mediterranean world. 

See also The Gospel of Mark’s Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many (Mohr Siebeck, 2025). 

By John Van Maaren 
University of Vienna
April 2025

Ever since people focused sustained attention on the social contexts from which the canonical Gospels emerged, the Gospel of Mark—taken to be the earliest Gospel by most interpreters—has been understood to be written for Christ followers who believed and acted in ways distinct from their Jewish contemporaries and who formed separate groups. We could say, a “gentile” gospel. Even those who imagined that Jesus himself intended a renewal movement that remained within Judaism at the same time assumed that the Gospel of Mark, in contrast, adapted the stories about Jesus for people who saw themselves first as Christians and not meaningfully as Jews (e.g., Reimarus 1778; Weiss 1892; Dunn 1991). Only in the past few years have studies treated the Gospel of Mark itself as depicting a form of Judaism (e.g., Froelich 2022; Van Maaren 2025; Vette 2023, 2024; Williams 2023, 2024). These studies illustrate how assuming that the Gospel of Mark is participating in, rather than breaking with, the discourses and preferred ways of being attested by other early Jewish texts makes better sense of specific passages, themes, and the narrative progression in ways that may seem foreign to today’s reader but explain textual oddities in ways that are at home in the first century. 
            For example, Logan Williams argues that Jesus’s statement, usually translated, “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (2:10; NRSV) does not contrast Jesus’s sin-forgiving authority on the earth with a similar authority elsewhere, say, in the heavens, but specifies that Jesus’s authority to forgive relates specifically to those sins committed in or against the ancestral homeland. Here the relevant Greek phrase translated as “on the earth” is better translated “on the land” and modifies “sins” rather than “authority.” To make this argument, Williams positions the writer of Mark within an interpretive stream of thought found among the Dead Sea Scrolls which amalgamates the Son of Man of Daniel 7 with the Jubilees legislation of Isaiah 61:1 and so presents Jesus’s sin-forgiving authority as part of the end of days Jubilee liberation from the debt of sins that had prompted and have maintained exile. As such, Jesus’s assertion of his authority to forgive the sins committed against the land is part of his proclamation of the regathering and restoration of Israel (2023, 135; cf. Vette 2024).
            As another example, Nathanael Vette (2023) reads the omens accompanying Jesus’s death (15:33–39) in conjunction with reports of omens preceding the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE, concluding that the darkening of the sky, the loud assertion of God’s abandonment, and the torn temple veil depict the departure of the divine presence before the temple destruction, and so function as a sort of defense of the persisting strength of the Jewish God after the Roman destruction of his dwelling place—the God of the Jews was not defeated along with his people by the Romans and their Gods, but had preemptively left his temple.
Margarete Froelich starts from the assumption that the Gospel of Mark is a “piece of first-century (Hellenized) Judean culture” (2022, 1) to argue that the writer’s vision of the kingdom of God mimics the Roman Empire’s hierarchy, structure, and use of violence, rather than offering something radically new and different. The writer’s expectation of the Kingdom of God, then, is of national restoration in a way that entails throwing off the Roman occupiers—that is, a hope attested in many other Jewish texts.
            Other studies point out that word pictures typical understood to present Christianity as a new alternative to Judaism, such as the new wine and old wineskins (2:21–22), have better explanations within their narrative contexts (in the case of the wine and wine skins, contrasting the time when Jesus is with the disciples with the time when he will be away; Henderson 2018). It has also been noted that isolated stories assume that the written law of Moses (rich young man; 10:17–31), correctly understood (scribe; 12:28–34), remains a practical authority and the basis for participation in the future Kingdom of God (Ermakov 2009), and that the narrative can be read without any sustained interest in the fate of the other nations (Cohen 2005).
            In The Gospel of Mark’s Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many (2025), I try to gather and refine the insights of these and other studies into a narrative wide argument that the Gospel of Mark’s vision of ideal practice, belief, and expectation is a form of Judaism, rather than something else, and to outline prominent aspects of this ideal vision. The question of what would count as a form of Judaism, what might constitute a break, and how a text might or might not indicate this is not necessarily intuitive, and so two preliminary topics set up the study. First, and in order to approach this question without begging the question, it is helpful to make use of the study of social groups, social boundaries, and the strategic use of texts from the social sciences. I conclude that a text that assumes continuity with the Jewish past and maintains a consequential role for Jewish identity in its ideal vision, even when other types of classification (such as adherence to Christ) are of equal or greater significance, is appropriately treated as an expression of Judaism (cf. Van Maaren 2023). 
          Second, for any position that has been held so consistently as the non-Jewish character of the Gospel of Mark, it is necessary to explain why the history of scholarship has been almost unanimously mistaken. In the case of Mark, it seems, that past scholarly constructs have, one after the other, functioned to keep the Gospel of Mark in the “gentile” or “post-Jewish” part of the early Christ movement. These include purportedly contrasting Jewish and Christian messianic conceptions, assumed differences between a “primitive Palestinian” Jesus movement and the later Hellenized Christianity, the purported gentile demographic of Galilee in contrast to Jerusalem, and—especially influential today—apparent indicators that the readers were unfamiliar with central aspects of Judaism, suggesting a location closer to Paul and his mostly gentile communities (cf. Van Maaren 2024). Today, messianic expectations are understood to be much less systematized, the relation between expression of Judaism and Christ-adherence around Judea/Palestine (Josephus, Antiquities 2.262) and elsewhere in the Roman world are much more fluid, Galilee has been shown to be demographically majority Jewish, and those elements thought to communicate especially to an audience unfamiliar with Jewish customs can just as easily be meant for Jews living at a distance from the ancestral homeland and without first-hand experience of what might be taken to be common practice. 
          As we turn to consider the narrative of the Gospel of Mark, it is important to note the influence of the purportedly interwoven themes of the rejection of key elements of the mosaic law and special interest in gentiles, both in contrast to the Gospel of Matthew, usually understood to be meant for Jewish Christ-adherents. Adjustments to the practical application of the written law of Moses and the inclusion of foreigners are well attested in other contemporaneous Jewish texts and so not necessarily indicative of a break with Judaism—especially for persons who expect the prophetic last days and restoration to happen soon (9:1; 13:30). However, the writer of Mark neither depicts Jesus significantly adjusting the written law or shows meaningful interest in the nations. Instead, the Gospel of Mark assumes the practical authority of the written law (10:17–30; 12:28–34) and depicts Jesus’s opponents, rather than Jesus, rejecting commandments of God (7:8, 9, 13). Texts once thought to depict Jesus rejecting the Levitical ritual purity laws (7:15) and dietary commands (7:19) more likely clarify the direction impurity travels (Furstenberg 2008) and the purifying function of the stomach (Williams 2024). Scenes where Jesus has often been understood to be indifferent to sabbath observance (2:23–3:6) rather depict isolated suspension of sabbath practice given the urgency of the present and Jesus’s divine anointing (Sloan 2025). Jesus’s directive to the rich man to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor (10:17–31) is not an additional requirement beyond the written law of Moses but is aimed at making up for those the man has defrauded in the past and so bringing him back into line with the commandments (Peppard 2015). 
          Further, the Gospel of Mark shows interest in gentiles only as a contrast to the Jews (7:24–30). Past scholarship constructed an elaborate and sophisticated implicit narrative development of Jesus’s increasing focus on the nations (esp. Iverson 2007). However, this widely influential reconstruction relies on inconsistent narrative signals and introduces narrative tensions that are improbable (Van Maaren 2025, 96–98). More likely, when Jesus objects to an unsolicited request for healing from a Greek, because she is a foreigner (7:26–27), he does so out of principle rather than false posturing, and agrees only after receiving assurance that healing her Greek daughter (depicted as a young dog) will not threaten the nourishment of the Jews (depicted as young humans), as Jesus's focus remains on the Jews before and after the encounter.. Accordingly, the man whom Jesus previously encountered in the region of Gerasa (5:1–20) is presumably Jewish and told his Jewish kinsmen throughout the Decapolis cities of the many unclean spirits Jesus expelled from him (5:19–20). Here, and elsewhere (esp. 7:31; 8:9; cf. 7:31–9:29), Jesus’s travels throughout places inhabited mostly by foreigners appear to target especially the Jewish residents and to be part of an exploration and preparation for territorial restoration through, among other things, the removal of impurities (Thiessen 2020; Vette 2024). Similarly, the Roman centurion at the cross is not a representative gentile, confessing trust in the crucified and abandoned son of God (15:39), but a representative of Roman power, relieved that this representative of the God of the Jews was vanquished by Rome and its Gods (even as the reader knows otherwise). Even the unique formulation of the Gospel of Mark’s one possible reference to a post-resurrection proclamation of the good news to the nations (13:10) most likely alludes, not to the inclusion of the nations, but to Isaiah’s expectation of the regathering of Israel from the places they have been scattered among the nations (Isa 11:12; 49:22; 62:12; 66:19; Van Maaren 2025, 125–33). In summary, those features thought to indicate a gentile mission, are rather part of the preparation for the regathering of scattered Israel for a final national restoration and the inevitable clash with the Roman occupying power. 
           Such a message of a final restoration finds support in the writer’s constant echoes of expectations of national restoration from Israel’s ancestral writings. These echoes are introduced at the beginning of the story with the dual quotation of Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 that frames the rest of the narrative: “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way (Mal 3:1; cf. Exod 23:20); the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Isa 40:3)” (1:2–3). The echoes culminate in Jesus’s description of his expected return in especially 13:24–27, which amalgamates Dan 7, Amos 5, and Joel 4, but are also present at almost every point in the story. These are mostly recognized. However, existing studies of echoes of restoration in Mark consistently understand the expectations to be reworked so that they are fulfilled among the earliest Jesus followers rather than in a national restoration of Israel (esp. Watts 1997; cf. König 2024). On this reading, the narrative of Mark includes dualing themes of judgment and restoration and, crucially, judgment on Jesus’s contemporaries overtakes restoration so that the promises of restoration are redirected from Israel to the non-ethnic followers of Jesus. While such a judgment-overtakes-restoration schema may make sense in light of later Christian history, at a narrative level, this creates the problem that the return of the Son of Man becomes an afterthought when, in contrast, it is the central point at which everything is pointing. In contrast a judgment-precedes-restoration schema is able to integrate the son of Man’s anticipated return (Sloan 2025). On this schematization of history, the return remains the culmination of the writer’s expectations—something they anticipate in the near future (e.g., 9:1; 13:30). It also fits with how judgment and restoration are related even in the framing echo of Mal 3:1 at the beginning of the story, where the messenger “will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness (Mal 3:3). At that point, the prophet anticipates that “then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.” The writer of Mark could, of course, still be rewriting the prophetic expectations, but their own narrative suggests not, especially through the imagery of fig trees. When Jesus first enters Jerusalem, he looks for figs on a fig tree and doesn’t find them because it was not the season for figs” (11:13) and he curses the fig tree which then withers (11:20), presumably symbolizing the destruction of the temple. However, when Jesus provides the disciples with a road map of the future, he emphasizes that “from the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates” (13:28–29). The difference between Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and his expected return is, according to the fig tree imagery, timing, and judgment precedes (Van Maaren 2025), and perhaps delays (Sloan 2025), restoration, but does not redirect it (so Hays 2016; Marcus 1992; Watts 1997). The story is about Israel and its fate, and the other nations play at most a peripheral role.
          In such a world, where the Kingdom of God is expected as an earthly, restored—if transformed—kingdom of Israel in the near future, and the written law of Moses remains the basis for good standing in this future kingdom, why did Jesus have to die (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34) and give his life as a ransom for many (10:45)? The depiction of Jesus’s death as a ransom most likely echoes the use of ransom language for specifically God’s deliverance of Israel from the places they have been scattered. According to this logic, which the writer of the Gospel of Mark appears to share, the grave sins committed in the land defiled the land and prompted the expulsion of its inhabitants (Pitre 2005). The persistence of exile and occupation implies that the land is still defiled, and Jesus’s death deals specifically with these past grave sins, for which the temple provides no atonement (Rillera 2024), and so enables restoration. Within this sort of understanding of cause and effect, the death of Jesus is necessary to enable restoration, and the responsibility of the Jewish leadership and the complicity of the crowds (15:10–11), enables the writer of Mark to position the earliest followers of Jesus as the replacement leaders of this anticipated restored kingdom (12:9; cf. 10:42–45). This sort of a reading, I would argue, is able to better explain the full narrative of the Gospel of Mark and is fully comprehensible within the context of the first-century ancient mediterranean world. 

References

Cohen, Daniel A. J. “The Non-Jews of Mark’s Gospel: A Jewish Reading.” PhD diss., Australian National University, 2005.

Dunn, James D. G. The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity. London: SCM, 1991.

Ermakov, Arseny. “The Salvific Significance of the Torah in Mark 10.17–22 and 12.28–34.” Pages 21–31 in The Torah in the New Testament: Papers Delivered at the Manchester-Lausanne Seminary of June 2008. Edited by Michael Tait and Peter Oakes. LNTS 401. London: T&T Clark, 2009.

Froelich, Margaret. Jesus and the Empire of God: Royal Language and Imperial Ideology in the Gospel of Mark. LNTS 653. London: T&T Clark, 2022.

Furstenberg, Yair. “Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7.15.” NTS 54 (2008): 176–200.

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Henderson, Suzanne Watts. “Was Mark a Supersessionist? Two Test Cases from the Earliest Gospel.” Pages 145–68 in The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus. Edited by Lori Baron, Jill Hicks-Keeton, and Matthew Thiessen. ECL 24. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2018.

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———. “Is the Gospel of Mark Distinctly Pauline? A Critical Evaluation.” JBL 143.1 (2024): 125–42.

———. The Gospel of Mark’s Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many. WUNT 534. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2025.

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———. “The Son of Man and the Sea: Hydromachy and Conquest in Mark’s Sea Voyages.” JSNT (2024): 0142064X241290655.

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———. “The Stomach Purifies All Foods: Jesus’ Anatomical Argument in Mark 7.18–19.” NTS 70 (2024): 371–91.