Executing John the Baptist

[Jona Lendering]

all initial testimonies about it (Papias via Eusebius, Iraeneus, Clemens Alexandrinus and the anti-marcionite Prologue) suggest a Mark closely associated with Peter and who wrote around the time Peter was in Rome. In this respect, Mark's insistence on persecutions and endurance to them (eg in 8, 34-38; 10, 38-39; 13, 9-13) is seen as confirmation of a connection to the Christian community in Rome

Personally I believe this, and when I visit the Roman house underneath the S.Clemente in Rome, I fantasize that the Gospel of Mark was written in those rooms. But I think that those who maintain that the evidence for the Mark-Peter connection is insufficient, certainly do have a point.

One remarkable aspect of this Gospel that may be better explained if we accept that Mark was written in Rome, is the odd statement that the temple curtain was torn (Mk 15.38 ). Mark may actually have seen the curtain during Vespasian's triumph, or in Domitian's palace (t.Babli, Yoma 57a and Josephus, Jewish War, 7.5.7).

It is possible that the curtain, before it was captured by the Romans, was indeed torn (Josephus, Jewish War, 6.8.3: "a great quantity of purple and scarlet, which were there reposited for the uses of the veil"). I do not know what to make of this; it is just interesting. Did Mark see the curtain, torn as it was, and create his own theological explanation - suggesting that God had left the Temple and abandoned the Jews?