A thought-experiment:

1. Empty your mind of everything you’ve ever heard or believed about Christianity. Pretend, for the sake of this experiment, that there is no Church, no Christian religion, and that you have never heard of Jesus of Nazareth.

2. Read the Gospel of Mark in some reputable and literal (or almost literal) translation, such as the Revised Standard Version of 1946 (or as revised in 1990), or Richmond Lattimore’s, or (especially) Reynolds Price’s. Read it front to back, in one sitting; this can easily be done in one evening.

3. Assume, for the sake of this experiment, that every matter of fact reported in Mark’s Gospel is literally true.

4. Now: Based on this reading, what do you think of the character of God? What are his apparent motives? What do you think of his relationship to Jesus? Your answers may surprise you.

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* Notes:

Why Mark, and not the other Gospels? Because Mark was written first, and has a freshness of encounter the others lack. (Scholars agree that Mark was written before Matthew; and even if they didn’t, in reading the two together it just becomes obvious that Matthew was retelling and elaborating Mark’s work, especially with respect to fulfilling O.T. prophecies.)

Translations: the translators of the RSV had tin ears, so bear with it if you read that translation. The Lattimore and the Price are better, but not easy to find in libraries or bookshops. The King James (1611) and ASV (1901) ** versions are my favorites for reading, but both suffer from the unavailability of XXth Century scholarship.

** The ASV is identical, except for a few matters of spelling and punctuation, with the [English] Revised Version of 1881.

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