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Mark and His GospelThe Watchtower—1952 | October 1
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Peter’s being a man of action, intense, impulsive, would help explain why the account of Jesus’ life that he influenced emphasizes the miracles and actions of Jesus rather than his teachings. The main reason, however, for Mark’s employing the style he did undoubtedly was his desire to appeal to the Romans. This is borne out also by his use of Latin expressions and his repeated explanations of Aramaic terms such as “Boanerges” and “corban”.—Mark 3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 12:42, NW.
Higher critics in their efforts to discredit the fourfold testimony regarding Jesus’ life have claimed that Mark merely abridged what Matthew and Luke wrote; some even claiming that there was but one original account and the others are variations of it. But, if Mark merely purposed to present a condensed version of Jesus’ ministry, why is it that he adds so many details that the others failed to mention? For instance, in telling about Jesus’ curing the man with the withered hand, Mark records not only that Jesus looked around at the Pharisees watching what Jesus would do, but that he did so “with indignation, being thoroughly grieved at the insensibility of their hearts”. (Mark 3:5, NW) And in reporting Jesus’ cleansing of the literal temple in Jerusalem, Mark alone informs us that Jesus “would not let anyone carry a utensil through the temple”. (Mark 11:16, NW) Mark’s (or Peter’s) own style is also apparent in a stronger wording of the rebukes Jesus administered to his own disciples. Compare Matthew 8:26 and Mt 16:8 with Mark 4:40 and Mr 8:17.
The Christian disciple Mark had many privileges of service. While, like Peter, he manifested weakness at one time, he recovered to become an effective and dependable servant of Jehovah God and assistant to the apostles Paul and Peter. His record of Jesus’ ministry, together with its special characteristics, gives added testimony to the fact that Jesus Christ indeed lived and that he was none other than the Son of God.
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“The Son of the Man”The Watchtower—1952 | October 1
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“The Son of the Man”
● “How petty are the books of the philosophers, with all their pomp, compared with the Gospels! Can it be that writings at once so sublime and so simple are the work of men? Can he whose life they tell be himself no more than a man? Is there anything in his character of the enthusiast or the ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in his ways, what touching grace in his teachings! What a loftiness in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his words! What presence of mind, what delicacy and aptness in his replies! What an empire over his passions! Where is the man, where is the sage, who knows how to act, to suffer, and to die, without weakness, without display? My friends, men do not invent like this; and the facts respecting Socrates, which no one doubts, are not so well attested as about Jesus. Those Jews could never have struck this tone or thought of this morality. And the Gospel has characteristics of truthfulness, so grand, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that their inventors would be even more wonderful than he whom they portray.”—J. J. Rousseau, eighteenth-century French philosopher.
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