II.

Authorship

The earliest evidence pertinent to the authorship of Mark comes from the 3rd-century church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who quotes an earlier writer named Papias. Papias himself quotes a statement concerning Mark's Gospel by a still earlier figure whom he calls the “presbyter” (elder): “And the presbyter used to say this: ‘Mark, being Peter's interpreter, wrote down accurately, but not in order, that which he remembered of what was said and done by the Lord.’!” It is virtually certain that, in Papias's opinion, this Mark was the John Mark, cousin of Barnabas, mentioned in Acts (see, for instance, Acts 15:37-39), in several letters of Paul (see Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24), and in 1 Peter 5:13. Critical research has been able neither to prove nor to disprove this opinion, but there are reasons to doubt it.

Early Christians tended to link the gospels with one of the 12 apostles. If the text was firmly attributed by early tradition to a man named Mark, Papias's presbyter probably did the best he could with this tradition by identifying this Mark with John Mark in order to link him to the apostle Peter. Hence, many scholars believe that the Gospel was written by an otherwise unknown early Christian named Mark who drew on a large number of traditions in order to compose a tightly organized and compelling narrative.