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John Mark
Companion of Paul and Peter, cousin of Barnabas, and — by the consistent tradition of the early church — the author of the earliest gospel.
John Mark is the only figure in the New Testament identified by two names: John, a Jewish name, and Mark, a Latin name. He was the cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10) and a member of the early Jerusalem church. His mother Mary hosted a house church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12), and Peter came to that house after his miraculous escape from prison.
With Paul and Barnabas
Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey (Acts 12:25–13:5) but left them at Perga in Pamphylia to return to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13). When Paul proposed a second journey, he refused to take Mark again, and the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas was so sharp that they separated over it (Acts 15:36–41). Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus; Paul took Silas through Syria and Cilicia.
The New Testament does not leave the estrangement unresolved. By the end of Paul’ s life, Mark is with him again and Paul writes: “ Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11). The reconciliation is one of the quieter subplots of the New Testament.
With Peter
The New Testament also links Mark to Peter. Peter calls him “ my son Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13), suggesting a close relationship. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in the early second century, records that Mark served as Peter’ s interpreter and that his gospel reflects Peter’ s preaching:
“ Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, but not in order, the things which he remembered that we're said or done by the Lord.”
Papias, as quoted in Eusebius, EH 3.39.15Author of the Second Gospel
The tradition that Mark wrote the Gospel that bears his name is early and unanimous. The Gospel itself is anonymous, but from the second century onward the attribution is made consistently by Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and others. Modern scholarship broadly accepts that the Gospel was written by a figure named Mark who was associated with Peter’ s preaching — whether or not every detail of the tradition can be verified.
The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four and, by scholarly consensus, the earliest. It is also the most urgent, the most raw, and the most focused on the suffering of Jesus. If the early tradition is correct, we are reading the recollections of Peter, written down by his companion.
Sources
- Acts 12:12, 25; 13:5, 13; 15:36–41; Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11; Philemon 24; 1 Pet. 5:13.
- Papias, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1.
- Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 2nd ed. (Eerdmans, 2017), 155–199.