Mark 1:1-8 notes

 

1.  Mark does not mess around. He announces good news/gospel. One could easily focus on needing good news in the face of lies and fake news and propaganda.

2. With son of God and no birth story, I assume he is working off the OT images in Ps, 2, 89, 110 of a representative, an image of God in our world.

3. Messiah=anointed=Christ. Calvin points to the anointed tripartite office of priest, prophet, king.

4.  The quote attributed to Isaiah is a composite quote from the Septuagint. Regard well the dirty little secret that the NT usually quotes the Greek OT, not the Hebrew. Mark uses Both Ex.23 :20 and Mal. 3:1 to create the first passage (for this see Hays in Echoes....in the Gospels: ). Both of these passage offer hope for a better future after judgement is threatened or occurs. This may be a touch on what some see as the new exodus theme in Isaiah, although this has been questioned. Mark slightly alters the Greek text to allow him to link the Lord with Jesus, but also continuing the promise of the presence of God through the wilderness.To what extent can the gospel be ready as amplifying the liberating and comforting concerns of Is. 40? The promised deliverance is not embodied in Jesus.