GOSPEL READING
THE GOSPEL OF MARK: WELCOME
Welcome to our reading of the Gospel of Mark.
Our aim is to read the Gospel of Mark as his story and presentation of the good news of Jesus. We will begin at the beginning and read steadily right through the Gospel. We need to capture a sense of the gospel as an exciting fast moving story through which we can discover Jesus, the man who is also the Son of God.
Introduction
In Advent 2011, we began cycle B of the Sunday Gospel readings, the year when the Gospel of Mark is read. As we read the Gospel, we will also be looking at the Sunday presentation of the Gospel.
Three years ago, I did a presentation of this Gospel based closely on the Sunday readings. Due to the inconsistency of the Sunday readings (some are short, some long and there are many gaps in the continuity) this was not a satisfactory approach.
This time therefore, we are reading the Gospel straight through once we have set the theme. Where possible, our passages will be the same as or close to those chosen for the Sundays.
A feature of our Sunday readings in Ordinary Time is that the Old Testament reading is chosen to accompany the Gospel. Sometimes the choice is a success, at others less so. Looking at these readings as we proceed will give us a useful background to our reading of the Gospel.
The Gospel of Mark
For many reasons, the Gospel of Mark is generally regarded as the first gospel to be written.
Two reasons for this to begin with are, firstly, that Mark's is the shortest Gospels and we would expect later writings to become longer. Secondly, as we will be seeing, both its style and its message could be described as rough. Both style and content are smoothed out in the other Gospels, again to be expected if they were later. Other and perhaps more important reasons will be explored shortly.
Aim
My aim with this Gospel Reading website is to be practical: I hope to help you to read well and so to discover the Gospel for yourself. I will be trying to help you to build up an experience of reading so that you are able to approach the gospel story with the right questions in mind. This aim is not academic in itself - though the guidance will I hope have a good academic basis.
My approach is to introduce a reading of the passage and suggest questions for you to consider during your reading. I then give you a detailed reply, my response, on another page.
Try to make more time available during the first few weeks of reading when there will be more background to cover. After a while, an hour each week ought to be ample time.
Always of course have your Bible with you. Part of our reading will aim to help us to get used to thumbing through the Bible and getting to know your way around. The Bible itself is often the best interpreter of the Bible.
Whilst one Bible must always be your primary Bible, it can be very useful to look at others and compare translations. All translations have their strengths and their weaknesses.
Our first step then will be an Orientation, an overview of the Gospel. There are many signs that the evangelist planned his story carefully. A sound reading needs to fit into the evangelist's framework. To some extent, most of us are already familiar (or think we are familiar) with the Gospel. A first time reading would be a very different experience.
Navigation
Navigation on this site is somewhat restricted: I went you to keep to the task in hand before seeking my response.Navigation is primarily vertical. If you wish to move elsewhere in the site, the route is to go as far up as necessary and then back down again. All pages have a link to the Home Page and to the opening page of the Gospel being read. Response pages will return you to the page from which you came.
ACCESS
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