To Christians, reading the Bible is important because through it we come to understand better God’s revelation to us. The four gospels of the New Testament convey to us the words and deeds of Jesus during his earthly life. If we want to have some reasonably accurate idea of what Jesus did and taught, we have no choice but to read the gospels. Jesus lived in the first century of our era. The New Testament gospels were written in that same century.
To read (and thus to interpret) the Gospel According to Mark, or any part of the Bible, it is appropriate for us to have our head engaged as well as our heart. There are a lot of questions that have been asked about the Gospel of Mark, and many answers have been given. I believe that it’s a good thing to read the Bible with both your head and heart engaged. That is very much according to my church tradition as an Anglican.
On another page in this blog, you will see a Working Bibliography on the Gospel of Mark. These are books that seem to me to be important. They include commentaries and other books going back into the 19th century. I’ll probably comment on a good many of them, and I invite you to comment on any of them to which you have access.
