Jesus and the Gospel of Mark

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Jesus and the Gospel of Mark
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Unit on Christianity

• Content Focus on Jesus
• Foundational for all forms of Christianity
• Informed by historical scholarship
• Comparing/understanding religion
• Sacred communities
• Sacramental form of sacred appearance

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Gospels

• Purpose
• Date written 30-60 yrs after Jesus
• Process
• Canonical vs. noncanonical

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Marks context

• Earliest of the four canonical gospels
• Written ca. 66-70
• Focus time of great suffering
• Relation to Judaism

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Context of Jesus

• Dates
• born ca. 4 BCE
• died ca. 30 CE
• Temple destroyed 70 CE
• Jews in Palestine under Roman occupation
• have been under different foreign rulers for most
  of the last 600 years
• Diverse groups of Jews
• Pharisees
• Sadduccees
• Essenes
• Zealots

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Landscape of the Essenes