And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’ Jesus saw his death typified in the Passover meal components. Mark 14:22-24 reads, ‘Take this is my body.’ And he took a cup and…gave it to them, and they all drank of it. Notice that Jesus deliberately picks the Passover festival as the time of the high point of his ministry. (Mark 2:20, 12:1-12, 14:9, 22-24, 27-28)įor example, when Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper with his disciples, he presents his own death as a covenant sacrifice. Other verses throughout Mark support that Jesus knew his mission was to suffer and ultimately be crucified. Mark 10:45 – “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”.And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. Mark 10:32-34 – “And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” Mark 9:31 – “…for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.Mark 8:31 – “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”.Did Jesus really not know why he had to die in Mark’s Gospel?īut according to Mark, is Jesus all that doubtful about why he has to die? No, Jesus talks about his imminent demise repeatedly:

He is completely calm and in control of the situation he knows what is about to occur, and he knows what will happen afterward…This is a far cry from the Jesus of Mark, who felt forsaken to the end. In this account, Jesus is not at all confused about what is happening to him or why. Jesus, Interrupted p 65-66Įhrman says this stands in sharp contrast with Luke’s calm and collected version of Jesus: He dies in agony, unsure of the reason he must die.

He doesn’t want his readers to take solace in the fact that God was really there providing Jesus with physical comfort. Jesus is silent the entire time, as if in shock, until his cry at the end, echoing Psalm 22…Mark is trying to say something by this portrayal. In his book Jesus, Interrupted, Ehrman describes Mark’s account: Skeptical New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman says that Mark and Luke tell two irreconcilably different stories about Jesus’ death.

Book jesus interrupted