Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Jews

Abstract

First, a few remarks about the audience of the Gospel according to Mark. This study is based on the premise that Mark was read aloud in gatherings of Christians in the late first and early second centuries that were not necessarily liturgical in a narrow sense. Further, those who listened were not all equally committed to the Christian faith and probably assimilated and interpreted the instruction that they received in various ways. Some in the audience, even if they were familiar with the Pauline understanding of Jesus as the Son of God, may have preferred to de-fine Jesus' divine sonship in another, more traditionally Jewish way, to be discussed below. Finally, even if the Gospel was written primarily for insiders, it is likely that copies were available to interested or critical outsiders. Celsus's knowl-edge of the Gospels shows that this happened at least by the second half of the second century.