Euangelion
Mark is my favourite Gospel, he’s the Bourne Identity of the Gospels, constantly asking us: So, who do you think this guy is? Here’s a great summary of Mark’s literary significance:
Mark … is written in an extremely plain, abrupt, often unidiomatic and dogged Koine which has generally made to seem falsely natural, even eloquent in English translations. … Admittedly, Mark’s final effect in Greek is one of a great and spare eloquence; but that strength is seldom owing to the actual words or structure of his sentences and never to calculated effects of mellifluous rhetoric. If his eloquence has primarily linguistic origins, that power rises from the struggle between Mark’s headlong intent and his gravely hobbled command of his medium. Yet a strong argument can easily be made that Mark – whoever he may have been … is the most original narrative writer in history, an apparently effortless sovereign of all the skill and arts of durably convincing storytelling …despite centuries of neglect when it was thought to be a mere summary of the longer and fuller Matthew and Luke, Mark has proved the most influential of human books. All other books from four thousand years of epics, plays, lyrics, and biographies have touched human life less potently.
Source: Reynolds Price, Three Gospels.
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