John Mark

John Mark was an early Christian evangelist mentioned in the New Testament, such as Acts 12:12 and 2 Timothy, though believed by some as not holding authorship of the Gospel of Mark as some historians have suggested.

Speculations why John Mark was not the author of the Gospel of Mark include:

• Mark was his surname, but the Gospel authors went by their first name, and his was John;
• Luke refers to John Mark disparagingly, yet Luke copied extensively in the Gospel of Luke from the Gospel of Mark;
• most scholars today reject the suggestion that John Mark was the same person as the author of the Gospel of Mark;
• ancient sources doubt that John Mark was the Mark the author;^[1]
• the Gospel of Mark is Gentile in expressions and understanding, while John Mark was probably partly Jewish;
• multiple references to John Mark in the New Testament make no mention of him writing anything; and
• John was a common Semitic name, while Mark was a common Roman name; it is unjustified to link two persons on the basis alone that they shared one of those names.

However, the Church Fathers strongly concurred in attributing the authorship of the Gospel of Mark to John Mark.^[2]

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