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The Beginning Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ, The Son Of God Essay

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‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’ (Mark 1:1, ESV). The opening statement in the Gospel of Mark undoubtedly affirms the claim of Jesus’ identity. This claim, ‘Jesus is the Christ’ forms the foundations of Christology; Christology is an elucidation of that claim Understanding Mark within the backdrop of Jewish traditions and thought. Going back to apocalyptic Jewish views of Messiah and God’s dominion and reign on earth (Isaiah and Daniel). Jewish scriptures also frequently merges the individual with the collective, thus, Jesus (the individual) merges with the community around him (collective). In Mark we see Jesus being very much encompassed with those around him both in their failures and their successes. Discipleship is a major concept in Mark’s gospel as it sets the scene that these people are the successors of Jesus’ messianic mission.
The Christology of Mark: The Jesus of Mark has always been assumed to be the image of the suffering servant (Isaiah-trope). However, in recent studies, this image has expanded to suggest that the Markan Jesus is two-fold in terms of its Christology (Henderson: 2006). The Messiahship of Jesus is divided into a. the messiahship of purpose (passion; mission; miracles) and God’s dominion on earth Mark deals less with Christological status and more with Christological mission. The destiny of the messiah holds a central point within the gospel story. For Mark, the destiny is the passion, which begins to be the

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