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The Gospel Of Mark Is The Earliest Gospel

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Dünzl, begins by stating that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest gospel written, shortly after 70 AD. Mark uses the title “Son of God” for the first time in relation to the beginning of Jesus’ public appearance after John the Baptist baptizes him. As Jesus rises from the water a vision is given where the heaven opens, the Pneuma, i.e. the Spirit of God, descends upon him, and a voice from heaven is heard saying, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (cf. Mark1:9-11) (p.4) We are later told the “the integration and harmonization of different Christological ideas did not come about even in the early church without controversies” (p.7). The test csase is the Ebionites who built an adoptionist Christology by focusing on certain portions of Mark while neglecting others. Dünzl rightly states: The Gospel of the Ebionites therefore presents an interpretation of Jesus which doesn not fall in with the harmonization of the Christological concepts of all four Gospels mentions above; rather, it emphatically insists on the concept of the Gospel of Mark, which had begun only with the baptism in the Jordan. The Gospel of the Ebionintes does not take up other traditions such as the miraculous birth of Jesus or even his pre-existence; instead, it points up the Gospel of Mark even more sharply: on the day of his baptism Jesus is “begotten” as Son of God. And he becomes Son of God by the Spirit ‘entering into’ him. [p.8] It was interesting that Dünzl went on to say,

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