The Gospel of Mark is believed to be the main source for two of the other Gospels, Matthew and Luke. I find it interesting that Mark shotguns his point right up to his readers in the third pericope. The entirety of Mark’s Gospel revolves around this theme: The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and sinners should repent and “change their hearts and live” because “now is the time”. Mark’s purpose is to spread the word as fast as possible to as many Jews as possible. Just from this pericope, and the repetition of the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” as opposed to “Kingdom of God”, I can infer from prior research in my high school years that the author or authors of Mark had a Jewish audience in mind when composing the Gospel. According to Jewish law at the time it was forbidden to speak or write God’s name which would have been “YHWH” or “Yahweh” to include the vowels that were left out when God’s name had to be recorded. There for by using “Heaven” in place of “God” we know that Mark was showing respect for Jewish tradition in order to appeal to his intended Audience.
Personally I find it fascinating that so much information can be discovered from a single phrase, when it is analyzed for diction. However even more information is hidden in that one theme “Now is the time” Mark obviously was expecting a very rapid return of Jesus. In St. Paul’s many letters we can see that he also has a very immediate expectation of Jesus’s second coming. Again from my high school education I recall Paul haveing direct contact with the desciples one a few occasions, there for I can assume that the view of rapid second coming, can be associated with the very early movements of christianity, and thus even without a carbon dated copy of the text I can assume the authors must have written oral tradtions that began in the days of St. Paul, making Mark one a very early Gospel.
Moving on, Mark is said to have a lower Christology of Jesus. He focuses for the most part on the view of Jesus as a teacher, but his Gospel is not without references to his divine authority. In Mark 21-28, Jesus is witnessed casting a demon out of a person in the synagogue. The demon addresses Jesus as "the Holy one from God" to which he orders it to leave, and the demon responds. The people around him wondered how this mere teacher commanded such authority. From the onset Mark makes it clear to his audeince that like many prophets and faith leaders before him must have had God work through him in some way. Only from the demons address is there any hint of Jesus's divine nature. This is a characteristic of Marks Gospel which is one of the many examples that lead to the overall low Christology of Jesus.
Reading this I feel that Marks Gospel may be truer to actual events of Jesus's lifetime, perhaps may be full of more historical content than its counterparts. Every child knows from the game of telephone that as a story is retold even with oral tradtion the original content may become very skewed by the last person. Considering that Mark was the earliest written of the four Gospels his text might be found to be more historical. I feel that Jesus probably was a very humble person that focused on his teaching rather than his identity when trying to teach his wisdom. I find a more Human Jesus easier to identify with.
