The Problem of History in Mark and Other Markan Studies

History and the Future in Mark's Gospel

Robinson analyzes the eschatological foundation of Mark's portrayal of Jesus. He provides comparative references to the Jewish pseudepigrapha and Gnostic writings to determine the dissimilarity in Mark. Robinson determines that Mark maintains the historical reality of the life and meaning of Jesus, in contrast to the Gnostics, while clearly presenting the yet-to-come character of the new age.

Mark's perspective portrays a supra-historical character of Jesus and the church. But the write of the Gospel avoids the reductive extreme of the Gnostics. Mark does not withdraw from the physical, social reality of the current "evil aeon," but rather the view of the Kingdom of God engages the challenges of this era, realm, aeon or moment in history.

Thus this portrait of Jesus and the Kingdom of God avoid the Gnostic apocalyptic denial of this world and the reality of its history. In Mark, Jesus, in fact, shows God's concern for and activity in current history, to which Jesus brings meaning and a purpose.

The transcendent reality exists in parallel as the redemptive stream of activity, which develops in the ministry of Jesus. The role of faith is the crowning emphasis in Robinson's analysis of Mark's view of the history, expressed in his telling of the faith-events in Jesus' life.