The Pre-Markan Passion Narrative

Did Mark Use An Early Written Source?

The question of what sources lie behind the gospels is notoriously difficult to answer. We can show with confidence that Matthew and Luke made use of Mark, and an increasing number of scholars are arguing that John knew the earlier gospels.

But what sources did Mark use? Most of his gospel is composed of chreiai – short anecdotes whose origins are difficult to determine. It is possible that part of this material goes back to Peter’s memories, but this attribution is hotly contested.

Yet even as the providence of much of Mark’s material may be murky, scholars in the last century became enamoured with the idea that one of his sources can still be recovered. This is the so-called ‘Pre-Markan Passion Narrative’: an extended written source which Mark used for composing the last days of Jesus’ life.

If we can get behind Mark’s gospel with this source, we may get much closer to the events of Jesus’ life than Mark, writing a generation after Jesus’ death. But not everyone is convinced today that did this early written passion narrative ever existed.

Why then did scholars posit a Pre-Markan Passion Narrative (PN)? And why have a number of scholars begun to doubt it? In this piece, I unravel the arguments for and against this written source behind the gospel, before weighing in with my own view.

Arguments for a Pre-Markan PN

We begin then with a range of arguments for the existence of a pre-Markan passion source. These range from the disparity between Mark’s passion and the rest of his life, small clues which betray a different chronology, and Mark’s unusual use of names.

a. The Form-Critical View

To understand why this source emerged in scholarship, it is important to recognise the roots of the idea in an early 20th century school of thought called 'form criticism.’ The form critics saw the gospels as comprised of a series of oral traditions, which shared a variety of sub-genres or 'forms.' In their view, the gospel writers were not so much authors as chroniclers. When it came to writing the gospels, their primary role was in placing these oral traditions alongside one another like beads on a string.

Yet when we look at the passion narrative, we do not find discrete units which could stand alone. We find a much more extended narrative, with a fixed chronological scheme. This gave rise to the idea that when it came to the passion narrative, the evangelists were not working with oral traditions, but rather a written source.¹

b. A Different Chronology

One of the further ‘tells’ that the evangelists were working with a written source is that Mark’s passion narrative seemed at times to assume a different chronology to Mark’s own. While Mark situates Jesus’ death after the Passover meal, it looks as though he has worked from a source which assumes an earlier chronology.

There are three places which may point to this chronology: (1) Mark 14:1-2 says that the Sanhedrin decided not to kill Jesus during the feast; (2) Mark 15:21 has Simon of Cyrene ‘coming in from the fields’ – that is, from work – which would not be possible on the Passover sabbath; and (3) Mark 14:53-56 has the whole Sanhedrin gathered together, which again would not have been possible if this was a feast day. Taken together, it looks like Mark used a source which did not have Jesus die at Passover.

c. Names in the Passion Narrative

A third argument for the passion narrative relates to the names within it. Rudolf Pesch found it curious that the “high priest” is never named as Caiaphas. This led him to conclude that the narrative must have already been fixed before 37 CE, when Jonathan ben Ananus succeeded him, for otherwise Mark would have clarified his name.² If Mark used a source that ante-dated 37 CE, it makes sense to refer to the high priest simply as ‘the high priest’, for everyone would have known who he was.

Gerd Theissen is not persuaded by Pesch, for other biblical characters such as ‘Pharaoh’ are not named. Yet he thinks that it is significant that the high priest is not named for another reason: since Caiaphas’ family remained powerful until the gospels’ composition, he thinks it was advisable for the source not to name him as Caiaphas.³

A similar phenomenon may occur in the failure to identify other characters, such as the bystander who cuts the ear of the priest’s slave (14:47) and the young man who flees naked at Jesus’ arrest (14:51-52). These characters had run afoul from the authorities. If Mark was using an early source based in Palestine, we can explain why they are not named. The source’s silence would be a kind of ‘protective anonymity.’

Theissen also points to other names in the narrative which indicate a familiarity with an early, Palestinian situation. One example is Simon of Cyrene, who is identified as the fathers of ‘Alexander and Rufus’. It was not common to disambiguate a man’s name from his sons, especially when he had already been disambiguated by place (Cyrene). This could indicate that Alexander and Rufus were known to Mark’s source.

Arguments Against a Pre-Markan Passion Narrative

There are a number of compelling reasons to think that Mark used earlier material for his pre-Markan passion narrative. But we now turn to consider the counter-arguments of scholar who have question the existence of an extended written source.

a. Ancient Biographical Parallels