2. Rome

The contention that Rome was the location of the writing of Mark's Gospel has substantial support. Among others, the following are common arguments in support of this proposition. First, though early Christian tradition did not always ascribe a location for Mark, when it does situate Mark in time and space it is always in Rome.Footnote ⁵ Writing at the close of the second century, Clement of Alexandria (ca. 180–200 ce) is the first to explicitly link the Gospel with Peter and Rome (Eusebius, HE 6.14.5–6), while earlier figures such as Papias (Eusebius, HE 3.39.15) and Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3.1.1) assert a close connection between Mark and Peter without mentioning the city itself.Footnote ⁶ Second, the presence of Latinisms in Mark indicates that the Gospel was composed in an environment where Latin was frequently spoken. Two well-known examples are the two lepta in Mark 12.42, which Mark equates with a quadrans, and Pilate's palace in 15.16, which Mark glosses as a praetorium. Third, and more importantly, the events ‘prophesied’ in Mark 13 cohere with Tacitus’ description of Nero's cruelty in the 60's ce (Annals 15.44). Mark's admonition to his readers to stand strong as witnesses when brought before governors and kings (13.9), warning that they will be hated by many and betrayed by their own family members (13.12–13), and emphasis on following Jesus all the way to the cross (8.34), each resonate with Tacitus's characterisation of Nero's vindictiveness directed towards the Roman Christians.

In 2003, Brian Incigneri offered a more extensive argument for Roman provenance, even suggesting a precise date (ca. July 71 ce) for the writing of Mark.Footnote ⁷ Incigneri's strongest argument is his advancement of the claim that Mark's references to persecution are best situated in the time of Nero's oppression of Christians in Rome. In a nuanced discussion, Incigneri lays out his argument for the close parallels between (1) Mark 13 and Nero's ‘exquisite cruelty’ directed towards the Roman Christians, (2) the unstable environment of Rome in the late sixties when ‘wars and rumours of wars’ were likely circulating in Rome, and (3) the alternatingly tense and ebullient atmosphere in Rome following the defeat of Jerusalem and accompanying Vespasian's and Titus’ triumphant entry into the city. Moreover, Incigneri relates Tacitus’ statement that Christians were betraying other Christians to their deaths to the situation in Rome. Since Mark seems to have been written in a time and place in which betrayal and persecution leading to martyrdom were present realities (e.g. 4.17; 8.34–7; 10.30; 13.9, 12), Incigneri asserts that Mark must have been written in Rome following Titus’ return to the city.

3. Objections to a Roman Provenance for Mark

In recent years, substantial objections have been levied against the theory of Roman provenance for Mark's Gospel.Footnote ⁸

First, the early Christian tradition linking Peter and Mark is largely based upon Papias’ early second-century testimony. As a result of Papias’ Mark–Peter connection, it seems that other writers such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria posit that Mark was written in Rome. But Papias is silent on the matter of where the Gospel of Mark was written, and later writers do not appear to have other warrants for their conclusion besides Papias.Footnote ⁹ The link between Mark and Rome is always via Peter; no texts in the first four centuries connect Mark and Rome without appeal to the figure of Peter. But there is nothing particularly Petrine about Mark's Gospel; Peter is portrayed in a more negative light in Mark than in Matthew and Luke, and pericopes which include Peter are no more detailed than those where he is not featured. If not for Papias’ testimony, no one would suspect a connection between Peter and Mark.Footnote ¹⁰

Second, the use of Latin was certainly not confined to Rome, and the Latinisms expressed in Mark – all economic and military terms – would seemingly have made good sense in any area under Roman military occupation. Indeed, Latinisms could be used for precision's sake. In the case of Mark's use of the terms quadrans and praetorium, Theissen and Marcus have argued that people in the Eastern parts of the Empire knew of the quadrans, and since the Greek term lepton is a general term for a small coin, Mark employs the Latin quadrans to make specific the imprecise Greek term.Footnote ¹¹ Similar arguments for specificity can be made for Mark's use of praetorium in 15.16.

Third, though Rome is the clearest example of persecution of Christians around the time of the writing of Mark's Gospel, Christian persecution in the first century was not limited to Rome. As Marcus notes, Acts, the Pauline correspondence and Josephus all refer to sporadic Christian persecution in the first century prior to the composition of Mark: in Judea (Gal 1.13, 22) and particularly in Jerusalem (Acts 5.40; 7.54–8.3; 12.1–5; 21.27–36; 23.12–15; Josephus, Ant. 20.200); Damascus (2 Cor 11.32–3; Acts 9.1–2, 23); several cities in Asia Minor (Acts 13.50; 14.19; 19.24–34); and Greece (Acts 16.19–24; 17.5–9, 13; 18.12–13).Footnote ¹² Moreover, since Jesus had been crucified in Jerusalem thirty years earlier, it was clear that violent persecution was a possibility for all who came to follow him, regardless of location. Since his suffering and death were seen as paradigmatic for early Christians, Jesus’ crucifixion may have served as a synecdoche for other forms of persecution as well.

Furthermore, Tacitus relates Nero's persecution of Christians in the mid sixties in Rome. Since no known persecution of Roman Jews occurred in Nero's time, the Romans were clearly able to differentiate between Jews and Christians in Rome during the mid sixties ce.Footnote ¹³ Why, then, as Incigneri argues, would Roman Christians fear Vespasian and Titus in the early seventies following the conclusion of the Jewish War? Would not any threat of persecution be directed towards Jews and not Christians? Granted, the lines that separated Jews and Christians remained blurry. But if the Romans could differentiate between Jews and Christians in the sixties, could they not also do the same in the early seventies?

4. Syria as the Provenance for Mark

In recent years Syria has emerged as the primary alternative to Roman provenance. Some attractive elements of this thesis are that Syria's geographical proximity to Judea allows for a real and tangible connection to the Jerusalem church and the memory of Jesus’ crucifixion in the city, the region was predominantly Gentile, making sense of the explanatory notes about Jewish customs that Mark provides (see 7.3–4), and it correlates well with Mark's semi-frequent mentions of the Transjordan Decapolis region (5.1–20; 7.31–7; 13.14–15). Even more important for most proponents of a Syrian provenance for Mark is the Gospel's narrative focus on the Jerusalem temple. Joel Marcus has been one of the foremost proponents of a Syrian provenance for Mark in recent years, and the following discussion traces his line of argument.

Marcus argues that the events of the Jewish revolt, and Mark's emphasis on the Jerusalem temple, provide the immediate impetus for Mark's composition.Footnote ¹⁴ Beginning with the eschatological prophecies of Mark 13, Marcus notes how Jesus’ prophecies of wars, persecution and betrayal in 13.6–13 may all be connected to the Jewish revolt of 66–73 ce. Accordingly, Mark 13.1–2 clearly refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 ce, and Mark's mention of ‘false messiahs’ (13.6) points towards the Jewish revolt, since Josephus relates how messianic fervour swirled around two of the revolutionary leaders, Menachem the son of Judas the Galilean and Simon bar Giora (J. W. 2.433–48; 4.503–13; 6.310–15; 7.26–36). As a result, Mark's mention of the ‘abomination of desolation’ (13.14) also connects to the events of the Jewish War, referring either to the varied activities of the Jewish revolutionaries during the revolt against Rome or to Titus’ conquering of the city and temple.Footnote ¹⁵

More specifically, Marcus highlights the Markan Jesus’ declaration that the temple had become a ‘den of bandits (λῃστῶν)’ (11.17), and argues that the mention of λῃστῶν points towards the Jewish rebels’ activities in the temple from the winter of 67/8 ce until 70 ce.Footnote ¹⁶ He posits that these Jewish rebels’ ascendancy to control of the temple spelled immediate trouble and persecution for the early Christian movement in Jerusalem, as the admittance of Gentiles to the Jesus movement likely placed the mixed Jewish–Gentile Christian movement in and around Jerusalem in a tenuous situation given the nationalistic and anti-Gentile sentiments of the Jewish revolutionary groups who now controlled the temple.Footnote ¹⁷ Though the Jewish War was known throughout the Roman Empire, the effect of this war would have been particularly felt in, and held serious consequences for, those living in close geographical and temporal proximity to it. According to Marcus, the most probable location for Mark's Gospel, then, would be in one of the Hellenistic cities in nearby Syria, especially since the realities of the Jewish War occasionally spilled over into the Decapolis. Jewish revolutionaries had attacked Gentiles living in these cities during the opening hostilities of the Jewish Revolt (Josephus, J. W. 2.457–86; Life 340–2), and there was always a chance that it could happen again.Footnote ¹⁸ This is a location in which a largely Gentile Christian community had good reason to feel particularly threatened by the Jewish rebels in Jerusalem, and where Christians – not quite Jews or Gentiles – may have been particularly vulnerable (J. W. 2.463).Footnote ¹⁹

Moreover, Marcus suggests that the instructions to ‘flee to the mountains’ when the abomination that caused desolation appears (13.14–15) may well represent the Markan community's history, since the mountains in question are likely those on the east side of the Jordan River, in the region of the Decapolis in which Mark has earlier shown interest.Footnote ²⁰ If so, this movement from Jerusalem to the Decapolis region coheres well with Eusebius’ (HE 3.5.3) and Epiphanius’ (Pan. 29.7.8) claim that the Jerusalem church fled to Pella at the outset of the Jewish war.Footnote ²¹

In my view, Marcus has argued convincingly that the terminology in Mark 13, so often used to argue for a Roman provenance, may be better applied to events surrounding the Jewish revolt in the years 66–73 ce. The recent hostilities between Jews and Gentiles in the Decapolis meant that the spectre of persecution was a very real possibility. In the remainder of this paper, however, I step away from the above arguments for Rome and Syria – arguments based largely on allusions and particular readings of Mark 13 – and instead explore the question of provenance from the viewpoint of Mark's negative presentation of the Jewish temple and the similarities that this offers with first-century Jewish sectarianism, affinities that suggest a location such as Syria in close geographical proximity to Jerusalem and its temple.

5. Jewish Sectarianism in Jerusalem and Judea

The early Christian movement was born and nurtured within the sectarian world of late Second Temple Judaism, with the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes the most recognisable of these sectarian groups. Josephus refers to each of these groups as αἵρεσις, a term variously translated as ‘sect’, ‘party’, ‘school’ or ‘faction’; in the book of Acts Luke uses this term to describe the Sadducees (5.17), Pharisees (15.5; 26.5) and Nazarenes, or early Christians (24.5; cf. 25.14; 28.22).Footnote ²² Since Jewish sectarianism is essential to the following argument, we pause here to discuss the shared characteristics that gave this term meaning in the first-century Jewish world.Footnote ²³

For all the diversity that existed between Jewish sectarian groups in the late Second Temple period – and there was a lot of it – several common features allow for the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes to be meaningfully considered together.Footnote ²⁴ First, these sects were voluntary associations and numerically small; according to Josephus, there were 6,000 Pharisees, 4,000 Essenes, and even fewer Sadducees.Footnote ²⁵ Second, Torah study was understood to be an essential aspect of communal identity. This shared characteristic was also the source of fierce disagreement, as halakhic differences on a variety of subjects – such as marriage and divorce, Sabbath and festival observances, and purity issues pertaining to the temple – led to rival claims over which sect had the authority to interpret the Jewish scriptures properly. Third, each sect was involved in erecting boundaries around their particular group, separating themselves not only from Gentiles, but also from other Jews who did not hold similar views on halakhic and other matters. Fourth, Jewish sects often had a complicated relationship with the presiding priesthood in Jerusalem, with each of these groups emerging in close geographical proximity to Jerusalem during a time of turmoil involving the temple and its presiding priesthood.

For the purposes of this paper, this last point regarding the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood is of particular importance. Shaye Cohen has highlighted the close correlation between the Jerusalem temple and Jewish sectarianism, and he avers that the sectarian impulse in Judaism developed as a direct result of dissatisfaction with, or opposition to, the temple and its priests in Jerusalem.Footnote ²⁶ In agreement with Cohen, Albert Baumgarten writes that the ‘mainstream’ group against which a sect defined itself was almost always represented by the temple in Jerusalem and the priests responsible for drawing up the policies for its practice.Footnote ²⁷ From a broad historical viewpoint, these observations seem correct. Though the sectarian impulse likely predated the Maccabean period, the claim that sectarian groups only fully emerged following Antiochus Epiphanes's profanation of the temple and the Hasmoneans' subsequent usurpation of the high priesthood suggests the temple and its current caretakers as the primary impetus for sectarianism. That these same sects largely disappear after 70 ce when the temple was no longer a viable, functioning institution lends further credence to the idea of the temple as central to Jewish sectarian identity.Footnote ²⁸

While a broad overview reveals the importance of the temple for sectarian identity, many details regarding the origins of each sect remain unclear. By the middle of the first century bce at the latest, at least some Essenes had physically separated from the Jerusalem temple, preferring life in the desert to participation in a cult that they deemed defiled.Footnote ²⁹ This much is certain. But recent scholarship on Qumran and the scrolls has become much more circumspect regarding the date at which Qumran became a ‘sectarian’ site; the relationship between the inhabitants of Qumran, the scrolls and the Essenes; and whether the tension between the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest should be dated to the later Hasmonean period rather than earlier in their dynasty.Footnote ³⁰ All this notwithstanding, the decision to separate from the Jerusalem temple – combined with the hope expressed in some scrolls for a new and purified temple in Jerusalem, a focus on participation in the heavenly temple, and the application of temple terminology to their own community – strongly suggests criticism of the cultic centre in Jerusalem.Footnote ³¹ Even if dissension with the temple and its overseers was not the only concern which led to the establishment of the Qumran community, the issue of proper priestly oversight of the temple and the legitimacy of its priesthood appears to have been of vital and continuing concern for this sectarian community throughout the first centuries bce and ce.

Conversely, by the middle of the first century ce, the Sadducees and Pharisees appear to have viewed the temple cult and priesthood much more positively; the Sadducees became temple insiders while the Pharisees participated in this same temple. This positive outlook, however, is unlikely to have been the case in the formative days of each sect. The term ‘Sadducee’ itself might provide a clue, as the name likely derives from the proper name Zadok and may illustrate initial opposition to the Hasmonean claim to the high priesthood. Moreover, Josephus relates a Pharisaic accusation of illegitimacy directed towards John Hyrcanus’ priestly credentials, which led to a falling out between Hyrcanus and the Pharisees and the elevation of the Sadducees.Footnote ³² Even if we take into account any bias against the Pharisees and Sadducees by Josephus,Footnote ³³ it is significant that the formative years of both sects likely included some degree of tension with the ruling Hasmonean priests in Jerusalem.

While Jewish sectarian groups in the first century ce were characterised by several shared features, only one of these elements tied these three Jewish sects to Jerusalem and kept them within its orbit – the Jerusalem temple.Footnote ³⁴ Even when one or more sects were at odds with the temple leadership, the draw of the sanctuary kept them close, for without this religious centre the various sectarian groups lost their raison d’être. Over the course of time, the more reform-minded sects made their peace with the temple, while at least some Essenes split from it and created their own temple community. Still, each of these groups continued to operate in close proximity to city and sanctuary.Footnote ³⁵ Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that Jewish sectarianism flourished anywhere outside Judea and its adjacent territory.Footnote ³⁶

6. Sectarian Tendencies in the Gospel of Mark and the Temple as Focal Point

The Gospel of Mark exhibits many of the same characteristics and operates within the same worldview as these Jewish sectarian groups, each of which was situated in and around Jerusalem. First, the early Christian community was small in size at the outset and strictly a voluntary association. Second, the principal topics of dispute between the Markan Jesus and the Pharisees involved the same halakhic matters that separated sectarian groups at large: issues of Sabbath observance (2.23–3.6), marriage and divorce (10.1–12), and purity issues (7.1–23), with Mark and the Markan Jesus both citing Scripture to bolster particular legal claims (e.g. 1.2–3; 4.12). Third, Mark talks of an elect group, insiders to whom specific information is given (see Mark 4.11; 13.20, 22, 27). Collectively, these shared characteristics place Mark within the orbit of Jewish sectarianism. Mark's presentation of the Jerusalem temple, however, is where his sectarian outlook is most clearly seen, as the matter of the Jerusalem sanctuary and its priesthood seems to have been one of the generative issues that launched these sectarian groups in the mid-second century bce. and which continued to define at least one of them in the first century ce. It is to this discussion that we now turn.

Timothy C. Gray's comments on the importance of the temple well summarises the findings of many other readers of Mark:

For Mark, the Jerusalem sanctuary is the stage upon which the events of the final chapters of this Gospel play out. In contrast to Matthew and Luke, who sprinkle positive references to the temple and its priests throughout their respective Gospels, Mark has woven into the fabric of his narrative an anti-temple and anti-priestly polemic. In Mark's first mention of the temple, Jesus shuts down all activity in it (11.16) and denounces its leadership (11.17). In Mark's final mention of the Jerusalem temple, the temple veil is ripped apart (15.38). These two thoroughly negative references to the Jerusalem temple bookend Mark's presentation of Jesus vis-à-vis the temple in chapters 11–15, showcasing it as a rejected and doomed institution. Moreover, from the moment of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the chief priests become Jesus’ primary antagonists in Mark, with the acrimonious and souring relationship between Jesus and these chief priests serving to drive the narrative forward in Mark's final chapters.

7. Demonstration in the Temple

On the day following his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Markan Jesus enters the temple courts and upsets the daily activities of the temple. Of the synoptic gospel accounts, Mark's narration of Jesus’ actions is the most detailed. On entering the temple Jesus drives out all those who are selling and buying, overturns the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those selling doves, and prevents anyone from carrying any objects through the temple. Directly following these actions, Jesus, drawing on Isaiah 56.7 and Jeremiah 7.11, declares: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers.’

The anti-temple and anti-priestly elements in this pericope are clear. First, Mark asserts that Jesus briefly, but effectively, shut down the cultic activities of the temple by not allowing anyone to carry a σκεῦος through the temple. Since this action occurs within the temple courts, the most likely interpretation of σκεῦος is of a cultic vessel connected to the sacrificial system.Footnote ³⁸ Mark's inclusion of this prohibition, not noted by Matthew or Luke, points towards a cessation of temple sacrifices. In Mark's estimation, Jesus’ authority extends even to the abrogation of the temple cult.

Second, the composite citation is condemnatory of both the temple and the temple authorities presiding over it. In a quotation drawn from Isaiah 56.7, the Markan Jesus reminds his audience of the original intent of the temple – it was to be a house of prayer for all nations. The opposite, however, is now occurring. With an eye towards Jeremiah 7.11, the Markan Jesus declares that the temple had become a den of λῃσταί (robbers or brigands). Through the juxtaposition of these two verses, the Markan Jesus declares that the chief priests in Jerusalem, who should have ensured that the temple remain a place of prayer for all who wished to come and worship the God of Israel, had made it into a hideout for a select few of ill repute. As Marcus has noted, Mark's use of λῃστής for the overseers of the temple, a term that Josephus applies to the rebels holed up in the temple in Jerusalem, may well allude to the events of the Jewish revolt in the late sixties ce.Footnote ³⁹

Third, in case the reader were to miss the significance of Jesus’ actions and words spoken against the temple and its priestly overseers, Mark frames this episode with two short narratives involving an unfruitful fig tree (11.13–14, 20–1). In the first instance, Jesus curses the fig tree for not bearing fruit, in the second instance the tree withers to its roots. Unlike the fig tree in the narrative, the parallels between the tree and the temple are ripe for the picking. Just as the tree had not yet borne fruit, so also the Jerusalem temple was not fulfilling its intended and natural end of producing righteous ‘fruit’. The withering of the fig tree, therefore, serves as a precursor to the temple's looming destruction. Mark's reader is meant to understand that the same fate that befell the fig tree would fall upon the Jerusalem temple. Its days were now numbered.Footnote ⁴⁰

Following closely on the heels of Jesus’ dramatic demonstration in the temple, Mark recounts continual conflict with the chief priests and other religious leaders. In 11.27–33 Jesus spars with the temple authorities over the origins of his authority, and in 12.1–10 he relates the parable of the wicked tenants, a polemical parable clearly directed against the Jerusalem religious leadership. In this final week, the Markan Jesus’ relationship with the chief priests is rife with tension.

8. Prediction of Temple's Destruction

The symbolic destruction of the temple enacted in Jesus’ demonstration in Mark 11.15–19 takes fuller form in chapters 13–15. In Mark 13.1 Jesus leaves the temple courts for the final time, never again to return. Upon his departure, his disciples recount the grandeur of the temple, and Jesus responds by predicting its impending destruction:

The Markan Jesus does not appear to regard this imminent demise of the temple with any regret, nor does he claim any role in the looming destruction. Rather, the use of the divine passive (καταλυθῆ) indicates Jesus’ understanding of the God of Israel as the primary actor. That God would destroy his own temple reveals the depth to which, at least for Mark, the temple had abdicated its proper role of being a house of prayer for all nations and now hindered God's work in the world rather than promoting it. It must be destroyed.

Though Jesus never again sets foot in the Jerusalem sanctuary, the temple repeatedly appears at important junctures in the Markan narrative (14.49, 58; 15.29, 38). In the account of Jesus’ trial, the only charge that is brought forward against him is the ‘temple charge’, as (false) witnesses declare that Jesus has actually threatened the destruction of the temple rather than merely uttering a prediction about its future. According to Mark 14.57–8,

While the term ἀχειροποίητος is relatively rare, appearing only twice in the rest of the New Testament (2 Cor 5.1; Col 2.11) and not at all in the LXX or other contemporary Jewish literature, χειροποίητος is more frequently attested.Footnote ⁴¹ In the LXX this adjective is regularly used to describe idols and idolatrous behaviour (e.g. Lev 26.1; Isa 16.12; 31.7; Jdt 8.18), with the inference that the Jerusalem temple had now become an idol. Mark's juxtaposition of these two terms in Jesus’ trial scene serves not only to denigrate the current temple as an idol in which people have falsely placed their trust, but also to look forward to a future temple that God alone would build. The basic elements of the charge against Jesus at his trial are then once again repeated in 15.29, as those attending Jesus’ crucifixion are depicted as hurling taunts at him, claiming that he had said he would destroy the temple and build it again in three days (cf. Matt 27.40).

9. The Rending of the Veil

The final mention of the Jerusalem temple in Mark's Gospel occurs in 15.37–8, as Jesus’ dying breath results in the rending of the temple veil. In narrating these events as simultaneous actions, Mark has inextricably bound Jesus’ death on the cross with the end of the earthly temple.Footnote ⁴² For him, the tearing of the curtain likely represented the end of this temple and the removal of any significance once attached to the place. Moreover, in his description of the tearing of the curtain ‘from top to bottom’ and use of the passive ἐσχίσθη, Mark is signalling to his readers that God is the active agent in the temple's destruction. The partition that divided the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple has now been divinely sundered as a direct result of Jesus’ death.

Mark intentionally crafts his Gospel in such a way that Jesus’ first encounter with the temple symbolically enacts its destruction, while the final mention of this sanctuary initiates this destruction. The death of the Son of God in Mark brings an end to the continued efficacy of the Jerusalem temple. But Mark does not simply pronounce a eulogy over the temple and leave it at that. Rather, he hints throughout these same chapters (11–15) that the destruction of the old temple has simultaneously ushered in a new era, complete with a new temple.

10. New Temple in Mark

For the most direct statement regarding the emergence of a new temple in Mark, we once again return to 14.58. At Jesus’ trial in front of the Sanhedrin and chief priests, the testimony against him includes the detail that when the temple ‘made with hands’ is destroyed, another would be built ‘in three days’, this time one ‘not made with hands’. Since Jesus’ resurrection is the only real referent in Mark for the ‘three days’, it seems evident that Mark has tied the emergence of this new temple ‘not made with hands’ with the resurrection of Jesus. For Mark, one effect of Jesus’ resurrection would be a new epoch in salvation history, one in which a new temple has now replaced the old.Footnote ⁴³

Several other hints of the emergence of a new temple are sprinkled throughout these final chapters of Mark. At the conclusion of the Parable of the Wicked Tenants Jesus relates that the rejected stone has become the cornerstone, a reference that is usually understood as the cornerstone of the (new) temple.Footnote ⁴⁴ Mark's narration of the Last Supper may also move in this direction, with Jesus’ offering of his body and blood understood as the first sacrifices in this new temple.Footnote ⁴⁵

Moreover, Mark highlights the juxtaposition of Jesus and the temple through his framing of the eschatological discourse with stories of the sacrificial giving of two different women. In the first instance, a widow offers her mite to the temple (12.41–4), and in the second a woman in Bethany anoints Jesus (14.3–9). Though Jesus commends both actions, immediately following the widow's offering to the temple, he predicts its imminent destruction. In this way, Mark signals that this widow's gift, though proper, was a wasted action, for the Jerusalem temple will soon be reduced to nothing. On the other hand, the gift to Jesus is not a wasted action, for the woman's anointing of Jesus’ head with nard prepares his body for burial. As Gray states, ‘Mark's purpose in paralleling Jesus and the temple is to highlight their shared identity. Two women give to a temple … Both Jesus and the temple will go through the eschatological tribulation, but only one will come out the other side – Jesus, the new temple that will be the source and center of the eschatological restoration.’Footnote ⁴⁶ Mark, then, does not simply narrate the destruction of the temple. Rather, he announces its replacement.

Other allusions to a new temple in Mark could also be added to the above examples,Footnote ⁴⁷ but the concept is reasonably clear. During Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, Mark's negative remarks against the current temple are paralleled by hints at the emergence of a new temple.

11. Mark and Jewish Sectarianism: Locating Mark Among his Contemporaries

The Gospel of Mark displays strong affinities with other sectarian groups of his day. With respect to the Jewish law, Mark relates that Jesus spars with the reform-minded Pharisees on a number of occasions on issues of particular sectarian interest: divorce and remarriage, Sabbath observance and purity issues. In narrating Jesus’ life in this manner, Mark is presenting a picture of Jesus who is at odds with at least one sectarian group over issues of discernible sectarian interest in his day. Mark's sectarian proclivities are also on display in his tendency to divide the majority of his audience into ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ and highlight the importance of the ‘elect’ over against the majority of his contemporaries. Only to those on the inside are the mysteries of the kingdom of God given.

Similarly, Mark's view of the temple and its overseers fits in well with what we know of the origins of sectarian groups. Both Cohen and Baumgarten argue that a defining characteristic of a sectarian worldview was the critical stance that these groups adopted vis-à-vis the temple and its presiding priesthood. All three ‘major’ sectarian groups – Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes – became full-fledged movements in response to Antiochus Epiphanes’ profanation of the Jerusalem temple and the subsequent Hasmonean rebellion and usurpation of the high priesthood. By Mark's time, the two more reform-minded sects had made their peace with the temple establishment; the Sadducees had in many ways become the temple establishment while the Pharisees maintained a more complicated relationship with the cult and presiding priesthood. While the views of the broader Essene movement regarding the temple are unknown, the views of the smaller Essene community at Qumran are quite clear. This small group of individuals chose to split with the Jerusalem temple and establish their own community rather than participate in what they believed to be a polluted sanctuary due to the actions of the current Jerusalem priests.Footnote ⁴⁸

Interesting parallels exist between Qumran and Mark on this point. Mark also views the temple and its overseers in negative terms, believing the temple to be a place of rejection and no longer a viable or necessary option for those within his community. At Qumran the pollution of the temple on account of its priestly caretakers was understood to be temporary. When repurified, the Qumran community envisioned a time when true worship and sacrifices would once again take place in this sanctuary. Mark, however, goes beyond Qumran's negative assessment of the temple and its priestly caretakers by arguing that the earthly temple's days are now over. Whereas Jesus may have interacted with the temple, he did so only insofar as to pronounce judgement on it, a judgement that occurred at the very moment of his death. Moreover, both Mark and the Qumran community envisioned a new and glorious temple in the last days, though they differed in the particulars. Qumran understood this new temple as a physical one in Jerusalem,Footnote ⁴⁹ while Mark sees it as having already come into existence through the resurrection of Jesus, a metaphorical temple embodied by those who had chosen to follow Jesus. Mark's negative appraisal of the Jerusalem sanctuary and its chief priests and his outlining of a new temple that would replace the old locate Mark squarely in the orbit of Jewish sectarian views.

For a community or text to be considered sectarian, one would expect to see several central components: a numerically small group, particular interpretative stance towards the Jewish law, insider/outsider mentality and critical appraisal of the Jerusalem temple and its current priesthood. In my view, the Gospel of Mark displays all of these sectarian tendencies, with the most distinct being its view of the temple. Critical assessment of the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood cannot, on its own, render a community or text sectarian. But when such assessment is added to its other sectarian proclivities, Mark's Gospel bears a striking family resemblance to the known sectarian documents and groups of his day, revealing a shared worldview and set of values.

12. The City of Jerusalem and Markan Provenance

This review of the sectarian nature of Mark's presentation of his Gospel, highlighted by his negative stance towards the Jerusalem temple and its caretakers, allows us to be more specific regarding the provenance of Mark's Gospel. Jerusalem was central to sectarian groups, with the temple as the focal point. Consequently, Mark's sectarian tendencies, along with his focus on Jerusalem and the temple, strongly suggests that Mark and his audience be similarly located in close geographical proximity to the Jerusalem sanctuary, somewhere where the temple and its fate would have held significant meaning. Since Mark was likely written for an (at least partly) Gentile audience, Judea and the Galilee are unlikely places of composition.Footnote ⁵⁰ This makes somewhere just beyond the Jordan in the Decapolis region of Syria a much likelier place of composition than a city like Rome, situated on the other side of the Mediterranean world.

On a related note, Mark's negative appraisal of the Jewish sanctuary invites a comparison with other Jewish literature of this time period similarly interested in the Jerusalem temple, its cult and the fitness of its presiding priests. Whereas a number of Jewish texts praise the sanctuary in Jerusalem or extol the worthiness of the high priest at its helm (e.g. Letter of Aristeas 96–8; Philo, Spec. 1.71–5; Josephus, Ant. 15.380–425), an equally impressive number of sources deem the Jerusalem temple a defiled institution led by unworthy priests. 1 Enoch 89–90, Jubilees 23, Psalms of Solomon 2, 8, 17 and several of the sectarian documents (e.g. CD, 4QMMT and Pesher Habakkuk) found at Qumran are critical of the current temple in Jerusalem and of the priestly aristocracy charged with its functioning. Importantly, this literature critical of the temple and its overseers arose almost exclusively in circles geographically and socially contiguous to the sanctuary and its presiding priests;Footnote ⁵¹ that is to say, the closer one was to Jerusalem, the sharper the critique. Mark's forceful tone and numerous, specific and negative statements about the temple in chapters 11–15 parallel the negative tone found in other Judean literature. This also suggests a nearby locale.

Moreover, these documents critical of the Jerusalem sanctuary were written during or directly following a major disruption to the Jerusalem temple, the high priesthood, or both. The events of the 160s bce and the ascension of the Hasmoneans as high priests appear to have sparked the writing of Jubilees, the Animal Apocalypse and a few of the sectarian documents from Qumran. Pompey's entrance into the Jerusalem sanctuary was the catalyst for the writing of those Psalms of Solomon critical of the presiding priests. Similarly, the dramatic events of the Jewish revolt appear to have played a formative role in the composition of the Gospel of Mark. Since Jewish literature condemnatory of the temple and its overseers was, as far as we can surmise, nearly always written in and around Judea during times of crisis, this lends stronger weight to the argument that Mark was written during the uncertain days of the Jewish revolt and in a location near the city of Jerusalem such as the Decapolis in Syria.