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Does Mark Care That Jesus Was Raised from the Dead? On Resurrecting the King and the Kingdom (Mark 16.1–8)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2026

E. J. Davila Open the ORCID record for E. J. Davila [Opens in a new window]
E. J. Davila*
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Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, USA
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Email: ej.davila@asburyseminary.edu
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Abstract

Markan scholars have paid inadequate attention to the literary/theological significance of Jesus’ resurrection. This article seeks to remediate this deficiency by situating Jesus’ resurrection within Mark’s principal theme: the hastening kingdom of God. In doing so, this analysis demonstrates how Mark, like other early Christian authors, reshaped Jewish resurrection hope, with its concordant belief in the restoration of Israel, to present Jesus’ resurrection as the inauguration of the kingdom of God.

Keywords

resurrectioninaugurated eschatologyGospel of Markcorporate representationMark 16

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New Testament Studies , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , October 2025 , pp. 586 - 599
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
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© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press.

1. IntroductionFootnote *

If a messiah is raised from the dead, but there is no one there to see it, does it really matter? Surveying the boundless literature on the ending of Mark’s Gospel yields a negative conclusion as Markan scholars have little to say on the literary/theological significance of Jesus’ resurrection.Footnote 1 This taciturnity is understandable. Mark’s Gospel ends with bewildering abruptness – καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν· ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ (16.8)Footnote 2 – which raises a litany of textual, historical and literary questions that demand the exegete’s attention. Morna D. Hooker captures well the reader’s apoplectic perplexity:

We feel outraged: the story is only half-told. Our questions are all unanswered: Who had rolled away the stone from the tomb? Who was the mysterious young man in white? Was his message that Jesus had been raised from the dead true? Did the disciples go to Galilee and see him? And how did they ever receive the message if the women were too frightened to pass on the news?Footnote 3

Mark’s abrupt ending is no doubt intended to provoke reflection on the women’s ironic reaction at the tomb,Footnote 4 but it seems an unintended irony that interpreters have focused so singularly on 16.8 and the absconding women that the resurrected, unnarrated Jesus has gone relatively unmentioned.Footnote 5 Inasmuch as the women’s response is central to Mark’s theological agenda, however, it is predicated on the pronouncement of Jesus’ resurrection. Accordingly, this article shifts focus from 16.8 to 16.6 in order to answer the following question: When we arrive at the so-called empty tombFootnote 6 and the νεανίσκοςFootnote 7 announces that Jesus has been raised from the dead (ἠγέρθη, 16.6), what, if anything, does this mean within Mark’s narrative and for Mark’s audience?

This article contends that as God’s emissary and Israel’s corporate representative, Jesus’ resurrection is presented as the inauguration of God’s kingdom, and that the resurrected Jesus’ absence from the narrative emphasises the ‘not yet’ aspect of the kingdom. To substantiate this claim, we will (1) survey Second Temple resurrection hope with particular emphasis on the restoration of Israel, and (2) read Jesus’ resurrection through five literary/theological threads related to Mark’s principal theme: the hastening kingdom of God. In doing so, we will demonstrate how Mark, like other early Christian authors, reshaped Jewish resurrection hope to accommodate to the purported phenomenon of Jesus’ resurrection and to present the atypical advent of God’s reign.

2. Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel

Resurrection hope in the Second Temple period was eschatological, corporate, bodily and basilic (i.e. kingdom-oriented). That is, mainstream Jewish belief looked forward to a time when, at the turn of the ages, YHWH would raise Israel from the dead so that all YHWH’s people could enjoy newly embodied existence in the restored kingdom.Footnote 8

The only undisputed appearance of this resurrection belief in the Hebrew Bible is in the second-century bce apocalyptic book of Daniel. Written during a period of intense suffering under Antiochus IV Epiphanes – the ‘despicable person upon whom royal majesty had not been conferred’ (11.21) – Daniel critiques pagan empires (2.31–45; 7.1–28) and anticipates the arrival of a kingdom that ‘shall never be destroyed’ (2.44; 7.14). In the closing chapters (10–12), Daniel offers an ex eventu eschatological timeline that envisages Antiochus’ forthcoming demise (11.40–5) and the arrival of the promised kingdom via Michael’s victory and the resurrection of the ‘many’:

At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of distress, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (12.1–3)

Michael’s presence here is notable. Daniel identifies Michael as Israel’s ‘prince’ (10.21; 12.1), who engages in heavenly warfare on Israel’s behalf (10.13, 21) and is possibly the ‘one like a son of man’ (כבר אנש, 7.13), the celestial figure who receives everlasting dominion from the Ancient One (7.9–14).Footnote 9 As Israel’s advocate and representative, Michael’s presence at the resurrection signifies that this is not an indiscriminate resurrection of the dead, but a historically contextualised ‘revival of the covenant people’.Footnote 10 Thus, the everlasting life for which the faithful are raised should not be construed as disembodied bliss;Footnote 11 rather, it is participation in the ‘reconstitution of a new Israel’,Footnote 12 the everlasting kingdom which has been handed over to Israel’s angelic champion, who now stands in judgement over Israel’s enemies.Footnote 13 For Daniel, then, resurrection and the restoration of Israel are indissoluble.

Daniel, of course, did not invent this association ex nihilo. Israel’s prophets had long employed resurrection imagery to envision Israel’s restoration: Ezekiel limns exiled Israel as a valley of dry bones, dead and without hope until YHWH breathes new life, reconstitutes the people and promises to restore the exiles to the land of Israel (37.1–14).Footnote 14 In Hosea, the people use resurrection language to characterise YHWH’s forthcoming intervention: ‘After two days he will revive us;/on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him’ (6.2). The so-called ‘Isaiah Apocalypse’ (24–7), the focus of which is the ultimate restoration of Israel, promises, ‘Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise./Dwellers in the dust, awake and shout for joy! …/The earth will give birth to the spirits of the departed’ (26.19).Footnote 15

The most striking example for our purpose lies in Second Isaiah (40–55), from which the Gospel of Mark bases its theological emphasis on YHWH’s return and the end of exile. In the final of its four Servant Songs (52.13–53.12), Second Isaiah narrates the so-called suffering servant’s apparent death and possible resurrection. An exegetically dense passage, the servant suffers vicariously (‘wounded for our transgressions/crushed for our iniquities’ (53.5)) for the ‘many’ (53.11; cf. Dan 12.2), but it is unclear whether the servant dies and is raised from the dead, or if YHWH intervenes and delivers the servant from sure death.Footnote 16 It is equally unclear whether the servant is an individual or a corporate metaphor.Footnote 17 Most likely the servant is an individual prophet whose suffering and death were thematically aligned with Israel’s suffering and exile; thus in the same way that YHWH promises the servant’s exaltation (52.13), so YHWH will raise Israel from the dead by ending the exile and restoring the covenant (54.1–55.13). By the time of Daniel, however, Isaiah’s prosperity-promised servant (ישכיל עבדי, 52.13) – an individual prophet who nonetheless symbolised Israel as a wholeFootnote 18 – had pluralised into Daniel’s wise ones (המשכלים, 12.3; cf. 11.33) who rise to everlasting life and inhabit reconstituted Israel.Footnote 19 So while the final Servant Song likely does not narrate the death and resurrection of an individual, Daniel shows how Jews living under the oppressive thumb of foreign rulers were reshaping the text to fit their hope for the corporate, bodily resurrection of Israel.Footnote 20

Exemplifying this same tradition, 2 Maccabees (7.1–42) utilises the imagery and language of Second Isaiah to present the martyrs’ suffering under Antiochus IV as vicarious for the nation (7.38), and their eschatological resurrection typifies Israel’s return from exile.Footnote 21 This hope for bodily resurrection, however, disappears in 4 Maccabees, which seems to envision post-mortem hope as the immortality of the soul (14.5–6; 16.13; 18.23),Footnote 22 a belief not uncommon in some Second Temple texts (1 En 100.5; 102.1–103.4; Jub 23.30–1; Ps Sol 3.12; T Mos 10.9; Wis 2.23–34; Ps-Phoc 102–15), but in traditions that anticipated post-mortem judgement, Daniel’s vision proved victorious, and bodily resurrection became a ‘fixed topos’.Footnote 23 Accordingly, a flurry of Jewish texts exhibit belief in corporate, bodily resurrection concordant with the restoration of Israel and the advent of God’s kingdom (Sib Or 4.179–92; 4 Ezra 7.28–44; 2 Bar 30.1–5; LAB 3.10; 19.12–13; Apoc Mos 13.2–6; cf. 41.1–3).

A few examples warrant special attention: The Animal Apocalypse (1 En 85–90) allegorises the resurrection of ‘destroyed and dispersed’ Israel with the arrival of the messiah, depicted as a white bull (90.30–9).Footnote 24 In the Similitudes of Enoch (1 En 37–71), the messianic ‘Elect One’ (= ‘Son of Man’, 46.2–4)Footnote 25 judges the resurrected dead, sits upon God’s throne and ushers in the new creation (1 En 51.1–5; cf. 45.4–5). The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs exhibits perhaps the most emphatic examples:Footnote 26 Subsequent to the arrival of the messiah (called ‘Star from Jacob’ and ‘Shoot of God Most High’ (T Jud 24.1, 4)), Judah awaits the resurrection of the patriarchs and reconstitution of the twelve tribes (T Jud 25.1–5). Zebulon likewise anticipates that resurrection will lead to his restoration as tribal leader (T Zeb 10.1–3). Benjamin expects the same tribal resurrection (T Benj 10.6–9), explicitly noting that ‘all Israel will be gathered to the Lord’ (T Benj 10.11). To all this, N. T. Wright rightly remarks:

Resurrection, in the world of second-Temple Judaism, was about the restoration of Israel on the one hand and the newly embodied life of all YHWH’s people on the other, with close connections between the two; and … it was thought of as the great event that YHWH would accomplish at the very end of ‘the present age’, the event which would constitute the ‘age to come’, ha ‘olam haba.Footnote 27

This relationship between resurrection and Israel’s restoration was predictably strained by the early church’s confession that Israel’s messiah had been raised from the dead. Returning to our four markers of Jewish resurrection hope, Jesus’ purported resurrection was bodily (Luke 24.36–43; John 20.24–9;1 Cor 15.35–50), but it was not accompanied by the corporate resurrection of the faithful, nor the coming of the eschatological age, nor the restoration of Israel. These, according to early Christian literature, awaited fulfilment at a later date (Acts 1.6–7; Rom 8.22–5; 1 Cor 15.51–7; 1 Thess 4.13–5.11; 2 Thess 2.1–8; 1 Pet 4.7; 2 Pet 3.1–13; Rev 20.11–21.5). Notably, these early Christian traditions did not abandon Jewish resurrection theology; they reconfigured it into an inaugurated eschatology, which confessed that the eschatological age had indeed broken into the present via the resurrection of Israel’s messiah and representative.

The Pauline corpus evinces this trajectory: Jesus’ resurrection is the means by which he is installed as ‘Son of God in power’ (υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάµει, Rom 1.4), now enthroned in heaven and reigning as messiah (Rom 8.34; Phil 2.9; Eph 1.20–3; Col 3.1). Via baptism, Jesus-believers die and are raised anew in God’s inaugurated kingdom (Rom 6.1–11; 2 Cor 5.17; Col 1.13–14; 2.11–12) – redefined so that faithful gentiles may be grafted in (Rom 9–11) – but still awaiting the general resurrection, for which Jesus is the first-fruit (1 Cor 15.20; cf. Rom 6.5–11; 8.23; 1 Thess 4.14–15), when the kingdom will fully manifest (1 Cor 15.50–7), and so ‘all Israel will be saved’ (Rom 11.26).Footnote 28

Our earliest Christian author, Paul, shows how the first Christians reshaped traditional Jewish resurrection belief to fit the individual phenomenon of Jesus’ resurrection without jettisoning any of the tradition’s central tenets. Resurrection for Paul is still eschatological, corporate, bodily and basilic, even if these markers have undergone ‘substantial mutations’.Footnote 29 As we turn to the Gospel of Mark, we need not posit that the Second Evangelist simply regurgitated Pauline theology.Footnote 30 Our examination will show, however, that Mark stands in an early tradition of Christian exegesis that interpreted Jesus’ resurrection inextricably with the manifestation of the kingdom of God concordant with Jewish tradition.

3. Resurrecting the King and Kingdom in the Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark has as its chief narrative focus the manifestation of the kingdom of God, initially embodied in the ministry of Jesus – God’s son and Israel’s messiah – inaugurated by Jesus’ death and resurrection, and still awaiting full realisation. An overview of Mark will sustain this argument.

Mark opens his narrative with an incipit that functions as a title and purpose statement: Αρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ θεοῦ (1.1).Footnote 31 Every segment of this introductory verse is central to our thesis. First, the book’s subject is Jesus’ identity and vocation as Israel’s Χριστός. Second, Jesus’ messianic career both characterises and ushers in ‘the good news’ (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου),Footnote 32 an intentional echo of the ‘good news’ (εὐαγγελιζόµενος) proclaimed in Second Isaiah that ‘Your God will reign’ (βασιλεύσει σου ὁ θεός, Isa 52.7 LXX; cf. 40.9; 60.1).Footnote 33 Third, this monograph encloses only the beginning of God’s reign, which awaits full manifestation beyond the confines of the narrative.Footnote 34

While Mark’s opening verse lacks explicit mention of the kingdom of God (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ), it is firmly in view. Mark’s prologue (1.2–15) sharpens this connection by further utilising the language and imagery of Second Isaiah and explicitly orienting the narrative toward the coming kingdom. This is made plain in the introductory citation where Mark, typically reticent to overt scriptural citations, inserts a biblical pastiche attributed to the prophet Isaiah:

Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

Who will ready your way.

The voice of once shouting in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way of the lord,

Make straight his paths!’ (1.2–3)Footnote 35

In the same way that Second Isaiah announced the end of exile and Israel’s reconstitution via YHWH’s victory march back to Jerusalem, so Mark here casts Israel as exiled under foreign powers, awaiting their God to initiate a new exodus and the restoration of the kingdom.Footnote 36 This restoration movement is embodied and inaugurated by Jesus, designated Israel’s messiah and representative at his baptism (‘You are my beloved son (σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός µου ὁ ἀγαπητός)’, 1.11; cf. Ps 2.7; Isa 42.1; Jer 31.20), who launches the kingdom-movement by confronting the satan in the wilderness (1.12–13; cf. T Mos 10.1) and announcing the programmatic exhortation of his ministry: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near (ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ). Repent and believe in the good news (τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ)’ (1.15). By setting ‘kingdom of God’ in parallel with the ‘good news’, Jesus’ inaugural address once again harkens back to Second Isaiah and clarifies that, for Mark, the ‘kingdom of God’ is shorthand for God’s reign over all creation, centralised in Israel and thus indissoluble from Israel’s own restoration (cf. 1.1; Isa 52.7).Footnote 37

Mark’s prologue, then, makes it clear that the Gospel’s primary theme is the hastening kingdom of God, presented as the Isaianic new exodus for which Jesus is both herald and trailblazer.Footnote 38 Since the prologue has sown several seeds which do not reach full fruition until the Gospel’s conclusion, from here we can trace Mark’s kingdom theology via five theological threads which converge at Jesus’ resurrection (16.1–8) and signify the inauguration of God’s reign.Footnote 39

(a) Jesus as God’s son. Jesus’ designation as God’s son appears at a triplet of Christological highpoints in Mark’s Gospel: baptism (1.11), transfiguration (9.7) and crucifixion (15.39).Footnote 40 Twice conferred by a voice from heaven (1.11; 9.7) – presumably Israel’s God (cf. 14.36) – it is perhaps Mark’s most significant title for Jesus.Footnote 41

In the Hebrew Bible, YHWH grants divine sonship to the king (2 Sam 7.13–14; Ps 2.7; 89.26–7; 1 Chr 22.10; 28.6), and some Second Temple texts seem to interpret the concept messianically (4 Ezra 7.28–9; 13.32, 37, 52; 14.9; T. Levi 4.2; 1QSa 2.11–12; 4Q174 1.10–13; 4Q246 2.1; cf. Mark 14.61). This accords well with Mark’s emphasis on Jesus’ messianic identity (1.1). In other texts, however, sonship is applied to Israel (Exod 4.22–3; Deut 14.1; 32.6, 18; Isa 63.16; 64.8; Jer 3.4; 31.9, 20; Hos 1.10; 11.1; Mal 2.10; Wis 18.13; Sir 36.17; Pss Sol 13.9; 18.4; 4 Ezra 6.58; Sib. Or 3.702; Jub 1.24–25; 28; 4Q246 2.1–3; 4Q504 3.4–6).Footnote 42 Since, as we noted above, Jewish texts did not hesitate to present individuals in corporate roles, the ascription ‘son of God’ likely conveys a polyvalence in Mark, signifying Jesus’ intimate relationship and participation with Israel’s God,Footnote 43 Jesus’ vocation as messiah and Jesus as corporate representative of Israel.Footnote 44 Accordingly, Jesus both incarnates the ‘way of the Lord’ and embodies Israel’s return to its God. The former path is well-trod in Markan studies: Jesus navigates his way throughout Galilee and up to Jerusalem, enacting YHWH’s Isaianic victory march only to be parodically and paradoxically enthroned upon a Roman crucifix. The latter, however, has received scant commentary,Footnote 45 despite the fact that the twofold celestial conferral (‘my beloved son’ (ὁ υἱός µου ὁ ἀγαπητός), 1.11; 9.7) is highly allusive to Jeremiah 38.20 LXX (υἱὸς ἀγαπητὸς Εφραιµ ἐµοί παιδίον; MT 31.9), where Ephraim, not the messiah, is christened God’s son.Footnote 46

Reading Mark’s triplet of Christological highpoints through a corporate lens offers a fresh perspective of Jesus’ identity and vocation. First, the heavenly voice at Jesus’ baptism consecrates him as God’s son, Israel’s messiah who now bears the corporate identity of his people; as such, Jesus’ submission to John’s baptismal rite symbolises Israel’s repentance in anticipation of kingdom come.Footnote 47 This is evidenced by Jesus’ wilderness confrontation in which he recapitulates Israel’s wilderness testing, triumphing where Israel faltered and thus initiating Israel’s redemptive trek along the ‘way of the Lord’.Footnote 48 Ezekiel’s hope that YHWH would restore ‘scattered’ and ‘dispersed’ Israel (36.19) by cleansing them with water (36.25) and bestowing them with a ‘new spirit’ (36.26) may be delayed for all who repent and receive John’s baptism (1.8), but it is nonetheless realised in Israel’s corporate representative. Second, Jesus’ crucifixion localises those prophetic oracles which limned Israel’s exile as death in anticipation of resurrection/restoration (Ezek 37.1–14; Isa 26.19). Inasmuch as Jesus suffers and dies vicariously as a ‘ransom’ (λύτρον, 10.45) for his people, so Israel’s trespasses are buried with him as part of Israel’s deliverance.Footnote 49 Third, in keeping with our corporate reading, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead thereby enacts Israel’s own restoration from the dead. Mark prefigures this very point at the transfiguration (9.2–8), where Jesus receives his second divine designation: ‘This is my beloved son (οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός µου ὁ ἀγαπητός)’ (9.7). Jesus’ iridescent wardrobe (9.3) evokes the astral brilliance of Daniel’s resurrected wise ones (12.3) and functions as an epiphanic prolepsis of Jesus’ resurrection, ascension and enthronement.Footnote 50 When we read ‘son of God’ corporately, then, we can see how the divine sonship designations that demarcate Mark’s tripartite structure locate Israel’s story in Israel’s messiah as Jesus’ ‘birth’ (baptism), death, and resurrection exemplify milestones in Israel’s journey back to their God: repentance, redemption, restoration. As with the king, so with the kingdom.

(b) Jesus as suffering servant and son of man. The heavenly voice at Jesus’ baptism resonates to a different key when read through the Isaianic Servant Songs, two of which are particularly relevant: Isaiah’s opening Song (42.1–4) introduces the servant upon whom YHWH has placed his spirit. In the MT, the servant may be Cyrus – the ‘one from the north’ (41.25; cf. 45.1) – but the LXX proscribes such a reading in favour of a corporate interpretation of Jacob/Israel (cf. 41.8–9; 44.1–2, 21; 45.4; 48.20; 49.3) who brings justice to the nations (42.1) and gathers them under YHWH’s rule (49.6; cf. 43.1, 7–10; 53.14–15). More evocative perhaps is the final Servant Song, where the LXX retains the MT’s focus on an individual prophet who suffers on behalf of the people – ‘This one bears our sins/and suffers on our behalf’ (53.4); ‘he bore the sins of many’ (53.12) – who will thereby ‘be exceedingly exalted and glorified’ (52.13).

While Mark never designates Jesus as ‘servant’ (παῖς, Isa 42.1; 52.13 LXX), the Isaianic echo at Jesus’ baptism encourages an association.Footnote 51 Moreover, Jesus’ self-interpretation of his forthcoming death is highly allusive to the suffering servant: ‘For the son of man came not to be served but rather to serve (ἦλθεν διακονηθῆναι ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι), and to give his life a ransom for many’ (10.45).Footnote 52 This statement arrives near the end of Mark’s transitional section along the ‘way’ (8.22–10.52), during which Jesus attempts to remediate the Twelve’s myopia (8.22–6; 10.46–52) by clarifying his messianic vocation via a trio of passion-resurrection predictions (8.31–2; 9.31–2; 10.32–4).Footnote 53 In all four of these cases, Jesus identifies himself as ‘son of man’, a title which intimates his future exaltation akin to the Danielic figure who receives the everlasting kingdom and the obeisance of the nations (Dan 7.13–14; cf. Mark 13.26; 14.62).Footnote 54

By marrying the suffering-servant and son-of-man traditions, Mark creates a complex and subtle intertextual matrix with several literary and theological threads: First, Jesus interprets his forthcoming death as a vicarious ‘ransom for many’ (λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν; cf. Isa 53.12; Dan 12.2), a ‘metaphorical ritual act of expiation’ that effects forgiveness and thus liberates the righteous from bondage.Footnote 55 Second, in the same way that Daniel’s resurrected wise ones are a pluralisation of Isaiah’s suffering servant, so Jesus’ suffering/death and resurrection function as a corporate representation of Israel’s own death and resurrection. Third, Jesus’ self-identification as the son of man with its implicit corporate identity localises Israel’s exaltation and triumph in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Fourth, just as YHWH’s servant and Daniel’s son of man embody Israel’s fate and yet open the door for some gentile incorporation, so Jesus, as Israel’s messiah and representative, prioritises Israel (7.26) even as Mark’s narrative slowly relocates the gentiles from the margins (5.1–20; 7.24–8.9) to centre stage (15.39).Footnote 56 To this end, Jesus’ self-identification with the suffering servant and son of man strengthens the relationship between his resurrection and Israel’s restoration while dispensing with ethnocentric conceptions of the renewed kingdom.

(c) Jesus’ apocalyptic conflict with the satanic kingdom. As Israel’s messiah and the Isaianic ‘stronger one’ (ὁ ἰσχυρότερος, 1.7; cf. 3.27; Isa 40.10; 49.26),Footnote 57 Jesus leads the ‘way of the Lord’ and launches eschatological holy war against the satanic kingdom, the apocalyptic adversary which pervades and corrupts the religious, natural and political spheres of Mark’s narrative. Empowered by the Holy Spirit (1.12), Jesus’ first task is an immediate (εὐθὺς) confrontation with the satan in the wilderness (1.12–13), initiating the ‘cosmic conflict’ behind the ‘human drama’ (cf. T Mos 10.1).Footnote 58 Jesus emerges victorious and, incarnating Second Isaiah’s vision of YHWH’s triumphant, liberating march to Zion, begins to dispel oppositional, demonic forces (1.21–8; 3.11–12, 20–7; 4.35–41; 5.1–20; 7.24–30; 8.33; 9.14–29) and to restore various manifestations of sickness and death (1.29–31, 40–5; 2.1–12; 3.1–10; 5.21–43; 7.31–7; 8.22–6; 10.46–52).Footnote 59 Jesus’ purification of the ‘damaged world’ anticipates his resurrection ‘whereby he overcomes death and experiences the purification that expresses the reality of and the ultimate inauguration of God’s reign’.Footnote 60 The eschatological conflict reaches an ironic climax at the crucifixion (15.16–38), when the ‘King of the Jews/Israel’ (15.26, 32) is apparently vanquished in battle, dashing the hope for a restored kingdom. But three days later, Israel’s messiah and representative is raised from the dead (16.1–8), manifesting his ‘victory over satanic power concurrent with human surrender to it’.Footnote 61 Thus, for Mark, Jesus’ resurrection effects a fundamental shift in the cosmos: Death is defeated.Footnote 62 The satanic kingdom is toppled. And God’s reign has broken into the current age.

(d) The Twelve and the restoration of Israel. After heralding the hastening kingdom of God, Jesus begins the task of restoring Israel by figuratively regathering the twelve tribes in the form of twelve chief disciples (1.16–20; 3.13–19).Footnote 63 As agents of Jesus’ kingdom-movement, the Twelve proclaim the good news (3.14; 6.12), aid Jesus’ battle against the demonic forces (3.15; 6.7) and are privy to the ‘mystery (µυστήριον) of the kingdom’ (4.11) and Jesus’ messianic vocation (8.27–33). Nonetheless, the Twelve are often confused (4.10–13; 6.52; 8.4, 14–21; 9.5–6, 32, 38–41), misguided (9.35–45; 14.4), ineffective (9.18, 28–9; 14.32–42), pusillanimous (14.43–52, 66–72) and even satanic (8.33), so much so that as Jesus nears his execution, the Twelve betray (14.10–11; 43–6) and abandon him (14.50–2, 66–72). The Twelve’s incessant failure, however, is not counted as a definitive mark against them. The νεανίσκος in the tomb delivers a dual message: Jesus has been raised, and he will meet the ‘disciples and Peter’ in Galilee just as he promised (16.7–8).Footnote 64 Inasmuch as resurrection was inextricably tied to Israel’s restoration, the Twelve symbolise Jesus’ restoration movement, and Jesus’ resurrection signifies his defeat of the satanic powers, so Mark weaves the threads together and points beyond the narrative to the Twelve’s restoration.Footnote 65

(e) Mark’s temporal indicators. Jesus’ programmatic exhortation (1.14–15) makes it clear that the kingdom has not arrived in its fullness. It has drawn near (ἤγγικεν, 1.15) in the person of Jesus – an almost imperceptible mustard seed that has not yet sprouted to matur- ity (4.30–2). When Jesus and the Twelve near Jerusalem for the first time, Mark employs the same verb as they are approaching (ἐγγίζουσιν), perhaps hinting that the kingdom’s arrival is imminent. The Jerusalemites seem to think so as they hail Jesus’ entry with praise and expectation of ‘the coming kingdom (ἡ ἐρχοµένη βασιλεία) of our father David’ (11.10). On the eve of Passover, Jesus anticipates participation in the kingdom after his death (14.25), and during Jesus’ burial preparations, Mark notes that Joseph of Arimathea was ‘expecting the kingdom of God (προσδεχόµενος τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ)’ (15.43).Footnote 66 These temporal indicators suggest that the kingdom that Jesus has announced and embodied will soon manifest itself despite Jesus’ execution. That the resurrection is the event where this happens is bolstered not only by Jewish conceptions of resurrection and Israel’s restoration, but by Jesus’ temporal clarification before the transfiguration: ‘There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come in power (τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐληλυθυῖαν ἐν δυνάµει)’ (9.1; cf. 13.26; 14.62). The qualifier ‘in power’ corresponds to Paul’s characterisation of the resurrected and enthroned Jesus (Rom 1.4) and thus points not to the parousia, but to Jesus’ forthcoming resurrection, ascension and enthronement,Footnote 67 which goes unnarrated in Mark’s conclusion to suit his theological agenda.Footnote 68

Our examination of the kingdom of God in Mark’s Gospel is far from exhaustive, nor is it intended to be. Rather, this analysis has shown that Mark opens his Gospel with an unflinching focus on the inauguration of the kingdom of God via Israel’s messiah and representative, and that Mark develops his theology of the kingdom through various literary/theological threads that converge at the tomb and intimate that Jesus’ resurrection is the pivotal point at which the hastening kingdom of God finally arrives. That is not to say that Jesus’ resurrection fully manifests the kingdom by the end of the narrative. The women’s fear and trembling reject such a claim outright. Mark is aware that his community travails within the ‘mystery’ of the kingdom in which the age to come has broken into the present without annihilating it (4.1–34),Footnote 69 and so they await the resurrected and enthroned messiah to return and fully exercise his authority (13.26–7).

4. Conclusion

Markan scholars have paid inadequate attention to the literary/theological significance of Jesus’ resurrection, focusing instead on Mark’s cliffhanger conclusion and the absconding women. Moreover, when scholars do speak of Jesus’ resurrection, they tend to employ concepts such as vindication, fulfilment or confirmation. This article has endeavoured to show that while these concepts may be apropos to some degree, in light of Mark’s primary theme – the hastening kingdom of God – they are far too narrow. Accordingly, we have offered a richer, narratively shaped interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection: (1) When Mark identifies Jesus by ascription or allusion as messiah, God’s son, the son of man, or the suffering servant, we must understand how these designations function corporately and how Jesus bears Israel’s fate in a representative sense. Thus, when Jesus is raised from the dead, the significance of the event cannot be reduced to God’s vindication of an individual; it is, rather, a corporate symbol of Israel’s own resurrection and the advent of God’s reign through God’s people, now incorporating faithful gentiles. (2) As herald and trailblazer of God’s kingdom, Jesus engages in a cosmic conflict against the reigning satanic kingdom, a battle that is won not on the cross, but on Easter morning. (3) Jesus symbolises Israel’s restoration by figuratively regathering the twelve tribes as twelve disciples, who, despite their incessant failures, are reinstated by Jesus’ triumph over death and the satanic kingdom. (4) Mark includes several temporal markers that point to the resurrection at the moment of the kingdom’s arrival. The most significant of these markers precedes Jesus’ transfiguration, a proleptic vision of the resurrected and enthroned messiah.

Altogether, these interweaving literary/theological threads cohere with Second Temple resurrection hope that envisioned resurrection as the restoration of Israel, accompanied by the manifestation of God’s reign over the cosmos, centralised in Israel. For Mark, as with Paul, this is inaugurated but not fully realised by the resurrection of Jesus, who is now enthroned in heaven, empowering Mark’s community to maintain fidelity to their messiah even as they suffer and await his return. Returning, then, to the question posed at the outset of this article, we may confidently answer: When the νεανίσκος in the tomb announces that Jesus has been raised from the dead, it is a divine declaration that the king has been raised, and with him, the kingdom.

Competing interests

The author declares none.

References

* A previous version of this paper was presented in the Asbury Theological Seminary Biblical Studies Seminar. I am thankful to all – especially Eric D. Laudenslager – who offered helpful feedback. All HB, LXX and NT translation are my own. OTP translations are from Charlesworth.

1 Such is the case even amongst theological analyses of Mark’s Gospel. W. R. Telford, The Theology of the Gospel of Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), devotes fourteen pages (137–51) to ‘the significance of Mark’s ending’, and David E. Garland, A Theology of Mark’s Gospel: Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God (BTNT; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), ends with a chapter titled ‘The Ending of Mark’s Gospel: A New Beginning’, but neither work presents a theology of resurrection, focusing instead on textual issues and the women’s response. Similarly, Geza Vermes, The Resurrection: History and Myth (New York: Doubleday, 2008) 137, contends that ‘the Resurrection does not appear to have had a major doctrinal impact on the Gospels’. Recent monographs on resurrection in Mark include Austin Busch, Risen Indeed? Resurrection and Doubt in the Gospel of Mark (ECL 31; Atlanta: SBL, 2022); Paul M. Fullmer, Resurrection in Mark’s Literary-Historical Perspective (LNTS 360; London: T&T Clark, 2007). The former is more helpful than the latter, though neither work overlaps with the present thesis.

2 Most scholars agree that 16.8 is Mark’s intended ending. This article proceeds similarly, and the conclusions offered herein strengthen the towering evidence already in print. On the textual merits of this position, see Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 322–7. For further relevant discussions, see Andreas Lindemann, ‘Die Osterbotschaft des Markus. Zur theologischen Interpretation von Mark 16. 1–8’, NTS 26 (1980) 298–317; Kelly R. Iverson, ‘A Further Word on Final Γάρ (Mark 16.8)’, CBQ 68 (2006) 79–94; idem, ‘A Postmodern Riddle? Gaps, Inferences, and Mark’s Abrupt Ending’, JSNT 44 (2022) 337–67; Travis B. Williams, ‘Bringing Method to the Madness: Examining the Style of the Longer Ending of Mark’, BBR 20 (2010) 397–418; Gregor Emmenegger, ‘Ein koptisches Amulett als Beleg für den kurzen Markusschluss’, ZNW 103 (2012) 142–5; Thomas Witulski, ‘Ein Evangelium ohne Epiphanieerzählungen?! Mk 16,1–8 als ursprünglicher Schluss des Markusevangeliums. Teil 1’, BN 163 (2014) 83–102; idem, ‘Ein Evangelium ohne Epiphanieerzählungen?! Mk 16,1–8 als ursprünglicher Schluss des Markusevangeliums. Teil 2’, BN 165 (2015) 101–20; Elizabeth E. Shively, ‘Recognizing Penguins: Audience Expectation, Cognitive Genre Theory, and the Ending of Mark’s Gospel’, CBQ 80 (2018) 273–92; H. A. G. Houghton, ‘Unfinished Business: The Ending of Mark in Two Catena Manuscripts’, NTS 69 (2023) 35–42. For those who argue that Mark’s original ending was lost or perhaps never penned, see N. Clayton Croy, The Mutilation of Mark’s Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003); Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993); N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God 3 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 616–24; Craig A. Evans, Mark 8.27–16.20 (WBC 34B; Nashville: Nelson, 2001); Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001); R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Robert H. Stein, ‘The Ending of Mark’, BBR 18 (2008): 79–98.

3 Morna D. Hooker, Endings: Invitations to Discipleship (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003) 12.

4 Indeed, most studies tend to focus on the women – their fear, silence and future witness. For discussion, analysis and varying approaches, see Andrew T. Lincoln, ‘The Promise and the Failure: Mark 16.7, 8’, JBL 108 (1989) 283–300; Joel F. Williams, ‘Literary Approaches to the End of Mark’s Gospel’, JETS 42 (1999) 21–35; Jeffrey W. Aernie, ‘Cruciform Discipleship: The Narrative Function of the Women in Mark 15–16’, JBL 135 (2016) 779–97; J. Lee Magness, Sense and Absence: Structure and Suspension in the Ending of Mark’s Gospel (SemeiaSt; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986); Paul L. Danove, The End of Mark’s Story: A Methodological Study (BIS 3; Leiden: Brill, 1993); Donald Harrisville Juel, ‘A Disquieting Silence: The Matter of the Ending’, The Ending of Mark and the Ends of God: Essays in Memory of Donald Harrisville Juel (ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Patrick D. Miller; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005) 1–13; Brian K. Blount, ‘Is the Joke on Us? Mark’s Irony, Mark’s God, and Mark’s Ending’, Gaventa and Miller, Ending of Mark, 15–32. Most critical commentaries recycle these conclusions.

5 When commenters do briefly mention Jesus, they tend to use language such as vindication, fulfilment or confirmation, as if all the resurrection accomplishes is an affirmation of what we already know about Jesus. See, e.g. Juel, ‘Disquieting Silence’, 8; Francis J. Moloney, The Resurrection of the Messiah: A Narrative Commentary on the Resurrection Accounts in the Four Gospels (New York: Paulist, 2013) 17; Gundry, Mark, 288; John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (SP 2; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2002) 460; David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey and Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (3rd edn; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012) 115; R. Alan Culpepper, ‘The Passion and Resurrection in Mark’, Review and Expositor 75 (1978) 583–600; in his commentary, Culpepper expands his view: ‘The Gospel ends not with darkness over the land but with God’s decisive act vindicating Jesus and vanquishing evil and death’ (R. Alan Culpepper, Mark (SHBC; Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2007) 583, emphasis added), though he does not elaborate further. Against this approach, see the forceful comments in Peter G. Bolt, Jesus’ Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark’s Early Readers (SNTSMS 125; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 267.

6 On the appropriateness, or lack thereof, of the designation ‘empty tomb’ in Mark’s Gospel, see Mark Goodacre, ‘How Empty Was the Tomb?’ JSNT 44 (2021) 134–48.

7 Almost certainly an angel. See discussion in E. J. Davila, ‘A Sartorial Inversion: Clothing in Mark and the Flight of the Naked Youth’, PRSt (2021) 205–18, here 213–14.

8 This is not to say that post-mortem hope in Second Temple Judaism was uniform. Some texts clearly perpetuate belief in soul immortality (see discussion below). For those Jews who held resurrection belief, however, this is more or less what they envisioned. For an overview of post-mortem belief and development in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Period, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity (HTS 56; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006); Wright, Resurrection, 85–206; Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection (JCTCRS 12; New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) 38–113; Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006); Hans Clemens Caesarius Cavallin, Life after Death: Paul’s Argument for the Resurrection of the Dead in 1 Cor 15, Part 1. An Enquiry into the Jewish Background (ConBNT 7.1; Lund: Geerup, 1974); James H. Charlesworth et al., Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine (FSC; London: T&T Clark, 2006).

9 Whether the one like a son of man is Michael or a corporate representation of the holy ones who are said to receive the kingdom (7.18) need not be decided here. In both cases, the main idea is the restoration of Israel. So J. J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 307: ‘There is no doubt that the exaltation of the “one like a son of man” represents in some way the triumph of the Jewish people.’ On corporate personalities in Jewish thought and literature, see H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), esp. 5, where Robinson cites Daniel 7 as a prototypical example of corporate representation; cf. J. W. Rogerson, ‘Corporate Personality’, ABD 1.1156–7.

10 John Goldingay, Daniel (WBC 30; Rev. edn; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019) 547.

11 Collins, Daniel, 392, questions if Daniel envisions bodily resurrection. But the intertextual analysis of Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 30–8, is persuasive that bodily resurrection is intended; cf. Cavallin, Life after Death, 27; Goldingay, Daniel, 549.

12 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 29.

13 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 23–30; Collins, Daniel, 390.

14 Levenson, Resurrection, 160–1, notes the Exodus imagery of this text, and that while Ezekiel does not envision eschatological resurrection, it is nonetheless a transformation and re-creation of YHWH’s people. Pseudo-Ezekiel (4Q385) interprets Ezekiel’s vision as literal resurrection.

15 Wright, Resurrection, 117, believes this text refers to bodily resurrection, though he admits it is possibly a ‘metaphor for national restoration’. Given the apocalyptic flavour and lexical similarity to Daniel (e.g. ‘awake’ (קוץ), ‘dust’ (עפר)), the text is, at the very least, influential in Daniel’s formulation; cf. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 30–8.

16 Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYB 19A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) 355, sees the Servant’s death as unambiguous, though he is less confident in resurrection; cf. F. Duane Lindsey, The Servant Songs: A Study in Isaiah (Chicago: Moody, 1985); John D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34–66 (WBC 25; rev. edn; Nashville: Nelson, 2005) 784; Wright, Resurrection, 116. John Goldingay and David Payne, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (vol. 2; ICC; London: T&T Clark, 2006) 315, note that the allocation of the tomb does not equate to burial.

17 Israel is identified as ‘servant’ throughout Second Isaiah (41.8–9; 44.1–2, 21; 45.4; 48.20; 49.3), though also distinguished from Israel (49.5). Thus Goldingay and Payne, Isaiah 40–55, 273, note the Servant’s identity lies in the ‘interplay between people and prophet that has characterized preceding chapters’. For a survey of interpretive options, see Marc Brettler and Amy-Jill Levine, ‘Isaiah’s Suffering Servant: Before and After Christianity’, Int 73 (2019) 158–73.

18 Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55, 118, 342–3; Robinson, Corporate Personality, 15, 17; Peter Wilcox and David Paton-Williams, ‘The Servant Songs in Deutero-Isaiah’, JSOT 42 (1988) 79–102; Brettler and Levine, ‘Isaiah’s Suffering Servant’, 158, 163–4.

19 Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55, 350; Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 39–40; Wright, Resurrection, 116. Harold L. Ginsberg, ‘The Oldest Interpretation of the Suffering Servant’, VT (2013) 25–8; Brettler and Levine, ‘Isaiah’s Suffering Servant’, 164–5; L. F. Hartman and A. A. Di Lella, Daniel (ABC 23; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005) 274.

20 Wright, Resurrection, 116. Elsewhere I have argued that a similar pluralisation of the suffering servant lies behind the redaction of Psalm 22, which may also be read as a resurrection witness. See E. J. Davila, ‘Psalm 22: The Death and Resurrection of King David’, CBQ 88 (2026) 71–87.

21 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 130–8; Wright, Resurrection, 153; cf. Robinson, Corporate Personality, 12.

22 Cavallin, Life after Death, 123, argues that nothing in 4 Maccabees excludes bodily resurrection. Its absence, however, is conspicuous given 2 Maccabees’ insistence.

23 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, 216.

24 Some scholars question if this text should be read as resurrection. For a positive assessment, see George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–13, 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 405–6; Cavallin, Life after Death, 40; Charlesworth, ‘Concept of Resurrection’, Charlesworth et al., Resurrection, 13.

25 George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012) 158.

26 C. D. Elledge notes that in the Testaments of Judah, Zebulon and Benjamin, resurrection is ‘both nationalistic and restorationist’ (‘The Resurrection Passages in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Hope for Israel in Early Judaism and Christianity’, Charlesworth et al., Resurrection, 79–103, here 90).

27 Wright, Resurrection, 205.

28 Paul substantiates the claim that ‘all Israel will be saved’ with an Isaianic conflation (27.9; 59.20–1) that, in its original context, envisions the advent of the divine-warrior YHWH to redeem and restore Israel. Paul recasts the ‘Deliverer’ (Rom 11.26) as Jesus, whose arrival Paul notes elsewhere will accompany the general resurrection and the realisation of God’s kingdom (1 Cor 15.51–7; 1 Thess 4.13–5.11). So even though Paul does not mention resurrection here (but cf. 11.15), it is inherent to his eschatology. So James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (WBC 38B; Dallas: Word, 1988) 680: ‘His conviction is … of a mounting climax with the incoming of the Gentiles as the trigger for the final end in which Israel’s conversion, Christ’s Parousia, and the final resurrection (v 15) would all be involved.’ For fuller discussion on Paul, resurrection and Israel, see James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) §§10, 12, 18, 19; Wright, Resurrection, 207–398; Novakovic, Raised from the Dead, 141–71.

29 Wright, Resurrection, 210.

30 Neither should we imagine that Mark and Paul are diametrically opposed. See the judicious study by Joel Marcus, ‘Mark – Interpreter of Paul’, NTS 46 (2000) 473–87. Cf. Oda Wischmeter et al., ed., Paul and Mark: Comparative Essays Part I: Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity (BZNW 198; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014); Eve-Mari Becker et al., ed., Mark and Paul: Comparative Essays Part II: For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark (BZNW 199; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

31 UBS-6 has removed the long-standing brackets from υἰοῦ θεοῦ, but with a doubtful C rating. The phrase υἰοῦ θεοῦ is missing in at least one early manuscript (א*) and some patristic witnesses, but present in several other important manuscripts (א1 A B D). Since it is easier to explain the phrase’s addition than its omission, this may be a result of later scribal activity; so Adela Yarbro Collins, ‘Establishing the Text: Mark 1.1’, Texts and Contexts: The Function of Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts (ed. Tord Fornberg and David Hellholm; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995) 111–27; Peter Head, ‘A Text-Critical Study of Mark 1.1: “The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”’, NTS 37 (1991) 621–9; Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 85–7. For a strong defence of its originality, see Tommy Wasserman, ‘The “Son of God Was” in the Beginning (Mark 1.1)’, JTS 62 (2011) 20–50. On the limitations of these analyses, see Max Botner, ‘The Role of Transcriptional Probability in the Text-Critical Debate on Mark 1.1’, CBQ 77 (2015) 467–80.

32 The genitive here may be read as both objective (the good news about Jesus) and subjective (the good news that Jesus announces and effects). See Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AYB 27; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) 146–7.

33 Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (BSL; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000) 96–9; Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016) 30.

34 Werner H. Kelber, The Kingdom in Mark: A New Place and a New Time (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 2–3. Marcus, Mark 1–8, 145–6, notes that ‘the beginning’ can refer to both the prologue and the Gospel as a whole; cf. Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 131.

35 For analysis of the scriptural citation and its thematic relationship to Second Isaiah, see esp. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus, 53–90; Joel Marcus. The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992) 12–47.

36 Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 16, 371–2 n. 2; Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus, 90. The foreign power under which Israel is exiled is not primarily Rome, but the satanic kingdom; see (c) below.

37 R. T. France, Divine Government: God’s Kingship in the Gospel of Mark (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2003) 21–3. Despite France’s conviction that ‘kingdom of God’ is a ‘misleading’ translation (Divine Government, 1), I favour this rendering over ‘reign/rule of God’ or ‘divine government’. In the Hebrew Bible and related literature, YHWH reigns over all human and divine principalities (1 Chr 29.11; Pss 22.28; 47.7–9; 95.3; 96.10; 97.1; 99.1; 103.19), but YHWH’s reign is localised over Israel (Exod 19.6; Deut 7.6; 14.2; 26.18; 32.8–9; 1 Sam 8.7; 12.12; 1 Chr 28.5; 2 Chr 13.8; Ps 114.2), who, in the Isaianic tradition at least, serves as a light to the gentiles (Isa 2.2–4; 42.1, 6; 49.6; cf. Mic 4.1–4). Moreover, our closest approximation to ‘kingdom of God’ in the Hebrew Bible is ‘kingdom of YHWH’ (מלכות יהוה) which is only applied to the Davidic kingdom (1 Chr 28.5; 2 Chr 13.8; cf. Pss. Sol. 17.3, ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ). Thus, there is a spatio-temporal aspect of YHWH’s kingdom that is not well-conveyed with ‘reign/rule of God’. For Jews in Jesus’ day, the proclamation that the advent of God’s kingdom was imminent would arouse expectations of Israel’s renewal as a socio-political entity, not merely an interior, spiritual experience. For discussions on the kingdom of God in the Hebrew Bible, Pseudepigrapha, and Qumran literature, see the helpful overviews and analyses in Wendell Willis, ed., The Kingdom of God in 20th-Century Interpretation (Peabody; Hendrickson, 1987) chs. 5–7. On the kingdom of God in Mark, see M. Eugene Boring, ‘Kingdom of God in the Gospel of Mark’, in Willis, Kingdom of God, 131–45; France, Divine Government; Kelber, Kingdom in Mark; Joel Marcus, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God (SBLDS 90; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985); Aloysius M. Ambrozic, The Hidden Kingdom: A Redaction-Critical Study of the References to the Kingdom of God in Mark’s Gospel (CBQMS 2; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1972); Frank J. Matera, The Kingship of Jesus: Composition and Theology in Mark 15 (SBLDS 66; Chico: Scholars, 1982).

38 Collins, Mark, 137: ‘Thus the task of Jesus is to prepare the people for the full manifestation of the rule of God, which is imminent.’

39 On Mark’s prologue setting the thematic stage for his Gospel, see M. Eugene Boring, ‘Mark 1.1–15 and the Beginning of the Gospel’, Semeia 52 (1990) 43–81. On rhetorical merit of introductions and thematic integrity, see Aristotle, Rhet. 3.14.1–8; 3.19.4; Quintilian, Inst. 10.1.48 (15.39).

40 Elsewhere in Mark, Jesus refers to himself as son in relation to Israel’s God (12.6; 13.32), the demons/unclean spirits name ‘son of God’ (3.11; 5.7), and the high priest asks if he is the ‘messiah, son of the Blessed One’ (14.61).

41 So Garland, Theology of Mark’s Gospel, 227.

42 On ‘son of God’ in biblical and related literature, see Martin Hengel, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish Hellenistic Religion (trans. John Bowden; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007), esp. ch. 5; Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), esp. chs. 1–3. As it pertains to the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly the controversial ‘Son of God’ text 4Q246, see John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2nd edn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). For discussion related to Mark, see Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus, 110–12; Marcus, Way of the Lord, 69–72.

43 The title ‘son of God’ conveys an intimacy not present in ‘messiah/anointed one’. Indeed, if these two titles were simply equivalent, ‘messiah’ would suffice; as Marcus, Way of the Lord, 77–9, notes, however, some Jewish traditions were reticent to employ the title ‘son of God’ due its ‘connotations of quasi divinity’. For early Christians, such implications were presumably attractive.

44 So James M. Neumann, The Gospel of the Son of God: Psalm 2 and Mark’s Narrative Christology (LNTS 688; London: T&T Clark, 2024) 72: ‘Just as God’s royal son, the king, was expected to recapitulate God’s son, Israel’s, experience, so Jesus realizes the king’s and Israel’s destinies at once as God’s anointed Son, the royal Messiah.’

45 But see Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus, 117, and his brief discussion in n. 145; James M. Neumann, ‘Remembering God’s Beloved Son: Jeremiah 38.11 LXX and Mark 1.11’, JBL 142 (2023) 493–512, esp. 499–502; Neumann, Gospel of the Son of God, 72.

46 On this point, see Neumann, ‘Remembering God’s Beloved Son’; John Paul Heil, ‘Jesus with the Wild Animals in Mark 1.13’, CBQ 68 (2006) 63–78, esp. 70–1.

47 Hence Mark’s note that all of Judea and Jerusalem were receiving John’s baptism (1.5).

48 See Jeffrey B. Gibson, ‘Jesus’ Wilderness Temptation according to Mark’, JSNT 53 (1994) 3–34; Ulrich W. Mauser, Christ in the Wilderness: The Wilderness Theme in the Second Gospel and Its Basis in the Biblical Tradition (SBT; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2009) 15–52, 77–102.

49 For more on this point, see (b) below.

50 For more discussion on this interpretation, see (e) below and Neumann, Gospel of the Son of God, 105–27; for recent overviews and other interpretive options, see Caleb T. Friedman, ‘Moses, Elijah, and Jesus’ Divine Glory (Mark 9.2–8)’, NTS 70 (2024) 61–71; Delbert Burkett, ‘The Transfiguration of Jesus (Mark 9.2–8): Epiphany or Apotheosis?’, JBL 138 (2019) 413–32; Marcus, ‘Appendix: Backgrounds to the Transfiguration’, Mark 8–16 (AYB 27A; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) 1108–18.

51 Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1959) 73, demurs because ‘my beloved son’ ‘in the Old Testament is applied only to Israel’. Given our discussion in (a), however, this is a green light, not a roadblock. For a detailed response to Hooker and a towering defence of Mark’s presentation of Jesus as the suffering servant, see Elizabeth E. Shively, ‘The Servant(s) in the Gospel of Mark and the Textual Formation of Early Christian Identity’, Isaiah’s Servants in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Isaian Servant and the Exegetical Formation of Community Identity (ed. Michael A. Lyons and Jacob Stromberg; WUNT 2/554; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021) 143–87.

52 Ben Witherington III, Isaiah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017) 252: ‘We do not have a quoting of Isaiah here but rather Jesus’s commentary on that text, now applied to himself and to his mission.’ See also Rikki E. Watts, ‘Jesus’ Death, Isaiah 53, and Mark 10.45’, Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (ed. William H. Bellinger Jr. and William R. Farmer; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998) 125–51, esp. 136–7; Lindsey, Servant Songs, 4–6.

53 These are emphatically not ‘passion predictions’. Jesus never speaks of his forthcoming suffering and death without also assuring his resurrection.

54 Whether Jesus historically spoke of himself as ‘son of man’ and what this would have meant is far beyond the confines of this article. Within the narrative, Jesus is the one who dies and raises from the dead, so we can be sure that Mark understands Jesus as the figure. For discussion regarding Mark, see Jack Dean Kingsbury, ‘The Christology of Mark and the Son of Man’, Unity and Diversity in the Gospels and Paul: Essays in Honor of Frank J. Matera (ed. Christopher W. Skinner and Kelly R. Iverson; Atlanta: SBL, 2012) 55–70; Simon Gathercole, ‘The Son of Man in Mark’s Gospel’, ExpTim 115 (2004) 366–72; Marcus, Mark 1–8, ‘Appendix: Son of Man’, 528–32; more broadly, see Larry W. Hurtado and Paul L. Owen, ed., ‘Who Is This Son of Man?’ The Latest Scholarship on a Puzzling Expression of the Historical Jesus (LNTS 390; London: T&T Clark, 2011); Richard Bauckham, “Son of Man”: Early Jewish Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023).

55 Collins, Mark, 503, who reads λύτρον as a synonym of ἱλαστήριον. See her wider discussion in Mark, 499–504; Adela Yarbro Collins, ‘Mark’s Interpretation of the Death of Jesus’, JBL 128 (2009) 545–55, a response to Joel Marcus, ‘Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation’, JBL 125 (2006) 73–87, and Sharyn Dowd and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, ‘The Significance of Jesus’ Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience’, JBL 125 (2006) 271–97.

56 On this topic, see esp. Kelly R. Iverson, Gentiles in the Gospel of Mark: “Even the Dogs under the Table Eat the Children’s Crumbs” (LNTS 399; London: T&T Clark, 2007).

57 On this association and the cosmic conflict at the heart of Mark’s Gospel, see Elizabeth E. Shively, Apocalyptic Imagination in the Gospel of Mark: The Literary and Theological Role of Mark 3.22–30 (BZNW 189; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), esp. 47; cf. Collins, Mark, 64.

58 France, Divine Government, 10; cf. Shively, Apocalyptic Imagination, 47; Gregory M. Barnhill, ‘Jesus as Spirit-Filled Warrior and Mark’s Functional Pneumatology’, CBQ 82 (2020) 605–27.

59 Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus, 137–82.

60 Elizabeth E. Shively, ‘Purification of the Body and the Reign of God in the Gospel of Mark’, JTS 71 (2020) 62–89, here 80. Though approaching the topic from a different perspective, Shively’s study largely coheres with my thesis.

61 Shively, Apocalyptic Imagination, 243.

62 On this point particularly, see Bolt, Jesus’ Defeat of Death, 254–68.

63 E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 95–106.

64 Unlike Matthew (27.1–7) and Acts (1.18–19), Mark does not narrate Judas’ death. Within the confines of the Gospel, then, we might expect that he too will be restored, though Jesus’ censure (14.22) dissuades confidence.

65 To this end, the so-called ‘longer ending’ is at least thematically faithful to Mark’s intentions. See Suzanne Watts Henderson, ‘Discipleship after the Resurrection: Scribal Hermeneutics in the Longer Ending of Mark’, JTS 63 (2012) 106–24; cf. Tucker S. Ferda, ‘The Ending of Mark and the Faithfulness of God: An Apocalyptic Resolution to Mark 16.8’, JTI 13 (2019) 36–52.

66 Boring, ‘Kingdom of God’, 139, interprets this verse as Mark’s belief in the kingdom’s futurity. He sees no evidence in Mark that the kingdom is a present reality, ‘even in some hidden way’ (141). Cf. M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006) 53.

67 Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002) 176–7; Marcus, Mark 8–16, 622. Similarly, 14.62 probably refers to Jesus’ ascension and enthronement, while 13.26 portends the full manifestation of the kingdom in power. France, Divine Government, 77–8; Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 33–5, 57–61.

68 This does not mean that the transfiguration is a misplaced resurrection account, against which see Robert H. Stein, ‘Is the Transfiguration (Mark 9.2–8) a Misplaced Resurrection-Account?’, JBL 95 (1976) 79–96. Rather, it is an intentional proleptic vision of the resurrected Jesus that Mark withholds from his ending to emphasise the ‘not yet’ aspect of his inaugurated eschatology.

69 On the mystery of the kingdom and Mark’s inaugurated eschatology, see esp. Kelber, Kingdom in Mark, 25–41; Marcus, Mystery of the Kingdom of God.