A.    In the first century, the terms “Messiah” and “Son of God” would have already been familiar to Jewish and Roman audiences because of the Jews pre-existing scriptural evidence that a messiah was to come, and because of the existence of various figures in Judaic lore referred to as “Sons of God”. Some Jews talked of the coming messiah as a great king, who would deliver the Jewish people safely from their oppressors and establish a sovereign Jewish state, while other Jews thought the coming messiah would be a supernatural force from the heavens, who would vanquish their enemies once and for all. The title “son of God”, given to refer to Jesus, would have also been a familiar term to current Jewish and Roman audiences. In the Roman world, many rulers and brilliantly inspired teachers were referred to as “sons of God”, so hearing about another one would not have been a surprise to them. To the Jewish audiences, there were also people in their religious circles that were referred to by this title, because they had extraordinary ability to deliver inspired teachings and to perform miracles. Two of such figures that lived around the time of Jesus were Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the “circle-drawer”. The ancient Jewish scriptures also refer to various mortal figures who were referred to as “the son of God” such as the king of Israel. The general Jewish understanding of this term was of someone who had a special relationship with God, and who had the ability to mediate between God and people.

B.     The claim that is made in Mark, is that Jesus is the exclusive son of God, and this would have been hard for other, non Jesus-movement followers to accept, because he didn’t seem to have any authority to back up his claims. He came from a poor background, and was not ordained by the existing hierarchy of Pharisees and priests. In fact, he judged this hierarchy as superficial and disgraceful. He even refused to follow certain Jewish laws such as the refraining from doing anything on the Sabbath day, to which Jesus responded by quoting David, saying, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). He also ate with those deemed by the Pharisees as impure, such as tax collectors, saying in justification, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Lastly, he made bold claims to possess the direct authority for things previously thought only God could do. One such example of this is when the scribes thought Jesus to be speaking blasphemy when he told the paralyzed man that his sins were forgiven, for they believed only God had the authority to forgive sins. Jesus replied by saying, “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:9). All of these behaviors of Jesus that reflect that he is in fact a very unique individual in his relationship to the one God upset the current Jewish authorities because their pre-existing beliefs about what a messiah would be like, and what his role to God would be, did not agree with what they were seeing in Jesus.

C.     The stories in 1:16-3:6 effectively make the point that Jesus is the Son of God by showing the ease with which he healed the blind, deaf, mute, paralyzed and those possessed with spirits. Also, the author includes descriptions of how astounded people were at witnessing such miracles, which shows that these really were amazing things. For example, when Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum, a man with an unclean spirit stands up and challenges Jesus’ authority. Jesus, with ease, commands the spirit to leave the man, and the surrounding people exclaim, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:27). The author of the book of Mark also includes such phrases as “at once his fame began to spread” (Mark 1:28), which adds to the dramatic appeal of the story.