The Dating of Mark and its Reliability

DAY 300 CHALLENGE “Mark’s Gospel isn’t reliable. It was written long after the events, and by a non-eyewitness.” DEFENSE Mark was written within living memory of the events it records, and it’s based on eyewitness testimony. We elsewhere deal with the fact that Mark wasn’t an eyewitness (see Day 44). Biographies are written all the time by people who aren’t eye- witnesses, and Mark was in an especially good position as a biographer because he based his Gospel on the testimony of an eyewitness: Peter. Thus the first-century figure John the Presbyter stated: Mark, having become the inter...