Posted on by wrote in General, Q & A.

Question:

About Mark 14:51 – What is the significance of this verse (the one about the young man who fled the scene of the arrest of Jesus without his clothes)?

Answer:

The story about the young man losing his clothes is a surprisingly insignificant detail to be included in the Scripture, causing many to wonder why Mark included it.  The most reasonable answer I have heard is that this is mentioned because the person who had this experience was Mark himself.  We know that he was a “young man” at the time.  The most common belief is that the Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark, is the same John Mark who caused a rift between Paul and Barnabas, but who was later the very helpful person mentioned by Paul in 2 Tim 4:22.  There is no way to prove this.  Let me put it this way, almost certainly close friends of the one who wrote Mark knew exactly who this person was, but for us it is a bit of a mystery, but it may be Mark himself.

John Oakes

You May Also Like:

  1. What is the significance of Mark 14:51 (in which an unidentified person flees the scene of Jesus’ betrayal, leaving his clothes behind)
  2. How can I respond to Muslim claims that Mark did not write Mark? What about John and Luke?
  3. How can we know if Mark wrote Mark or John wrote John, given the criticisms I am hearing from Muslims?
  4. How do we know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the gospels attributed to them?

Comments are closed.