Today I published Mark's gospel on the bible translation page. Check it out!
It is in some ways quite different from John, but in other ways quite similar. For one, I feel it's pretty likely that Mark was Peter's biological son. The reason for this is Peter calls him his son in the first letter of Peter (which I will publish at a later date, all three letters together). Secondly, while John in his gospel and letters refers to the audience as "brethren," Peter never does this, he refers to his audience as "beloved." He never calls anyone one of his relatives except for Mark. Mark was young in his epigraph in his gospel, when he runs away from the band of high priest relatives and friends naked. Next, the first letter of Peter has a different tone than the gospel of Mark, Peter, in his letter, uses a lot of military expressions that are lost in most translations. Mark in his gospel though, is really fond of the word "immediately" (eutheias), whereas no other new testament author I've translated so far even uses the word, not to mention as much as Mark does! He even puts it in the mouth of St. John the Baptist. Mark's gospel is also the only one to not say it was Peter who amputated an ear when Jesus was arrested. So, I think it is likely that Mark was Peter's son, which makes sense, because his name is a common army Roman name (since Peter was probably in the Roman army), and because Peter was the only one of the apostles who was married.
Mark's gospel is well known as the shortest gospel, and it is that. As mentioned above, it gives the events through Peter's perspective, but through Mark's voice. I feel it is short because it omits a lot of what happened in the middle. It narrates events towards the beginning, when Jesus called His disciples, then time skips quite a lot, then narrates Jesus death and resurrection. The events do line up well with John's gospel though, which recounts the same things, though also a fair bit more of the middle. There seem to be some disagreements as to when the two line up, but having a proper translation makes it easier to reconcile. For instance, St. John, when he recounts Jesus first eucharist, the breaking of the bread on the mountain, states the number of people in total (including women and children). St. Mark, however, numbers them specifically as the number of males. So it goes with the other details, they actually all work out if the bible is properly translated to begin with.
In this translation, rather than translate some things "thou" and some "you," depending on what I thought was best, I began translating them as they actually appear. So, when anyone says "thou" ("sou" in Greek), I translate thou, thee, or thy (same with the equivalent verbs and so on, which end in "s" if they are formal in Greek). When they say "you" ("hymeis" in Greek), then I translate "you." It's interesting, Jesus usually speaks formally to any stranger, including sometimes the Pharisees. Many of them, particularly of the scribes, He knows though, and so He uses "you" for them. He almost exclusively uses "you" for His disciples, except for when He is angry at Peter! He usually starts with "thou" at first, then switches back to "you" to finish the phrase. Since it's Peter's gospel (through his son Mark), he is angry at Peter a lot! It was also interesting to me that in this gospel, Jesus rebukes the apostles for being so stubborn after He is resurrected. This isn't mentioned in John's gospel, and the usual translation of Mark glosses this over with an innacurate translation.
So there's a lot to discover here looking at it from a more authentic translation to modern english. In particular is St. John the Baptist's words. They have never made sense to me, how is a road made straight? But it actually means "make the road immediately," which makes more sense. We preserve this somewhat in english, for instance when we say "I'll do it straight away." But there's a lot of places where there are these kinds of translation errors. It's not that the translators didn't know what they were saying, but it does seem like the translation often feels hurried, and Greek translators didn't know Hebrew well, and vice versa. So it is a benefit to be aware of both, since Jesus often says things that are weird in Greek, but make sense in Hebrew. It is by this that I feel that Jesus and His disciples thought and spoke primarily in Hebrew, but the Pharisees primarily in Greek. The Pharisees use words that make more sense in Greek, basically no straight word replacements from Hebrew like Jesus usually does. It is also true for the scribes, having been familiar with Hebrew, use a lot of Hebrewisms as well (I find myself also starting to talk somewhat in Hebrewisms!) There's a lot of them in english that we don't think of, having been accustomed to them.
So I hope you are able to read and enjoy this. The more I go through the bible, the more I think that at the end I'll have to produce a new version in which parallel stories are edited together, and a lot of the insights I'm gaining are applied to the whole bible. It turns out that the books of the bible were extensively edited before we got them, only that since they became "the holy bible" no one has undertaken to edit them properly. The reason for this is that they don't want parts left out, and it's easier to refer to previous scholarship if the bible is never edited. In my attempts to edit it, I plan to make sure no idea or verse is left out, and that there is a reference table that shows where each verse of the edited bible comes from. Many books will probably be left as is, only that the wanderings in the desert, the two books of kings, and the gospels should be edited together for clarity, and so the complete story is told at once. This will be quite some time though, after I've translated everything. In the meanwhile, I'll continue to post translations as I complete them, though in some ways they are all "complete enough for now," as I continue to learn new insights and come into more knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and our Religion.
May God bless thee and may thou glorify Him forever,
In Christ,
Carlos.
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