Mark is a poet, his Gospel a poetry, a prose epic in the style of the time.

The Gospel of Mark is only accessible to a literary analysis, but then reveals the great spiritual richness of early Christianity beside and after Paul.

Mark does not yet have Christian models to fall back on, he ties his writing to Greek and Roman literature. He uses narrative motifs from Christian tradition and pagan poetry.

The religious ideas in Mark come from all areas of ancient religions, especially from the areas of astrology, alchemy and religious ruler worship.

General references to the history of religion are found so frequently in Mark’s Gospel that it seems useful to bring them back into the scholarly discourse.