Mystery:Unsolved Gospel Mysteries

Unsolved Gospel Mysteries include the following:

See also: Mystery: Was John a Samaritan?

John the Apostle, the author of the Gospel of John, had a first name common to many ethnicities but connected most closely with Aramaic, and his father's name was Zebedee. John was partial to the Samaritans and highly critical of the Pharisees. What ethnicity was John?

There is much evidence suggesting that John was a Samaritan, including:

• John's sympathetic portrayal of Samaritans, including that Jesus first disclosed his divinity to a Samaritan woman;
• John's suggestion, by way of a question by a Pharisee that Jesus did not answer, that he may have been a Samaritan at John 8:48 ;
• the other Apostles ostracizing John, such that he was left to write the Gospel of John entirely on his own without the help of other manuscripts;
• John's far less frequent citations or quotations of the Old Testament: 27 times, and direct references far less, compared with "Matthew (124), Mark (70), and Luke (109),"^[1] which could be explained by the Samaritan acceptance of only the Pentateuch (but the Gospel of John, not John's letters or the Book of Revelation, does mention the Book of Isaiah several times); and
• in contrast with other Gospels, John has multiple favorable references to Samaritans and no unfavorable ones.
• the Apostles did not fast, consistent with the tradition of the Samaritans who fast on only one day year, on Yom Kippur: "For Israelite-Samaritans, Yom Kippur is the only fast. In fact, we understand Leviticus 16:34 to be an explicit injunction that there can be only one fast a year ...."^[2]

In different ways, some of the Gospels refer to seeing Jesus return or entering the Kingdom of God before death. What is the meaning of those references?

For example, Mark 9:1 (ESV) states, “And he said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.'”

The proper translation and meaning of the Greek for the phrase Kingdom of God is debatable. It may be referring to the Transfiguration.

This is not Mark's error, but "The division of the chapters is obviously wrong. The verse ought to come, as in St. Matthew and St. Luke, in immediate connection with the foregoing discourse."^[3]

The details about why John the Baptist was executed was first revealed in the Gospel of Mark, and then copied with less detail in the Gospel of Matthew^[4] while omitted from the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John.

So how did Mark learn the details? It's possible that he learned it directly from the dancer Salome, whom some speculate was same "Salome" referenced near the end of Mark in the first visitation to the Tomb.

Possible reasons include:

• Jesus instructed John and the others not to talk about it, and John fully honored that command even after the Resurrection.
• Like other events described by others while left out by John, the Transfiguration did not fit easily into the very structured and elegant theological explanation comprising the Gospel of John.

Mark's eyewitness account is from the shore, not from the boat, and it too dark to see Peter's walking on the water. Mark was not in the boat to see Peter leave and return.

Matthew was unable to verify this, but Mark knew Salome (who was probably his mother) and thus could verify and describe it.

Mark was a non-Apostle eyewitness, and probably a youngster. He was unlikely to have been present to witness Jesus reciting the Lord's Prayer for the Apostles.

After describing the early part of the Passion, Mark then explains that "a young man" fled as authorities tried to seize him. Mark 14:51-52 (ESV). That young man was presumably Mark, so what is the source of his eyewitness account after he fled, which includes all of Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Mark? Possibilities include:

• Mark returned to the scene;
• Women at the scene reported to Mark what happened, just as they did for their initial visit to the Tomb in Chapter 16; or
• Peter supplied this information to Mark, as some early Christians surmised.

(add more)