What does it mean?

[Rhabdo]

Hi everyone, Christian greetings to you all... I'm new to this so please forgive me if I'm wont to make a mess of any formal codes...

I have this burnng question: I've been reading through St Marks Gospel, and I was wondering about the first verse:

The Begining of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

I was wondering if Jesus and the Gospel are eternal, how could the Gospel then say the Good News has a begining? Is there a begining to the eternal, or to eternity? Could that be a translators mistake? It does seem to suggst that the gospel is bound in time.

 

[HypnoToad]

Jesus is eternal, no problem there.

But I'm wondering, where the idea that the Gospel message is eternal comes from. Do you have a Scripture reference to that? I could agree that the Gospel message is "everlasting" (had a beginning, but lasts forever), but "eternal" I don't recall off the top of my head.

Aside from that, couldn't Mark just be saying, "this is the beginning of my letter"?

 

[JTLauder]

I agree, this verse is the first sentence in the book and serves as the introduction. It's the beginning of the gospel book, the discourse of Mark. It's like saying, "Here's the start of my story..."

Because if you look at the first chapter of Mark, it starts with Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist. It doesn't even cover Jesus' birth and his early life, like it does in Matthew and Luke. So it's not the actual "beginning" of the story of Jesus, but the beginning of Mark's telling of the gospel.

 

[epyon]

Yes Jesus and the Gospel are eternal.

 

[IamAdopted]

This is the beginning of Marks account of the Gospel. There are four of them all together.. Jesus and the scritpures are forever settled in heaven and on earth.

 

[Aibrean]

NIV, KJV & NASB reads:
The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

What version are you reading from? Literal translations read "The Begining of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Son of God."