I love the Mark story! I especially like the way the original ends in a cliffhanger: They fled the tomb, for they were terrified. The End.
Experts claim it was written post-70, because it mentions the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. But, as with Most Things Biblical, nothing's 100% for sure -- there are just too many gaps of information available.
It's my best source for a clear description of events, even though it was fiddled with. The background of Temple and priesthood corruption, the sacrificial and currency exchange fiddles, the Baptist's views about it all and how he showed his disgust, the outrageous Temple coin design, the human elements such as the people taking John's redemption (which saved them so much money!), his arrest, Jesus picking up the campaign and trying to take it forward....... which leads in to his comments such as the destruction of the whole nasty thing..... which was an early sign of what was to come.
Yeah...... it seems 'about right' to me.
And although I do not value the other gospels in the same way, they ALL have content which describes individuals, happenings, situations, incidents and speeches which I think are probably real........
It's interesting that they all include some (a few) passages which DON'T HELP the Christianity theme, and I take special notice of these because they probably are true in some way.
The above, when viewed together with the geography, the available archaeology, the inter provincial politics, the tensions between local leaders, the dialects, the available history about peasant livelihoods, taxation, etc etc, can produce a picture which I find to be quite different from the ideas of all those differing and contentious experts, professors, etrc.
The best book that I have read about the Jesus story was that of Geza Vermes, whereas Crosson's fixation with Roman patronage does seem to help throw light upon what the priesthood was doing whilst not offering any help for Galileans living under the authority of a Jewish Tetrarchy. Crosson's 'magic for meal' stuff is beneath the man Jesus, that I have found was so very capable, efficient and worthy of picking up the Baptist's cause.
It's a bloomin' jigsaw puzzle, and it's not fair because somebody took so many pieces out of the box, and put bits in that came from somewhere else.
I often wonder why I keep on bothering, but then I find that I cannot put it down.