Editing Gospel of Mark (section)

===Setting===
The Gospel of Mark was written in Greek, for a [[gentile]] audience, and probably in [[Rome]], although [[Galilee]], [[Antioch]] (third-largest city in the [[Roman Empire]], located in northern Syria), and [[southern Syria]] have also been suggested.{{sfn|Perkins|2007|p=241}}{{sfn|Burkett|2002|p=157}} Theologian and former [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] [[Rowan Williams]] proposed that Libya was a possible setting, as it was the location of Cyrene and there is a long-held Arabic tradition of Mark's residence there.<ref>{{cite book|title=Meeting God in Mark|date=2014|author-link=Rowan Williams|first=Rowan|last=Williams|page=17}}</ref>

The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels are a subset of the ancient genre of {{lang|grc-Latn|bios}}, or [[ancient biography]].{{sfn|Lincoln|2004|p=133}} Ancient biographies were concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate while preserving and promoting the subject's reputation and memory, and also included morals and rhetoric in their works.{{sfn|Dunn|2005|p=174}} Like all the synoptic gospels, the purpose of writing was to strengthen the faith of those who already believed, as opposed to serving as a tractate for missionary conversion.{{sfn|Aune|1987|p=59}} Christian churches were small communities of believers, often based on households (an autocratic patriarch plus extended family, slaves, freedmen, and other clients), and the evangelists often wrote on two levels: one the "historical" presentation of the story of Jesus, the other dealing with the concerns of the author's own day. Thus the proclamation of Jesus in Mark 1:14 and the following verses, for example, mixes the terms Jesus would have used as a 1st-century Jew ("kingdom of God") and those of the early church ("believe", "gospel").{{sfn|Aune|1987|p=60}}

Christianity began within [[Judaism]], with a Christian "church" (or {{lang|grc|ἐκκλησία}}, {{lang|grc-Latn|ekklesia}}, meaning 'assembly') that arose shortly after Jesus's death when some of his followers claimed to have witnessed him risen from the dead.{{sfn|Lössl|2010|p=43}} From the outset, Christians depended heavily on [[Jewish literature]], supporting their convictions through the Jewish scriptures.{{sfn|Gamble|1995|p=23}} Those convictions involved a nucleus of key concepts: the messiah, the [[son of God]] and the [[son of man]], the [[suffering servant]], the [[Day of the Lord]], and the [[kingdom of God]]. Uniting these ideas was the common thread of apocalyptic expectation: Both Jews and Christians believed that the end of history was at hand, that God would very soon come to punish their enemies and establish his own rule, and that they were at the centre of his plans. Christians read the Jewish scripture as a figure or type of Jesus Christ, so that the goal of Christian literature became an experience of the living Christ.{{sfn|Collins|2000|p=6}} The new movement spread around the eastern Mediterranean and to Rome and further west, and assumed a distinct identity, although the groups within it remained extremely diverse.{{sfn|Lössl|2010|p=43}}[[File:Codex Alexandrinus list of kephalaia.JPG|right|thumb|250px|List of kephalaia (chapters) in the Gospel of Mark, placed after the [[Colophon (publishing)|colophon]] of the [[Gospel of Matthew]] and before the Gospel of Mark, in the [[Codex Alexandrinus]] (AD 400–440)]]