Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 6

More cult expectations, and the embrace of magic/miracle folklore

 
Devout Christians have always been coached by their clergy to believe—to accept without question—that the gospels tell to true story of Jesus. Apparently this works pretty well, as long as the faithful decline to read the gospels. It seems they’re willing to be deceived. But whenever folks undertake critical reading of the gospels, and carefully compare the gospels that made it into the New Testament—and are willing as well to consider the stories from our modern perspective on how the world works—they can spot the problems and improbabilities right away. The 6^th chapter of Mark’s gospel offers plenty of examples. Actually, Mark’s gospel is chock full of examples, as Richard Carrier demonstrates brilliantly in his 30 July 2024 essay, All the Fantastical Things in the Gospel according to Mark.     
 


Mark 6:1-6, Jesus at his home town
 
We read here that Jesus preached at the local synagogue, and was not well received. People wondered how this home-town boy could presume to be a messenger from god. “Where did this man get all this?” The locals knew the family—the text even mentions the brothers of Jesus by name, James, Joses, Judah, and Simon—and “are not his sisters here with us?” It turns out that Jesus “could do no deed of power there,” although he did manage to cure a few sick people by laying his hands of them. But the punch line comes at the end: “And he was amazed at their unbelief.” The author of Mark had the Jesus cult in mind here: it was a serious error not to believe what the cult leader declared. 
 
This text has also been an embarrassment for the Catholic church, which has indulged in Mary worship for centuries, that is Mary, Queen of Heaven—who remained, so the church claims, a virgin forever. But here is the list of Jesus’ brothers, and his sisters are mentioned as well. How can this be explained, to keep Mary forever pure? Some Catholic apologists have argued that these were actually cousins of Jesus, or even children that Joseph had from a previous marriage. But the earliest gospel writer didn’t have the heavy emotional investment in Mary, so mentioned Jesus’ siblings. When Matthew copied this section of Mark, he included the names of the siblings as well. Of course, scholars ponder the deeper question: where did Mark find this list of brothers? He wrote decades after the life of Jesus, and after the very destructive war that the Jews fought against the Romans, during which Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. Did any archives survive, where he could find the documentation about Jesus’ family? Mark did not mention his source; we have no reason whatever to credit Mark as a historian. It's just as likely that this story came from his imagination. 
 
So if Catholic apologists are okay with the Bible getting it wrong, they can breathe a sigh of relief about Mary’s perpetual virginity. 
 
Mark 6:6-13, Jesus sends his disciples out to preach
 
After being disrespected in his home town, Jesus went to other villages to proclaim his message. But he also instructed his disciples to do the same thing, that is, they were to go out two-by-two in this campaign. Part of this delegation of tasks included the banishment of demons: he “gave them authority over the unclean spirits.” In making the case for the Jesus cult, Mark was confident that his holy hero had high ranking in the spiritual realm. In time, of course, Jesus would be considered part of the Holy Trinity of god. This high ranking included the ability to nullify unclean spirits, which were considered the source of mental illnesses, or even just weird behaviors. We have moved far beyond that concept, which is a relic of ancient superstition. We are entitled to wonder what the author meant when he wrote that Jesus gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Just how would he have done that? There is no hint that the disciples were especially bright—in fact, at so many points, they seem especially dumb. We saw in Mark 5 that Jesus had transferred demons from a man into pigs, with no detailed explanation as to how he did that. So we wonder too exactly how Jesus gave his disciples authority over unclean spirits. Naturally, ancient superstitions don’t yield easily to rational inquiry. 
 
In verses 10 and 11, we find this Jesus-script: “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” However, when Matthew copied this story, he intensified the warning—and the punishment: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” (Matthew 10:14-15)
 
Sodom and Gomorrah were burned to the ground by god’s wrath (Genesis 19). If any one of us turned away Mormon missionaries who had come knocking at our door, and then heard them yelling back at us that their god would burn our house down, we would probably mutter something like, “Jeez, what a nutjob cult!” It’s hard to resist the same conclusion when we read this alarming Jesus-script. But always keep in mind that the gospel authors were pushing their Jesus-cult, and verse 13 also is meant to prove its power: “They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
 
Mark 6:14-29, The death of John the Baptist
 
In this section of Mark 6 we read about a banquet that King Herod had given for members of his court and for “the leaders of Galilee.” We are told what Herod said to his daughter after she had danced for the group—and what daughter and mother had said in private conversation. Any curious reader would want to know what Mark’s sources were for this information. Was someone there taking careful notes that somehow ended up in an archive that Mark was able to access decades later? That’s how authentic history is written. It’s worth noting, by the way, that when Matthew decided to use this story when he copied from Mark, he shortened it, leaving out sentences. So which one of them was divinely inspired to write the scene accurately? 
 
Mark 6:30-44, Feeding the five thousand
 
This section begins with bragging about how popular Jesus was. The holy hero and his disciples “…went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.” The problem for devout Jesus scholars is that there are no contemporary records of any such wildly popular itinerate preacher. But we’re told that Jesus had compassion on them, and proclaimed his message. When it got late, the disciples suggested that Jesus send them on their way to find something to eat. But this was an opportunity for Jesus to show off his miracle skills. The disciples had five loaves of bread, and two fish—and Jesus turned these meagre provisions into enough food for five thousand people. With leftovers even! Twelve baskets of leftovers. Mark left out the details about exactly how Jesus did this trick. Today devout folks cherish this supposed miracle, without wondering how it was done—or showing much concern that it might be a fragment of ancient miracle folklore. 
 
We are entitled to wonder why Jesus doesn’t perform such miracles today. Christians claim that Jesus has a real presence in their lives and in the world—but in the real world, thousands of people starve to death every day. Jesus no longer has the power to do something about that?
 
Mark 6:45-52, Jesus walks on water
 
After the busy day with the vast crowd of five thousand people, Jesus put the disciples in a boat, and went up a mountain to pray. Later he noticed them “straining at the oars against an adverse wind.” So he headed back down to the sea, and walked on the water to reach them, although Mark reports that “he intended to pass them by.” But there’s a happy ending: “…they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded…” Mark gets in a final warning about being aware of basic cult beliefs about their holy hero: “…they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.” And it would not be a good idea to have hardened hearts about Jesus being able to walk on water. 
 
Mark 6:53-56, Healing the sick in Gennesaret 
 
The boat finally arrived on shore, at Gennesaret. “When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.” And again, magic pulsed through Jesus’ clothing: “…they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.” Mark was an expert propagandist for the Jesus cult; he possessed superior skill for using his imagination to the full.  
 
I’ll give the final word to ORAXX, who made this comment on the Debunking Christianity Blog on 30 May 2025:
 
“The gospels were in fact, divinely inspired. What is not generally known however is that God had consumed several barrels of communion wine and was feeling puckish. Being fairly well pickled, he concluded it would be great fun to inspire the gospel writers to produce a confusing and ambiguous document, whereupon he could sit back and watch them fight it out. I made that up, but making stuff up is what we theologians do best.”
 
 
 
 
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
·      Guessing About God (2023),
·    Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available. 
·      Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
 
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
 
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.