Decoding Mark by John Dart

by John Dart

Using both his background in interpreting biblical research and his interest in word-puzzles, nationally known journalist John Dart "decodes" the "Gospel of Mark," with explosive results that will shake the foundation of New Testament studies. Dart uses ancient, puzzle-like writing devices called "chiasms," which are found throughout "Mark," to reconstruct the original Gospel. By the presence or absence of these chiasms, he identifies sections of the Gospel that were added by a later editor, and he recovers passages from the "Secret Gospel of Mark" (a work discovered in 1958) that the pattern of chiasms indicates had been deleted from canonical "Mark." The results are stunning and certain to be controversial.

Paperback

First published October 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jacob G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Dart presents Kiasms he has found in the Book of Mark - introduction to ending, and five sections making up the entire book and Kiastic to each other. He claims these Kiasms proves the fragments that Morton Smith found were part of orignal Mark but we have a version of Mark where those were take out, and a long series of miracles were inserted (Mark 7 and 8 IIRC).
Morton Smith to my eye looks untrustworthy, but I have no problems with the fragments. They say the rich young man that Jesus loved is basically Lazarus. If so that adds a lot of depth to the story. The other thing is the fragments make mention of a week long sacred rite which involves dressing up and re-enacting important events in scripture that correspond to the framework of our lives, creation:birth, fall:loss-of-innocence, death, resurection, etc. This understanding and the fragments clearly make sense of Mark 14:51 - that young man is the initiate, going through this sacred rite, and is at the stage where you wear the linen burial sheet.
That said his exact Kiasms didn't completely convince, and his understanding of the 7 day long sacred rite seems to be what he wants it to be, because there is no surviving description or explanation of it.