All of this is just one example of how the author crafted an intricate multi-layered narrative, through the use of literary allusions, which it is clear that the author intended his audience to be able to decipher. This type of complex writing makes it clear that the author is crafting a story - the author is not merely chronicling events or recording anecdotes that he heard from other people. We see this all throughout the Gospel called Mark. The author makes copious use of symbolism, foreshadowing, irony and literary allusion, including foreshadowing through literary allusion. These are all hallmarks which indicate that the author invented this story from whole cloth himself. The narrative of the story we call the Gospel of Mark is clearly crafted with purpose and intent by the author.
Not only that, but much of the story is related to the destruction of the First Jewish-Roman War. The destruction of that war is a pervasive theme throughout the narrative, which means that the narrative can't be based on pre-existing anecdotes about Jesus from 30 CE - 60 CE, because so many of the scenes are based on literary allusions that deal with the war and the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. That the story is really about the war is made evident in the opening lines when the author quotes directly from Malachi and Isaiah 11, both of which deal with destruction brought upon Israel as a punishment from God.
This goes directly against the idea that the author of this story was merely recording some pre-existing collection of anecdotes about Jesus that existed as part of some community-based oral tradition. The way that most scholars today view the Gospels, in particular Mark, is that even if we acknowledge that the writers had no direct knowledge of Jesus, it is assumed that the events they describe in their writing were not at all invented by the writers themselves. The assumption is that the events described in the Gospels are records of some existing narrative. The assumption is that in all of the early writings about Jesus, none of the writers were inventors, that what they wrote down didn't originate in the minds of the writers. The assumption is that all of the Gospel writers were merely recording things that they had heard from other people - that the information came from some outside source.
My position on the Gospel called Mark is that this story was invented out of whole cloth by the author, and it does not reflect any significant oral tradition or pre-existing beliefs about Jesus. I don't think that there was any pre-existing story about Jesus having twelve disciples, being baptized by John the Baptist, healing people, feeding large groups of people, walking on water, throwing merchants out of the temple, being transfigured, being anointed, being betrayed by Judas, being tried, or even any narrative about his crucifixion. I think all of these things are pure inventions by the author of the story we call the Gospel of Mark.
The reason I think that is because all of these scenes in the Gospel called Mark are based on literary allusions, and all of these same scenes in other sources show clear dependence on Mark. This means that everyone else who wrote about these scenes is basing them on the accounts in Mark, which would only happen if there were no other accounts to go by. We know that the accounts in Mark aren't based on any oral tradition, because they are based on literary allusion. And the way that the narrative of Mark is crafted indicates that it can't possibly be some lose collection of pre-existing anecdotes, because the narrative itself fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. The only way that such a narrative can come into existence is through the intentional design of its author. And not only that, so much of the narrative revolves around events that occurred in 70 CE, namely the war and destruction of the temple.
If the narrative of Mark were based on some pre-existing oral tradition or based on accounts of real events that actually happened, then we would expect there to be entirely different independent accounts or independent accounts of these same events, and indeed for millennia it was believed that the four Gospels were evidence of independent accounts of the same sets of events. But now careful study shows us that the opposite is true. Careful study shows us that far from being independent accounts, every other account shows dependence on Mark, which is exactly what we are going to explore next.
