Mark for the Nations: A Text- And Reader-Oriented Commentary

Mark for the Nations is a translation by the author of his Swedish commentary on the Gospel of Mark. It is meant both for students of theology and for pastors, as well as for lay people. Hartman reads Mark's Gospel through the eyes of an early Gentile-Christian reader. For this reason he quotes much material from the Hellenistic world in translation. To some extent this material appears here for the first time in a gospel commentary. The analysis makes use of literary criticism and text linguistics, but avoids the technical terminology. To stimulate a modern reader's understanding of the evangelist's message to his first-century audience Hartman has endeavored to translate traditional terms into slightly more common language.

Lars Hartman is Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegesis at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is the author of Prophecy Interpreted: The Formation of Some Jewish Apocalyptic Texts and of the Eschatological Discourse Mark 13 Par. and Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1-5.