Spoke 19

Psalms, Mark, II John

And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

Mark 1.9f

The Gospel of Mark exhibits a number of unique features that integrate with its position upon the Wheel. It is the smallest Gospel, which correlates with the the Quph KeyWord (qatan, small). This relation is amplified by its geometric alignment with II John, the smallest book of the whole Bible. It also relates to the smallness of the "eye of a needle" which is the literal meaning of Quph.

The Gospel of Action

Mark is also the "fastest" Gospel, in the sense that it moves much more swiftly through the scenes of Christ's life than the other Gospels. For example, the above quote from Mark covers the Baptism and Temptation of Christ in a mere four verses. In contrast, Matthew and Luke each used 15 verses to describe the same events.

Ralph Earle describes the unique character of Mark's Gospel in the introduction to his book Mark - The Gospel of Action (emphasis added):

Mark's gospel is primarily the gospel of action. About two out of three verses begin with "And." In fact, a glance down through the first chapter will show that most of the verses begin that way. As someone has well observed, "His narrative runs." Over forty times we find "immediately," "straitway," or "forthwith" - all translations of the same Greek word. It might be said that while Matthew and Luke furnish us with colorslides of the life of Jesus, Mark gives us a moving picture.

Mr. Earles observation is borne out in the distribution of the words "immediately," "straightway," and "forthwith" throughtout the KJV, as displayed in the graph below. The peak in Mark's Gospel is particularly striking in that it is the smallest gospel.

This feature of Mark's Gospel integrates with the verse corresponding to Quph in the fourth chapter of Lamentations. In verse 19 we read:

Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

The word translated as swifter is the plural form of the adjective (Qal). This primary Quph KeyWord also appears in the opening verse of