Exquisite reading (gospel of Mark)

Book Club December 2019. Gospel Mark

Yesterday I went looking for something general about Mark on the Internet. I found David Suchet (of Agatha Christie fame as Poirot) being introduced in St Paul's Cathedral in London and reading the whole of the book of Mark.

It is a two-hour session, so I haven't heard and watched all of it yet, but it is excellent. Not the King James Version, but he didn't actually name the translation (Ed. I believe it's NIV). Exquisite reading.*

David Suchet has been recorded reading the whole of the Bible!

Meanwhile, in the Reading Room on Friday I came across an article Bible Texts and Manuscripts by Walter Meredith, which I found to be a valuable source on the history of the publications which have gone into the evolution of the sacred word-- see Christian Science Journal April 1948. (Non-subscribers to jsh-online can request a copy of this article from any Christian Science Reading Room.) It gives a history of the biblical writings from their earliest days of papyrus, which, being fragile, suffered much from use. 

Meredith's article was written about the time of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it doesn't mention them. So no doubt scholars have updated some of the information that is given in the article.

Joyce Voysey

* Suchet mentions his fellow actor Alex McCowen who performed this gospel by heart in venues around the world, including the White House. Mr McCowen is mentioned by Bible teacher Madelon Maupin in her most recent teaching on Mark.

Ed. I found these paragraphs from Meredith's article most enlightening:

Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 179): "The Old and the New Testaments contain self-evident truths that cannot be lost, but being translations, the Scriptures are criticized. Some dangerous skepticism exists as to the verification of our Master's sayings. But Christians and Christian Scientists know that if the Old Testament and gospel narratives had never been written, the nature of Christianity, as depicted in the life of our Lord, and the truth in the Scriptures, are sufficient to authenticate Christ's Christianity as the perfect ideal."

 ...as late as 303 A.D. the Roman emperor Diocletian issued an edict ordering that the churches should be abolished and all Christian writings destroyed.