Jesus' Deity in the Gospel according to Mark

A common claim made by skeptics is that Mark was the first of the four Gospels to be written. The other longer Gospels that followed took what Mark wrote and added extra details, sometimes expanding on the legend. By the time John wrote his Gospel, Jesus had gone from a wise teacher as portrayed in Mark, to being God himself.

There are many problems with this theory. First that the church fathers are unanimous in saying that Matthew wrote first. Second that Mark has some details that the other Gospels don't have, so the idea that they just expanded on what he had said makes less sense if they were taking important things out too. Third that the length and content of the Gospels has more relation to who their intended audiences were than the order they were written in. And fourth, which is the point of this article, that there was no legendary embellishment of who Jesus is from Mark to the later authors.

So here we will go through Mark's Gospel and draw out how it tells us about Jesus' deity loud and clear. To me, Mark's Gospel seems the best place of the four to start, as it is the shortest, and the other Gospels do cover some of the same ground, so when I come to cover those books I can leave out the passages with events already looked over here. You may like to have a Bible handy while going through this for reference, though the most relevant details will be included. I have skipped some sections, so there's every likelihood I haven't noticed something that is a subtle clue to Jesus' deity, but there is more than enough here to cover it without doubt.

Does God Allow Us To Keep Slaves? (New Testament)

The slavery debate has been settled in our society for a good while now. We know it's wrong to take a person and keep them as property that we can do whatever we want with. Thankfully slavery is now illegal after a lot of hard fighting by people including Christians like Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce.

But some people think that the Bible allows or even commands us to keep slaves. If that's the case that seems to mean that God of the Bible is less than perfect morally. Fortunately for us, God, Jesus, and the Bible do not allow keeping slaves. So there's your short answer.

How about a slightly longer answer? Try these:

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

In Jesus' ideal world, all people are equally important. If everyone is meant to be equal, then slaves are a complete no-no.

"For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body--whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." 1 Corinthians 12:13

Just to reiterate a point...
And finally, in case so far it sounds like the New Testament is OK with slavery because one day slaves won't exist any more, here's an Old Testament verse to put it all in perspective:

"Anyone who kidnaps and sells another person must be put to death. If they still have the person with them when they are caught, they must be put to death." Exodus 21:16

The trouble I think most people have with seeing passages in the Bible about slavery is that they read them through 21st century eyes. For most of us, our understanding of slavery is completely based on the image of black people being taken from their homes in Africa and forced into hard labour by rich white people. They were seen as property, no better than livestock, and had no respect or rights. They were considered sub-human. When we hear the word 'slave', we think of the worst type of slavery, because that's what we're familiar with. We can call this kind of slavery 'chattel slavery'. Sounds a bit like cattle, if it helps you remember. (The word 'chattel' is derived from 'cattle' anyway).
But the above verse from Exodus clearly says that taking someone and holding them as property to be sold is wrong. If that doesn't describe slavery as we know it, I don't know what does.

Can't God Just Rearrange The Stars And Write His Name To Prove He Exists?

It's often heard from sceptics that they would change their minds and believe that God exists if he does something big and grand like that. He won't do it...

"The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side" -- Mark 8:11–13 

God doesn't just want you to know he exists. He wants a relationship. Showing off his power while demanding your obedience isn't the way to go about that and he knows it.