Young Man in a Linen Cloth

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Maranatha

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My pastor said in his homily today that there is reason to believe the young man in the linen cloth in Mark 14:50-52 was the author of the Gospel. He mentioned that this detail is not recorded in the other synoptics which I assume refers to the Priority of Mark theory.

Has anyone heard this before?
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Maranatha:
My pastor said in his homily today that there is reason to believe the young man in the linen cloth in Mark 14:50-52 was the author of the Gospel. He mentioned that this detail is not recorded in the other synoptics which I assume refers to the Priority of Mark theory.

Has anyone heard this before?
  • TIA
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Maranatha,

I have heard both of these before–that Mark was the young man in the linen cloth and that Mark’s Gospel was the first one written. I don’t think that the two questions are related. The young man in the linen cloth himself would have been one of extremely few people to know that particular detail of the arrest of Jesus–the soldier who grabbed the cloth being about the only other person–and possibly the only one who would have been in a position to put it into a Gospel.
  • Liberian
 
Of course, nobody knows for sure, but many of the commentators that I have read, Catholic and Protestant, have expressed the belief that the young man was, in fact, John Mark, the traditionally accredited author of the Gospel.

DaveBj
 
Thanks for the replies. Is there any tradition outside the written Gospel that supports this position or is it the speculation of modern analysis?
 
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Maranatha:
Thanks for the replies. Is there any tradition outside the written Gospel that supports this position or is it the speculation of modern analysis?
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Maranatha,

Sorry, I haven’t a clue.
  • Liberian
 
I think there is some tradition for the Last Supper having been held in the home of John Mark’s parents and that John Mark was a teenager at the time.

I have seen it speculated that when Jesus and the Apostles left for the Garden of Olives John Mark woke up, pulled the sheet around him and followed them to see what was happening.

No proof, but a reasonable scenario.
 
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Liberian:
Maranatha,

The young man in the linen cloth himself would have been one of extremely few people to know that particular detail of the arrest of Jesus–the soldier who grabbed the cloth being about the only other person–and possibly the only one who would have been in a position to put it into a Gospel.
  • Liberian
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What? You think a streaker would not be noticed by others?

“Don’t look, Ethel! Too late; she’ d already got a free shot…”

“Ethel, you shameless hussy, you!!”
 
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otm:
What? You think a streaker would not be noticed by others?

. . . .
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There was a full moon, but it was night and in the woods, and there were more important things to attend to - like that guy waving a sword around.
 
Joe Kelley:
There was a full moon, but it was night and in the woods, and there were more important things to attend to - like that guy waving a sword around.
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I thought you were old enough to remember the song…
 
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otm:
I thought you were old enough to remember the song…
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I’m old enough, and I laughed out loud when I read your post.

Mane Nobiscum Domine,
Ferdinand Mary
 
Possibly the reason that this is believed (the author being that young man) is that otherwise Mark is an economical story teller. He’s like a news reporter reporting what he sees, who’s been assigned to cover Jesus and doesn’t go off on diversions very often (Luke is his opposite it seems). So these two verses seem out of character for Mark and why would that be? We’ve been reading Mark during Lent at an ECUSA site and discussing it and were talking about these verses. The other idea was that possibly it meant something to the early Church culturally that has been lost to us later folk.
 
The tradition that the young man in the linen cloth is Mark is from the early Church Fathers, not from the currently popular Historical Criticism method, although the HC method might agree with this particular tradition.
 
The Haydock Notes in the DR Bible comments that the young man was probably the owner, or son of the owner, of the garden, who hearing the tumult came to see what was the cause.
 
Maranatha said:
He mentioned that this detail is not recorded in the other synoptics which I assume refers to the Priority of Mark theory.
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It does not necessarily follow that because Mark included this detail and the other synoptic writers did not means that Mark was written first. It could have been included here (and not included in the other synoptics) for any number of reasons, including the sacred author’s personal familiarization with the event, importance to the intended audience, etc.
 
These posts may come close to the literal meaning, but I am still struggling with the spiritual sense of this scripture.

And, in that sense, one idea is that the young man represents the heavenly host departing, as Jesus, as they say, began to experience the wrath of God. Jesus was at that time beginning to suffer for our sins, and no one could give Him comfort. A man dressed in a sheet appears in the resurrection accounts, when Jesus’ suffering has been completed.
 
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