There is (almost) universal consensus among scholars that Mark’s gospel, although second in our New Testament, was the first gospel written — sometime around the year 70AD. Before Mark created the genre we call “gospel” St. Paul preached about Jesus — but talked very little about the events of his life before the Last Supper. There is some evidence that there was a collection of the sayings of Jesus before the gospel was written as well. It was Mark’s genius, as someone who did not walk the dusty roads of Galilee with Jesus, to understand that telling the story of the things that Jesus said and did was important for people coming to the faith for then we could see how we were supposed to live!
