Is Mark in the Bible? Yes, John Mark, Whom Tradition Names as a Gospel Writer

Yes. Mark is a New Testament name. John Mark traveled with Paul and Barnabas, and Christian tradition holds that he wrote the Gospel of Mark. The name comes from the Latin Marcus, and the King James Version spells it Marcus in three of the eight verses that use it.

What does the name Mark mean?

Mark is the English form of Marcus, one of the most common Roman first names. Marcus was probably formed from Mars, the Roman god of war, which is why books of names give Mark meanings such as “of Mars” or “warlike.” The derivation is likely but not certain. Mark Antony, the Roman general, was Marcus Antonius, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius bore the same first name.

Mark has no Hebrew meaning, because it is not a Hebrew name, and it does not appear in the Old Testament. The New Testament, written in Greek, spells it Markos. The man who bore it was nevertheless a Jew: Paul lists him among the few fellow workers who were “of the circumcision,” that is, Jewish believers (Colossians 4:10–11), and his other name, John, is the Hebrew Yohanan.

The name has a form in most European languages: Marcos in Spanish and Portuguese, Marc in French, Marco in Italian and Markus in German and the Scandinavian languages. Arabic Bibles call him Marqus (مرقس). Mark was not common in the English-speaking world until the 19th century. In the United States it ranked sixth among names for boys every year from 1959 to 1964, and 244th in 2025.

Is Marcus in the Bible?

Yes, as another spelling of the same man’s name. The Greek Markos appears in eight verses of the New Testament. The King James Version translates it “Mark” five times and “Marcus” three times: in Colossians 4:10, in Philemon 24, and in 1 Peter 5:13, which reads, “The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.” Modern translations use Mark throughout. Mark is not a short form of Marcus; it is the same name in its English shape.

Who is Mark in the Bible?

The New Testament mentions Mark in Acts and in four letters. Christian tradition has usually taken all of these passages to mean one man:

• Acts 12:12. After Peter’s escape from prison, he goes to the Jerusalem house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where believers had gathered to pray.
• Acts 12:25 and 13:5. Barnabas and Saul take him with them from Jerusalem, and he serves as their helper in Cyprus.
• Acts 13:13. At Perga in Pamphylia he leaves them and returns to Jerusalem. Acts gives no reason.
• Acts 15:37–40. Paul refuses to take him on a second journey, Paul and Barnabas quarrel over it, and Barnabas sails to Cyprus with Mark while Paul sets out with Silas.
• Colossians 4:10 and Philemon 24. Later Mark is with Paul and sends greetings. The King James Version calls him “sister’s son to Barnabas,” but the Greek word, anepsios, means cousin, as modern translations have it.
• 2 Timothy 4:11. Paul asks for him: “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”
• 1 Peter 5:13. Peter sends greetings from “Marcus my son.”

Did Mark write the Gospel of Mark?

The Gospel does not name its author, but the manuscripts that give it a title all name Mark: “according to Mark.” The earliest writers who explain the title connect Mark with Peter. Papias, a bishop in Asia Minor early in the second century, called Mark Peter’s interpreter. Irenaeus of Lyons, around 180, said Mark wrote down Peter’s preaching after the deaths of Peter and Paul. Clement of Alexandria, as reported by the historian Eusebius, said that people in Rome who had heard Peter asked Mark to write out what he remembered, and that when Peter learned of it “he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it” (Church History 6.14.7).

Modern scholars are divided. Many regard the Gospel as anonymous; others accept that a man named Mark wrote it without being sure he was the John Mark of Acts. Most date it to around AD 70 and think it was the first Gospel written, and that Matthew and Luke drew on it. Augustine had thought the opposite, that Mark “follows [Matthew] closely, and looks like his attendant and epitomizer” (Harmony of the Gospels 1.2).

It is the shortest of the four Gospels. It begins without a birth story: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). The two oldest complete copies of Mark in Greek, in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, end at Mark 16:8, with the women running from the empty tomb, “for they were afraid.” Most manuscripts add verses 9 to 20, with appearances of the risen Jesus, and modern editions print those verses with a note or in brackets.

Why is Saint Mark shown as a lion?

Christian art gives each Gospel writer one of the four living creatures that Ezekiel and Revelation describe around the throne of God, with the faces of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10; Revelation 4:7). Early writers did not agree on who had which. Irenaeus gave Mark the eagle, because his Gospel opens with the prophets. The arrangement that prevailed, used by Jerome, gave Mark the lion, because his Gospel opens with “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Mark 1:3), like a lion roaring in the desert. The winged lion of Venice, whose patron he is, comes from this tradition.

Is Mark a Christian name?

Mark is the name of one of the four evangelists, and Christians have used it in his honor. Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox Christians keep his feast on 25 April; the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Orthodox churches that follow the Julian calendar keep it on the day that falls on 8 May in the civil calendar. The Coptic Church holds that Mark brought the Gospel to Alexandria and was martyred there in 68, and its head bears the title Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark. A fourth-century bishop of Rome, Pope Mark, also bore the name.

Related reading

• Is Markus in the Bible? Yes, English Bibles Spell It Mark
• John Mark in the New Testament
• Facts and statistics about Peter

Related reading

• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names