My brother Will once had the misfortune of taking a New Testament class with one of those professors whose chief joy seems to be the destruction of youthful faith for reasons that are more psychological than intellectual. Among other things this professor claimed that “Mark did not believe Jesus was divine in the ontological sense.”

Quite apart from the obvious and gleeful departure from Christian dogmatics in a statement like this, the professor was just being an idiot. If you are looking for a full-blown Platonic or other such theory of divinity developed by Mark in which Jesus is subsequently forced to fit, then you will certainly be disappointed. But that says far more about your own preconceptions of divinity than anything else. And if there is one thing all the gospels are determined to do, it is to demonstrate the falsity of your preconceptions of divinity.

Mark does not have a direct, theoretic christology; in other words, Mark is not John. There is no lilting prologue to help us interpret all the action that follows. But Mark repeatedly drops clues as to Jesus’ true identity, if you are capable of interpreting them correctly. Most of the time Mark assumes you are actually not capable of interpreting them correctly: to Mark, faith in Christ gets harder and harder, not easier and easier.

The first major clue Mark drops is in ch. 2. There is a syllogism of sorts proving Jesus’ divinity, but it functions narratively instead of logically. The Pharisees say: Who can forgive sins but God alone? Since forgiveness can’t be seen, Jesus gives a sign by doing something “harder”: making the paralytic walk. This proves that Jesus can also forgive sins… and if he can forgive sins, he must be… God.

Then in ch. 4, Jesus stills the storm. This time it is the disciples who ask the astonished question, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” There is only one possible answer. Mark lets you fill it in yourself.

In ch. 10, Jesus challenges the rich young man: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” The problem is not that the young man is incorrect. The problem is that he says the words without knowing what he is saying (a frequent problem in the gospels!). The rich young man is always almost there, but not quite. He doesn’t get who Jesus is, even though he says the right words; he doesn’t get what righteousness is, even though he keeps all the commandments, because of that final step of giving up everything he owns.

In ch. 14, Jesus says the words that we usually associate with John’s gospel: “I AM,” ego eimi in the Greek. The resonances here are just as powerful as in the fourth gospel: Jesus is finally, in the face of all the false testimony, revealing his true name, which earns him condemnation to death.

It is on the cross where the human preconceptions about divinity are at their most pernicious. The teacher, healer, feeder is dying a hideous death, but the crowd still wants to set their own conditions for faith in him: “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Give us our proof (ontological or otherwise!), the way we want it, then we’ll believe. It turns out to be the one who has no reason to believe at all, the centurion, who understands what he’s seeing: “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

Then the story ends in its abrupt way. In 16:1-8, there is not a single mention of God, at least not by the name of “God.” There is only talk of Jesus, who “has risen,” and is awaiting them in Galilee. How can anyone rise from the dead? Who must he be to have done it? The answer is there… if you have the ears to hear.