The Genealogy of John Mark

I'm inclined towards believing every Mark/Marcus mentioned in the New Testament is the same person (and that person was never in Egypt).  But if they're separate we know the author of the Gospel According to Mark is the Mark associated with Peter, 1 Peter 5:13 and Acts 12:12.

Acts 12 in verses 12 and 25 link a "John whose surname was Mark" to both Peter and Paul and Barnabas.  Individually both of those were common enough we can't assume two people are the same simply for having that name.  But together it's a lot less common and I feel Acts 12:25 would only repeat the exact same wording as verse 12 if they wanted to tell us they were the same person.

Peter refers to Mark as his Son in chapter 5 verse 13 of his first epistle.  Most people don't take that exactly literally, or rather not biologically, but what if it is?  In Acts 12:12 Peter is liberated from prison and heads to the house of a Mary the mother of John Mark, maybe he was going to the house of his wife and son?  In 1 Corinthians 9:5 Paul says that all of the Apostles but him and Barnabas are married.

Now Mary was an insanely common name, so many are quite annoyed at attempts to identify different Marys with each other.  But I a made post last year arguing the individual Paul called Kepha was actually Mary Magdalene not Simon Peter.  I made a couple pretty strong smoking gun arguments, but the fact remains John 1:42 clearly identifies a Kephas with Peter.  What if it was because Peter and Mary Magdalene were married that this title became one they shared?  And Paul chose to use Petros for the Husband and Kepha was the Wife?

Next is the question of how Mark is related to Barnabas.  In Collisions 4:10 the word sometimes translated cousin or nephew (and "Sister's son" in the KJV) is a word for relative that doesn't really seem to be that specific.  This is the only time the New Testament ever uses this word, but it seems like there may be precedent for it not being a literal biological relation at all, and maybe Paul is just using it here because of the connection Mark and Barnabas had in Acts 15:36-39.

When we're first introduced Barnabas in Acts 4:36 he's described as being from Cyprus.  Later on he and Mark together become strongly tied to Cyprus in Acts 13 and 15:36-39.  I also argued for the possibility that Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are the same.  And there are some early traditions that suggest Lazarus and his Sisters fled to Cyrpus sometime soon after the events of the Fourth Gospel.

I'm not interested in whether or not I agree with the Seven Ecumenical Councils.

 First, for people who don't know what I'm referring to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_seven_ecumenical_councils

I want to state that this goes both ways, I'm not so Anarchic that I'm gonna act like whatever decision the councils made must be wrong, that attitude also gives them too much power.  I feel like I basically agree with the main Theological decisions of the first four Ecumenical Councils, but those Councils also made smaller decisions on things like Church Hierarchy that I can't get behind.  The issue around which the 6th Council was convened I haven't even looked into enough to know if I'd have an opinion on it.  The rest are issues I have and will continue to look into on this Blog.

To me The Bible is not just the Final Authority but the only Authority. Now people will point to Acts 15 as Biblical Support for the idea of Church Councils.  First of all that Council was attended by The Apostles, I've already refuted the notion that Apostolic Authority can be passed on.  So this is the only Council that has Apostolic Authority, and it's decision and historical context is recorded for us in Scripture.

But secondly, even if you convinced me some Councils, like the Pre-Nicene/Pre-Constantine ones, mattered even a little bit.  The Ecumenical Councils wee in direct violation of passages like 1 Corinthians 6 and Matthew 18 that forbid Christians from turning to Civil Authorities to settle disputes.  It doesn't matter if a head of state is a Christian, their authority is Civil not Ecclesiastical.  The Council of Nicaea was presided over by Constantine himself, and the Bishops asked him to do it, maybe because they felt he'd be a neutral party.  Constantine was not Baptized till he was on his death bed.  To me Baptism has nothing to do with Salvation, but to most Ecumenical Council affirming Christians you at least have to be Baptized to be considered a part of The Church.

The second Ecumenical Council was convened by the Emperor who first made Christianity the state religion of the Empire for the purpose of defining what his new state religion was.  The first Council of Ephesus basically became two councils and it was Theodosius II who decided which one was right.  Chalecdon wasn't even headed by a Bishop but by a committee of Senators and government officials  The 5th Ecumenical Council was entirely a product of Justinian's misguided agenda to try and fix the Chalcedonian schism by further pushing away the Nesotrians and others who were simply associated with them.

So for this reason the Ecumenical councils are the least authoritative councils not the most.  They are The Church marrying the State, the Sin of Pergamos.

There is also debate about how many of these even fit what the word "Ecumenical" is supposed to mean.  The first two councils held in Constantinople had less then half as many attendees as Nicaea.  For Nicaea Constantine had invited 1,800 Bishops, 1000 in the east and 800 in the west, but only 318 max showed up.  Now it'd be easy for a moderner to throw a "if you don't vote you can't complain" argument at those who didn't attend, but maybe the majority of Bishops actually understood the Biblical Arguments against doing a council like this I laid out above.  Only 5 Bishops represented the entire Western half of the Empire.

One Bishop known to be missing is Lyon's, Lyon was the oldest Church in Gaul the one founded by Irenaeus and other immigrants from Asia Minor but principally Smyrna in the second century.  But neither Maximus of Lyon or Tetradius of Lyon attended instead Gaul was represented by a Bishop of a much less significant city, Nicasius of Die.  We also know Britannia had 3 bishops at this time including one for York, but whether or not any attended Nicaea is disputed.  But it's not just looking West, East of the Empire there were Papa bar Aggai and Simeon Bar Sabbae leading the Church in Babylonia/Persia, there's no evidence they attended the council either.

The 7th and last Council had only 35 attendees and no Frankish Bishops were represented which agitated Charlemagne.  Only Chalcedon had significantly more attendees then the first one, and that was still only 520.  The 3rd and 4th Councils caused Schisms, not even everyone who attended consented to their outcomes.

The fact is I don't consider any of the issues these Councils debated all that important to whether one is a "True Christian" or not.  Now ultimately nothing besides if you call Jesus Lord and believe He's the Son of God matters to if you're a "True Christian" or not.  In other words there pretty much are no false Christians in my view, I firmly believe that because of 1 John 4:15 and 1 Corinthians 12:3.

But even after that the issues discussed at these Councils are not at the top of the list of issues I consider it important to be right on.  Being right on the issue of The Bodily Resurrection and Soterology are certainly above them in importance based on 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5.

Some of my allies on Universal Salvation insist they don't want to make it a core essential doctrine of the Faith, and yet are certainly Ecumenical Christians to some extent.  To me being right or wrong on this issue is ultimately more important even then if you're right on The Trinity.  And after those two vital issues I may even consider the Virgin Birth and Pre-Millenialism more important then The Trinity.

Again to be clear my view of the Trinity is a Nicene one, especially in the context of my research into Old Testament Trinity passages.  But I am sympathetic to those at the Council who weren't even slightly Arian but still uncomfortable with the word Homusias because it was Unbiblical and condemned by an earlier Pre-Nicene council for it's association with Modalism, and some claim it was Constantine himself who insisted on this word being in the Creed.

And there are some passages like Hebrews 1-2 that I'm not sure how to refute the Arian interpretation of.  So I can't consider people like Arians or Unitarians damnable heretics, especially not the ones around today who are with me on Universal Salvation.

I know I may be reinforcing the notion among critics of Universal Salvation that it is a heresy by  admitting to it making me feel some kinship with Untarians and Mormons.  But my point is you should consider Salvation more important whatever your position on Salvation is.  And no Universal Salvation is not a reason for me to break with the Ecumenical Councils, the 7th and final one declared Gregory of Nyssa a "Father of the Fathers", and numerous people have already debunked the notion that Universal Salvation was condemned by the fifth council.  (It's not an Ecumenical Council but the council of Orange condemned both Pelagianism and Double-Predestination equally.) C Baxter Kruger very strongly ties The Trinity to his view of Universal Salvation.

Soteorlogy was not directly the subject of any of the Ecumenical Councils, though I know Ryan Reeves likes to explain how it's all indirectly relevant. But the fact is none of these hard to understand nuances of Theology or Christology matter so long as you simply believe what The Bible says about Jesus being without Sin and dying for our Sins and being Risen to a Bodily Resurrection.

Protestant Christianity is divided between three different positions on the Councils.  The Anglican Church and I think some others uphold all Seven of them.  Some other High Church Protestants like Lutherans uphold the first four but not the last three.  (I'd like to know more about their reasons for doing so, I haven't looked into it yet.)  And then there are people like Independent Baptists and the Hebrew Roots movement who like me don't feel bound to any of them, though too many of those take the overly contrary attitude I also warned about at the start.

I've coined the term Justinianity for all denominations that uphold the fifth Ecumenical Council (to my knowledge there are none that keep the 5th but drop either of the final two).  That's Roman Catholicism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, and maybe some others.