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Isaiah's New Exodus in Mark (Biblical Studies Library)

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The book helps explain difficult problems in the Gospel of Mark through an Isanic framework. Watts book is significant because it comes to the important conclusion that the gospels, especially the Gospel of Mark, needs to be seen from an OT perspective and not from a Hellenistic perspective. After reading Joel Marcus' book, "The Way of the Lord," I would have to say that it is by far the superior of the two. Marcus deals succiently with the material and deals with more issues that Watts does.

This book shows how Mark frames his gospel around Isaiah and specifically Isaiah's new Exodus theme. This is an important work and needs to be read by scholars and serious students of the gospel of Mark. One cannot read this book and come away without a fresh perspective on Mark and what Jesus himself was intending by his words and actions. Watt's takes seriously Mark's use of the OT and the context of all quotes and allusions. His reasoning is spot on and therefore his conclusions should all be taken seriously. There is much here, but some of the things Watts deals with are the servant songs in relation to Jesus, of course the exodus theme, Jesus healings and their link to Isaiah 35, and how the cleansing of the temple is thematic of Isaiah. Comparisons are made between Isaiah 6:9f and Mark 4:12 in order to bring out more fully the parable of the sower. Also, the Beelzebul controversy is expounded upon in light of Isaiah.
Watt's deals very well with the so called "way" section of Mark. This section is shown to be bracketed off by the healing of the blind man that at first sees men "as tall as trees" and the healing of Bartimaeus. Sandwiched in between is the way section of Mark that deals with the disciples continued inability to grasp who Jesus really is. The climax of this section is the confession of Peter that Jesus is "the Messiah, the son of the living God." In short the entirety of Mark is taken up in light of Isaiah.
A note of caution would be that this book is not written for a lay audience and would be difficult to read without knowing Greek and Hebrew. Watt's assumes his audience knows German and French as well and will at times write a couple of sentences in German without providing an English translation of this. The book would have been more accessible to others if he would have done so. That aside this is and excellent work.