This commentary examines the Gospel of Mark through the literary concepts of intratextuality and intertextuality. Intratextuality involves reading Mark as Mark by Mark. It looks to the final form of the Gospel rather than its sources or literary history; its favored words images, literary devices forms structures, characterization and plot. Particular attention to Mark's distinctive vocabulary and themes reveals the Gospel as a unified literary production. Intertextuality invites examination of the relationship between texts and a textual tradition. Here the commentary broadens the view to include materials not usually classified as texts (e.g. archaeological data) and shows the links of the text of the Gospel of Mark to these other materials as well as to literature including the Old Testament and to the life of the Mark an community and of the Christian community today.