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Mark 01 General Notes
Structure and formatting
Some translations prefer to set apart quotations of the Old Testament. The ULB and many other English translations indent the lines of Mark 1:2-3, which is a quotation from the Old Testament.
Special concepts in this chapter
"You can make me clean"
Leprosy was a disease of the skin that made a person unclean and unable to properly worship God. Jesus is capable of making people physically "clean" or healthy as well as spiritually "clean" or right with God. (See: rc://en/tw/dict/bible/kt/unclean and rc://en/tw/dict/bible/kt/clean)
Other possible translation difficulties in this chapter
Past Events
Parts of this chapter are a sequence of events that have already happened. In a given passage, Mark sometimes writes as if the events have already occurred while other events are still in progress (even though they are complete at the time that he writes). This can cause difficulty in translation by creating an illogical order of events. It may be necessary to make these consistent by writing as if all the events have already happened. (See: Mark 1:4-5)
"The kingdom of God is near"
Scholars debate whether the "kingdom of God" was present at this time or is something that is still coming. English translations frequently use the phrase "at hand," but this can create difficulty for translators. Other versions use the phase "is coming" and "has come near."