Martin Shaw: "We are entering a period where everyone is at the altar to the Unknown God" 

Too smart. Back to the monastery with you ;-)

Falkner?

@@smoothinvestigator Correct.

Hopefully his didn't end quite so violently!

I thought Mark has been symbolized as a lion and the theme is to show the messiah, the lion of the tribe of Judah. More of a conquering king and on the move as was stated in the clip.

@@TheDrb27 The Lion is not a symbol for Mark, but rather Marks Gospel (maybe this what you meant?). It symbolizes the attributes of his gospel that focus on Christ the King - the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The line of King David. In other words someone a Roman could respect for his power and status -- not the lowly subjugated Jew. To be clear, these are not my ideas, although having read the Gospels many times as well as early Church and ancient history and the Church fathers, I do agree with the Commentaries on this. So we seem to agree. What I disagreed with Martin on was whether one could believe the Gospels were contrived.

@@bscottc1 I thought the Lion from the tetramorph was used before the Gospel of Mark was called that.

@@TheDrb27 Indeed, I agree with this view also, and it goes to why I think the Gospel is contrived. The tetramorph as associated with the book of Mark most likely points back to the book of Ezekiel and the time of the Babylonian captivity. The writers of the codex later defined into the book of Ezekiel borrowed the Babylonian zodiac tetramorph to show that YHWH was not defeated and gathered his people back to Jerusalem, just as Jesus rose from the dead (Christus Victor).

@@bscottc1 I think where you are seeing the story as contrived, I’m seeing it as an integration. I also see the tetramorph as an integrated view of the seeing the world through the four elements. That view is older than just Babylon as well.