Reading Notes: The Gospel of Mark

I'll be writing on the gospel of mark which is mostly about Jesus's trials and i'm thinking of going an entirely different way with it. I think, perhaps, I want to bring the story into the modern age but with a bit of an irreverent twist. My main idea is to bring Jesus and his apostles entirely out of character and give them the personalities more of skate park bums. Clearly, this is going to end up being a humorous story but I also want to maintain as much of the actual story as I can although I will have to cut a decent bit out to get it under 1000 words.

The Pharisees can be a rival skate gang I think. I'm tempted to go all 90s teen movie on this. The Pharisees are mad that Jesus hangs out with "posers and preps" and tries to teach them how to skateboard. The Pharisees are skateboard purists, only those with the sickest kickflips should be allowed at the skate park but Jesus knows that in order to kickflip you must first learn to ride a board.

When debating with them the proper way to practice Judaism (in the gospel) I may change this to a rap battle? But this may be too hammy. If the story runs too long I may take this out.

The cure for the man with "palsy" who was paralyzed and unable to walk may be a kid whose wheels on his skateboard have broken off. Although everyone at first thinks the board is un-reparable, Jesus is able to reattach the wheels and the kids can skateboard once again.

The apostles squad and their friends have very little money to buy lunch for everyone but Jesus takes their money and is able to buy far more food than anyone expected because, among his many other talents, he is a miracle couponer. He is able to turn their $10.64 into sandwiches and juice boxes for everyone at the skatepark.

I might be able to equate the feat of walking on water to some exceedingly difficult skate trick but I'll actually have to look up what kinds of tricks are particularly difficult and/or dangerous.

Judas dimes Jesus out to the police on faulty vandalism charges and Jesus gets banned from the skatepark and his skateboard confiscated but three days later he returns with his board to throw down a couple more sick tricks before leaving for good.

This should be enough to take up enough room for the story. It might even run long so, if necessary, I can cut a couple of these episodes but I think I included the most popular ones that people remember from the gospel of mark. I also want to make sure that this story is funny but not actually offensive. It's a bit goofy but I want to make sure it's just goofy and doesn't tend into being rude. I will have to watch out for this when writing this project.

(web image, from Photobucket)

Gospel of Mark, King James Version