None of Mark's tales borrow from other sources. His writing style is TOO impressed upon by himself. And there is no evidence he consulted older material. It suggests he made it all up. Borrowing has to leave traces.
I dissent from the following.
The reason the individual stories (pericopes) do not show a divergence from Mark’s overall writing style is because a single author heavily edited and rewrote the traditional oral stories using their own distinct linguistic habits. While the stories originated from different eyewitnesses and oral traditions, the author of Mark did not just copy and paste them; they completely re-translated and uniformized them into a singular literary voice.
1. Consistent Use of "Markan Hooks"
The author relies heavily on specific, repetitive Greek vocabulary to glue disparate oral stories together, creating a seamless stylistic texture across the entire book:
"Immediately" (Euthys): The author uses this word over 40 times to transition between stories, giving the entire Gospel a breathless, urgent pace.
The Historic Present: The author consistently narrates past events using present-tense verbs (e.g., "He comes" instead of "He came"). This occurs over 150 times, keeping the style uniform regardless of the story's origin.
[To me that suggests he thought he was getting revelation about supposedly happened. He thinks something opens up and he sees Jesus replaying something in front of him.]
Parataxis: The author strings sentences together using the simple conjunction "and" (kai) rather than using complex, subordinate clauses. This creates a distinct, rapid-fire, repetitive rhythm.
2. The Markan "Sandwich" Technique (Intercalation)
The author’s unique structural style is deeply embedded inside the stories themselves. The author frequently splits one story in half to insert another story in the middle (an A-B-A pattern, such as inserting the woman with the hemorrhage inside the story of Jairus's daughter). This deliberate literary framing proves a single editor was actively shaping the raw material into their own signature style.
3. Translation from Aramaic to Greek
The earliest oral traditions about Jesus circulated in Aramaic. The author of Mark translated these traditions into a specific type of low-level, colloquial Greek (Koine). Because one specific individual did the translating, their personal Greek vocabulary, grammatical quirks, and stylistic limitations were imposed upon every single narrative.
FINALLY
No book can be taken seriously if it says there is a God who can reveal the
future and it gives predictions and tells you they were fulfilled when it is
written down after the supposed fulfillment. Prophecy that comes true that is
"recorded" after the fulfillment is cheating. It is very serious how the
skeleton of Mark's gospel is comprised of such nonsense including the passion
or suffering and death of Jesus. If it is a disgrace - then that ensures it
cannot be any worse. It is not about whether miracles happen or not, even if
they did - respect for them would entail casting the gospel of Mark out.
Read John 21:25. "Jesus did many
other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that
even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Amen." (New International Version). Notice the gospel is
lying. Jesus in Mark showed a short ministry with loads of isolation and
solitude. No figure really could do enough in a few years to fill the world
with books. If human nature wants to be falsely seen as outside of the
absorption thing and open to intervention by God, human nature will multiply
miracle stories to cover up and to convince itself that it is doing more than
a copy-paste from the universe.