"After Three Days" in Mark 8:31; 9:31; and 10:34: Subordinating Jesus' Resurrection in the Second Gospel:
pg. 399-424

Mark Proctor

Comparing the wording of the passion predictions in Mark 8:31, 9:31, and 10:33 with the importance Paul and others attributed to the “third day” resurrection motif reveals a distinct peculiarity.  Whereas the primitive gospel claimed Jesus arose “on the third day,” Mark has his protagonist predicton three separate occasions that he would rise “after three days.”  Mark’s use of meta;trei'" hJmevra" in 8:31, 9:31, and 10:33 constitutes his deliberate attempt to de-emphasize traditional teaching about the resurrection by (a) robbing Jesus’s passion predictions of their numerical precision as a means of (b) subordinating the resurrection to the account of Jesus’s death.