Until recently, the tendency in Markan studies has been to agree with A. C. Sundberg’s 1959 pronouncement that “Daniel is the most important book to Mark” and that Isaiah ranks only fifth in importance to the evangelist (NovT 3 [ 1959] 268-81; cf H. C. Kee’s contribution to Jesus and Paulus, 1975). But Mary Ann Beavis (Mark’s Audience, JSOT, 1989), Joel Marcus (The Way of the Lord, W/JKP, 1992), Richard Schneck (Isaiah in the Gospel of Mark 1-VIII, BIBAL, 1994) and I (Lexington Theological Quarterly 30 [ 1995] 133–43) have been among those who have argued for the importance of Isaiah as a major influence on the Gospel of Mark. Watts’s revised Cambridge dissertation is more ambitious than previous attempts; he argues that the new exodus theme of Isaiah (particularly Deutero-Isaiah) is the hermeneutical key not only to the structure of the second Gospel but to Markan Christology and soteriology as well. [PDF]