The Gospel of Mark and the Reception of the Four Evangelists as Witnessed in the Christian Manuscript Fragments of the Berlin Turfan Collection

Although the documentation that has come down to us is problematic in many aspects, it is safe to claim that the reception of the Gospels in the early medieval and medieval Central Asia is linked to Syriac Christianity and, even if not exclusively, to the Church of the East indeed. The Christian manuscript fragments of the Berlin Turfan Collection are a striking example of this, which is why they constitute the subject of this contribution. Our aim is to focus on the role of the four Evangelists, and in particular of Mark, in the context of the Christian communities that probably lived in the Turfan area (Xinjiang, China) from the eighth/ninth century until the thirteenth/fourteenth century. The focus is on Mark so that his scanty attestation is not relegated to pure chance of what has come down to us and what has been irreversibly lost.