He wants us to read Mark as if that's all we know. I'll do it as best as I can, however ...

With appreciation that our individual impression of Jesus is always in need of correction according to the biblical witness, i.e., revelation, as Catholics, we don't deprecate the contribution of human thought. So long as it is in harmony with revelation.

That's the rub, I well know, determining consistency. Be that as it may ...

One of Jim's favorite questions serves as a case in point: What did Jesus know and when did he know it?

Such a question arises from the odd Gospel passage hinting, as the seemingly insignificant line in Luke does, that the Lord Jesus wasn't necessarily omniscient: And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (NIV).

By way of an answer, he quoted from Raymond Brown's Jesus: God and Man, which I should try to get a used copy of, in which Fr. Brown speculates with some degree of certainty based on his knowledge of human relationships that Mary told Jesus the circumstances of his conception (the Annunciation) and birth ... when Jesus was old enough to understand such things.

So, ultimately, I would object, I wouldn't be satisfied to end with the biblical portrait of Jesus. But I ought to agree to begin there.

Cf. From Bethlehem to Nicaea from Dr. Jim Bridges