Jesus is next reported by Mark as going further north to a city called Caesarea Philippi, located on the slopes of Mount Hermon in the Anti-Lebanon range. Luke does not give the place a name, but Matthew also calls it Caesarea Philippi. While there Jesus has an important little dialogue with his disciples:

Matthew inserts between Peter's exclamation and Jesus' telling them to tell no one a statement by Jesus, proclaiming that Simon or Peter will become the head of "his church". But this is surely an interpolation by Matthew, because the word "church" was unknown in Palestine at that time, and for Jesus to promise the "keys to his kingdom" to Peter is contrary to all he has preached thus far, as well as being contrary to his injunction to them to tell no one, and the subsequent forecast of his death, which comes next.

The dialogue between Jesus and the disciples continues:

But this last little repartee completely refutes Matthew's interpolation which makes Peter into the head of the church. And here for the first time Jesus tells them of his coming death, and how it will happen. "Satan" means "tempter" or "adversary" in Hebrew; so Jesus is telling Peter not to tempt him with a hope of escaping being killed.

Jesus goes on to narrate the costs of becoming his disciple, in the following words to both the crowds and his disciples:

Now Mark, copied by Luke and Matthew, tells us of a vision the disciples experienced while climbing Mt. Hermon in the northern corner of Palestine.

Mark adds, echoed by Matthew, "until the Son of man be risen from the dead." But that couldn't have been said until the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead had become widespread, and in any case the narrator then says that the disciples were puzzled as to what rising from the dead could possibly mean, proving that Jesus could never have said anything about it. The event concludes:

Between the fantastic event just told and his next forecast of his death, Mark tells another tale of the healing of an epileptic youth. Or perhaps not, as we shall see. Mark's original story is full of details which are omitted by Matthew, and Luke's version is even more abridged. This abridgement of Mark's narrative seen repeatedly in both Luke and Matthew is another of the factors which make it clear that Matthew and Luke were copying Mark, and like good editors were shortening the stories wherever possible.

Then they all left that village (Mark does not tell us what village it was) and traveled through Galilee, and Jesus tried not to let anyone know he was there. (Mark.9:30) So it seems that he was still apprehensive that he would be arrested by Herod, who was the ruler over Galilee.

While he was alone with his disciples, he repeated his forecast of his death:

Matthew has an additional tale at this point, probably found in document M: the question of making a donation to the temple according to the rules of the priests. Again there is a little dialogue reported:

The next event reported in Mark concerns Jesus' explaining to the disciples about greatness in the kingdom of God. The disciples had been arguing with each other along the way about who was the greatest (how did these idiots become the founders of a new religion?) Jesus saw that, and took the opportunity to try to teach them something about humility and service, as follows:

Matthew has interpolated some instructions on church procedure which are not found in any other gospel and which presuppose that the church already existed, which of course it didn't in Jesus' lifetime, as follows:

(Matt.18:23-35)         Matthew adds a parable not found in any other gospel, called the parable of the Unforgiving Servant. It tells about a king who had a servant who owed him a hundred pence, and when the servant came and said he just couldn't pay it back the king forgave him the debt. Then a second servant who owed the first servant five pence came and told the first servant that he couldn't pay it back, and the first servant was furious and had the second servant thrown into a debtor's prison. When the king heard about it, he came to the first servant and said, I forgave you your debt of a hundred pence; could you not have forgiven my other servant his debt of five pence? And the king had the first servant thrown into prison until he should pay back what he owed the king. Matthew finishes with a most threatening statement:

What is this parable supposed to teach us? Does the king stand for God, and are we all servants? Does God forgive all our sins, and should we forgive others all their sins? Matthew's conclusion is that God will punish us if we do not forgive others; couldn't God also forgive us our unforgivingness? Matthew's conclusion seems merciless; but can we conclude from it that unforgivingness is an unforgivable sin? In any case Matthew's conclusion cannot be from Jesus, because it reports Jesus as referring to God as his personal father, and tells us that God is a punitive overlord. The only value of the parable seems to be that if we are unforgiving it will bounce back and hurt ourselves, as Jesus said in the Great Sermon: Judge not, and you shall not be judged; for with which measure you measure to others, it shall be measured to you; and, Release, and you shall be released; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned (Matt.7:1-2;Luke 6:37-38). It's also certainly a bit pompous for us to call anyone's behavior towards us a "sin".

Mark, and Matthew also, now tell us that Jesus left Galilee and came into Judea. We have not read much about Jesus' plan up to this point, but Luke states explicitly that Jesus had made up his mind: He steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). In Mark and Matthew, the very next verse shows Jesus already nearly there, but Luke appears to have interpolated the entire document P into Mark at this point:

So now we shall follow Luke, in keeping with Luke's decision that all these events and sayings and teachings were spoken on the long trip from Galilee to Jerusalem.