Very little is known of the origin of the gospel that by the 2nd century came to be attributed to Mark. The only available information about its author comes from the 4th century Church historian Eusebius who tells us that a 2nd century Church father named Papias wrote that a Church elder had told him that Mark had been an "interpreter" of the disciple Peter and that he has written down accurately everything that he remembered although not in the correct order. This third-hand information gives us few specifics in which to situate the gospel in place and time. Peter had been an original disciple and after Jesus' death had preached in Jerusalem, had carried his mission to various now unknown cities in the Roman world, finally ending his career in Rome where he was martyred around the year 64 CE. Eusebius' statement makes it unclear how well Mark had known Peter or even if he had been an authorized interpreter of Peter's message.
"Marcus" was a very common name in the ancient world and any attempt to link the gospel's Mark with any particular Mark mentioned in the New Testament would remain speculative. The gospel was originally written in Greek (not the Aramaic of Palestine) and in several places Mark confused Palestinian geography suggesting that he had probably never visited the sites where Jesus had lived and preached. The Gospel of Mark appears to have circulated in several different version and the authors of both Matthew and Luke appear to have used a version of Mark that is slightly different from the one known today as source material. Modern Bible scholars believe the Gospel according to Mark was written around the year 70 CE since it appears to mention the fall of the Jerusalem Temple in that year although some scholars date it earlier to the year 64 CE when Peter was probably martyred.