Finally a narrative – Mark:
Outline:
•Dating and authorship
•Orality and the scripted gospel
•Narrative character of Mark
•Mark’s symbolic narrative
The significance of Mark’s narrative
• Is the Gospel of Mark the most influential
text in Western culture?
• The source for the written narrative of the
Passion.
• The most important source for Matthew
and Luke.
• Doesn’t create Christianity, but gives it its
single most important narrative.
Dating of Mark
• Scholarship over the past century has seen
Mark as the first narrative gospel to be written.
• “Synoptic theory” stands behind this.
• Mark is the shortest gospel, contains some
sayings, parables, and teaching material, but not
nearly as much as Matthew, Luke.
• There appears no discernable reason for Mark
to cut material associated with Jesus.
• Also, Mattew and Luke clearly interpret material
found in Mark.
• Stylistically Mark is less developed than Matt
and Luke.
• So all this adds up to the position that Mark must
have come first and was used as a source for
Matthew, Luke.
Also, look at the gospel chest in the
mosaic of Ravenna (mid 5th cent.)
Dating continued
• Gospel is aware of the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Temple: Mark 13: 1-2, 14-23.
• Titus and Vespasian finally conquered Jerusalem,
entered and sacked the city in 70 CE.
• Victory commemorated on the triumphal Arch of Titus in
Rome:
Arch of Titus, in Rome
Relief of sack of Jerusalem under
arch of Titus
Who is “Mark”?
• Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, around 140 CE,
says this:
“Mark, who had been Peter's interpreter, wrote
down carefully, but not in order, all that he
remembered of the Lord's sayings and
doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been
one of his followers, but later, as I said, one of
Peter's. Peter used to adapt his teaching to the
occasion, without making a systematic
arrangement of the Lord's sayings, so that Mark
was quite justified in writing down some things
just as he remembered them. For he had one
purpose only -- to leave out nothing that he had
heard, and to make no misstatement about it.”
Who is “Mark”? continued
• There are problems with this:
• Papias is writing some 70 years after the
composition of the gospel.
• Mark’s gospel is quite negative about Peter.
Would a disciple disparage his teacher in the
way this text disparages Peter?
• When the gospel was written, Peter had been
dead (martyred) just a few years and had been a
respected leader of the church in Rome.
• The two other synoptics in fact try to rehabilitate
Peter from Mark’s negative picture.
Who is “Mark”? -- continued
• Recent scholarship sees the gospel written in
Galilee or southern Syria, not Rome.
• The superscription "The Gospel according to
Mark“ is not an original title.
• And gospel no where refers to authorship in its
text.
• Best conclusion is that the gospel is by an
anonymous writer, writing for a Greek-speaking
community in Galilee or Syria shortly after the
destruction of Jerusalem.
• Note that other two synoptics are also
anonymous.
The gospel and orality
• Why 40 years to get the narrative gospel
written?
• The privileging of orality.
• All of Jesus’ teaching was oral.
• Paul too is mostly an oral teacher.
• “Spirit” – “pneuma” – versus the “dead letter.”
• Mark, though scripted, shows strong influence of
orality, oral storytelling.
• E.g., “once” this or that happened. Jesus “used
to” do this.
• Oral pericopés woven together to create
narrative.
• Mark in fact seems to stand between orality and
the world that will value written texts.
Symbolic character of Mark’s
narrative
• Not so much interested in “what happened” as in what it
means.
• But seldom says exactly what this meaning is.
• Instead it wants to involve the reader in “reading” that
meaning.
• A “user-challenging” gospel, rather than “user-friendly”
gospel.
• Parable at 4:3-23 suggests the way the gospel itself is to
be read.
• Parables to prevent understanding -- ??
• Distinguishes “insiders” and “outsiders.”
• Emphasis on the work of the reader to “crack” the code,
to become an insider to the meaning.
• 4:33-34: parables vs. private understanding. But what
will come of the insiders’ advantage?
• What of the reader’s position? Will the reader become
an insider?
Mark’s beginning
• Begins with forceful designation, “Son of God.”
• But this is missing from earliest mss.
• This becomes the declaration of the three key
moments of the gospel, its “secret.”
• We shouldn’t jump to a conclusion of what this
term means – from Gospel of John or
declarations of Councils of Nicea (fourth century)
or Calcedon (fifth century).
• Kings of Israel and prophets are called “Sons of
God.”
• Then this mysterious figure announced by a text
from Isaiah.
John the Baptizer
• Strange garments indicate a prophet.
• Geographical difference from Jesus’ preaching,
Judea, not Galilee.
• (Historically, Jesus and John appear to have led
separate movements; in Acts we learn of sect
separate from Jesus’ followers still loyal to John
several years after Jesus’ death.)
• But Mark makes their movements dovetail.
• Jesus receives a revelation seemingly meant
only for him.
• Is this passing through waters, then being driven
into wilderness for 40 days (a symbolic
number)an allusion to Exodus?
Sense of immediacy and the kingdom
• Things happen “immediately” or “at once.”
• Disciples of “inner circle” follow “immediately” –
sense of mysterious power.
• Then the “first day” of the kingdom – in
synagogue, “a new teaching”: 1: 21-38.
• Then Peter’s mother-in-law, then “all who were
sick or possessed.”
• Jesus too unable to escape the unfolding
kingdom, unable to stop the unclean spirits from
proclaiming him.
• And unable to escape from the crowds -- the
kingdom overwhelms him too.
Geography made symbolic
• Everything up to end of chapter 4 takes place in
Galilee, Jewish territory.
• Crossing of the sea of Galilee involves
demonstration of power over wind and sea.
• Then they enter the country of the Gerasenes,
an episode that coordinates with 1: 23-27: an
impressive gentile demoniac.
• Proclamation in the Decapolis.
• Then back to Jewish territory: 12-year-old girl,
woman with hemorrages for 12 years.
• Only in his own home village is his power
lessened.
The Gerasene demoniac
• Jesus and disciples cross into gentile, i.e., polluted,
country.
• And immediately encounter an “unclean spirit” in a very
impressive madman.
• Who recognizes Jesus as “son of the most high God.”
• “Legion” – “for we are many.”
• Unclean spirit into unclean animals, which self-destruct.
• Swineherds (now out of work?) proclaim the event in
gentile country.
• And the former host of the unclean spirits forbidden to
accompany Jesus (he’s a gentile).
• But told also to proclaim “what God has done for you.”
• Symbolic meanings?
Then back into Jewish territory
• Daughter of leader of synagogue, dying.
• And an inset narrative: more pollution: a woman
with hemorrhage “for twelve years,”
• whose touch should make Jesus unclean.
• But the power flows in the other direction.
• Woman’s faith is foregrounded; something new
for a woman in the kingdom.
• Then back to the first story: the girl appears
dead.
• But he touches the potentially “unclean” body
and speaks; the Aramaic quoted.
• And again a reversal of pollution: she gets up
and walks.
• And she was twelve years old.