Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, Third Edition

Notes

179 Notes Introduction: The Gospel of Mark as Story 1. The mention of women disciples only at the very end of the narrative suggests that the author was male, and we will refer to the author as “he.” 2. For the traditions about Mark, see C. Clifton Black, Mark: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994). 3. See 1 Pet. 3:19 and Acts 12:12. 4. For the Roman location, see, for example, Martin Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985); Donald Senior, “‘With Swords and Clubs . . .’— The Setting of Mark’s Gospel and His Critique of Abusive Power,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 17 (1987): 10–20; and John R. Donahue, “Windows and Mirrors: The Setting of Mark’s Gospel,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 57 (1995): 1–26. 5. For the Palestinian location, see, for example, Howard C. Kee, Community of the New Age: Studies in Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977); Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. Linda Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991); and Joel Marcus, “The Jewish War and the Sitz im Leben of Mark,” Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 441–62. See also P. J. J. Botha, “The Historical Setting of Mark’s Gospel: Problems and Possibilities,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 51 (1993): 27–55, who wisely cautions against claims to certainty. 6. For an analysis of the social location of Mark’s Gospel, see Richard L. Rohrbaugh, “The Social Location of the Marcan Audience,” Interpretation 47 (1993): 380–95. 7. For a survey of various literary analogues for Mark, see Kee, Community, 14–30, and the literature cited there. On the importance of genre for analysis, see Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 48–79. 8. See Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On Interpretation in Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), and Stephen Moore, “Are the Gospel Narratives Unified?” in Society of Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers, ed. Kent H. Richards (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 443–58. 9. Other scholars have also found Mark’s narrative to be coherent. See Norman R. Petersen, “‘Point of View’ in Mark’s Narrative,” Semeia 12 (1978): 97–121, and Robert C. Tannehill, “The Gospel of Mark as Narrative Christology,” Semeia 16 (1979): 57–95. 10. For the fugue analogy, see Kee, Community, 75. On the tapestry metaphor, see Joanna Dewey, “Mark as Interwoven Tapestry: Forecasts and Echoes for a Listening Audience,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52 (1991): 224. 11. Norman R. Petersen considers it a “referential fallacy” to view the statements expressed or implied in the text as a direct representation of the earlier historical events of Jesus’ day, in Literary Criticism for New Testament Critics (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), 38. 180 Notes 12. See Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), and Thomas E. Boomershine, “Mark the Storyteller: A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of Mark’s Passion and Resurrection Narrative” (PhD diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1984). Chapter 1. The Gospel of Mark 1. For the reader’s convenience, we include on each page the chapter and verse designations for the portion of Mark on that page. 2. Early Greek manuscripts had no punctuation, no paragraph designations, no episode headings, no spaces between words or sentences, and no chapter and verse designations. 3. See the text that appears in Matthew Black et al., eds., The Greek New Testament, 4th ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), and Erwin Nestle, Kurt Aland, et al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994). 4. For example, see the NRSV and the NIV. For a textual analysis of the endings, see Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971), 122–26. On recent work, see S. L. Cox, A History and Critique of Scholarship Concerning the Markan Endings (Lewiston: Mellen Biblical Press, 1993), and Paul Danove, The End of Mark’s Gospel: A Methodological Study (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993), 119–31. 5. For a translation of dynamic equivalence, see the Scholars Version Translation in Daryl Schmidt, ed., The Gospel of Mark (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1990). Reynolds Price has captured Mark’s spare, running style in Three Gospels (New York: Scribner, 1996), 37–124. 6. We follow this principle except in a few...