The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark by Michael Pakaluk (review)

Well known for its rough Greek, repetitious vocabulary, and sense of immediacy, the Gospel of Mark is also frequently overlooked, since so much of its text is paralleled in other Gospels. Michael Pakaluk, professor of ethics and social philosophy in the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, sets out in this work to draw new attention to the merits of Mark’s Gospel. The title, drawn from Justin Martyr, reflects Pakaluk’s interpretive key, namely that the Gospel of Mark is a product of the evangelist’s friendship with Simon Peter, whose first-hand experiences with Jesus were recorded for the benefit of the Christian community in Rome. Because of the unique fruits of this collaboration between Peter and Mark, Pakaluk argues that Mark’s Gospel “seems to exercise a certain authority over the other Gospels” (xxii).

Structurally, the book opens with a useful introduction, which presents an overview of the provenance of the text and the translator’s methodological approach. There follow sixteen chapters, corresponding to the sixteen chapters of Mark’s Gospel, each beginning with Pakaluk’s uninterrupted translation of the text and continuing with his substantive commentary. The volume concludes with a short index.

With respect to the translation, Pakaluk shows his command of biblical Greek and his familiarity with textual discrepancies and debates without weighing down his own work. His expertise makes nuances of Mark’s text accessible even to readers with no knowledge of Greek. The most distinctive feature of the translation is its careful attention to tenses, especially the characteristic Markan use of the historic present to draw readers into the narrative. Whereas Mark’s tense shifts are often “polished” out of other translations, Pakaluk retains them, often to purposeful effect. In the nested stories of the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman with hemorrhages (Mk 5:21–43), for example, the contrast between the aorist tense and the historic present makes the narrative both clearer and more engaging.

With regard to the commentary, several aspects are noteworthy. First, against the common theory that Mark’s Christ is not fully self-aware, Pakaluk identifies many passages that show “the divinity of Christ is implicit in almost every sentence of the Gospel of Mark” (40). Second, Pakaluk takes advantage of numerous opportunities to demonstrate how later theological ideas are present in seminal form in Mark’s narrative (e.g., the sacrament of holy orders, 103; the broad meaning of “no salvation outside the Church,” 153–154; the goods of marriage, 175–176; religious life, 184; the two wills of Christ, 257–258; and the hypostatic union, 279). Third, in places where the scriptural text tends to be interpreted differently by Catholics and non-Catholics, the commentary seeks to elucidate the Catholic position (e.g., the relationship between faith and works, 30; the primacy of Peter, 56–57; the identity of the Lord’s brothers and sisters, 61 and 100; the meaning of pro multis, 189; and the significance of the Lord’s words at the Last Supper, 251–252). Fourth, with judicious moderation, Pakaluk offers explanations in several places of how Mark’s account can be “harmonized” with the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John (e.g., the chronology of the Transfiguration, 151–152; the Palm Sunday narrative, 197; the cursing of the fig tree, 202–203; the parable of the vineyard, 213–214; the chronology of Peter’s denial, 253–254 and 262–263; and the chronology of the crucifixion, 274). Finally, and above all, the commentary is quite evidently a distillation of many years of prayerful study and personal reflection on the part of the author, having more the character of a faith-filled testimony rooted in scholarship than a highbrow academic treatise.

Certain portions of the commentary read as though they have been substantially shortened through editing, a situation...