MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Tom Dykstra

OCABS PRESS
ST PAUL, MINNESOTA 55124
2012
 MARK, CANONIZEROF PAUL

Copyright© 2012 by
Tom Dykstra

ISBN 1-60191-020-2

All rights reserved.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Mark, Canonizer of Paul

Copyright© 2012 by Tom Dykstra

All rights reserved.

ISBN 1-60191-020-2

Published by OCABS Press, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Printed in the United States of America.

On the cover: a thirteenth century image of Paul and Mark,

from Cilician Armenian Gospel no. 9422.

Books are available through OCABS Press at special discounts

for bulk purchases in the United States by academic institutions,
churches, and other organizations. For more information please
email OCABS Press at [email protected].
 Abbreviations
Books ofthe Old Testament"
Gen Genesis Job Job Hab Habakkuk
Ex Exodus Ps Psalms Zeph Zephaniah
Lev Leviticus Prov Proverbs Hag Haggai
Num Numbers Eccl Ecclesiastes Zech Zechariah
Deut Deuteronomy Song Song of Solomon Mal Malachi
Josh Joshua Is Isaiah Tob Tobit
Judg Judges Jer Jeremiah Jdt Judith
Ruth Ruth Lam Lamentations Wis Wisdom
1 Sam 1 Samuel Ezek Ezekiel Sir Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
2Sam 2 Samuel Dan Daniel Bar Baruch
1 Kg 1 Kings Hos Hosea 1 Esd 1 Esdras
2Kg 2 Kings Joel Joel 2 Esd 2 Esdras
I Chr 1 Chronicles Am Amos 1 Mace 1 Maccabees
2 Chr 2 Chronicles Ob Obadiah 2Macc 2 Maccabees
Ezra Ezra Jon Jonah 3 Mace 3 Maccabees
Neh Nehemiah Mic Micah 4Macc 4 Maccabees
Esth Esther Nah Nahum

Books ofthe New Testament

Mt Matthew Eph Ephesians Heb Hebrews
Mk Mark Phil Philippians Jas James
Lk Luke Col Colossians 1 Pet 1 Peter
Jn John 1 Thess 1 Thessalonians 2 Pet 2 Peter
Acts Acts 2 Thess 2 Thessalonians 1 Jn !John
Rom Romans 1 Tim 1 Timothy 2Jn 2John
1 Cor 1 Corinthians 2Tim 2 Timothy 3 Jn 3 John
2 Cor 2 Corinthians Titus Titus Jude Jude
Gal Galatians Phil em Philemon Rev Revelation

"Following the larger canon known as the Septuagint.

 Contents
•
Preface 1X

Introduction 13
Part I - Background
1. Mark's Sources and Purpose 23
2. A Tale of Two Missions 29
3. The Chimera of Oral Tradition 41
The Modern Theory of Oral Tradition 44
New: Oral Tradition as a Recent Invention 45
Unfounded: Oral Tradition Theory's Flawed Origin 48
Unworkable: Oral Tradition Theory's Implausibility 55
Unnecessary: Alternatives to Oral Tradition 62
Unhelpful: Oral Tradition Theory s Impact on Biblical
Interpretation 64
Part II - Pauline Themes in Mark
4. Defending the Gentile Mission 69
A Gentile Christian Intended Audience 69
Jesus Visits Gentile Lands 72
Jesus Accepts Individual Gentiles As They Are 77
Jesus Unites Jews and Gentiles at the Communal Meal 78
Jesus Rejects Jewish Exclusivism 82
Jesus Rejects Jewish Legalism 87
The Parable ofthe Fig Tree 90
5. PresentingJesus as the Crucified One 93
The Messianic Secret 95
The Irony ofthe Cross 96

v
6. DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 105
Jesus' Family 106
The Twelve 109
«One of the Twelve" 116
The Pillars 118
Peter 119
7. Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 127
The Parable ofthe Sower 127
The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen 133
The Apparently Inconclusive Ending 136
8. Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 143
Pauline Language 143
Presenting John the Baptist as an Image ofPaul 147
ModelingJesus' Life after Paul's 149
Part III - The Genre ofMark
9 \Vhy Genre Matters 161
Biblical Scholarship on the Gospels' Genre 164
How Authors and Readers Actually Determine Genre 167
Applying Different Generic Criteria to the Gospels 171
I 0. Scripture as a Genre 179
Fiction versus Nonfiction in Scriptural Historiography 183
History versus Myth in Scriptural Historiography 189
11. Mark as Scriptural Historiography 201
Mimesis in Mark 207
Mimesis in the Other Gospels 214
A Broader View ofIntertextuality in Mark 219

•
Vl
Part IV - The HistoricalJesus in Mark
12. Conservatism and Curiosity 223
13. Historical Implausibilities 229
14. Historical Plausibilities 235
Conclusion 241
Bibliography 241

••
Vll
 Preface

rank Kermode was a scholar of literature, but he also wrote a

F book about the New Testament that became well known in
the field of biblical scholarship. He prefaced that book with an
acknowledgement that to write outside of his field was a risky
business:

The volume of scholarship is dismaying, and any outsider is

bound to make mistakes. I am sure I have done so, in the teeth of
good advice .... I have undertaken the studies here reported only
because the importance of the subject, and the need of a secular
approach, justify a measure of rashness. I think the gospels need to
be talked about by critics of a quite unecclesiastical formation. 1

Biblical studies is indeed a vast field, so much so that even those

who live their life in it - let alone outsiders - are bound to make
mistakes. But Kermode correctly saw the field's tendency to get
stuck in groupthink, he saw how profoundly interpretations of
the gospels affect peoples' lives, and he saw an opportunity to
contribute a new interpretation that might have a positive
impact. His attribution of the groupthink phenomenon to
"ecclesiastical formation" was simplistic, however. Michael
Goulder cites Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions to point
out that even scientific communities get stuck in groupthink:

... once a paradigm is accepted it shapes all scientific work: to be

a scientist is to accept the paradigm .... The history of the subject
is told in terms of the paradigm; its professors have made their
reputations by assuming and extending it, and will not lightly
abandon it. .. . Shifts of paradigm do not come from professors;

I
Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative
(Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2006), ix.
•
lX
 they come from young men, and from those on the margin of the
2
subject.

I have the advantage of being "on the margin of the subject,"

where Kermode was outside the margin. The latter jumped into
the fray without having an education in biblical studies, without
knowing Hebrew, with limited knowledge of Greek, and having
"German so enfeebled that whenever possible I use
translations."3 My German needs work too, but I'm familiar
with Greek and Hebrew, and the course of studies for my Master
of Divinity degree gave me a background in biblical studies. I
have built upon that background over the course of 25 years by
my own research and by editing books and articles about biblical
studies. If I flt Goulder's "margin of the subject" description it's
because I don't make my living as a biblical scholar and my
Ph.D. is in Russian history (a field which, by the way, turns out
to have many parallels to that of biblical studies).4

Nevertheless, Goulder himself was by no means cc on the

margin," and that is not what is really needed to effect a
revolution either in the hard sciences or the humanities. What is
needed is exactly what Goulder exemplified: a determination to
follow the lead of the text even when that takes you in

2
Michael D. Goulder, Luke: A New Paradigm (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1989),4.
3
Ibid., 4.
4
My article "Metropolitan Ilarion of Kiev's use of Scripture in Defense of Russian
Autocephaly" (St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 44[2000):3-4:223-262) offers an
interpretation of an 11 ch century Russian text that in many ways parallels the
interpretation of Mark that I propose in this book. I developed that interpretation
further in "Slouo o zakone i blagodati mitropolita llariona kak tri iznachalno
samostoiatelnych proizuedeniia" in Rossica antiqua 2006: Issledovaniia i materialy,
Andrej Dvornichenko and Alexander Maiorov, eds. (St.-Petersburg: Izdatel'srvo
St.-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2006).

x
undesirable or uncomfortable directions. Goulder paid a
personal price for his relentless academic honesty, and his
memoir, Five Stones and a Sling, should be read by anyone
interested in biblical studies. 5 On the other hand, what I have
found is that those scholars who do exemplify this determination
to follow the text no matter where it leads tend to also have a
great sense of humor and are gracious, courteous people who
have a positive attitude about life. This often comes out in
person more than in their writing, but Goulder had a unique
ability to weave a wonderful sense of humor into otherwise dry
academic writing. I would like to do that but have a ways to go
before I measure up to the Goulder standard. Meanwhile, I can
and do borrow from him when it fits.

The present book offers a view of Mark that many may find
goes in an undesirable or uncomfortable direction. But every step
along the way is illustrated with facts from the text, so that the
reader can make his or her own judgment as to whether the
interpretations offered make sense or not. Any individual piece
of evidence may not constitute a "smoking gun," but taken
together, the evidence is about as strong as any we're likely to
find in textual and historical inquiry into an ancient writing.
Goulder found himself in the same position advocating a
paradigm shift, and he commented on the situation with
characteristic humor and humility:

In the long rttn, there will be some who will not be persuaded
however great the evidence; and of them it is written, 'Neither will
they believe though one should rise from the dead.' But despite
Kuhn, I retain an optimistic confidence in the integrity of my
profession as a whole. If they are not persuaded, it will be either

5Michael D. Goulder, Five Stones and a Sling: Memoirs of a Biblical Scholar (Sheffield
Phoenix Press Ltd., 2009).
•
Xl
 because I have explained the position badly, or because I am
wrong.6

I would like to thank Fr. Paul Tarazi, without whose support

and encouragement the book would never have been written.
His thorough reading and commenting on drafts of the book
corrected many errors and deficiencies.

Thanks also to Fr. Christopher Salamy, Fr. Tim Perry, and

Allen Bender for editorial support. Thanks to Bishop Vahan
Hovhanessian for organizing the festschrift and SBL session that
got me started on the subject matter that eventually became this
book.7 And special thanks to John Simon and those who
collaborated with him to create audio recordings of the biblical
texts in their original languages and make them freely available
on the greeklatinaudio.com website. Mark's Gospel was written
to be read out loud to a group, and there is no better way to get a
deeper understanding of such a text than to listen to it. Some of
my most valuable insights about the text of Mark came from
listening repeatedly to the recordings provided by
greeklatinaudio.com. 8

6
Luke: A New Paradigm (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 25-26.
7 Earlier versions of some of the content of this book were published in "From
Volkmar to Tarazi and Beyond: Mark as an Allegorical Presentation of the Pauline
Gospel," forthcoming in vol. 2 of a 3 volume festschrifr for Paul N adim Tarazi; "The
Gospels' Genre as Scriptural Historiography: Applying Lessons Learned from Ronald
Reagan's Biography," journal of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical
Studies QOCABS), 4(2011): l:n.p.; and "New, Unfounded, Unworkable, and
Unnecessary': Thomas Brodie's Critique of Oral Tradition," JOCABS 3(2010):1:n.p.
8
It is also, of course, important to be aware of textual variants in the manuscript
tradition, which these recordings of necessity ignore .
••
Xll
 Introduction
Mark is remarkably uninterested in relating the teaching of Jesus.
He often states that Jesus taught, but the reader seldom learns
what that teaching is.
J esp er Svartvik1

ne of the most striking features of the second gospel is that

O it promises to present a "gospel" that consists of what Jesus
taught, but it never delivers on the promise. The book opens by
announcing that it is about "the gospel of Jesus Christ," and the
narrative quickly clarifies that this gospel is what Jesus preached:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . .

(Mark 1: 1)

... after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the
gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom
of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." ( 1 : 14-15)

The word "gospel" is thus the key to the entire book. The word
refers to teachings from the mouth of Jesus, and people must
believe in it order to attain the kingdom of God - yet little of
what Mark reports Jesus actually saying in the rest of the book is
clearly identifiable as "the gospel" in this sense.

That Mark is not as interested as Matthew and Luke in what

Jesus taught is well known, 2 but there is much more to this issue
than just fewer sayings compared to the other synoptic3 gospels.

I
Jesper Svartvik, Mark and Mission: Mk 7:1-23 in its Narrative and Historical Contexts
(Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2000\ 345.
2
See, for example, Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The
Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition) Mark, Paul, and Q
(Indiana UP, 1997), 100-1; Svartvik, Mark and Mission, 34 5.
13
14 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

After the statement in 1: 15 that proclaims the absolute

necessity for faith in the gospel, the text does not tell what the
gospel is all about; instead, it jumps into a short story about Jesus
calling the disciples (1: 16-20). After that, Jesus is teaching again:

... immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and

taught, And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught
them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. (I :21-22)

But once again, the narrative continues after this with a healing
story, without so much as dropping a hint about just what Jesus
was saying that was so astonishing and authoritative. After the
healing, people are amazed and say to each other, "What is this?
A new teaching!" (v.27) - but no "teaching" has been related.

In 1:38, Jesus tells his disciples, "Let us go on to the next

towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out."
This ratchets up the importance of the "preaching" theme by
insisting that Jesus' whole reason for being is to preach the
gospel. But again the narrative continues with healings and says
nothing about what it is he taught.

In 2:2, while Jesus was in the crowded house where four men
lower a paralytic through the roof, he "was preaching the word,"
but after that remark the story recounts the healing scene and
offers not a word about the actual content of "the word" he was
preaching.

In 6:2, Jesus "began to teach in the synagogue; and many who

heard him were astonished, saying, 'Where did this man get all
this? What is the wisdom given to him?'" But the story moves
from here to the negative reactions of Jesus' kin, followed by still

3Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often called the synoptic gospels because large portions
of their text are very similar or even word-for-word identical.
Introduction 15
more healings, and it never recounts the content of the teaching
or the astonishing wisdom.

In 6:34, the text says that Jesus helped people by teaching

them: "he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them
. . . and he began to teach them many things." But the next
thing the reader encounters is Jesus' command to the disciples to
send the crowd away, and not so much as one of the "many
things" he taught is ever identified.

In 10: 1, the narrative has crowds gathering around him again,

and "as his custom was, he taught them." But what follows is a
question-and-answer session with the Pharisees, and so yet
another opportunity to recount what Jesus taught is lost.

There is no "sermon on the mount" or "sermon on the plain"

in Mark. Jesus performs actions such as healings, feedings of
multitudes, and the cleansing of the temple. He enters into
disputes with opponents over legal observances such as Sabbath,
food, and hand-washing regulations. He fields questions from his
disciples and directs the answers only to them, on topics such as
whether others can use Jesus' name to cast out demons, whether
divorce. is permitted, and whether there is resurrection from the
dead. But only a few times does the text actually tell us what he
was teaching and preaching to "the crowds," and those few times
are exceptions that prove the rule.

In 4: 1, Mark introduces the sower parable with the words,

"Again he began to teach beside the sea ... and he taught them
many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them ... "
This time, some words of Jesus do follow, but they do not convey
the content of the gospel. They do not tell what people have to
"believe in," they tell what happens when people do or don 't believe
in (and obey) the gospel. Jesus himself explains to his disciples that
16 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

the parable is about how the gospel word grows or fails to grow
depending on how people receive and respond to it:

The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path,
where the word is sown; when they hear, Satan immediately comes
and takes away the word which is sown in them. And these in like
manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who, when they
hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no
root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation
or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall
away. And others are the ones sown among thorns; they are those
who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the delight in
riches, and the desire for other things, enter in and choke the
word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown upon the
good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear
fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. ( 4: 14-20)

This text gives no hint about the content of that word. Nothing
about just what it is that people are supposed to believe in and
obey. The seed parables in 4:26-32 are similar but substitute "the
kingdom of God" in place of "the word":

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the

ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed
should sprout and grow, he knows not how. The earth produces
of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because
the harvest has come. . . . With what can we compare the
kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a
grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground,. is the
smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up
and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large
branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.
(4:26-32)
Introduction 17

It is following these remarks that Mark adds in 4:34, "with many

such parables he spoke the word to them." "Such parables" do
not tell the hearer the content of the gospel teaching.

The other half dozen cases where Jesus speaks parables or

teachings of some sort to the crowds are similar.4 They warn of
consequences for failing to believe and obey the word - but they
don't indicate what to believe or obey. This applies to the saying
about putting one's lamp on a stand, with the accompanying
warning that everything hidden will be manifest:

Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and

not on a stand? For there is nothing hid, except to be made
manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. If any
man has ears to hear, let him hear. (4:21-23)

The saying about getting in return whatever measure one gives is

similar:

Take heed what you hear; the measure you give will be the
measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to him who
has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he
has will be taken away. ( 4:24-25)

And the same message is conveyed by the discourse about taking

up one's cross, with its immediately following warning about the
fast approaching kingdom of God:

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will
lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will
save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and

4 The parable of the wicked husbandmen in 12: 1-11 is addressed to the Jewish
leadership rather than the crowds. And even that parable does not convey Jesus'
teaching; it is about the Jewish leadership's negative reaction to him.
18 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For
whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed,
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels ....
Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not
taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come
with power. (8:34-9: 1)

A few sayings do hint that "the teaching" addressed to the

crowds had something to do with an exhortation to avoid
treating other people badly. One is the remark about being
defiled by what you say rather than what you eat, and another is
the criticism of scribes' pretentious behavior:

Hear me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a

man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which
come out of a man are what defile him. (7:14-15)

Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to

have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the
synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows'
houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the
greater condemnation. (12:38-40)

But such hints are rare, and even they leave the hearer perplexed
about just what Jesus was commanding people to "believe in."
In any case, nothing Jesus ever says to the crowds comes close to
qualifying as "new," "astonishing," or "authoritative."

What is especially interesting is that one of the characters in

the story is perplexed in exactly the same way. When he poses a
direct question to Jesus about what this new gospel teaching is
that people are supposed to believe in, Jesus refuses to tell him.
The man asks directly, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit
eternal life?" (10: 17) This would have been the perfect
Introduction 19

opportunity for Mark to portray Jesus expounding the content of

"the gospel," but instead he has Jesus answer, "You know the
comman dments ... ''5

The modern reader of Mark who takes for granted the

abundant sayings of Jesus in Luke and Matthew tends to skip
right past this without giving it due attention. But the original
hearers of Mark's narrative would hear the text stressing again
and again that Jesus taught something new, authoritative,
astonishing, and full of wisdom, while the expectation chose
promises raise would be disappointed at every turn. At the very
point where that very question is posed directly to Jesus, an
answer comes back that frustrates all of the hopes and
expectations the hearer has amassed: "You know the
commandments." In other words, Jesus himself answers by saying
that he has nothing new to say. He can only refer his questioner
to the Old Testament. What then is this "new" gospel chat he's
preaching all the time?

Jesus' questioner eventually is told to sell all he has and follow

Jesus, but this takes the hearer right back to the "you must obey"
theme, leaving the content of the gospel word that one is
expected to obey conspicuous by its absence once again.

One must conclude that Mark's purpose in writing the Gospel

could not have been to preserve any teaching or teachings that
might have been new, unique, or special to Jesus. For Mark,
what is uniquely significant about Jesus is not his teaching but
his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. And as for the latter,

5The complete answer is c,Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
You know the commandments: 'Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal,
Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother." (10:18-
19)
20 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

the evangelist strongly downplays the resurrection by not even

portraying it in his Gospel. As John Donahue rightly observes,
"Martin Kahler' s century-old description of the gospels as
passion narratives with extended introductions aptly describes
the Gospel of Mark. "6

The conclusion that the evangelist had no interest in conveying

any teachings that originated with Jesus begs a whole series of
questions. Were Jesus' teachings absent from all of the sources
available to Mark also? If so, why? If traditions about what Jesus
taught were available, why did Mark ignore them? And why,
then, did Mark write his Gospel? Maybe he saw the crucifixion
and resurrection as most important, but then why did he
emphasize the importance of Jesus' teaching, and why did he
leave out an account of the resurrected Christ?

6John R. Donahue, "Windows and Mirrors: The Setting of Mark's Gospel," CBQ
57(1995): 1-26; here: 9.
 Part I

Background
 1
Mark's Sources and Purpose
With the development . . . of narrative-critical tools and an
increasing sensitivity on the part of scholars to the nuances of
narrative theology, Volkmar's original suggestion that Mark's
Gospel is an allegorical presentation of Pauline teaching in the
form of a narrative may be due, therefore, for a comeback.
William Telford I

he tra�iti�nal answers to questions about Mark's sources

T and his literary purpose are that Mark got the story by
listening to the disciples and he wrote it in order to spread the
good news about Jesus. But these answers sound simplistic for a
text in which Jesus' only teaching is "You know the
commandments'' and which leaves his resurrection out of the
story.

The explanation I offer in this book can be summarized as

follows. Mark's primary purpose was to defend the vision of
Christianity championed by Paul the Apostle against his
"[udaizing" opponents. He undertook this defense because
epistles written in the Apostle's name were no longer deemed
adequate, possibly because Paul himself was no longer around to
personally defend his authority. Mark didn't report any new
teachings of Jesus because none were available to him: his main
sources were the Old Testament, the Homeric epics, and Paul's
epistles, not the disciples or oral tradition. And so he wrote a
Gospel that implicitly validated the authority of Paul and his
epistles.

I
William R. Tel ford, The Theology of the Gospel ofMark (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1999), 169.
23
24 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

This approach to understanding Mark is not entirely new. In

1857 Gustav Volkmar published Die Religion Jesu, in which he
argued that the Gospel of Mark was an allegorical presentation of
Paul's teaching and Paul's life.2 Volk.mar was a member of the
Tiibingen School, one of a series of late nineteenth century
German scholars based in Tiibingen, Germany, who became
known for historical-critical study of the gospels. 3 At that time,
questioning the historicity of the gospels was the avant-garde, or
"cutting edge" of scholarship. Members of the Tiibingen School
were openly reviled by many if not most Christians at the time,
with much the same vehemence that people who reject the
historicity of the Holocaust are reviled today. This applied even
to members of the school who rejected as unhistorical mainly the
miraculous elements of the gospel stories, a position that would
be regarded as conservative today. Volk.mar went far beyond
that, essentially denying the historicity of the entire thread of
Mark's narrative. Even his Tiibingen colleagues were not ready
for quite that radical a viewpoint, and one of the most
prominent of them went so far as to label the Volkmar thesis as
"madness. "4

In the end Volkmar' s name sank into obscurity and his theory
was all but forgotten, partly because he did a poor job backing
up his interpretation with objective evidence from the text. As

2
He developed his thesis further in Marcus und die Synopse der Evangelien nach dem
urkundlichen Text und das Gescbichtlicbe vom Leben Jesu ( 187 6).
3
For more information about the Tubingen school, see Harris 1975.
4 David Friedrich Strauss: "Einen narrischen Kauz . . . habe ich in Volkmar . . .

kennen gelernt; es ist T ollheit, was er vorbringt ... " ("I have recognized in Volkrnar a
foolish fellow; it's madness that he proposes ... "), cited in W. Schmithals, "Kririk der
Formkritik," ZTK 77(1980):149-85; here: 180. For a similar evaluation, see Hajo
Uden Meijboorn, A History and Critique of the Origin of the Marean Hypothesis, 1835-
1866. A contemporary Report Rediscovered, a Translation with Introduction and Notes
(Mercer UP, 1993), 83.
Marks Sources and Purpose 25
Quentin Quesnell puts it, Volk.mar showed "unconcern for
demonstrating that his meaning is the meaning, and not just one
more pattern of which the text, in itself vague, is susceptible at
the hands of an imaginative interpreter."5 What sealed Volkmar's
fate was the work of another scholar some 70 years later who did
show a great deal of concern for demonstrating that his meaning
was the meaning - and his meaning was the opposite of
Volkmar' s. In 1923 Martin Werner published a book in which
he argued chat Mark was not allegorical at all, and in fact not
Pauline at all. Werner's arguments, backed by abundant and
meticulously presented evidence, were received by so many
biblical scholars as definitive that they delivered the coup de
grace to Volkmar's thesis. 6

5 Quentin Quesnell, Mind ofMark (Loyola Press, 1969), 41.

6
Clifton Black expresses a view typical among modern scholars: « Volkmar' s
assumptions concerning traces of Paulinism in Mark were weighed and found wanting
seven decades ago by Martin Werner ... Werner's assessment has since been refined
but not overturned" ("Christ Crucified in Paul and in Mark: Reflections on an
lntracanonical Conversation," in Eugene H. Lovering, Jr. and Jerry L. Sumney, eds.,
Theology and Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters. Essays in Honor of Victor Paul Furnish
[Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996], 184-206; here: 185). See also K. Romaniuk, "Le
Problerne des Paulinismes dans l'Evangile de Marc," NTS 23(1977):266-274; Vincent
Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981).
Vincent Taylor calls the idea of a Pauline Mark a "wild and unsubstantiated
hypothesis." (Cited in Sean P. Kealy, A History of the Interpretation of the Gospel of
Mark (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007), 2:1:7. Benjamin W. Bacon (The Gospel
of Mark: Its Composition and Date [New Haven: Yale UP, 1925]) provides a striking
example of resistance co seeing a Pauline connection. He adduces a great mass of
evidence suggestive of literary dependence on the Pauline epistles, yet ultimately rejects
any direct connection. Svartvik cautions that Mark's Pauline focus does not necessarily
imply a direct connection between the historical Paul and the actual author of Mark
(Mark and Mission, 344-46). A few continued to evaluate Volkmar' s work more
positively. William Wrede asserted chat "The sum total of what is false and impossible
in his work is great in things both great and small ... [Yet] without a doubt Volkmar' s
book is the most perceptive and shrewd, and co 1ny mind altogether the most
important, that we possess on Mark" (cited in Joel Marcus, "Mark Interpreter of
Paul," NTS 46[2000):4:473-487; here: 473). See also Telford, Theology ofMark, 169.
26 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Werner's reasoning has been called into question relatively

recently,7 and over the years many scholars have found Pauline
themes in Mark. 8 Some have interpreted Mark as primarily
allegorical,9 and some have proposed that Mark created parts of

7 See Marcus, "Mark, Interpreter of Paul."

8 See M. E. Boismard and Paul Benoit,
Synopse des quatre Evangiles en franrais avec
para/le/es des Apocryphes et des Peres (Paris: Cerf, 1972); J. C. Fenton, "Paul and
Mark," in Dennis E. Nineham, ed., Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H
Lightfoot (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955), 89-112; Michael Douglas Goulder, St. Paul
vs. St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994); Marcus,
"Mark, Interpreter of Paul"; Willi Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the
Redaction-History of the Gospel (New York: Abingdon, 1968); John Painter, Mark's
Gospel: Worlds in Conflict (London: Routledge, 1997); Svarcvik, Mark and Mission.
Marcus provides a long list of themes that are identical in Mark and Paul (''Mark,
Interpreter of Paul," 475 and Mark 1-8 [New Haven: Yale UP, 2002], 73-4) and his
own list of scholars who sit on one or the other side of the fence ("Mark, Interpreter of
Paul," 473-4). Svarcvik (Mark and Mission, 345) asserts that "The Gospel of Mark may
best be described as a narrative presentation of the Pauline Gospel."
9
My use of the word "allegorical" in this context is not meant to be taken in a narrow
technical sense but in a more general sense of expressing a message indirectly by means
of symbolic language. As Svarcvik (Mark and Mission, 212ff.), Alter (Art of Biblical
Narrative, 21), and Meir Sternberg (The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological
Literature and the Drama of Reading [Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1987], 56) assert,
biblical literature in general does not conform to modern technical definitions of
words such as "allegory," "parable," or even "fiction" or "nonfiction." For
interpretations of Mark as allegorical in the sense I use the word here, see: Mary Ann
Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark's Work in Literary-Historical Perspective (Augsburg
Fortress, 1989), 24-26; Thomas L. Brodie, The Birthing of the New Testament: The
Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 2004), 146ff.; Thomas L. Brodie, "Towards Tracing the Gospels' Literary
Indebtedness to the Epistles," in Dennis R. MacDonald, ed., Mimesis and
Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press
International, 2001), 104-116;. Michael D. Goulder, Five Stones and a Sling: Memoirs
of a Biblical Scholar (Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd, 2009); Dennis R. MacDonald, The
Homeric Epics and the Gospel ofMark (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000), 170ff.; Burton L.
Mack, A Myth ofInnocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1991); Burton L. Mack, The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy (Continuum,
2003); K. Hanhart, "Son, Your Sins are Forgiven," in Frans Van Segbroeck et al., eds.,
The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (Leuven: Leuven University Press,
1992), 997-1016. Some assume that Mark had traditions about Jesus to work with but
Marks Sources and Purpose 27

his narrative by borrowing from the Old Testament, the

Homeric epics, and the Pauline epistles." My goal in this book is
mainly to present the evidence for a literary relationship between
Mark and Paul's epistles. This intertextual relationship works
both ways: Mark's Gospel borrows from the epistles, and it
bolsters the authority of the epistles.

exercised complete freedom to change them however he wanted; see Theodore J.

Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 3, 16;
Willi Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction-History of the Gospel
(New York: Abingdon, 1968), 215; David B. Gowler, "The Chreia," in Amy-Jill
Levine, Dale. C. Allison, and John Dominic Crossan, eds., The Historical Jesus in
Context (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006), 132-148; here: 135; Austin Farrer, St.
Matthew and St. Mark (London: Dacre, 1954), 15, 37; Werner H. Kelber, The
Passion in Mark. Studies on Mark 14-16 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1976), 139;
Daniel J. Harrington, What are they Saying About Mark? (New York: Paulist Press,
2004), 28.
10
On the Old Testament connection, see Brodie, Birthing, on the Homeric epic
connection, see MacDonald, Homeric Epics; and on the connection to Paul's epistles,
see Paul Nadim Tarazi, The New Testament Introduction. Paul and Mark (Crestwood:
SVS Press, 1999).
 2
A Tale of Two Missions
The consensus among scholars is that Mark is the earliest of the
four canonical gospels and was not written until after 65 A.D. This
means the first communities of believers began and grew
throughout their first three decades without a written "gospel."
The only writings reflecting faith in Jestis as the Messiah and
originating from this period are the letters Paul sent to the Gentile
churches he had founded. 25 In these epistles the word "gospel"
refers not to a written document but to Paul's teaching about the
Messiahship (divine Sonship) of Jesus and its significance for both
Gentiles and Jews. "The gospel" in this context is essentially a
synonym for "the faith," as is most obvious in Galatians. The
agreement reached among Christian leaders at Jerusalem and
described in this letter (2: 1-1 O) bears witness to the fact that the
lack of interest in a written gospel evident in Paul's epistles is not
unique to him: no one during this early period spoke of "a
gospel" or '(the gospel" as a written document and thus as a part of
scripture. There was in fact no "New Testament" as we now know
it, and more importantly, there was no discernible sense that
something was amiss because of that lack. Indeed, our term "Old
Testament" presumes there is a "New" counterpart, but such was
not the case at this time. The Old Testament as scripture was
considered complete and sufficient throughout those first 30 years.
Paul Tarazi26

ne of the difficulties with many of the competing theories

O about why Mark wrote his Gospel is that they fail to
explain why it took 30 years for someone to begin such a project.

25 As T arazi observes in a footnote at this point, the exception is Romans, which was
written to a church not founded by him.
26 Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 111-112.

29
30 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The lack of interest in a written version of the gospel is all the

more striking when one realizes that Paul's epistles bear witness
to sharp divisions within the nascent Christian community over
the content of the gospel. A written record of Jesus' words and
actions could have been very useful to either side in these
disputes over practical and theological matters, and yet it was 30
years before someone created such a record. How can this delay
be explained?

The epistle to the Galatians was called forth specifically in

response to one of these early divisions in the Christian
•
community:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called

you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel - not
that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you
and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an
angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that
which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said
before, so now I say again, If anyone is preaching to you a gospel
contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. (Gal 1 :6-
9)
The rest of the epistle clarifies that the competing "gospel"
included a requirement that all who believe in Christ and join
his community obey Jewish traditions such as circumcision and
dietary restrictions.

Paul gives us some background to this conflict in Galatians

1:1-2:14. There we learn that he began his apostolic mission
work independently from the other apostles, considering himself
to be personally commissioned by the risen Lord himself. He was
converting Gentiles to faith in Jesus Christ and was telling them
they did not have to become Jews or follow Jewish traditions
A Tale of Two Missions 31

such as circumcision in order to become full members of the

Christian community.

Paul continued to work independently as an apostle for

fourteen years until the controversy arose. It began when certain
Jewish Christians came to the Gentile communities Paul had
established and told Paul's converts that they did in fact need to
be circumcised and observe Jewish traditions. Paul vigorously
opposed these "J udaizers" and took his case to the Christian
leaders who were based in Jerusalem - the "so-called pillars" of
the church: James, Peter, and John. He achieved an official
agreement there: Paul was in charge of the mission to the
Gentiles, and Peter was in charge of the mission to the Jews .

. . . when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the
uncircumcised just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to
the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for the mission
to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles), and
when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and
Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and
Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the
Gentiles and they to the circumcised ... (Gal 2:7-9)

The only condition placed on Paul was that he undertake a

money collection among his relatively well-off Gentile
congregations and bring it as an offering to the relatively poor
congregations of Jerusalem.

According to Paul, he returned to his base in Antioch, where

there was an integrated and harmonious mix of Jews and
Gentiles, with this agreement vindicating him in hand. Shortly
thereafter Peter joined him there and honored the agreement by
deigning to "eat with the Gentiles."27 In that culture, taking part

27
Gal 2: 12.
32 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

in table fellowship was a fundamental way of showing one's full

membership in a community. By joining the Gentiles in this
way, Peter showed that he considered Gentiles to be full and
equal members of the community even if they did not observe
the Jewish Law regarding matters such as circumcision.

Apparently the "pillars" remaining in Jerusalem had a different

view of the agreement that had been hashed out with Paul than
Paul himself did, because they did not allow this behavior to
continue unchallenged. Paul reports that before long James sent
some men from Jerusalem to tell Jews that they still had to
observe Jewish traditions.

Peter complied by curtailing his table fellowship with Gentiles,

and this incensed Paul, who saw Peter's actions as cowardly and
traitorous. Paul tells us that he condemned Peter openly for this
breach of trust:

But when Cephas [that is, Peter] came to Antioch I opposed him
to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men
came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he
drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.
And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even
Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. But when I saw
that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I
said to Cephas before them all, "If yot1, though a Jew, live like a
Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to
live like Jews?" (Gal 2: 11-14)

How could Peter's actions "compel the Gentiles to live like

Jews"? Apparently, what Peter did intimated that if you were a
Gentile it was not enough to believe in Christ. Until you
adopted Jewish traditions such as circumcision and table
fellowship rules, you were still in reality only a second-class
A Tale of Two Missions 33

citizen within the community - on your way to salvation

perhaps, but having taken only the first of two requisite steps.
Games and Peter might not have seen things this way, but we do
not have their side of the story.)

Paul's decisive reaction did not put an end to the controversy.

Emissaries of the "circumcision party" that Peter "feared" made
their way later to Paul's churches in Galatia and managed to
convince them too that they had to obey Jewish traditions. This
continued challenge to Paul's gospel and his authority was all the
more galling because he had gone to the trouble of hashing
things out with the Jerusalem leaders. And so Paul penned the
angry response that began "I am astonished that you are so
quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and
turning to a different gospel ... "

Paul's conflict with the leaders of the Jewish mission persisted.

Although the epistles may have been edited to create an image of
unity among the apostles," evidence of the split remains in
places. In 1 Thessalonians Paul laments about how "the Jews"
have been hindering his efforts:

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in

Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things
from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed
both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and
displease God and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking
to the Gentiles that they may be saved - so as always to fill up the
measure of their sins. ( 1 Thess 2: 14-16)

The ongoing severity of this as the main conflict that Paul and
his Gen tile congregations faced is reflected in the fact that most

28
This is the thesis of David Trobisch (Paul's Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins
[Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994]). See also David Trobisch, First Edition.
34 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

of Romans - the magnum opus within the Pauline corpus -

addresses at great length the relationship between Jews and
Christian Gentiles.

Taking all this into account, the phrase "disobedient people in

Judea" at the end of Romans can be interpreted as an allusion to
the party of James and to Peter for going along with them:29

I appeal to you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love
of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on
my behalf, that I may be delivered from the disobedient people"
in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to
the saints ... (Rom 15:30-31)

In Paul's view, if James were to refuse the collection in order to

disavow the agreement, that would constitute disobedience to
the gospel. The warning against divisive people in Romans 16
may then have the same implied targets:31

I tirge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions
and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you
have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not
serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk
and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has
heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I
want yot1 to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what
is evil. (Rom 16: 17-19)

Another example is in 1 Corinthians. In chapter 7 Paul praises

his own ability to remain unmarried while allowing that
marriage is acceptable for people who are "unable to control

29 See Trobisch, Paul's Letter Collection, 90.

30
Some English versions translate "unbelievers," which is misleading. The word
a1tet8ouv'tcov literally means the disobedient ones, not the unbelieving ones.
31
Ibid.
A Tale of Two Missions 35
themselves" (7:8-9); then just two chapters later he alludes to the
married status of "the brothers of the Lord Dames] and Cephas
[Peter]" (9:3-6). The effect, and quite possibly the intent, of
these two passages is to portray in a negative light the men who
opposed Paul in Jerusalem and Antioch.

In St. Paul vs. St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions, Michael

Goulder argues that the differences between Paul's Gentile
mission and Peter's Jewish mission went well beyond the
question of whether Gentiles were required to observe Jewish
traditions.32 He sees a more fundamental disagreement: Peter's
mission believed chat the heavenly kingdom had already arrived
and believers were already enjoying resurrected life, while Paul's
stressed chat the resurrection was yet to come and believers'
present life was more like the crucifixion. Out of this
fundamental divide developed other differences: Peter's mission
stressed tongues and visions and gifts of the spirit, while Paul's
stressed love and charity; Peter's mission stressed the need to give
away all of one's possessions since the end had already come,
while Paul's mission advised people to keep working and earning
a living. As will be seen, some of these differences are reflected in
the text of Mark's Gospel.

Those who are unfamiliar with biblical scholarship but have

read the New Testament may find this theory surprising or
consider it improbable because the book of Acts portrays a
harmonious college of early Christian leaders all reaching out to
Gentiles. Indeed, Acts has Peter initiating the mission himself at
the direct command of God, with Paul picking up the torch and

32 Goulder, Paul vs. Peter. As Goulder notes, a similar idea was first proposed by
Ferdinand Baur in 1831, but scholars lost sight of it after problems with it were
pointed out by W. Li.itgert in 1908. Goulder addresses the difficulties cited by Li.itgert
in this book and other writings; see 194-95.
36 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

running with it later. However, this harmony between Paul and

the other apostles directly contradicts what we read in Paul's own
epistles, which bear evidence of a split between them.

If we approach the New Testament writings as historical

sources, the epistles appear to be closer to what we would call
primary sources than the gospels, which are secondary sources
that were written much later.33 Although the epistles have clearly
been carefully edited,34 some of them were apparently written by
participants and eyewitnesses of the events that they depict,
possibly within a relatively short time after those events took
place. It is true that the author of Luke-Acts cites access to
"eyewitnesses" (Luke 1 :2), and the famous "we passages"35 in
Acts give the impression that the author was involved in the
reported action. But the bulk of Acts is a secondary source whose
author had a particular point to make in writing it. More
specifically, the author of Acts went to great lengths to highlight
the unity and harmony of all of the apostles. 36 In fact, many
scholars interpret Acts as a tendentious attempt to portray a
Christian unity after the fact that did not in reality exist. 37 There
is, then, no convincing evidence to disprove Paul's accounts of a
sharp divide between him and "J udaizing" Christians, and the
"Two Missions" theory of Goulder has much to recommend it

33 In historical research, primary sources are first-hand accounts by eyewitnesses or

participants in the events recounted; secondary sources are compilations by people
who have read or heard about the events second-hand. Primary sources are generally
considered more reliable as historical sources, just as first-hand testimony is permitted
in court while hearsay is not.
34 See Trobisch, Paul's Letter Collection,
especially 22-3, 44-47, 57-62, 75.
35 Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16.
36 See Trobisch, Paul's Letter Collection, 90ff.; First Edition, 77ff.
37 See, for example, Trobisch, First Edition, 45-63, 77ff. The presence in Acts of some

accurate references to people and events outside the Christian community does not
mean that its history of early Christianity is accurate.
A Tale of Two Missions 37

in general even if support for some of the specifics is relatively

weak.

And so it appears that Paul was engaged in a pitched battle to

defend everything he had worked for against powerful
opponents, including Jesus' brother James, the leader of the
church in Jerusalem. In this battle both sides acknowledged the
Old Testament as their scriptural authority, and both sides
thought the Old Testament supported their side against the
other. The Apostle fought the opponents who preached this
"other gospel" with only two weapons: his personal authority
and his rhetorical skill in support of his interpretation of the Old
Testament. 38

The content of "the gospel," then, was hotly contested, and

one side of the struggle drew its support largely if not entirely
from the person of Paul. Indeed, much of the Pauline corpus is
devoted to defending the Pauline version of "the gospel" against
aggressive proponents of competing versions. Yet we have no
evidence that in the midst of this raging battle anyone thought a
systematic literary exposition of their own version of the gospel
was needed to resolve the matter. For three long decades no one
saw the need for such a document either to defend their own
view against opponents or to evangelize people yet unreached by
any version of the gospel story.

What, then, could have prompted someone to undertake the

composition of Mark at the specific time it was written so long
after the history it recounts? One hypothesis that makes sense of
the known facts is that the same group involved in creating the
epistles simply added a new tactic - that of narrative - to their

38
Gal 1: 1-2: 14 is largely devoted to asserting Paul's personal authority; for an example
where he argues for his interpretation of the Old Testament, see 3:6-22; 4:22-31.
38 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

literary repertoire. The change in tactics may have been

occasioned by the death of Paul and the realization that the
effectiveness of his personal authority in the ongoing battle was
diminishing. The primary in tended audience would then be the
same as for the epistles: established Christian communities in
which the battle between competing gospels continued to rage.
The primary purpose of the gospel narrative would then be to
assert that Paul's gospel was correct, that Paul's interpretation of
the significance of the person of Christ and his crucifixion and
resurrection was the correct one, and that Paul's opponents were
wrong even though they could boast of close personal
connections to Jesus while Paul could not.

This would be a tall order. First of all, it would involve

projecting (or "retrojecting") back to around 30 AD a dispute
that did not actually arise until the 40s or 50s. The controversy
about Law observance that we know from Paul's epistles could
not have begun until Paul started converting Gentiles and
allowing them to ignore circumcision and other Jewish
traditions. So the author of a gospel narrative intended to
support Paul's position would have to skillfully craft a story that
was at once anachronistic and plausible.

Secondly, such a narrative would have to show Jesus

disavowing the authority of his own closest associates, since it
was precisely apostles whose "pillar" status was based on
closeness to Jesus dating back before his resurrection who were
opposing Paul.

To accomplish these tasks in a written narrative set in Jesus'

day, the author would have to portray a Jesus who was
misunderstood by his own closest associates, and who made clear
that Jewish traditions were of relative rather than absolute value.
A Tale of Two Missions 39

This literary Jesus would not need to present any new or unique
teaching but would have to confirm the authority of the Old
Testament. And the narrative would have to emphasize the
crucifixion and de-emphasize the resurrection, because that is
what Paul did in his epistles. The Apostle to the Gentiles did
defend belief in Christ's resurrection against those who would
deny it, but the core of his message was the crucified Christ: "For
I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and
him crucified." (1 Cor 2:2)39

The literary strategy laid out here is precisely what we find in

the Gospel of Mark.

39 See also 1 Cor 1:13, 23; Gal 2:20; 3:1; 5:24; 6:14
 3
The Chimera of Oral Tradition
f the reason why Mark wrote his Gospel is less obvious than is
I commonly assumed, the question of where he found his
sources raises even greater difficulties. How can a narrative
written 30-plus years after the events that it records include such
vivid detail, extensive verbatim conversations, and even the
innermost thoughts and feelings of the participants in the drama?
If this is all or mostly an accurate historical record, someone
would have to have hired a stenographer to follow Jesus and his
disciples around everywhere (not to mention a clairvoyant to
pass on private thoughts of participants to the stenographer).

In fact, we have no evidence at all that anything about Jesus'

life and sayings was written down during his lifetime or even
shortly thereafter. The earliest writings we have that mention
Jesus are the New Testament epistles attributed to Paul, but the
Apostle records almost nothing of his Lord's life and sayings. 40
How is it that Mark's elaborate narrative appeared suddenly out
of nowhere after three decades?

Some scholars postulate the existence of a written document

they call Q which preserved a substantial series of Jesus' sayings,
and which might have been written down before Mark.41

° For a complete list of everything in Paul's epistles that cites sayings of Jesus or can be
4

interpreted as alluding to such sayings, see Nikolaus Walter, "Paul and the Early
Christian Jesus-Tradition," in A. J. M. Wedderburn, ed., Paul and Jesus: Collected
Essays (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 51-80.
41 For an
exposition of the Q theory, see James M. Robinson, Jesus: According to the
Earliest Witness (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007). For a proposed reconstruction of
Q, see Paul Hoffmann, John S. Kloppenborg, and James M. Robinson, eds., The
Critical Edition of Q: A Synopsis Including the Gospels ofMatthew and Luke, Mark, and
41
42 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

According to this hypothesis, Matthew and Luke were each

ignorant of the other's gospel but each used Mark and Q as their
sources, and so Q can be reconstructed from areas where the text
of Matthew and Luke is identical without a counterpart in Mark.
But no physical remnants of Q have ever been found, no ancient
writer clearly mentions the existence of such a document, 42 and
even Q's advocates assume it was not written down until, as in
the case of Mark, decades had elapsed after the words recorded
were originally spoken.

Remnants of non-canonical gospels such as the Gospel of

Thomas have survived, but none of the surviving manuscripts
can be dated earlier than the second century. While a few
scholars assign a first-century date to the original version of
Thomas, here too even the most optimistic among them do not
propose that the sayings were committed to papyrus at the time
when the recorded words were spoken. 43

The most plausible conclusion is that there were no written

records of Jesus' life and sayings earlier than Mark, and the
question remains: where did Mark get all the detailed
information he preserved in his Gospel? The traditional answer
to this conundrum was that the gospels were either written by

Thomas with English, German, and French Translations of Q and Thomas (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2000). And for arguments that nothing like Q ever existed, see Mark
Goodacre, The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem
(Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2002) and Mark Goodacre and Nicholas
Perrin, eds., Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 2004).
42 Eusebius
quotes a certain bishop Papias of Hierapolis as mentioning a compilation
of sayings of Jesus that was used by Matthew, and some scholars take this to be a
reference to Q. Most, however, interpret Papias' comments as referring to the
canonical book of Matthew.
43 For an introduction to the
Gospel of Thomas, see Norman Perrin, Thomas, The
Other Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 43

"eyewitnesses" or by people who spoke to "eyewitnesses." The

prescribed belief was that the evangelists were either writing from
memory as disciples of the Lord (Matthew and John), or they
relied upon the disciples' accounts told to them as they were
composing their narratives (Mark and Luke). Eusebius, a fourth-
century church historian, quotes the second century "bishop"
Papias of Hierapolis in support of this view with respect to
Mark:

Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down

accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he
remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither
heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he
followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his
hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of
the Lord's discourses. 44

One of the Papias passages is also frequently cited to explain

why so much time elapsed before someone wrote down the
gospel story. In this view, "oral tradition" was valued even higher
than a written record:

If then, anyone came, who had been a follower of the elders, I

questioned him in regard to the words of the elders - what
Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by
Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other
of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the
Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think
that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as
much as what came from the living and abiding voice.45

44 Eusebius, Church History 39:15 (NPNF2 1:172-3).

45 Eusebius, Church
History 39:4 (NPNF2 1: 171).
44 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

At first glance this sounds like a reasonable explanation for the

content of Mark, but in reality it isn't historically plausible.
Memories even of eyewitnesses grow dim and lose detail after a
day or two, let alone weeks, months, or 30-plus years. Scattered
impressions and individual emotionally charged moments might
remain, but this would hardly supply a long and detailed
narrative with extensive verbatim dialogue. Such a narrative
might be extrapolated from such memories, but it would be
more the result of later reflection and extrapolation than an
accurate historical record.

The Modern Theory of Oral Tradition

Within the last couple of centuries New Testament scholars
recognized the problem and devised an alternative theory that
seems to solve the problem. Mark's main source, they propose, is
"oral tradition." What this implies is succinctly expressed by
William Telford in his description of the Gospel of Mark:

The Gospel is the compilation of a number of single, isolated,

easily memorized traditions or pericopae (or small clusters of such
pericopae) which circulated in oral form before being written
down.46

Some scholars believe these traditions were often composed out

of thin air to serve specific purposes in the life of a community.
For example, if a dispute over dietary rules arose in a
community, the community might make up a saying to settle the
matter, like "there is nothing outside a man which by going into
him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are
what defile him." (Mark 7: 15) Others believe that the traditions
originally resulted from people memorizing events and

46William R Telford, The Theology of the Gospel ofMark (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1999), 153.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 45
conversations they participated in. Within this group of scholars
are two sub-groups. Some who subscribe to the memorization
scenario believe that the traditions changed radically as they were
passed along from person to person, as in the childhood game
where a phrase gets passed from child to child around a circle
and comes out unrecognizable by the time it gets back to the
originator. Others believe that people passing on oral traditions
were careful to avoid changing anything in them and succeeded
in doing so.

Still others question the very foundations of the idea of oral

tradition itself. One of the most serious attacks on this theory
comes from the pen of Thomas Brodie, who convincingly asserts
that the idea of oral tradition as the source for the gospels is new
(recently devised by modern scholarship, and thus at least
questionable), unfounded (the arguments that created the
hypothesis are weak), unworkable (the hypothesis doesn't explain
the actual evidence in the text), and unnecessary (alternative
explanations are simpler and more credible). 47

Brodie's argument is worth a close examination because the

modern theory of oral tradition offers the only real alternative to
the view of Mark as a creative author who was reworking other
literary sources such as Paul's epistles to create his narrative.

New: Oral Tradition as a Recent Invention

Christians have had some conception of "oral tradition" since
the earliest centuries, but modern scholars invented an entirely
new meaning for the term. The process of invention began in the
early years of the twentieth century when Hermann Gunkel

47 Brodie, Birthing, 50-62. My discussion of oral tradition here follows closely the
structure of the chapter on the subject in Brodie's book.
46 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

devised a new method for analyzing the book of Genesis. Gunkel

proposed that Genesis was a compilation of stories that were
developed and passed on orally within communities for specific
purposes in the life of the community. The reason why an
individual story was composed, and thus the key to its intended
message or meaning, was determined by its original Sitz im
Leben (situation in life). A story's ultimate context in whatever
literary work it eventually got written into was a secondary
setting with less important or even misleading clues for the
story's interpretation. The modern scholar began to pay less
attention to literary context and tried instead to determine the
original situation in life and thus the original meaning of each
separate story. The methodology developed to do this was called
Gattungsgeschichte (genre history), which in English has come to
be known as form criticism. Form criticism deconstructs a
written text into supposed originally independent parts, called
pericopes or pericopae depending on how enamored one is of
Latin plural word forms. 48

Gunkel did not limit this approach to Genesis but rather

considered ancient literature in general to be fundamentally
different in this way from modern literature. For Gunkel, all
ancient literature involved committing to writing stories that
were invented and preserved orally as folk traditions. The
creative genius came not from individual authors but
impersonally from communities. Modern literature, on the other
hand, was seen as fundamentally different insofar as it involves
the genius of individual creativity. It is the product of authors.
To make a long story short, this view made the leap from Old

48
Ironically, the word pericope is from the Greek, and a transliteration of the Greek
plural would have an -ai ending, but Western scholarship is so accustomed to Latin
forms that the customary transliteration is -ae.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 47
Testament to New Testament, took the world of biblical
scholarship by storm, and remains today a commonly accepted
paradigm among biblical scholars. 49

The modern oral tradition and form criticism paradigm has

perpetuated the conception of the evangelists as scribes or
redactors rather than authors. Today scholars have developed
other methodologies to interpret the gospels," but the evangelist-
as-compiler-rather-than-author paradigm persists. Redaction
criticism, for instance, is founded on this paradigm insofar as it
assumes the evangelists stitched together various independent
pericopes into a single narrative. Even scholars who practice
narrative criticism, in which each pericope' s current literary
context provides the primary clues to its interpretation, typically
assume that the bulk of the narrative came ready-made to the
evangelists through oral tradition.

Brodie laments that the new theory of oral tradition has even
led scholars to downplay literary relationships among the New
Testament texts. When parallels are seen between two texts, the
parallels tend to be ascribed to a common source in oral tradition

49 For a concise yet complete account of how the modern conception of oral tradition
and form criticism developed, see Robert C. Culley, "Oral Tradition and Biblical
Studies," Oral Tradition 1: 1 :30-65. The theory's status as a paradigm is shown by the
way it is not only widely accepted but typically is treated as unquestionable. For
example, well-known names in the field, such as James D. G. Dunn and Jerome
Murphy-O'Connor, freely use phrases like "without doubt" and "certain conclusion"
when discussing this conception of oral tradition. See James D. G. Dunn, "Altering
the Default Setting: Re-envisaging the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition,"
NTS 49(2003): 139-175 and Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Jesus and Paul: Parallel Lives
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007), 88. The article by Dunn was written specifically
to assert that the author of Mark depended heavily on oral tradition.
°
5 For a survey of various methodologies that have been
applied to the gospels in recent
scholarship, see Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore, Mark and Method:
New Approaches in Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008).
48 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

rather than to literary dependence. 51 The ultimate consequence is

that instead of the New Testament as a whole being viewed as a
cohesive literary creation in which the books are all literarily
interdependent, each book is interpreted as a standalone unit -
just as each pericope within a gospel is interpreted as a
standalone unit. Brodie argues that it's time to strip the false aura
of venerability from the modern oral tradition theory and
acknowledge that it is subject to re-thinking, as are all new
theories. The first step in that re-thinking is to ask how strong
the arguments were that established it so recently.

Unfounded: Oral Tradition Theory's Flawed Origin

Gunkel did not create the modern conception of oral tradition
out of thin air but borrowed it from anthropological studies of
pre-literate societies. His primary basis for attributing the biblical
material to anthropological oral tradition was that he did not
consider Genesis to be "history." In his view there were only two
possible genres for an ancient work of narrative literature: saga or
history. And since saga was by definition an oral production, the
conclusion was clear:

Are the accounts (Erzdlungen) of Genesis stories or sagas

( Geschichte oder Sage)? For the modern historian this question is
no longer a question, yet it is important to make clear the grounds
for this modern position. History writing ( Gescbichtsschreibungj is

51 Brodie observes that "if two passages do not show fairly obvious parallelism they are
either not compared, or their complex relationship, instead of being set in literary
context, is usually accounted for on the basis of evidence which is missing and
uncontrollable - oral tradition and lost documents." (Cited in MacDonald, Homeric
Epics, 171.) An extreme example of this is Benjamin Bacon (The Gospel ofMark, 270-
271), who chronicles a vast assortment of remarkably clear correspondences between
passages in Mark and Paul's epistles, but then concludes there cannot have been
literary borrowing because "the transfer of Pauline terms is too free for literary
dependence. The relation is close, but still traditional and oral rather than literary."
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 49
no innate art of the human spirit, but has emerged in the course of
human history, at a particular point of development (an einem
bestimmten Punkte der Entwicklung). Uncultured peoples (Die
uncultivierten Volker) do not write history.52

It is not difficult to see that this is an unreal dilemma: the

conception of "history" among ancient people might well be
different from the modern conception. Gunkel' s reasoning
amounts to an assertion that the mere fact that an ancient
literary work contains things that we know cannot possibly be
"historical" in our sense of the word means it must have been an
oral production. 53 Proceeding on this flawed basis, Gunkel
pointed out some similarities between the Genesis text and
"sagas" from oral cultures, such as the inclusion within Genesis
of apparently self-contained short stories. This assumes that the
mere presence of short, apparently independent stories in an
ancient literary work amounts to definitive proof that such
stories originally circulated independently and orally. It also
assumes that the culture that produced the sagas and the culture
of Israel were fundamentally similar. These assumptions made
sense to Gunkel because of his belief that cultures were
essentially "cultured" or "uncultured." For Gunkel, the brevity of
many of the stories found in Genesis substantiated his view of
early Judaic society as "uncultured":

[The brevity of the stories] corresponds to the art of the story-

teller and the hearer's ability to absorb. The oldest storytellers were
not able to set forth complex works of art ... Rather, the old
times (die alte Zeit) were satisfied with giving very small products
(ganz kleinen Produkten) that would fill something less than half

5Z Cited in Brodie, Birthing, 54.

53 The
question of what constitutes "history" is addressed at greater length below in
Part 3 on the genre of Mark.
50 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

an hour. And when the story was ended, the hearer's fantasy was
fully satisfied and his ability to absorb exhausted.

In fact, this condescending European attitude toward ancient

society as "uncultured" is itself not well founded, and the belief
that people a few millennia ago had limited mental capacity is an
unsubstantiated assumption. Gunkel found other similarities
between saga and Genesis, but in such a large body of literature
it is not difficult to find whatever one is looking for. As Brodie
observes, this is what Gunkel did.

And so the fateful path was taken: on the fortieth page of his
commentary, Gunkel starts talking about the foundational role of
oral tradition. And behind the oral tradition were, not authors,
but communities. 54

Shortly thereafter New Testament scholarship picked up the

torch, and ultimately "The first half of the 2Qrh c. surrendered to
his influence. "55

Today scholars are more inclined to recognize the complex

literary artistry of books such as Genesis, so the original basis for
ascribing its content to oral tradition seems fundamentally
flawed. But more recently others have attempted to build on his
foundation, citing additional reasons for believing a Gunkel-like
anthropological oral tradition is behind the text of the gospels.
Werner Kelber and Albert Lord argue that the gospels are
influenced by oral culture and rhythms and that "some of the
patterns of oral literature also occur in biblical texts such as the
gospels."56 But nearly all ancient literature bears evidence of oral
forms, and this does not automatically mean the content had to

54 Brodie, Birthing, 55.

55 Ibid., 55.
56 Ibid., 56.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 51
come from oral tradition. Such patterns are evidence that the
form of the text was influenced by oral culture, not that the
content originated from oral tradition. Also, first-century
religious texts such as the gospels were written for oral
performance, and so oral speech patterns are to be expected.
Indeed, making a text sound like oral speech is itself a literary
convention:
•

In other words, the patterns which Lord claims are oral, are in fact
literary, and found in genuine literature. More of what Lord
attributes to oral influence can be more fully accounted for by
what R. Alter (1981: 51-52) calls 'literary conventions.' And the
fact that the gospels largely consist of episodes fits into a literary
pattern 'the cult of the episode.'57

In addition, patterns that appear to reflect oral culture can be

found in literature from any period. A modern author as well as
an ancient one may write with a view to oral delivery, as any
speech-writer must. An author may intend to portray rustic,
rural, life in a largely oral culture without being a part of that
culture.

One pattern that scholars sometimes cite as suggestive of oral

tradition is minor variations in the wording of the same story in
separate texts. 58 But the same kinds of variations can occur in an
exclusively literary environment.59 An author may freely alter a

57 Ibid., 56.
58 Jerome
Murphy O'Connor (Jesus and Paul, 88) offers a succinct expression of this
view: « ... identity in essentials and divergence in marginals points to one certain
conclusion. We are dealing with a foundational narrative that not only began in oral
tradition, but that continued to preserve its salient features."
59 Numerous studies of ancient literature have shown that the ways in which ancient

authors borrowed from literary texts were incredibly varied and included precisely this
pattern. See Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis Ronald MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter,
52 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

text that he borrows from, in ways that result in minor

variations. Minor variations in similar stories may point to
literary artifice as well as to oral tradition. Actually, in oral
transmission those variations are random in nature, but in
literary transmission one can often detect behind them the
purposes of the author, and this is precisely what scholars can do
very frequently in the gospel texts.

Birger Gerhardsson and James D. G. Dunn take a somewhat

different tack in the quest to substantiate the oral tradition
theory: their argument is that Jesus and his disciples taught
orally and so it is to be expected that such would be the initial
mode of transmission of the gospel materials. However, this
argument is based on the portrayal of Jesus and the disciples in
the gospels and so presupposes the gospels' essential historicity.
The gospels do tell the story that way, but the degree to which
that story or that aspect of the story is historically accurate is an
open question. Historicity in this case is an assumption, not an
argument:

[Dunn] makes an impassioned plea for attention to oral tradition,

but his case is based on a presumption: 'We simply cannot escape
from a presumption of orality for the first stage of the Jesus
tradition' (2003a: 157). Dunn does not discuss how ancient
writers composed their texts. His leading example of a text
allegedly shaped by oral tradition (Lk. 7.1-10; cf. Mt. 8.1-13; Jn
4.46-54) is in fact heavily dependent on the text of the Elijah-
Elisha narrative. 60

Dunn's argument is to some extent circular: he assumes that the

gospels are historical, based in part on the reliability of oral

eds., The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice (Sheffield:
Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006).
6o Brodie, Birthing, 57.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 53

tradition; and he assumes the reliability of oral tradition based in

part on the historicity of the gospels.

Helmut Koester takes a different approach to defending the

validity of oral tradition theory. His argument is based on data
outside of the gospels: from some passages in Paul's epistles he
supposes that the tradition was transmitted orally to Paul and
thus was created and transmitted by a community:

Christianity began as a religious movement that established its

distinctive interior structures by the creation of a ritual and a story
... Paul ... received a tradition of an oral version ... (1 Cor.
11.23b). The organization of the new communities was
accomplished ... by sayings ... transmitted in the oral tradition
... Writings that were later called 'gospels' came into existence as
alternative forms of the continuing oral tradition ... 61

However, the idea of the central role of "communities" in

passing on the tradition is a questionable presupposition of form
criticism methodology, and it is far from clear that Koester is
correctly interpreting the Pauline passages in question. The key
passages are 1 Corinthians 11 :23 and 15:3:

For I received (1tape8roKa) from the Lord what I also delivered

(1tapt:oiot:1:o) to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was
betrayed took bread ...

For I delivered (naptoroKa) to yott as of first importance what I

also received (1tapEAa�ov), that Christ died for our sins in
accordance with the scriptures ...

As Brodie cautions, these statements most likely do not refer to

what modern scholars mean by the term oral tradition:

61
Cited in Brodie, Birthing, 58.
54 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

... when Paul invokes tradition going back to the Lord, one cannot
be sure whether this call is an appeal to a historical tradition
related to Jesus and a community, or whether, as his language
suggests, he is using and adapting the general ] ewish idea about
tradition going back to Moses and God. Paul's language is itself
general; he gives no details about the source and workings of the
tradition. 62

In other words, Paul is asserting that he is firmly within

authentic ] ewish tradition; he does not explicitly say that he
received the tradition orally.

Actually, if Paul did admit to receiving the tradition orally it

would undermine virtually all of the arguments he so forcefully
advanced in behalf of his own unique apostolic authority.
Throughout his epistles he insists on his absolute authority as an
apostle personally commissioned by the Lord to preach the
gospel and determine for others what that gospel is and isn't; if
he admitted to receiving the tradition orally from "the
community," such a claim to authority would fall flat.

Brodie also points out that even if Paul did admit to being
secondary to community-based oral tradition, the statement
might not actually be literally true. The epistles are carefully
crafted literary creations just as the gospels are, and their
historical veracity is just as subject to questioning and
verification:

If the gospels are so suspect historically, then on what basis is one

so sure of the historical reliability of a particular reading of an
epistle? It is not only the gospels which are artistic, rhetorical.

62Ibid., 57. See also the discussion of 1 Cor 15:3 in Paul Nadim Tarazi, 1 Corinthians:
A Commentary (St. Paul, Minn.: OCABS Press, 2011), 263-65.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 55
Evidence grows that, to some degree, something similar is true of
the epistles. 63

Ultimately, oral tradition theory can be seen as "unfounded"

because the arguments that established it are only sufficiently
forceful to convince those who are inclined to be convinced. But
an unfounded theory may still be at least plausible, or to use
Brodie's term, "workable." As it turns out, this theory does not
meet that bar either.

Unworkable: Oral Tradition Theory's Implausibility

An "unworkable" theory may either be one that is couched in
such vague terms that there is no way to test it against the
evidence, or one that can be tested and fails the test. Oral
tradition qualifies on both counts. Many conceptions of how
oral tradition works are as vague as Rudolf Bultmann's blithe
statement that in oral cultures "The literature ... springs out
[entspringt] of definite conditions and wants of life." As Brodie
observes, "Bultmann never explained how this springing process
works.''64 It has been said that a troop of monkeys armed with
typewriters could produce the Encyclopedia Brittanica given
enough time. If so, perhaps the "springing" explanation works
for Genesis since one can extend the "springing" process almost
indefinitely far back into the distant past. But it doesn't work
quite as well for the New Testament, where the time frame is
just thirty years or so.

Charles H. Dodd recognized that the theory didn't work so

well for the New Testament due to the limited time-frame, so he
rose to the challenge by changing the theory. He proposed that

63 Ibid., 58.
64
Ibid., 58.
56 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

oral tradition was not a process of "springing" as in the creation

of new stories from scratch, but rather it was a process of passing
on historical memories:

The materials . . . were already in existence as an unarticulated

wealth of recollections and reminiscences of the words and deeds
of Jesus - mixed, it may be, with the reflections and
interpretations of his followers. 65

This change in the theory W'aS not based on any evidence but was
simply a conjecture intended to make the idea of oral tradition
in the New Testament plausible. Besides the lack of evidence,
the problem here is the allowance for "reflections and
interpretations": add those up over 30 years and what you have
at the end may have little to do with what you started with.

Martin Hengel took Dodd' s idea and pushed it a bit further by

denying the "reflections and interpretations" part: oral tradition
involved no changes over time. This too was a case of conjecture
without evidence. Gerhardsson followed with an attempt at
backing this view up with indirect evidence. He suggested that
Jesus engaged in meticulous methods of rabbinical teaching that
guaranteed whatever he said and did would be firmly implanted
in his disciples' memory, resulting in "Iixed and permanent
impressions." However, the gospels make no suggestion that
Jesus used such methods, and the vast differences between
versions of the same stories in different gospels point in a
different direction. If the methods were so meticulous and the
traditions so fixed, why did they end up so radically different in
so many ways? Moreover, if anyone would have been aware of
and used such methods, it would have been Paul. Yet we have
direct evidence in Paul's epistles that even if they were tried, they

65 Ibid., 58.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 57

didn't work. He was constantly trying to correct followers who

strayed from his teachings. The epistle to the Galatians bears
witness to the development of "oral tradition" directly
contradicting the gospel that Paul preached in Galatia, and the
tradition in Galatia metamorphosed so drastically not over 30
years but within a very short time after he left:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called

you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel - not
that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you
and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an
angel from heaven, should preach to yoLt a gospel contrary to that
which we preached to you, let him be accursed. (Gal I :6-8)

If Paul had to write the epistle to the Galatians specifically to

correct "oral tradition" that had already gone drastically wrong
within weeks or months of his presence there, how can anyone
reasonably suppose that "oral tradition" remained reliable after
30 years?

Joseph Fitzmyer recognized some of the difficulties and tried to

rescue the theory of oral tradition by revising it yet again. He
envisioned a three-stage process: the first stage was the teaching
of Jesus, the second stage was oral transmission which could
involve "embellishment and modification," and finally in the
third stage the evangelists took in the modified traditions and
further modified them with their own "theological formulation."
Besides the fact that, as we've seen in Galatians, "embellishment
and modification" might involve drastic and fundamental
changes, the literary unity of each of the gospels makes
Fitzmyer's revision of the theory unworkable. If Fitzmyer's
scenario were accurate, a gospel would be a patchwork quilt of
ill-fitting individual pieces stitched together with all-too-visible
seams between them. Fitzmyer' s theory could be further revised
58 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

to fit the evidence better by adding a "literary formulation" stage,

but then precious little would remain of the original "oral
tradition" after all the embellishment and modification and
reformulation.

In her study of Mark, Mary Ann Tolbert discusses the

difficulty in ascribing to oral tradition individual pericopes that
all fit so perfectly into the literary fabric of the gospel:

It is possible that these parables or some variation of them existed

in Christian oral tradition prior to Mark. Yet they are so crucial to
the organization of the Gospel and to the molding of so much
other material that it is hard to believe the author did not shape
them to fit his requirements. The interpretation of the parable of
the Sower, with its point-by-point expansion and repetition of the
parable, is especially likely to have come from the author's own
hand.66

Tolbert concludes that recognizing the literary unity of Mark

means that "ifan oral tradition prior to Mark is to be discovered
- and that may well be an impossibility," we will never be able to
say with any certainty what parts he received versus what he
changed or invented. 67

Perhaps recognizing that endless revision to the oral tradition

theory was a dead end, Werner Kelber came up with a radically
new suggestion: Mark did not like and did not trust oral
tradition precisely because of its changeability. The first
evangelist wanted to put an end to oral tradition by establishing
a fixed written tradition to take its place. As with the other
theories devoid of direct evidence, it is easy to propose and just

66 Tolbert,
Sowing the Gospel, 306.
67 Ibid., 307.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 59
as easy for others to call the proposal a "house of cards."68 Still
others can come to the exact opposite conclusion: C. H. Giblin
proposes that the whole purpose of Mark was to deflect the
reader's attention away from any written gospel and toward oral
tradition. This, he asserts, is the purpose of the apparently
inconclusive ending of Mark which leaves hearers to seek the
final resolution of the story in oral tradition. 69

Some scholars try to salvage some form of oral tradition by

scaling back the sweeping claims made for it by others. Thus,
Pieter J. J. Botha finds the "dynamics of rumor" in "parts" of the
gospels. But this pulls back from the idea of something fixed and
reliable and pervasively behind the gospel content) so much so as
to render the theory of little use. In addition, anything that relies
for evidence on "parts" of a gospel is suspect: in such a large
body of literature any carefully selected set of parts could
correspond to any given theory, be it oral tradition or monkeys
banging on typewriters:

That is why so many diverse models - Bultmann, Dodd,

Gerhardsson, Fitzmyer, Botha - can appear credible. The theories
really do correspond to data. But not to all the data. 70

Perhaps the greatest mismatch between data and theory is

between the memorization-at-the-source scenario for oral
tradition and the text of Mark. The story we actually read in the
second gospel is one in which no one understood Jesus'
significance during his earthly ministry. Throughout the story,
the obtuse disciples fail Jesus in every way. They do not
understand who he is or why he is there, and to a man they

68
Quoting Halversen. ibid., 60.
69 C. H. Giblin, "The Beginning of the Ongoing Gospel (Mk 1:2-16:8)," in Van

Segbroeck, The Four Gospels, 975-986.

70
Ibid., 59-60.
60 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

desert him in his hour of need at the beginning of his passion. If

we assume some degree of historical veracity for the story as
related in Mark, it is extraordinarily difficult to imagine these
same disciples stopping and memorizing each dialogue as it
happened - or even the gist of each dialogue - from the moment
Jesus summoned them.

To get a feel for the implausibility of the memorization

scenarios one must think seriously about the actual stories that
are related in Mark and what must have happened if they
occasioned the creation of "permanent and fixed impressions."
Consider, for example, the story of the woman with a 12-year
hemorrhage (5:25-34). According to the text, the disciples were
not aware anything was happening until they heard Jesus tell a
woman that her faith healed her. They then would have had to
quickly memorize not only Jesus' words but the whole story
recounted by the woman. Something like that would have to
have been done on the spot by disciples who had no idea what
was going on ("You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet
you sayJ 'Who touched me?"'). Or consider the stories of Jesus
disputing with his enemies in the temple: if this came from
memorized-at-the-source oral tradition, these same obtuse
disciples would have had to memorize not only Jesus' words but
those of his opponents, some of which were spoken not even to
Jesus but privately among the opponents themselves about Jesus
(11:31-33; 12:14-15, 19-23). The source of the entire passion
story becomes similarly incomprehensible, for the disciples
would have had to find surrogate investigators for things they
didn't personally witness) which means the entire story after
Jesus' arrest. According to Mark, the moment Jesus was taken
into custody "they all forsook him and fled" (14:50).
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 61

The disciples never get a clue in Mark; they might have come
around after the story ends in 16:8, but how would they then
remember so many details from the period when they were in a
perpetual fog? The fact that much of the dialogue in Mark
consists of Jesus castigating his disciples for being slow-witted,
slothful, and even disobedient makes this even harder to believe.
Did these slow-witted and slothful disciples make it a point to
memorize even embarrassing stories about themselves and the
very words with which Jesus castigated them?

"Then are you also without understanding?" (7: 18)

"Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts

hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not
hear? And do you not remember? . . . Do yot1 not yet
understand?" (8: 17-21)

"Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of
men." (8:33)

But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, "Let the
children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the
kingdom of God." (10:14)

And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter,

"Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour?" ... And
he came the third time, and said to them, "Are you still sleeping
and taking your rest?" (14:37-41)

For memorized-at-the-source oral tradition to be behind the

earliest gospel, the disciples had to be perceptive and diligent and
self-effacing in actual fact, yet take part in creating an oral
62 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

tradition that inaccurately portrayed them as obtuse and slothful

and self-aggrandizing. 71

Unnecessary: Alternatives to Oral Tradition

As Brodie observes, showing that a theory is unfounded and
unworkable may not be enough to cause its rejection:

Even if a hypothesis is unclear in its foundation, and even if in

practice there are serious difficulties with getting it to work,
perhaps in some way it is still the only apparent response to a real
need.72

This is indeed a pervasive feeling among scholars. Even a critical

scholar such as Mark Goodacre, who has produced books that
question the existence of Q, assumes that the only real alternative
to explaining the synoptic problem is to rely more heavily on
oral tradition.73 Brodie lists several reasons why people tend to
think this way, followed by explanations why those reasons are
not as compelling in reality as they may seem.

First, much of the text in the gospels follows the rhythms of

oral speech. But in fact writers often deliberately impart such
rhythms to a text, and it would be especially appropriate for the
evangelists to do that if the gospels were written for oral
performance, as is likely.

Second, minor variations between similar stories in the gospels

seem to correspond to the minor variations that occur in oral
communication. But in fact myriad ocher reasons may give rise
to numerous small differences between texts. Authors make use
of earlier texts when composing their own in many ways other

71 For an example of the latter theme, see Mark 10:35-45.

72
Brodie, Birthing, 60.
73 See Goodacre, The Case
Against Q, 187-89; The Synoptic Problem, 62, 166-67.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 63

than word-for-word copying, especially when their own literary

strategy differs from that of their source. If textual variations
resulted from oral communication, they should be relatively
random, but in the gospels the variations frequently seem
deliberate. Where Matthew borrows from Mark, the differences
flt Matthew's different literary strategy.

Third,. the gospel stories depict an oral culture: Jesus and his
disciples go around speaking to crowds and individuals, off the
cuff and naturally, without the artifice that goes into literary
productions. It would be natural for such people to pass on their
teachings orally. But in fact the portrayal of such an environment
in a literary work does not necessarily mean the work arose in
such an environment or that the depiction corresponds
accurately to historical reality. The image of rusticity may be
artifice. 74

The fourth and fifth reasons why oral tradition is often deemed
necessary are closely interrelated. On the one hand, the oral
tradition paradigm is simply so entrenched in modern biblical
scholarship that people assume there is no alternative. On the
other hand, biblical scholars have increasingly concluded that the

74 The gospels' literary heritage is from both Greco-Roman and Jewish culture, both of
which to some extent idealize oral culture. A whole genre of Greco-Roman literature
idealized pastoral simplicity of life, and first-century Jews idealized the concept of oral
tradition which they traced back to Moses. On the other hand these same Jews were
ambivalent toward writing, along with many other religious cultures then and now.
They venerated the written word but were wary of its becoming a calcification of the
past: temple priests acted as guardians of the Torah but were constantly corrected by
prophets who spoke directly from Yahweh. Portraying an oral culture within a written
document could be a way to incorporate this tension within a written document. (A
specific example is Giblin's theory that the inconclusive ending of Mark was intended
to impel the reader into oral tradition.) Also, many of the literary models for the
gospels - such stories as the Elijah-Elisha cycle - tend to portray the same pastoral
simplicity of the itinerant prophet.
64 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

gospels are not historically reliable, and those who find this
disconcerting see the oral tradition paradigm as the last chance to
plausibly set a limit to that trend. Oral tradition seems necessary
to keep biblical scholarship from "dislodging the Gospel from its
historical moorings."75 But in fact, the same reasons why oral
tradition is unfounded and unworkable make clear that oral
tradition is no guarantor of historical accuracy.

When scholars first devised the very idea of oral tradition, it

was deemed fundamentally a matter of communities making up
stories to suit their purposes. By its very nature oral tradition of
this sort would not be and was not considered a historical source.
Only later when it was applied to the New Testament, did some
scholars introduce the ideas of memorization-at-the-source and
fixed transmission. Each of those ideas was introduced as an
unsubstantiated assumption, no one has been able to propose
plausible concrete scenarios for them, and they are especially
problematic for the text of Mark.

Unhelpful: Oral Tradition Theory's Impact on Biblical

Interpretation
The desire to attribute as much historical accuracy as possible
to the gospels is understandable, but this desire has been
unhelpful in the quest for understanding this literature, because
it has helped to perpetuate a deeply flawed paradigm in modern
biblical scholarship. Under the influence of the oral tradition and
form criticism paradigm, scholars studying the gospels have
ripped apart these carefully constructed literary masterpieces and
examined pieces of them out of context as if that were the best
way to understand the text.

7
5 Frank Matera, quoted in Harrington, What are they Saying About Mark, 7.
The Chimera of Oral Tradition 65
Abandoning the flawed paradigm would open the way to
appreciating the gospels as cohesive literary works in which each
part was carefully and deliberately crafted and organized to serve
the author's overall purposes. This would also open the way to
appreciating the authors as literary craftsmen who came from
and worked within a literary culture even as they wrote for oral
•
presentation.

In the world of antiquity, and particularly the subculture of

Christian and Jewish literate society, borrowing from and
reworking earlier texts was standard operating procedure for
authors. If eyewitness testimony and oral tradition both fail to
explain the level of detail we actually find in the Gospel, two
likely sources remain: the evangelist's own imagination and other
writings that were available to him. Other scholars have
persuasively argued for Mark's use of the Old Testament and
Homeric epic. 76 This book argues for Mark's use also of Paul's
epistles.

76
Especially Brodie (Birthing) and MacDonald (Homeric Epics).
 Part II

Pauline Themes in Mark

 4
Defending the Gentile Mission
And the most problematic Markan case, the illogical journey
described in 7 :31, may reflect not geographical ignorance but a
Markan desire to construct a tour of non-Jewish areas, in line with
the Gentile theme of this section of the Gospel ...
Joel Marcus"

iblical scholarship has long recognized that the second gospel

B is aimed at a Christian, mixed Gentile-Jewish audience, and
that it promotes and defends Gentile Christianity.78 And not
only does the text reveal an interest in advancing the agenda of
the Pauline Gentile mission, it also preserves evidence that Paul's
epistles provided inspiration for how to go about attaining these
ends. If what we might call the Pauline school was the driving
force behind the Gentile mission, these facts suggest that the
author of Mark was a member of that school.

A Gentile Christian IntendedAudience

Among the evidence showing an interest in an audience
composed of Gentiles is the fact that Mark feels compelled to
explain Jewish customs and refers to the Jews in the third person:

For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash
their hands, observing the tradition of the elders ... and there are
many other traditions which they observe ... (7:3-4)79

77
Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8 (New Haven: Yale UP, 2002), 21.
78 For a
thorough analysis of the evidence, see Ernest Best, "Mark's Readers: A
Profile," in Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels, 839-858.
79 See also 2:26 where Mark has Jesus
explain to Jewish interlocutors (who would have
known this) that only priests could eat "the bread of the Presence."
69
70 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Also, Greek-speaking Jews would know some Aramaic, but

Mark's audience is not even expected to be familiar with
common Aramaic words and phrases. In each of the following
examples, the italicized word is Aramaic."

Taking her by the hand he said to her, "Talitha cumi"; which

means, "little girl, I say to you, arise." (5:41)

... looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha,"

that is, "Be opened." (7 :34)

Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the

roadside. (10:46)

"Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from
me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt." (14:36)

And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means
the place of a skull). (15:22)

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" (15:34)

On the other hand, while Aramaic is outside the expected

audience's ken, some familiarity with Latin terms is presumed.
Mark occasionally explains a Greek term by reference to a Latin
term that he transliterates:81

And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins [Acn'ta],
which make a penny [Ko8paV't1l�, transliterating Latin quadrans].
(12:42)

80
3: 17 might be another example. Best takes this a step further and argues that Mark's
readers are also not expected to know Syriac. See Best, "Mark's Readers," 846-47.
81 Best (ibid., 851) also
points out the use of Roman military terminology.
Defending the Gentile Mission 71

And the soldiers led him away inside the palace [ au'.A:f\<;]; that is,
the praetorium [npcmoptov, transliterating the Latin word] ...
(15: 16)

Mark does assume that his audience accepts the authority of

the scriptures we now call the Old Testament. But either his
knowledge of scripture is weaker than one might expect of a
Jewish author writing for Jews, or he doesn't expect his audience
to notice errors. In 2:26 Mark cites an incident under King
David "when Abiathar was high priest" although in the cited
passage 1 Sam 21: 1- 7 it is actually Ahimelech who was high
priest. 82 In 10: 19 "the commandments" are listed as ''Do not kill,
Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness,
Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother." This contains
errors in both order and content. Both versions of the Ten
Commandments actually have "Honor your father and mother"
before "Do not kill," and neither has "Do not defraud" at all. 83
The most famous inaccuracy is the quotation in Mark 1 :2 from
"Isaiah the prophet" which is actually an amalgamation of texts
from Isaiah and Malachi.

The Gospel of Mark is not just aimed at a Gentile Christian

community, it advocates for such a community. It does this both
directly and indirectly, using both clear literal language and
relatively obscure symbolic language. One of the clearest
statements of this interest is in the climactic scene where Jesus

82 The parallel passages in Matthew and Luke avoid the error by omitting the reference
to Abiarhar altogether.
83
In its place after "Do not bear false witness" is «Do not covet" in Ex 20:2-17 and
Deut 5:6-21.
72 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

cleanses the temple, which concludes with a teaching of Jesus on

this subject:

And he taught, and said to them, "Is it not written, 'My house
shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have
made it a den of robbers." (Mark 11: 15-17)

The quotation comes from a passage in Isaiah which very clearly

expresses the idea of inviting Gentiles to join with God's people:

[Thus says the Lord:] "And the foreigners who join themselves to
the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to
be his servants, everyone who keeps the sabbath, and does not
profane it, and holds fast my covenant - these I will bring to my
holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their
burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus
says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather
yet others to him besides those already gathered." (Isaiah 56:6-8;
see also vv.1-5)

Once again, Jesus' "teaching" is nothing new but simply

reiterates what is already clear in scripture. This teaching is
repeated in Jesus' warnings about the impending end times in
chapter 13, for he announces that "the gospel must first be
preached to all nations" before the end times actually begin. The
theme is unmistakable in these passages, but this is just the tip of
the iceberg. The Gospel conveys its message by means of a story,
and the story's focus on advancing the Gentile mission is woven
into the very fabric of the story.

Jesus Visits Gentile Lands

One of the most prominent symbolic ways that Mark supports
the Gentile mission is the way he uses geographical references.
The contrast between Galilee and Jerusalem in particular is a
Defending the Gentile Mission 73

thread that runs through the en tire Gospel from beginning to

end.

Galilee was a region outside of Judea known for its mixed

Jewish-Gentile population, and is explicitly associated with "the
nations" (the Gentiles) in Isaiah 9: 1:

In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun

and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make
glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of
the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great
light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has
light shined.

Matthew quotes portions of this passage (4:15-16); Mark does

not mention it, but his use of Galilee to mean a land where Jews
and Gentiles mix, as opposed to Judea and Jerusalem which
represent exclusively Jewish territory, seems to presuppose
knowledge of it.

In Mark, this land of the Gentiles is the site of Jesus' origin, his
successful mission, and his destination after the resurrection. In
contrast, Jerusalem - the very epitome of Jewishness - is the
place that rejected and crucified him. 84 At the end of the book
(16:7) the disciples are informed that if they wish to see the
resurrected Lord they must follow him to the land symbolic of
Jew-Gentile unity - Galilee.

Even Jesus' movement within Galilee emphasizes his intention

to attend to both Jews and Gentiles. One of the most prominent

84
Telford (Theology of the Gospel of Mark, 149) interprets Galilee as symbolizing a
mixed Jewish-Gentile community and lists others who do so. See also Bas M. F. Van
Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1998), 77-80 and Kealy, History ofInterpretation, 2: 1: 228.
74 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

recurring themes within the first half of the Gospel is Jesus'

frequent trips across the Sea of Galilee. What he is doing in these
trips is going alternately to predominantly Gentile and
predominantly Jewish areas.85 Consequently, the Sea of Galilee
appears to represent a microcosm of the Mediterranean Sea: by
leading his disciples back and forth Jesus repeatedly calls on
them to follow him from Judea to the Roman Empire at large. 86
It has frequently been suggested that Mark invented the term
"Sea of Galilee" for what is actually not that large a lake,
precisely in order to help his readers pick up the allusion to the
Mediterranean Sea. (The lake is only 13 miles long by 7 miles
wide, and the term "Sea of Galilee" is not attested in any work of
literature earlier than Mark.)

In one of the crossings over the "sea" from Jewish land to

Gentile land, the disciples are stuck in a storm, Jesus walks out to
them, and as Mark puts it, "he meant to pass by them" (6:48).
Why would Jesus walk out on the water toward the boat, but
with the intention of just walking right past it? This enigmatic
statement may suggest their reluctance to follow where he
wanted to lead them. In other words, Jesus "meant to pass by
them" because their fear kept them from making progress. The
allusion is to Paul's opponents' fear of the consequences of
accepting Gentiles as equals, which impelled them to impose
Law observance on all Christians, which if successful would have
kept most Gentiles far out of reach of the Gospel. 87 By the same
token, Jesus' action of calming the storm in the same passage
represents an assurance for Paul's J udaizing opponents that their

85 See Marcus, Mark 1-8, 447 and Svartvik, Mark and Mission, 300.
86 See Hanhart, "Son, Your Sins are
Forgiven," 1015-16; Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 179.
87 See Bas M.F Van Iersel, "Kai erhelen
parelthein auto us. Another Look at Mk
6:48d," in Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels, 1065-76.
Defending the Gentile Mission 75
fears about the Gentile mission are groundless and all will be well
in the end because Jesus has everything under control.

Mark also goes out of his way to portray Jesus visiting Gentile
areas. In 7:24, Jesus visits "the region of Tyre and Sidon." The
evangelist could hardly have picked a better pair of place names
to emphasize the non-Jewish character of Jesus' destination;
these were not just gentile cities but were cities with which Jews
had a history of animosity. 88 When he leaves the region in 7:31,
Mark names both cities again to remind us of what kind of area
he was in, then recounts a singularly strange journey of Jesus
back to Jewish lands. From "the region of Tyre," Jesus goes
"through Sidon" (20 miles north along the coast) "to the sea of
Galilee" (the opposite direction from Tyre, about 30 miles
southeast) "through the region of the Decapolis" (beyond his
destination Galilee by at least 10 miles and extending for about
40 miles farther). A modern U.S. equivalent would be to recount
a journey from Los Angeles to Kansas City, first going through
Seattle and then going through Miami. The starting point,
ending point, and lands Jesus went "through" along the way are
illustrated in the map on the following page. 89

88
See Josephus, Ag: Ap. 1 :70; J W 2:478; Isa 23: 1-4, 12; Jer 25:22; 47:4; Ezek 26-28;
Joel 3:4-8; Amos 1:9-10; Zech 9:2-4. See also Roger David Aus, Feeding the Five
Thousand: Studies in the Judaic Background of Mark 6·30-44 par. and John 6· 1-15
(Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2010).
89
Map courtesy of www.openbible.info and Google Maps.
76 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

That Mark has in mind the intention to portray Jesus visiting

Gentile lands is made clear by the fact that Mark uses his brief
time there to highlight an encounter with a Gentile Syro-
Phoenician wornan.?" It is as though the Gentile woman's faith,
which convinces Jesus to heal her son although his ministry is
like "bread" intended "first" for the Jews, convinces him to
refocus his ministry for a longer time on Gentiles.

90
See Marcus, Mark 1-8, 21.
Defending the Gentile Mission 77

Jesus Accepts Individual Gentiles As They Are

Jesus does not just travel to Gentile lands, he heals Gentile
inhabitants of those lands just as he heals Jews, most notably the
Gerasene demoniac (5:1-20) and the Syro-Phoenician woman
(7:25-30). In doing so he makes no demands that they obey
Jewish customs or traditions. For a narrative set in a pre-Pauline
time, this represents as clearly as possible the Pauline principle
that Gentiles who become Christians remain Gentiles and are
not bound to adopt Jewish customs.

Mark employs a number of cues to make sure his readers

understand that the Gerasene demoniac is a Gentile. He is found
on the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee, he dwells "among the
tombs" (an unclean area for Jews), the name "Legion" attributed
to the demons in possession of him has Roman connotations, the
herd of swine clearly indicates this is not a story about Jews, and
when the man goes off to proclaim his healing among "his
friends," it is to the Gentile land of the Decapolis that he goes.
In this story Jesus takes the initiative to heal the man, and the
only requirement placed upon him as a result is that he go and
proclaim to his "friends" what was done for him.

Mark also goes out of his way to emphasize the Gentile status
of the Syro-Phoenician woman (7:24-30). She comes to Jesus as
a resident of the Gentile land of Tyre and Sidon, and the text
states unequivocally that "the woman was a Greek, a Syro-
Phoenician by birth." The word Greek ('El,"11vic;) here obviously
does not identify her as "Greek" in the ethnic sense; the word
Syro-Phoenician identifies her ethnicity. "Greek," then, in this
context means "Gentile" or non-Jew, which corresponds to
78 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Paul's unique use of that word in Galatians and Colossians.91

The story is famous for Jesus' derogatory reference to Gentiles as
"dogs " :

Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she

begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to
her, "Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the
children's bread and throw it to the dogs. (7:26-27)

Although this sounds like initial reluctance, in fact the story is

quintessentially Pauline, for it is the Gentile's faith that saves her
child insofar as it induces her to seek Jesus out and make her
humble reply to his first response. Nothing beyond that is
required of her:

But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the
table eat the children's crumbs." And he said to her, "For this
saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter."
And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the
demon gone. (7:28-30)

In contrast to these stories of Gentile healings, Mark includes

one story in which Jesus heals a Jew and follows it up by
commanding him to fulfill the requirements of the Law that
result from the healing. In 1 :40-44 he advises a healed leper to
"show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what
Moses commanded."

Jesus Unites Jews and Gentiles at the Communal Meal

One of the strongest indications of an interest in justifying or
defending the Gentile mission is the pair of stories about Jesus
feeding the multitudes (the five thousand in 6:34-45 and the

91
See Svartvik, Mark and Mission, 297-8 on the correspondence between Mark's use
of "Greek" to mean Gentiles and Paul's in Gal 2:3; 3:28; and Col 3: 11.
Defending the Gentile Mission 79

four thousand in 8:1-10). Mark himself stresses their importance

by appending to the second story an extended digression that
culminates in Jesus expressing exasperation with his disciples for
misunderstanding the significance of both of the feedings:

Now they had forgotten to bring bread; and they had only one
loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, "Take
heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of
Herod." And they discussed it with one another, saying, "We have
no bread." And being aware of it, Jesus said to them, "Why do
you discuss the fact that yot1 have no bread? Do you not yet
perceive or understand? Are yot1r hearts hardened? Having eyes do
you not see, and having ears d.o you not hear? And do you not
remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"
They said to him, "Twelve." "And the seven for the four
thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take
up?" And they said to him, ''Seven." And he said to them, "Do
you not yet understand?" (8: 14-21)

Among many proposed interpretations of the feeding passages

and this denouement,92 the one that best explains the symbolism
and fits the Gentile mission emphasis in the rest of Mark is that
the intention is to portray Jesus prodding his disciples toward the
Pauline goal of an inclusive, unified Jewish-Gentile community.
More specifically, this pair of stories symbolizes a progression
from an exclusively Jewish community at first, followed by a
mixed Gentile-Jewish group which is the divinely-appointed
goal.93

92 Svarrvik lists other interpretations (Mark and Mission, 295-6); see also Camille
Focant, "Les Doublets dans la Section des Pains," in Van Segbroeck et al., The Four
Gospels, 1039-63;here: 1057-58.
93 For a
thorough review of the evidence, see Focant, "Les Doublets." See also John
Drury, "Understanding the Bread: Disruption and Aggregation, Secrecy and
80 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The symbolism leading up to and surrounding the first feeding

suggests a Jewish milieu. The location is not far from the region
of "his own country" (6: 1, 6), and all the people who find him in
that place are from the villages of his own country (6:33). The
numbers five and twelve are prominent: five loaves (6:38, 43),
five thousand men (6:44), and twelve baskets of broken pieces
(6:43). The number five calls to mind the number of books of
the Torah, and the number twelve symbolizes the twelve tribes of
Israel (see 5:25, 42). It is precisely these numbers that Jesus
emphasizes when he intimates that the disciples should have paid
attention to the symbolism of the numbers: "'When I broke the
five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of
broken pieces did you take up?' They said to him, 'Twelve.'"
(8: 19)

In contrast, the second feeding comes after the encounter with

the Gentile Syro-Phoenician woman (7:25-30), which in turn is
followed by a long journey through Gentile territory (7:31).
Especially considering that immediate history, the comment that
"some of them have come a long way') (8:3) suggests a mixed
group and leaves the hearer with a very different impression from
the first episode, in which "they ran there on foot from all the
towns" of Jesus' home country. The number symbolism is also
quite different. Here the salient numbers are four and seven: four
thousand people (8:9); seven loaves (8:5, 6), and seven baskets
taken up at the end (8:8). The number four alludes to the ends

Revelation in Mark's Gospel," in J. P. Rosenblatt and J.

C. Sitterson, eds., "Not in
Heaven:" Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana UP,
1991), 98-119; Austin Farrer, St. Matthew and St. Mark (London: Dacre, 1954), 65;
Frank Kerrnode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative (Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 2006), 36; Marcus, Mark 1-8, 407; G. Rau, Das Markusevangelium:
Komposition und Intention der ersten Darstellung christlicher Mission (ANRW, 1985);
Svarrvik, Mark and Mission, 297ff.; John Painter, Marks Gospel- Worlds in Conflict
(London: Routledge, 1997), 118-9; Aus, Feeding the Five Thousand.
Defending the Gentile Mission 81

of the earth, symbolism which is confirmed even within the text

of Mark, for in 13:27 Jesus says, ''And then he will ... gather his
elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends
of heaven." The number seven represents divine completeness,
calling to mind scriptural texts such as the Genesis story of seven
days of creation. And once again, it is precisely these numbers
that Jesus highlights when he castigates his disciples for their
hardness of heart: "'And the seven for the four thousand, how
many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?' And they
said to him, 'Seven."'

In addition to setting the stage and using number symbolism,

Mark may also have left subtle clues in the wording of the
stories. The word for "basket" is different in each case; xootvoi»;
in the first feeding story may reflect a Jewish context, while
o7rupioa� in the second feeding reflects a Gentile milieu.94 Farrer
notes that the word xop-racr0fivat ("were filled") appears in both
feedings and on the lips of the Gentile Syro-Phoenician
woman.95 In other words, the Jews want to be filled and are,
then a single Gentile wants also to be filled and Jesus acquiesces,
and after that Jesus shows that Gentiles en masse can and should
also be filled.

It is also significant that Mark uses "Greek" in the Pauline

sense to mean "Gentile" in only one place, in the text leading up
to the second feeding; while the text leading up to the first
feeding has the only place where he uses the word "[ews" (7:3).96

94 See Marcus, Mark 1-8, 407; Svartvik, Mark and Mission, 299.
95 Farrer, Matthew and Mark, 63.
96 Svartvik, Mark and Mission, 297-8. This is the only
place where Mark uses the word
«G ree k"
.
82 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

There may also be another connection to Pauline epistles here.

In both feedings the language that describes how many remnants
were taken up is very unusual in Greek. The awkward phrases
are typically translated into normal-sounding English: "twelve
baskets full of broken pieces" in the first feeding story (6:43) and
"the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full" (8:8) in the
second feeding story. The Greek in the first case is tlacrµata
omoeKa xootvorv nlytpmµata (literally, "pieces twelve of baskets
fullnesses") and in the second case is neptcrcreu�tata tlacrµatrov
tnta cr1tUpioac; (literally, "surpluses of pieces seven baskets"). Why
"fullnesses of baskets" (xocivorv nlytpmµata) instead of "full
baskets"? And why "surpluses of pieces" (neptoosuuoro
tlacrµatrov) instead of "surplus pieces"? These odd constructions
make sense if the Pauline literature was Mark's inspiration. In
Romans 11: 12, the word nlitpcoµa (fullness) refers to the Jews:

Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their
failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their
fullness (1r11,tjproµa) mean!

And in 2 Corinthians 8: 13-14, the word 1tepicrcrwµa (surplus)

describes the process by which Jews and Gentiles supply each
other's needs:

I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but
that as a matter of equality your surplus (nepicceuuc) at the
present time should supply their want, so that their surplus
(zepicceuuu) may supply your want, that there may be equality.

Jesus Rejects Jewish Exclusivism

The feeding stories are not symbols of the Eucharist. No wine
is distributed. The emphasis is entirely - and very heavily so - on
bread. In both instances, the story mainly revolves around how
many loaves of bread are distributed, and how many baskets of
Defending the Gentile Mission 83
crumbs are taken up. Between them the crumbs appear again in
the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman who induces Jesus to
proclaim that crumbs can be given to Gentiles. After the feeding
episodes Jesus warns his disciples against the "leaven of the
Pharisees and the leaven of Herod," and the perpetually confused
disciples have no idea what he means and only know that "We
have no bread." Of everything they saw at the feedings, Jesus
reminds them only about the numbers of loaves and baskets of
crumbs.

In a heavily symbolic tight-knit series of stories that revolves

around bread, understanding what the bread is all about would
be one of the main keys to understanding the gospel of Mark as a
whole. Some scholars have proposed that bread here is a symbol
for the teaching of the Torah. 97 In that case what Mark is saying
is that the gospel of Jesus is essentially the act of sharing the
Torah with the Gentiles, giving the Gentiles an opportunity to
opt in to the community that the Torah created. In a word, Jesus
breaks down any basis for Jewish exclusivism.

Another attack on the idea and practice of Jewish exclusivism

can be seen in Jesus' association with people who are ostensibly
Jews but are viewed as outsiders by Jewish officialdom. In 2: 15-
17, the evangelist emphasizes that Jesus was eating with "tax
collectors and sinners" by repeating that phrase three times in
quick succession, following up with yet a founh instance of
.
'' sinners '' :

And as he sat at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners
were sitting with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who
followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that
he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples,

97
See, for example, Aus, Feeding the Five Thousand, 5-6.
84 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

"Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" And when Jesus
heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a
physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners."

Repetition in an ancient literary work indicates emphasis, and

the word "sinners" in particular connotes not so much evil-doing
as outsider status typical of Gentiles. This is how Paul uses the
word in Galatians 2: 15, where it simply indicates the way Jews
see Gentiles: "We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not
Gentile sinners .... " For anyone familiar with the usage of
"sinner" reflected in Galatians, this episode in Mark clearly
parallels Paul's defense of table fellowship with "Gentile sinners"
against the Jerusalem apostles' attempts to put a stop to it.

Another part of the Gospel narrative that fits the pattern of

allegorically supporting inclusiveness for Gentiles is in 9:36
through 10: 16. At the start of this section, Jesus instructs his
disciples to accept children, at the end of it he rebukes them for
continuing to shoo away children in direct disobedience to his
command, and in between he warns of dire consequences for
"whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin"
(9:42) and states categorically that "he who is not against is for
us" (9:40).98 Children, like "tax collectors and sinners," and like
Gentiles, are social outsiders, and Jesus welcomes them. This is
yet another scenario in which the actions of Jesus on the one
hand and his disciples on the other hand parallel Paul's
acceptance of Gentiles on the one hand and the Jerusalem

98See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 194-8; Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 210. Tarazi suggests
that children act especially effectively as symbols of Gentiles because both were
forbidden to speak or teach in Jewish religious gatherings.
Defending the Gentile Mission 85
apostles' policies effectively rejecting them on the other hand. 99
As I will show later when I focus on Mark's treatment of the
disciples, the narrative here closely follows Paul's own
presentation of his Gentile converts as his "children" and his
own indignation against those who were hindering their
acceptance of his gospel (1 Thess 2:10-16).

The flip side of positive encounters with Gentiles is negative

encounters with Jews, of which the Gospel is full. Some of these
encounters carry fairly clear echoes of Pauline epistles. For
example, in Mark 8:11-12 the Pharisees seek a sign from heaven.
In response Jesus sighs "deeply in his spirit," warns that "no sign
shall be given to this generation," and shortly thereafter warns
his disciples against "the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of
Herod" (8: 15). This language corresponds to what Paul says in 1
Cor 1 :22: "For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but
we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly
to Gentiles."

Tarazi points to yet another place where Mark adopts a

Pauline theme in order to combat Jewish exclusivism. In Mark
10:2-12 some Pharisees ask Jesus if it's legal for a man to divorce
his wife, and Jesus responds in no uncertain terms that it should
not be done, even if it is legal:

And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful
for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did
Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write
a certificate of divorce, and to put her away." But Jesus said to
them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this
commandment. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made

99Another example: the remark "My son, your sins are forgiven" in Mark 2:5-9 may
be seen as an invitation to the Jewish church to treat Gentiles as equals (see Hanhart,
"Son, Your Sins are Forgiven," 997-1016).
86 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What
therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."
(Mark 10:2-9)

His disciples are dismayed at this apparently unworkable

demand and ask him about it, apparently seeking a way around
it, but his response doesn't allay their fears:

"Whoever divorces his wife and. marries another, commits adultery

against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery." (Mark 10:11-12)

How does this fit in a section of Mark focused on exhorting

the disciples to receive and accept "children" or "little ones," or
anyone who was "not following" them? In other words, how is
this related to Paul's Gentile mission? It is related because there
was a history in Judaism of Jews being advised to put away
Gentile spouses (see Ezra 10:1-5, 44), and this could have been
extrapolated by Gentiles newly converting to Christianity into a
belief that they could or should divorce their unbelieving
spouses. Paul explicitly opposed this idea in 1 Corinthians:

If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he

consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the
unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the
unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise,
your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy. But if
the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a
case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to
peace. Wife, how do you know whether you will save your
husband? Husband, how do you know whether yott will save your
wife? (1 Cor 7:13-16)
Defending the Gentile Mission 87

Tarazi points out that what is unique about Jesus' words in Mark
is the same as what is unique about Paul's words in 1
Corinthians:

Both the Deuteronomic ruling quoted in [Mark 1 O] v.4 (Deut

24: 1-3) and the Ezra passage speak only of a man divorcing his
wife, but Jestis' reply concerns the woman as well as the man. This
two-sided approach - addressing man and woman separately and
on an equal footing - occurs nowhere else either in the Old
Testament or the New Testament except in 1 Cor ch. 7. 100

Jesus Rejects Jewish Legalism

The only way Gentiles would enter the church en masse would
be if they were not subject to the dictates of the Jewish law,
especially circumcision. Mark could not make such a blatant
anachronism as to portray Jesus addressing circumcision directly.
Circumcision did not become an issue until after Paul
established Gentile communities and Paul) s opponents
demanded that members of those communities be circumcised,
so it would be obvious to Mark's audience that a circumcision
controversy would not fit in a narrative about J esus.'?' But one
way to reach the same goal of showing that circumcision should
not be considered necessary would be to assert that the essence of
the Law consists in loving God and one's neighbor, and the rest
of it is of relative, not absolute value.

Thus we have the dialogue where Jesus proclaims that to love

God and neighbor are the greatest commandments. A scribe the

100
Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 197.
101
Marcus is one of many scholars who cites the lack of reference to circumcision as
evidence that Mark is not a Paulinist (Mark 1-8, 74). Others recognize that this is
based on a false presupposition; Painter, for example, recognizes the constraint I point
out here that prevents such reference (Mark's Gospel, 118-9).
88 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

narrator identifies as "wise" approves that proclamation, and

Jesus responds that "You are not far from the kingdom of God"
(12:29-34). The earliest record we have of this understanding of
the Law comes from the pen of Paul, who stated that "the whole
law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as
yourself" (Gal 5:14). Romans 13:8-9 expresses the same view. In
both those Pauline contexts, love of the neighbor also leads
eventually to the "kingdom of God" (Gal 5:21; Rom 14:17), as
it does in Mark. 102 And the apostle made both of these assertions
in literary contexts associated with the defense of his Gentile
• •
mission.

The ongoing disputes between Jesus and the Jewish authorities

about observance of specific requirements of the Law also serve
to relativize all Jewish laws and regulations besides love for
others.'?" This is clearest in the passage where Jesus openly
abrogates all Jewish dietary regulations by saying what matters is
not what you eat but how you treat other people by what you say
(7:14-19).104 The attitude and the very words placed on Jesus'
lips by Mark in this passage reflect what Paul asserted in Rom
14:20: "Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.
Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make
others fall by what he eats . . . " The Gospel and epistle texts are
closer in Greek than in English since the same three words

102
Thanks to Fr. Paul Tarazi for pointing this out to me.
103 K. Romaniuk
argues that Mark is not Pauline because Mark does not abrogate the
Law altogether ("Le Problerne des Paulinismes," 268). However, even Paul did not do
that - he argued that the Law was irrelevant for Gentiles, but not necessarily for Jews.
Relativizing external observances has essentially the same effect.
104
Svartvik's dissertation focuses on this passage and concludes that the purpose of
v.14 (the "parable" itself) was to emphasize the importance of speaking with care, not
to annul food regulations. But he sees v.19 (the interpretation) as a polemical
interpretation added precisely to attack the food regulations. See Svartvik, Mark and
Mission, 346, 411.
Defending the Gentile Mission 89

appear in each, in exactly the reverse order: Ka8apismV 1C<lV'tU 'tel

pproµa-ra in Mark 7: 19 and pproµa-ro<; ... mrvru ... Ka8apa in Rom
14:20.105

Another passage in which a dispute about Law observance

contains evidence suggestive of a direct connection to Romans is
Mark 3:1-5. Jesus encounters a man with a withered hand in a
synagogue on the Sabbath and the authorities watch him to see if
he will heal the man. He asks them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath
to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill." When they
remain silent, Jesus looks at them "with anger, grieved (uer'
opyfic;, cru11unouµcVo<;) at their hardness (nmpcocret) of heart."
These words, especially the strange combination of "grief' and
"anger," can best be explained as inspired by Paul's comments on
the same theme in Romans. In chapter 9, Paul expresses his
"grief' (1umi; v.2) about the Jews' rejection of Christ because it
leads to God's "anger" (6py11v; v.22).106 And within the same
context in Romans, the word "hardness" (ncbpmcrt<;; 11 :25)
describes the Jews' refusal to have faith in Jesus.

In these and other ways, throughout the Gospel Mark

demolishes the arguments of Paul's opponents who want to force
Gentiles to observe the Jewish Law. He does that by making
clear that "new wine" (Gentiles) must go in "new wineskins" (a

105 This is frequently noted; see, for example, Van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response
Commentary, 53. Marcus argues that Paul himself may have borrowed the saying from
somewhere else, and "The parallel, therefore, may merely mean that Paul [sic; Mark is
meant here] moved in the same circles that Paul did, namely those of Gentile
Christians who did not feel themselves bound by the Jewish Law." ('(Mark, Interpreter
of Paul," 455) This is speculation without evidence backing it, and it assumes that
such circles could be disconnected from the Pauline tradition.
106 The two verses in Romans are
directly related: in the former, Paul regrets that most
Jews have rejected Jesus, and in the latter he identifies them as "vessels of wrath" that
God has endured in order to "show his wrath and make known his power."
90 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

new approach to the Law), as he puts it in 2:21-22. And yet at

the same time, Mark doesn't engage in wholesale rejection of
cultic requirements of Jewish Law for Jews: as Paul advised,
Gentiles remain Gentiles while Jews remain Jews. Accordingly,
when Mark depicts ] esus healing a ] ew, he shows ] esus advising
the man to fulfill the Jewish requirement of presenting himself to
the priests (Mark 1 :44), while the Gentile he heals is simply
advised to proclaim his salvation among "his friends" (5:19).

The Parable ofthe Fig Tree

The evangelist had no choice but to go about his task of
supporting Paul's approach to Law observance with great
subtlety, for he was projecting into the past issues that did not
actually arise until later. This explains why he had to resort to
extensive use of parables in his Gospel. Of special note with
respect to the theme of Jews and Gentiles is the parable of the fig
tree. This parable is actually wrapped around the temple
cleansing episode, which as I observed earlier contains one of the
clearest expressions of Mark's interest in the Gentile mission. It
begins before the temple cleansing episode:

On the following day, when they carne from Bethany, he was

hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see
if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said
to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples
heard it. (Mark 11: 12-14)

And it ends after the temple cleansing episode:

And when evening came they went out of the city. As they passed
by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.
And Peter remembered and said to him, "Master, look! The fig
tree which yot1 cursed has withered." And Jesus answered them,
Defending the Gentile Mission 91

"Have faith in God. Truly, I say co you, whoever says co chis

mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea/ and does not doubt
in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will
be done for him." (Mark 11: 19-23)

Considering the symbolism of the sea of Galilee in the rest of

Mark and the location of this text surrounding the temple
cleansing episode, it is no great leap to see the "mountain" as an
allusion to the temple mount and the sea as the Roman sea. 107
This view of the temple and its fate, as expressed metaphorically
in the fig tree parable and literally in the Isaiah quotation that
concludes the temple cleansing, perfectly represents the
understanding behind the Pauline mission. The physical temple
in Jerusalem was of no importance to Paul; it had in a sense
"withered away to its roots," being replaced by the "Jerusalem
above" (Gal 4:25-26). This Jerusalem above was available to all,
including the Gentiles, wherever they lived; thus «the house of
prayer for all the nations" was metaphorically thrown into the
Roman sea.

107
See the discussion in Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 204-205.
 5
Presenting Jesus as the Crucified One
Alas for the vanity of all human endeavour! We strive and strain,
and would die for our convictions; and when we have won the
battle, those who follow tis totally misunderstand what we have
maintained, and in reading and sermon inculcate in our name the
teaching of our opponents!
Michael Goulder108

A nother theme unique to Paul is his emphasis on the cross, or

.rlmore specifically on the crucified Christ over the resurrected
Christ. From the accounts of opposition to him and his message
in his letters, it appears that this emphasis was controversial;
Marcus goes so far as to suggest Paul may have been its sole
advocate.'?"

Paul's epistles record the Apostle's battles not only with so-
called Judaizers but also with those from his own communities
who wanted a resurrection experience in the present rather than
the suffering symbolized by the cross. 110 Accordingly, he
consistently plays down the resurrection and emphasizes the
crucifixion. In 1 Corinthians, the purpose of the Eucharist is to
"proclaim the Lord's death until he comes," and the verse that
recalls the words of institution does not even mention the
resurrection. 111 Chapter 15 of the same epistle, which defends
belief in the resurrection, concludes with a remark that makes it

108
Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 172.
I09 Marcus, "Mark, Interpreter of Paul," 481.
110
Goulder addresses this issue at length (Paul versus Peter, 84-88), and it is the main
subject of Theodore J. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1971).
111
I Cor 11 :26.
93
94 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

clear that in Paul's mind the entire digression was forced upon
him due to his fear that denying the resurrection altogether
would result in people not having incentive to do good. In
Romans, one is "buried with Christ" in order to "live to God"
(live a virtuous life) but "living with" the resurrected Christ is
strictly a hope for the future (Rom 6:3-8; see also 2 Cor 13:4). 112

Paul was so extraordinarily careful to avoid letting anyone

think of resurrection as present reality rather than as a promise of
something future to hope for, that he avoids even mentioning
the very idea of resurrection using the past tense. The fact that
the Christian Easter ceremony so heavily stresses the resurrection
as something already accomplished is what Goulder laments in
the superscription to this chapter.

Mark's story of Jesus with its heavy emphasis on passion and

crucifixion portrays the same view: today life involves weakness,
pain, disgrace, mockery, and even the feeling of being forsaken
by God. Resurrection is not yet.113 As Focant observes, even on
the cross itself, Mark's Jesus prevents the hearer from
anticipating the resurrection too quickly. Jesus' cry of "My God,
My God, why have you forsaken me" is the first part of a psalm
that eventually winds up proclaiming victory, but Mark must
have a reason for reporting only its cry of despair. 114 As in Paul,
the only image of Christ one is left with after reading this
"passion story with an extended introduction" is that of a Jesus

112
See also Galatians where the resurrection is mentioned in passing, then the rest of
the epistle is about the crucified Christ. See Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 172.
113 So Marcus, "Mark,
Interpreter of Paul," 481; Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 87; Weeden,
Mark: Traditions in Conflict, 126, 137.
114 Psalm 22. Camille Focant makes this
point in Marc, un euangile etonnant: recueil
d'essais (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006), 16.
PresentingJesus as the Crucified One 95

broken and crucified - no image of a resurrected Christ to be

found in the book.

It is precisely this context that can make sense of a conundrum

that has plagued biblical scholars for more than a century: what
is the meaning or purpose of the "messianic secret" in Mark?

The Messianic Secret

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus goes around preaching to
everyone who will listen, in some cases to thousands at a time,
and yet paradoxically, almost every time he heals someone he
warns them not to make his identity known to anyone. He gives
his disciples the same command immediately after the
Transfiguration (9:9). Many explanations for this have been
advanced, all of which are problematic in one way or another.115
It is the context of Paul's struggle to keep focus on the cross and
crucifixion that best makes sense of the commands to secrecy. All
of these commands are issued before Christ's passion. Mark's

115
Wrede says the secrecy theme was invented by Mark to explain why Jesus was not
recognized as the messiah in his lifetime. However, Mark appears to have been written
not to convert non-believers but for Christians. Others suggest the purpose was to
portray a rejection of personal glory - the humility of Christ (Tolbert, Sowing the
Gospel, 227-28). However, Jesus did acknowledge his exalted status during his trial.
Some propose that Mark wanted to send a message to Rome that Jesus was no
insurrectionist (Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 228). But then he wrapped it in such
obscure language that virtually no one could decode the message. Some interpret the
secrecy as "a literary device that makes clear to the reader of the importance of what
he's reading" (Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary [Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2007], 171-2). But that too would be an inscrutable code that obscures what
exactly is being emphasized. Others suggest that secrecy bought Jesus time to complete
his ministry, because his claim to be the messiah prompted the authorities to destroy
him. (Dennis R. MacDonald, "Secrecy and Recognitions in the Odyssey and Mark:
Where Wrede Went Wrong," in Ronald F. Hock et al., eds., Ancient Fiction and Early
Christian Narrative [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998], 139-153; here: 142; Tolbert,
Sowing the Gospel, 229). However, Mark explicitly identifies Jesus' public disputes
with Jewish leaders about the Law as prompting the conspiracy against him. (3:6)
96 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

point is that the weakness of the crucifixion is what seals Christ's

identity for all of his followers, not the power revealed in
miracles and healings. Christ himself does not claim to be the
messiah who will come in glory in the future, until he is in the
midst of suffering his passion. Or, to put it another way, the
message of Christ must be kept secret until it can be properly
understood, until the true basis of his Messiahshi p is revealed. 116

The Irony ofthe Cross

Paul's gospel that focuses so single-mindedly on something as
awful as the cross and crucifixion can only be "good news"
because the message of the cross is essentially one of irony: when
others see the crucifixion as a defeat, Paul knows it to be a
victory; when others see suffering as cause for sadness, Paul sees
it as something to rejoice in and give thanks for. Irony of this
sort pervades Paul's epistles because at the core of his gospel is
the message that insiders see a reality that is the opposite of the
way outsiders see it. "For the word of the cross is folly to those
who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power
of God."117 One can hardly read any given chapter of Paul's
epistles without running across some expression of this irony.

In a similar manner, irony pervades Mark's Gospel.118

Frequently, irony is evident without recourse to special
knowledge from outside the text. For example, the disciples want

116
Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 193. See also Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, "Narrative
Criticism. How Does the Story Mean?" in Anderson and Moore, Mark and Method,
29-57; here: 46. Kealy notes that Perrin offers this interpretation (History of
Interpretation, 2: 2: 379).
117
1 Cor 1:18; see the entire context, 1:18-24. See also Rom 1:22; 1 Cor 1:25-29; 2:6-
8; 2 Cor 6:8-10, 12:9-10.
118
On Mark's use of irony, see J. Camery-Hoggatt, Irony in Mark's Gospel: Text and
Subtext (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992), 192-231; Mack, Myth of Innocence, 335-
39.
PresentingJesus as the Crucified One 97

to sit on the right and left in Jesus' glory, while those who do
turn out to be on his right and left are the thieves at the
crucifixion. 119

Other instances of irony are intertextual and function as irony

only for those who know another text that is alluded to. An
example of this is Jesus' cry from the cross, "My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?" A reader familiar with the Old
Testament will know that that psalm begins with defeat but ends
in a proclamation of victory. 120

Various explanations have been offered for why Mark relies so

heavily on irony. 121 But considering all the other evidence of
Pauline themes, it can hardly be a coincidence that both Paul
and Mark not only made it central to their text, but also
employed it mainly to convey the paradoxical message of the
cross.

In addition, a direct link to Paul is visible in instances of

intertextual irony that are apparent only to those who have read
both Mark's Gospel and Paul's epistles. 122 Consider the parallels

119
Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 31-2. Stephen Smith provides a number of examples of
intra-textual irony (A Lion with Wings: A Narrative-Critical Approach to Marks Gospel
[Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996], 220).
120
See Smith, Lion, 230. MacDonald points out ironic parallels between Homer's
Odysseus and Mark's Jesus, and suggests that Homer's use of irony may have
contributed to the importance of irony for Mark («Secrecy," 140-53).
121
Camery-Hoggatt sees it as a "community building device." (This phrase is from
Smith, Lion, 209; he is summarizing Camery-Hoggatt, Irony, 180-1). The idea is that
people gain a sense of community because they share insider knowledge that outsiders
do not know. However, as Smith observes, this would not work reliably because some
in the community might not get the irony.
122
With justification, Smith asks, « ... can we be confident that we have discovered all
the irony it is possible to discover in this Gospel?" (Lion, 217) The assumption that
Mark did not know Paul's epistles has helped prevent links to those epistles from being
found.
98 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

between Jesus' rebuke of Peter in Mark and Paul's rebuke of

Peter in its context in Galatians.

And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer
many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests
and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And
he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke
him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and
said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God,
but of men." (Mark 8:31-33)

But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face,

because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from
James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back
and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And with
him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas
was carried away by their insincerity. But when I saw that they
were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to
Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile
and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like
Jews?'' (Gal 2:11-14)

In both texts, Peter by his actions or words is denying the

cross. In Mark he tells Jesus to avoid the cross, and in Galatians
the ultimate aim of the "circumcision party" whose side Peter
takes is to deny the cross. Paul states this explicitly in the
concluding chapters of Galatians:

But if I, brethren, still preach circumcision, why am I still

persecuted? In that case the stumbling block of the cross has been
removed. ( Gal 5: 11)

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that

would compel yott to be circumcised, and only in ord.er that they
may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. (Gal 6: 12)
PresentingJesus as the Crucified One 99

In both texts, the impetus to deny the cross comes from a

desire to please "man" rather than God. This theme is stated
explicitly in Galatians in the prologue to the episode of Paul's
conflict with Peter: 123

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a

gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be
accursed (anathema). As we have said before, so now I say again, If
anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you
received, let him be accursed (anathema). Am I now seeking the
favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were
still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ. (1 :9-1 O)

The "pleasing man rather than God" idea is also implicit in

Galatians when Paul attributes Peter's actions to fear of what the
"men from James" would think (Gal 2: 12).

In both texts, Peter's actions result in a stern rebuke. Jesus

calling Peter "Satan" in Mark corresponds to Paul calling him
"condemned," and also recalls the anathema pronounced upon
all who preach "another gospel" that denies the cross.

In both texts the rebuke is deliberately done in public

("turning and seeing his disciples" in Mark, and "before them
all" in Galatians).

For anyone who reads both of these texts, the irony is that
what Paul's enemies accuse him of ("Am I now seeking the favor
of men, or of God?"), Jesus turns around and applies to Peter
("You are not thinking of the things of God but of the things of
man"). In other words, in the conflict between Paul and Peter,
Jesus himself pronounces Paul right and Peter wrong. Paul's view
of matters in Galatians is confirmed as clearly as possible in a

23
t The same theme also occurs in 1 Thess 2:4.
100 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

narrative that relates events supposed to have taken place decades

before Galatians was written.

That Mark had Paul in mind when writing this passage is also
indicated by some other instances of Pauline terminology that
Tarazi points out. Both are in Jesus' exposition of what it means
to take up the cross, following his rebuke of Peter. The first
saying is about the irony that taking up the cross involves both
gain and loss:

For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his
life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit
a man, to gain (KEpbficrat) the whole world and forfeit (sflµtco0fjvat)
his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? (Mark 8:35-
37)

Tarazi sees a link to Philippians here in the words Kep8fjcrat and

s11µiro8fivat, which occur elsewhere in the New Testament only
in that epistle, where they have the same meaning:

But whatever gain (Ktp811) I had, I counted as loss (�fl�Liav) for the
sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss (�fl�tiav) because
of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his
sake I have suffered the loss (e�11µtro011v) of all things, and count
them as refuse, in order that I may gain (Kep8ftcrco) Christ ... (Phil
3:7-8)

The second connection to Paul in the text following the rebuke

of Peter is in the way Mark uses the words "shame" and "glory":

"For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous

and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed,
when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
(Mark 8:38)
PresentingJesus as the Crucified One 101

The idea that "shame" denotes a negative verdict on judgment

day, in contrast to boasting and "glory," which denote a positive
verdict, is typically Pauline. 124

Similarly Pauline language opens the discourse before the

exchange of rebukes between Peter and Jesus:

And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer
many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests
and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And
he said this plainly (Kainapp11cri�-rov "A6yov tla"Act). (8:31-32).

The phrase Kai 1tapp11cri� rov 1v6yov s1va1v£t literally means "and he
was speaking the word plainly." As Tarazi points out, "speaking
the word" is a Pauline phrase, and the word 1tapp11ai� may also
be translated "boldly" and is the opposite of shame. 1tapp11cri�
"occurs in Paul only four times, all four in conjunction not only
with the gospel but with suffering for its sake."125

Another case of intertextual irony that reflects positively on

Paul for anyone who reads both Mark and Paul's epistles can be
found in Jesus' response to the disciples' quarrel over who was
the greatest:

... they had discussed with one another who was the greatest ....
and he said to them, «If anyone would be first, he must be last of
all and servant of all." (Mark 9:34-35)

124
On glory and boasting (the opposite of shame), see Rom 2:5-10; 5:1-11; 11:13-15;
1 Cor 9:15-27; 15:29-34; 2 Cor 1:12-14; 5:11-15; Gal 6:4-5; Phil 2:16; 1 Thess 2:19-
20. On shame in the sense of a negative verdict on judgment day, see Rom 1:16; 5:5;
9:33; 10:1; 1 Cor 1:27; 2 Cor 10:8; Phil 1:20; 2 Tim 1:12, 15. See also Tarazi, Paul
andMark, 187-90.
t T arazi, Pau! and Mark, 188.
25
102 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

". . . whoever would be great among you must be your servant,

and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all."
(Mark 10:43-44)126

It is obviously ironic that to be first one must be last. But there is

also another level of irony here, because Paul calls himself the last
of the apostles and slave of all: 127

Last of all ... he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the
apostles. (1 Cor 15:8-9)

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to
all, that I might win the more. (1 Cor 9:19)

For anyone who hears both Paul's words and Jesus' words, the
implications are clear: the disciples want to be greatest but miss
the whole point of the cross; Paul calls himself last and
understands and accepts the cross and thus is in reality the
greatest apostle. 128

This irony that comes from juxtaposing these texts was

probably intended by the evangelist. The two Gospel passages
parallel the one in the epistle in more ways than just the "first-
last" dichotomy and the additional phrase "of all" appended to
"last" and "slave" (though these are already quite distinctive). In
each instance in the Gospel, a temporal adjective (first or last)
alternates with one that indicates importance (least or greatest):
the disciples discuss who is greatest, and Jesus tells chem whoever
wants to be first must be last before adding that such a person
must be servant/slave of all. If the disciples were discussing "who

126
See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 194, 200.
127 The Greek behind the word translated "slave" is the same in each case: the noun

8oulos in Mark 10:44 and the verb e8ou11,cocra. in 1 Corinthians 9: 19. The word
translated "servant" in Mark 9:35 and 10:43 is 8taKovos, which has a similar meaning.
128
See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 194.
PresentingJesus as the Crucified One 103

is the greatest," it would have been more natural and direct for
Jesus to address the question in the terms in which it was asked,
by answering, "If any would be greatest, he must be least."
Instead he shifts at first to "If any would be first, he must be last
of all." This curious juxtaposition occurs in both Markan verses
and in 1 Corinthians, where Jesus' appearance "last" to Paul
makes him the "least" of the disciples.

That Mark has Paul in mind here is also suggested by a link to

Galatians in Mark 10:42, where the disciples' desire to rule is
likened to that of secular grandees:

"You know that those who are supposed to (8oKouv-rc:<;) rule over the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority
over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would
be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be
first among you must be slave of all. ... " (Mark 10:42-43)

The italicized phrase here translates the same word as the

italicized phrase in these Galatians verses:

And from those who were reputed to be (-rrov 8oKouv-rwv )

something - what they were makes no difference to me; God
shows no partiality- those, I say, who were of repute (oi 8oKouv-rc<;)
added nothing to me ... and when they perceived the grace that
was given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to
be ( oi 8oKouv-rc<;) pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand
of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the
circumcised ... (Gal 2:6, 9)

In both texts the idea is that people commonly considered to be

in charge actually aren't, because God is ultimately in charge.
The most likely reason why Mark borrowed this word from
Galatians at this point in the Gospel is to use Paul's ironic
expression to strengthen the ironic element in his own text. The
104 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

phrase "those who are supposed to" or "those who are reputed
to" implies that what they are supposed or reputed to be is not
what they really are. The apostles who were the intimates of
Jesus during his earthly ministry are supposed or reputed to be
the authoritative "first among the apostles," but in reality it is the
"last of all" and "slave of all" Paul who is the authoritative
Apostle, the one who finally understood Jesus and the
significance of his crucifixion correctly.
 6
Discrediting Jesus' Disciples and Family
... when the women appear, how they are described, and their
identity as women all depict a group similar to but much better
than the Twelve. They are not surrogates but superiors, The
Twelve revealed themselves fully as rocky ground by their
responses when active persecution started in Jerusalem ...
Mary Ann Tolbert129

ne of the particularly ironic aspects of the Markan story is

O that those closest to Jesus, both his relatives and his hand-
picked associates, misunderstand and even oppose him. Not just
once, but repeatedly, constantly, throughout the story from
beginning to end. His family thinks he's gone mad. His disciples
don't understand him no matter how many times he tries to
explain, and they even disobey him. At the start of his passion
when he needs their support the most, everyone close to him
abandons him. Mark directs his readers' attention to this kind of
behavior on the part of Jesus' mother and siblings as a group, on
the part of the twelve as a group, on the part of Peter, james, and
John as a smaller group, on the part of Peter especially as an
individual, and also on the part of Judas.

Many scholars have recognized that Mark's attempt to

discredit all these people makes sense in the context of Paul's
ongoing conflict with those who were "apostles before him" (Gal
1: 17), especial!y the Jerusalem leadership of the "so-called
pillars," Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and john.':'?

129
Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel 292.
130
Gal 2: 1-14. On the ongoing conflict between Paul and the other apostles, see
Goulder, Paul vs. Peter; Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict; John Dominic
105
106 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Jesus' Family
In Mark 3:21, 31-35 Jesus' family hears what he has been up
to, and they jump to the conclusion that he has gone mad. They
come intending simply to take custody of him, not to talk to
him to find out the truth of the matter:

And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for
people were saying, "He is beside himself." . . . And his mother
and his brothers came; and standing outsid.e they sent to him and
called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to
him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you."
And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And
looking around on those who sat about him, he said, "Here are
my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my
brother, and sister, and mother."

The actions of Jesus' "mother and brothers" reflect negatively on

them, since they react so negatively to hearsay. And their actions
are even worse than that: it is not just that they believe hearsay
without hearing out their son and brother, but the hearsay
doesn't even report anything evil about him, it just reports his
healings and exorcisms. This fits perfectly with the theme of the
embedded story between when Jesus' family starts out on their
travels to seize him and when they arrive:

And the scribes who came down from J erusalern said, "He is
possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out
the demons." And he called them to him, and said to them in
parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided
against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided

Crossan, "Mark and the Relatives of Jesus," NovT 15(1973):81-113; Kelber, Passion in
Mark; Kelber, Mark's Story ofJesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979); Tarazi, Paul
and Mark; Telford, Theology of Mark; Trobisch, First Edition; Focant, Marc, un
euangile etonnant, 152.
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 107

against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has
risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is
coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and
plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then
indeed he may plunder his house. "Truly, I say to you, all sins will
be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter;
but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin" - for they had said, "He
has an unclean spirit." (Mark 3:21-30)

The hearer of this story-within-a-story can readily see the

connection: Jesus' mother and brothers are very much like these
scribes, for they assume he is mad because they hear he is healing
people and driving out demons.

As Goulder observes, cc ••• it would be a simple hypothesis to

explain the anti-family tendency if Mark were a Pauline
Christian embattled against the Jerusalem church's
hegemony." 131 But more specifically, Jesus' response to the arrival
of relatives seeking to take him away recalls Paul's statement
about God not being a respecter of persons in Galatians. In
Galatians that theme is important to Paul in asserting his
authority vis-a-vis the other apostles, and here that very point is
made as strongly as possible: even a close familial relationship
doesn't matter to Jesus, even a mother-son relationship doesn't
matter, all that matters is doing God's will. To emphasize the
theme, Mark repeats it in 6: 1-6 where he recounts that the
residents of Jesus' home town also refuse to accept him:

He went away from there and came to his own country ... And.
on the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue; and many who
heard him were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get all

131
Michael D. Goulder, ''A Pauline in a Jacobite Church," in Van Segbroeck et al.,
Four Gospels, 859-76; here: 860.
108 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are
wrought by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary
and brother of James and J oses and Judas and Simon, and are not
his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. And Jesus
said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own
country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." And he
could do no mighty work there, 132 except that he laid his hands
upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because
of their unbelief.

This too functions to back up Paul's argument, for the logical

conclusion is clear: no close relationship with Jesus during his
earthly ministry, not even that of a relative such as "James the
Lord's brother" (Gal 1: 19), would automatically endow anyone
with authority over the messianic community established in his
name.I"

The evangelist may also have added some more subtle prods in
the same direction. Just prior to the statement about a prophet
being without honor "among his own kin," one of Jesus'
brothers is identified as "Judas." The only other Judas in Mark is
the betrayer; even if this Judas is not explicitly called a betrayer
or named Iscariot, the name carries negative connotations in the
second gospel.

Also of interest, then, is how Mark identifies one of the women

who come to the tomb after the crucifixion but flee in fear
instead of responding positively to news of the resurrection. In
15:47 she is "Mary the mother of J oses," in 16: 1 she is "Mary

132
Matthew and Luke apparently deemed the statement that "he could do no mighty
work there" too scandalous to report; the former changes it to "he did not do many
works there," and the latter omits it altogether.
133
See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 154-6; Michael D. Goulder, "Those Outside (Mk.
4.10-12)," NovT 33:289-302; here: 297-300; Goulder, "A Pauline in a Jacobite
Church," Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 10-14. See also Marcus, Mark 1-8, 269ff.
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 109

the mother of James," and in 15:40 "Mary the mother of James

the younger and of J oses" was looking on from afar at the
crucifixion. The only other Mary in the entire Gospel besides
Mary Magdalene is introduced in 6:3: "Is not this the carpenter,
the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses ... " For those
with ears to hear, the allusion to Mary the mother of Jesus is not
difficult to catch, nor is the intended message, which Mark has
been driving home elsewhere in the Gospel as well: do not look
to Jesus' close relatives as the best examples of people who
understand and follow him. In the context of Galatians, this
reinforces the impression that even the fact that James is "the
Lord's brother" does not confer any special authority on him
which would give him an edge in his conflict with Paul. James
will only be a true "brother of the Lord" if he decides to adopt
Paul's view of the gospel, in which case he will be doing the will
of God.

The Twelve
Paul's conflict was with "apostles before me"134 as well as with
the brother of Jesus, and so Mark's representation of the twelve
as missing the point of the gospel and even opposing Jesus could
only strengthen Paul's position. 135 Actually, criticism of the
disciples would apply as well to James the Lord's brother insofar
as the disciples can be taken as representative of the entire
Jerusalem leadership in general and thus James in particular. 136

134
Gal 1: 17. See also 1 Cor 9:5; 2 Cor 11: 12-13.
35 For a list of scholars who see in Mark a polemic
t against the disciples, see Kealy,
History of Interpretation, 2: 1: 106; 2: 2: 367. Weeden calls it a «devastating attack"
(Mark: Traditions in Conflict, 25-51). See also Telford, Theology ofMark, 160. Scholars
who see the disciples as positive characters in Mark rely on assumptions from outside
the text; for an example, see Ernest Best, "The Role of the Disciples in Mark," NTS
23(1977):377-401.
136
Crossan makes this point ("Mark and the Relatives of Jesus," 110-13).
110 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

As Werner Kelber points out, the attack on the other apostles'

credibility so pervades the text that it can even be seen as the
main theme of the entire book of Mark. 137

Mark uses many means both subtle and not so subtle to call
into question the disciples' credentials as leaders. The disciples
stubbornly misunderstand and lack faith in Jesus, even after he
carefully explains things to them. He frequently loses patience
with them and castigates them for their obtuseness:

... he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him
and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?" And he
awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!"
And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them,
((Why are you afraid.? Have you no faith?" (4:40)

And he cautioned them, saying, "Take heed, beware of the leaven

of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." And they discussed it
with one another, saying, "We have no bread." And being aware
of it, Jesus said to them, "Why do you discuss the fact that you
have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your
hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do
you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five
loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken
pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve." "And the
seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken
pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven."
And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" (8:15-21)

... he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of man
will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him;
and when he is killed, after three days he will rise." But they did

137
Werner H. Kelber, Mark's Story ofJesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 88.
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 111

not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him. (9:31-
32) 138

Their misunderstanding runs so deep that they do the exact

opposite of what he tells them to do, and Jesus has to correct
them for that:

And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and
taking him in his arms, he said to them, ((Whoever receives one
such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me,
receives not me but him who sent me." (9:36-37)

And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch

them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it he
was indignant, and said. to them, "Let the children come to me, do
not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. . . "
(10:13-14)

As I pointed out earlier, the symbolism here represents Paul

inviting the Gentiles into Jesus' community, while the
requirement of Law observance insisted on by Jewish Christian
leaders effectively barred the door to entry by Gentiles. The
language here remarkably parallels a similar scenario that plays
out in Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians. There the Apostle
likens his Gentile converts to children:

You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and
blameless was our behavior to you believers; for yott know how,
like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and
encouraged yott and charged yott to lead a life worthy of God,
who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thess 2:10-12)

138
See also 6:35-37; 9: 10, 38-39.
112 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Following this text is one that decries "the Jews'" act of

"hindering" these children from hearing Paul's voice, which in
turn inspired God's "wrath":

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in

Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things
from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed
both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and
displease God and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking to
the Gentiles that they may be saved - so as always to fill up the
measure of their sins. But God's wrath has come upon them at last!
(1 Thess 2: 14-16)

Both contexts speak of anger stirred up by attempts to hinder the

reception of children. 139

As Robert Fowler observes, the reader of Mark has to be

amazed at how obtuse the disciples are.!" Stephen Smith points
out the parallel between 8:18 and 4:11-12, which suggests that
the disciples' behavior identifies them as the "outsiders" who are
destined not to repent and be forgiven:

"Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?"
(8: 18)

And when he was alone, those who were about him with the
twelve asked him concerning the parables. And he said to them,

139 See the discussion in Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 197-198. Mark kept the same Greek
word for hinder (µ11 KCDAUe't8 in Mark vs. KCDAU6v-crov in 1 Thess) but adapted the
words for children and anger to the new context. The Greek word 1tat6ia used by
Mark fits better the idea of children in general than does rsxv« used by Paul to evoke
a father and his own children. Likewise, the Greek word iiyav6.KTT]CT8V ("he was
indignant") fits Mark's narrative situation better than opyri (wrath).
140
Robert Fowler, "Reader-Response Criticism. Figuring Mark's Reader," in Janice
Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore, Mark and Method· New Approaches in
Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 59-93; here: 78.
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 113

"T o you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for
those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see
but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest
they should turn again, and be forgiven." (Mark 4:10-12)141

And the disciples' failings go far beyond just misunderstanding.

They also seek glory and honor for themselves and quarrel
among themselves about it, and Jesus has to correct that:

And they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he

asked them, ((What were you discussing on the way?" But they
were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another
who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve; and
he said to them, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all
and servant of all." (Mark 9:33-35)

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him,
and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we
ask of you." And he said to them, ((What do yot1 want me to do
for you?" And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right
hand and one at your left, in your glory." But Jesus said to them,
"You do not know what yot1 are asking ... And when the ten
heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus
called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who
are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their
great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so
among you; but whoever would be great among yotr mt1st be yot1r
servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of
all .... " (Mark 10:35-44)

They prove unable or unwilling to do something as basic as

pray, 142 and Jesus laments their slothfulness:

141
Smith, Lion, 214-23.
142
As Tolbert puts it, "Prayer in Mark is consistently outside the disciples' range of
understanding or participation" (Sowing, 189).
114 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him
privately, "Why could we not cast it out?" And he said to them,
"This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." (9:28-
29; the implication is that prayer is something they didn't or
couldn't do.)

And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane; and he

said to his disciples, "Sit here, while I pray." And he took with
him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed
and troubled. And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful,
even to death; remain here, and watch." . . . And he came and
found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, "Simon, are you asleep?
Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not
enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak." And again he went away and prayed, saying the same
words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes
were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer him. And
he came the third time, and said to them, "Are you still sleeping
and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come; the Son of
man is betrayed into the hands of sinners .... " (14:32-42)

In Jesus' voyages to bring his message to Gentile lands on the

other side of the Sea of Galilee, their fear and reluctance makes
them the very image of the sower parable's rocky soil. In fact, it
is right after the sower parable equates fear of tribulation with
rocky soil that the disciples show themselves fearful in the face of
a storm:

And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat,
so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep
on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do
you not care if we perish?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind,
and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and
there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid?
Have you no faith?" (Mark 6:37-40)
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 115

The metaphorical message here is that, sure, opening up the

community to Gentiles will result in some hard times, but Jesus
is more than a match for those hard times and will carry his
community through them safely. The disciples learn nothing
from this, for they are fearful again during the next voyage to
Gentile territory, so much so that Jesus almost decides to just
bypass them altogether and leave them behind:

And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind
was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he
came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but
when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost,
and cried out; for they all saw him, and were terrified. But
immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; have
no fear." And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.
And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about
the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6:48-52)

Again, the metaphorical message is not difficult to discern: Jesus

is trying to get his disciples to follow his lead to Gentile lands,
but they are reluctant and fearful. The first to overcome that fear
and reluctance will be Paul, not one of the twelve.

Finally, when Jesus needs his disciples the most, to a man they
desert him: "And they all forsook him and fled." (14:50).143
Some scholars try to rescue the disciples' reputation by pointing
out that they are not uniformly negative - at the start they do
respond positively to J esus.144 However, their initial enthusiasm
and eventual abandonment of Jesus out of fear fits perfectly the
pattern of "rocky ground" in the parable of the sower.

143
Tolbert suggests that the fact Joseph of Arimathea who buries Jesus is a member of
the council that condemned him highlights the disciples' shameful flight (Sowing,
293).
144 See the discussion in Svartvik, Mark and Mission, 315.
116 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Mark was written after a conflict had developed between Paul

and the Jerusalem Christian leadership under the leadership of
the "pillars" Peter, James, and John. For the Gospel's original
readers, the picture of obtuse, glory-seeking, slothful disciples
couldn't help but bolster the authority of the one Apostle who
was not so characterized.

"One ofthe Twelve''

The evangelist even foresaw the possibility chat a reader might
miss the point and suppose that, after all, even if the disciples
made some mistakes early on, Jesus chose them to be leaders,
and so they should be obeyed as such. In other words, maybe the
mere status of being an apostle, one of the original twelve,
should be recognized as a badge of authority. Mark attacks that
belief as well.

In 3:19 where Jesus appoints Judas one of the twelve, Mark

identifies him by indicating his surname Iscariot and adding that
he was destined to betray Jesus. The next reference to a Judas
(outside of the list of Jesus' brothers) is in the betrayal scene. In
14:10 he is "Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve," and in v.43 he is
"Judas . . . one of the twelve.'' The phrase "one of the twelve" is
superfluous in the first instance since the name Iscariot clearly
identifies the person. It is even more so in the second instance
since the Judas in question has already been identified. And it is
even more superfluous at the last supper where Jesus is with the
twelve and announces that "It is one of the twelve" who would
betray him (14:20), since he already said "one of you will betray
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 117

me" (14: 18). However, Mark does not write superfluous words,
and he emphasizes points by repeating them. 145

The most straightforward interpretation is that the evangelist

wanted to place extra heavy emphasis on the fact that Judas was
one of the twelve; or, in other words, he wanted to leave no
possibility that his hearers would miss the point that one of the
twelve betrayed Jesus. The reader must naturally infer that mere
membership in the ranks of "the twelve" - or, in the context of a
Pauline epistle, mere status as one of "the apostles before me" -
should not automatically confer authority on anyone. This
impression is enhanced by the fact that in Mark no motivation is
explicitly ascribed to Judas, which would otherwise make the
treacherous deed more of a personal deviation than a point about
his status as one of the twelve. It appears as though Judas exists
in the story only in order to make the point that one of the
twelve betrayed Jesus.

The Judas story also shows that in the end it is not only Jesus'
opponents in the Jewish leadership who cause his demise, it is
treachery from within his own ranks - or to rephrase that in the
terms of Mark's own day and Paul's perspective, the real traitors
are among the Christian Jewish leadership, not the non-
Christian Jews. 146 The name Judas ("Jew") corresponds so well
to Paul's view that his opponents were traitors to the cross of
Christ by being zealots for Jewish traditions, that it is reasonable
to suppose Mark deliberately named the betrayer Judas for that
reason.

145 Alter, Art of Biblical Narrative, 179-180: « ... when a relational epithet is attached to
a character .. . the narrator is generally telling us something substantive without
recourse to explicit commentary." See also p.179 on repetition for emphasis.
146
Smith points out this aspect of the story (Lion, 225 .1).
118 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The Pillars
Mark also pays special attention to a sub-group of apostles:
Peter James, and John, whose names coincidentally match those
of the Jerusalem church leaders that Paul calls "those reputed to
be pillars" in Galatians 2:9. This triumvirate forms an inner
circle among the disciples. They are the only ones to whom Jesus
assigns surnames147 and they accompany Jesus to places the
others cannot, 148 but they fall just as far short of their high
calling as the other nine. They misunderstand the
T ransflguration:

And Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is well that we are here; let us
make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for
Elijah." For he did not know what to say, for they were
exceedingly afraid .... And as they were coming down the
mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen,
until the Son of man should have risen from the dead. So they
kept the matter to themselves, questioning what the rising from
the dead meant. (Mark 9:5-10)

James and John selfishly seek glory for themselves by asking to

become co-rulers with Jesus:

And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at yot1r right hand and
one at your left, in your glory.'' ... And when the ten heard it,
they began to be indignant at James and John. (Mark 10: 3 7 -41)

And all three fail to even stay awake while Jesus prays, let alone
pray with him:

And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be
greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, "My soul is

147
Mark 3:16-17.
148
Mark 5:37; 9:2; 13:3; 14:33.
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 119

very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch." ... And
he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, "Simon,
are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray
that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is
willing, but the flesh is weak." And again he went away and
prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found
them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not
know what to answer him. And he came the third time, and said
to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough;
the hour has come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of
sinners." (Mark 14:32-41)

As I pointed out in the chapter on irony, the connection between

these three and Paul's epistle to the Galatians is not only in their
identical names but in the unusual phrase "those reputed to be"
(oi boKouvtc<;), which in Galatians refers to their status as church
leaders and in Mark refers to the Gentile leaders they are
compared to. 149

Peter
The self-serving request to rule with Jesus comes from James
and John without Peter, but Mark takes full advantage of every
other opportunity to highlight the hypocrisy of the man Paul
condemned for hypocrisy (Gal 2:11-14).150 Earlier I highlighted
the irony in the story of Peter's denial of the cross. But that story
does much more to make Peter look bad than just ironically

149
See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 201. Tarazi also points out other ways in which Mark
may have used subtle means to disparage James and John in particular ( 143). He
suggests the name Zebedee ascribed to their father has negative associations, and the
word µtcr8roi6c; (they were found in a boat with "hirelings") has negative
connotations, as can be seen from John 10: 12-13.
150
Besides the major episodes noted here, Mark uses more subtle means to ascribe
negative characteristics to Peter. In Mark 1 :36 where Simon "pursued" Jesus, the word
Kais6iro�sv connotes pursuit in the sense of pursuing one's enemies, as in Ps 18:37.
120 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

asserting that Peter rather than Paul was the one who was
seeking to please man rather than God.

Even the apparently positive aspect of the interaction between

Peter and Jesus - Peter's confession of faith in Jesus as the
Messiah - is marred by his omitting the "son of God" title. In
Matthew, Peter proclaims 'You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God" (Matt 16: 16) but the latter half of the confession is
conspicuously absent in Mark. This can hardly be merely an
oversight in a gospel that signals the importance of the "son of
God'' title by featuring it prominently in the prologue: "The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." ( 1: 1)
Outside of the prologue the title appears only twice: in 3: 11
"unclean spirits" in a Gentile land recognize Jesus, and in a
climactic recognition scene in 15:39 a Gentile Roman centurion
proclaims Jesus to be the son of God. The dramatic tearing of
the temple curtain sets the stage for the centurion's moment of
enlightenment, the importance of which in Mark's Gospel can
hardly be overemphasized:151

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to
bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that
he thus breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of
God!" (15:38-39)

The revelation that passed Peter by because he didn't want to

accept Jesus' suffering and death is granted to a lowly Gentile
after Jesus' experience of suffering and death is completed. This
is a climactic point in the story in part because the secrecy motif
comes to its ultimate end here: with the image of the crucified

l5ISee Tolbert, Sowing, 288. On the temple curtain scene as preparing the way for this
recognition scene, see Marcus, Mark 1-8, 481.
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 121

Christ before the reader's eyes, the key to Jesus' true identity is
revealed.

Unlike the parallel in Matthew, the Markan text says nothing

positive at all about Peter's incomplete recognition of Jesus'
identity. In Matthew Jesus responds with high praise for Peter's
• •
persp1cac1ty:

And Jesus answered him, ''Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For
flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is
in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against
it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever
you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt 16: 17-19)

Mark has nothing like this: the next statement after Peter's
chopped confession is "And he charged them to tell no one
about him."

Mark also has nothing that would soften the impact of the
remarkable statement that Peter "began to rebuke" his Lord and
master. By putting the words "God forbid, Lord" in Peter's
mouth, Matthew softens the word "rebuke"; without that, it
stands out as yet another indication of Peter's arrogance.

At the end of the scene that presents Peter denying Jesus' cross
is a statement that sets the stage for Peter denying his own cross
later in the story. No one summarizes this point better than
Michael Goulder:

There is a worse matter, which is often not noticed. Jesus goes on

immediately in Mark: "If any man would come after me, let him
deny himself and take tip his cross and follow me. For whoever
would save his life shall lose it ... " Can you think of anyone in
122 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

the Gospel story who wanted to save his life, who refused to come
after Jesus and take up his cross, who did not deny himself but
denied Jesus? Well, so could St. Mark.152

What Goulder overlooks is that the original readers of Mark

would also have been familiar with the epistles, and what applies
to Peter "in the Gospel story" applies also to Peter in the epistle
to the Galatians. As presented by Paul in that epistle, Peter acts
out of fear of the "men from James" and his actions have the
effect of denying Jesus and denying the cross. In any case,
Goulder rightly concludes that the original readers of the episode
in Mark chapter 8 would find in it a clear warning against
trusting Peter's judgment over Paul's.

The evangelist develops his warning about Peter's unreliability

further in the passion story. In a double ironic twist, Peter denies
knowing Jesus shortly after vowing not to do that, and he does
so at the very moment when Jesus himself finally acknowledges
openly his true identity.

Mark stresses the enormity of Peter's failure by portraying

Peter's attitude as extreme self-confidence bordering on
arrogance:

Peter said to him, "Even though they all fall away, I will not." And
Jesus said to him, "Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the
cock crows twice, yot1 will deny me three times." But he said
vehemently, "If I must die with you, I will not deny you." And
they all said the same. (Mk 14:29-31)

Later, Mark heightens the irony of the failure by juxtaposing

Peter's denial with Jesus' revelation of his own identity. Notice
how the repeated mentions of the «high priest" create a link

152 Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 18. Author's italics.

DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 123

between Jesus' destination and Peter's destination, and between

the question "are you the Christ" and the assertion "you were
with Jesus":

And they led J esus to the high priest, and all the chief priests and
the elders and the scribes were assembled. And Peter had followed
him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest ...
Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of
the Blessed?" And Jesus said, "I am; and you will see the Son of
man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the
clouds of heaven." . . . And as Peter was below in the courtyard,
one of the maids of the high priest came; and seeing Peter warming
himself, she looked at him, and said, "You also were with the
Nazarene, Jesus." But he d.enied it ... (14:53-54, 61-62, 66-68)

As Mary Ann Tolbert explains, Peter's denial is "almost an

exact antitype of the recognition scene," and the importance of
that recognition scene and its antitype can hardly be
overestimated:

To anyone familiar with the conventions of recognition scenes in

the ancient world, such a denial of correct identification would
rule out any final happy reunion. The recognition sequence in
Mark, like those of the ancient novels, is carefully plotted over a
series of days and uses time references to tie the events together.153

Mark also uses geographical references to tie events together.

He follows up the reference to the Galilean village of Nazareth in
Peter's first denial with an explicit reference to Galilee in his
third denial:

153
Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 75. See also Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On
the Interpretation of Narrative (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2006), 114; Smith, Lion,
225-26.
124 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

And after a little while again the bystanders said to Peter,

"Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean." But he
began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, "I do not know
this man of whom you speak." (14:70-71)

If Galilee symbolizes an integrated community of Jews. and

Gentiles in Mark, mentioning it in the denial story may be
intended to call to mind Peter's behavior in Antioch where (in
Paul's view) Peter betrayed the united Jewish-Gentile
community (Gal 2:11-14).154 Irony in Mark is not likely to be
coincidental, and it is certainly ironic that the man Paul called
"condemned" for effectively denying the cross in Galatians
(2: 11) here invokes a curse on himself while doing the same
thing. The Mark versus Galatians irony works from another
angle as well: Peter "invokes a curse" (ava8c:µa'ttsctV in 14:71) on
himself, and in fact it actually applies because he is lying; while
Paul "invokes a curse" on himself in Galatians if he should be
found to deny the cross (ava8c:µa sorco in 1 :8 and 9), and it
actually does not apply because he is the one apostle who does
not deny the cross. 155

Goulder highlights Mark's "merciless treatment of Peter on

Passover night" by contrasting it with the "whitewashing given
by the kindly Luke." 156 In Luke, Peter asserts his faithfulness
without hubris, and his failure is due to the supernatural
influence of the devil.

"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he

might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith
may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your

is4 Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 222.

155 Ibid., 223.
1 6
5 Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 18
DiscreditingJesus' Disciples and Family 125

brethren." And he said to him, "Lord, I am ready to go with you

to prison and to death." (Luke 22:31-33)

The avowal that "I am ready to go with you to prison and to

death" doesn't evince the speaker's arrogance as does "Even
though they all fall away, I will not." And the Lucan Peter is
rehabilitated and lives up to his word in the end, for in Acts he is
rehabilitated and eventually goes to prison as a follower of Jesus.
The Markan Peter fails repeatedly for no other reason than his
own arrogance and timidity, and he never redeems himself. 157

L5?Tarazi (Paul and Mark, 141-45) points out additional, more subtle, ways in which
the Markan text reflects negatively on Peter. In 1: 16 Simon and Andrew are doing
something "in the sea," and the word for what they are doing is aµcpt�a11,11,ov-ras. The
word is generally translated "casting a net," but the word for "net" is missing, and
another meaning of the word aµcpt�a1v11,ov1:as is "vacillating." The direct object may
have been deliberately omitted in order to evoke the alternative meaning. Also, 1 :36 is
generally translated "Simon and those with him pursued" Jesus, but the word behind
"pursued" is KU'tebtCOSeV, which usually connotes pursuing with intent to do harm, or
persecuung.
 7
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables
and the Ending
... the parables are designed to show in concise format the general
principles organizing the story as a whole. . . . The pervasive
tendency of form criticism to remove these parables from their
Gospel contexts, separate them from one another, and. try to flt
them into the historical ministry of Jesus has in the past and
continues in the present to obscure what Mark is doing with
them.
Mary Ann Tolbert158

f the author of Mark intended to make discrediting Peter and

I the disciples a central part of his Gospel story, evidence of that
should be detectable in the two main parables around which the
entire book of Mark revolves: the sower parable and the wicked
husbandmen parable. 159 And the ending of the book should
confirm rather than undo what the rest of the book was building
toward. Such evidence is detectable, and the ending firs the
theme perfectly.

The Parable ofthe Sower

Mark himself explicitly identifies the sower parable as the key
to everything: "Do you not understand this parable? How then
will you understand all the parables?" (4: 13) Considering that
Paul used seeds and sowing and plant growth as his central

1 8
5 Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 125, 149-50.
159Tolbert argues that the sower parable is central to the entire book (Sowing, 122).
The sower parable is about Jesus' task and is the key especially to the first part of the
book; the wicked husbandman parable is about Jesus' identity and is the key to the
. .
passion narrative.
127
128 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

metaphor for spiritual progress, 160 it can hardly be a coincidence

that a text written many years later to support Paul's Gentile
mission and apostolic authority would adopt the same metaphor
for its central parable.161 The direction of the borrowing from
Paul to Mark rather than from Jesus to Paul to Mark is suggested
by the fact that Paul never once attributes his seed and sowing
metaphor to Jesus. And some of the language may have come
directly from a Pauline source. The words uu�av6µc:va
(increasing) and xcpzooopoticrv (bear fruit) also appear in a
similar context in Colossians. Compare Mark 4:8, 20 with Col
1:6 and 10:162

And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain,
growing up and increasing ( au�uv6 uevn) and yielding thirtyfold
and sixtyfold and a hundredfold .... But those that were sown
Ltpon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it
and bear fruit (xcpnotpopofiotv), thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a
hundredfold." (Mark 4:8, 20)

Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel
which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing
fruit and growing (xcpnocopoouevov Kai au�cxv6µcvov) ... we have
not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the
knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding to
lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit
and increasing (xcpnoqiopotivre; Kai au�uv6µc:vot) in every good
work in the knowledge of God .... (Col 1:5-6, 9-10)

160
He found the metaphor in the Old Testament, but he uses it far more frequently.
161
Sowing, seeds, planting, growing plants, reaping or harvesting: Rom 1: 13; Gal 6: 7-
9; 1 Cor 3:6-7; 9:7, 11; 15:36-38, 42-44; 2 Cor 9:6-11; Col 1:6; 2 Tim 2:6. Fruit
(Mark4:20): Rom 15:28; 1 Cor 14:14; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:9-11; Phil 1:11, 22; 4:17; Col
1: 1 O; Tit 3: 14. Roots: Rom 11: 16-18. For more parallels, see Tarazi, Paul and Mark,
156-62.
162
Elsewhere in the New Testament the word only appears in the Lucan parallel to
Mark 4:20 (Luke 8:15). An adjectival form appears in Acts 14:17.
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 129

In both contexts the words refer at first to the increasing

numbers of converts to the gospel, and in the second instance to
the increase in good deeds done by those who obey the gospel. If
such a parallel is a coincidence, it is truly an amazing one. 163

In addition, the parable itself is an integral part of a persistent

effort throughout the Gospel to discredit Peter and the disciples.
In Greek it is all but impossible to miss the allusion to Peter
(Ilt-cpoc;) in the remarks about "rocky ground" (to 1tc-cp&8c<;),
especially since Jesus assigns the name "Peter" to Simon shortly
before the parable. Other parallels make it clear that the rest of
the disciples are rocky along with Peter. Compare the
interpretation of rocky ground with Jesus' announcement that
Peter and the rest of the disciples would abandon him:

And these in like manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground,
who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy;
and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then,
when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word,
immediately they fall away ( crKav8a1isOV"Cat). (Mark 4: 16-17)

And J esus said to them, "You will all fall away

( crKav8a1tcr911crccr9c); for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered.' But after I am raised up, I will go
before you to Galilee." Peter said to him, "Even though they all
fall away ( crKavoaAtcr911crov"Cat), I will not." And Jesus said to him,
"Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows twice,
you will deny me three times." But he said vehemently, "If I must
die with you, I will not deny you." And they all said the same.
(Mark 14:27-31)

And they all forsook him, and fled. (Mark 14:50)

163
See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 159.
130 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The evangelist has described rockiness and then portrayed Peter

and the other disciples as the very epitome of rockiness by
recounting their initial enthusiasm followed by prompt flight at
the first sign of persecution. To make sure the correspondence
won't be missed, he has taken care to describe the effect of rocky
ground and the disciples' shameful behavior with same verb
crKav8a1il;:co (fall away). And he has made sure that no one might
think any of these original disciples were any different, for Jesus
predicts "you will all fall away," and like Peter "they all said the
same" avowal that they wouldn't, but in short order "they all
forsook him and fled." All are motivated to abandon Jesus by
fear, which behavior in Mark represents the opposite of faith and
the foundation of "rockiness." Taking all this together, it seems
more than plausible that Mark crafted the sower parable himself,
inspired by Paul's extensive use of the metaphor of sowing; and
he deliberately chose the term "rocky soil" as an ironic allusion
to Peter the '(rock." 164

The preface to Jesus' interpretation of the parable contains yet

another key to understanding it:

And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
kingdom of God, bur for those outside everything is in parables;
so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear
but not understand, lest they should turn again, and be forgiven."
(Mark 4: 11-12)

This text has been a stumbling block for interpreters from the
beginning. It appears to say that Jesus' purpose in speaking is to
keep people from understanding and being forgiven, and

164 On the correspondences between rocky soil and Peter and the disciples, see Tolbert,
Sowing the Gospel, 127, 145-46, 154, 164-75, 212.
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 131

scholars have struggled with that meaning for centuries. 165

Tolbert offers a fairly typical way of making the text more
acceptable: she suggests it means that the way people respond
determines whether they are "outside" or not: by definition if
one hears and understands, one is an insider, and vice versa.166
However, that is not what the text says.

An interpretation that does make sense of the hard saying

without twisting it around to make it say something else comes
from comparing it to Paul's epistle to the Romans. In Romans,
Paul is grappling with the fact that the Jews have rejected Jesus
while the Gentiles are accepting him. In Romans he asserts that
this is part of God's plan: the Jews were offered the gospel first
but were foreordained to reject it, so that the Gentiles could
accept it, which would in turn make the Jews jealous so that in
the end some of the Jews as well as Gentiles would be "saved":

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect

obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, "God gave
them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should
not hear, down to this very day." And David says, "Let their table
become a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a retribution for them; let
their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their
backs forever." So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no
means! But through their trespass salvation has come to the
Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means
riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the
Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! Now I
am speaking to yot1 Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to

165 For comprehensive coverage of interpretations that have been offered, see R. H.
Gundry, Mark: A commentary on his Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1993), 195-204.
166
Tolbert, Sowing, 160.
132 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order to make my fellow

Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. (Rom 11:7-14)

These eyes that don't see and ears that don't hear parallel the
seeing but not perceiving and hearing but not understanding of
Mark 4: 12. The parallel is even stronger than is immediately
apparent: the Old Testament text typically seen as behind Mark
4: 12 is Isaiah 6:9, but the order there is "hearing" followed by
"seeing," while the order in Mark is the reverse - which
corresponds to what we have in Rom 11 :8. 167 What Mark 4: 11-
12 implies, then, is that Jesus speaks to the Jews in parables so
that they won't get the message, so that the Gentiles eventually
will get the message first, which in the long run will inspire in at
least some of the Jews sufficient envy to impel them join the
repentant throng entering into salvation.

This interpretation makes sense of Mark's statement that Jesus

only spoke in parables to the crowds ("he did not speak to them
without a parable"; 4:34). It also helps make sense of Mark's
statement that this exclusively parabolic talk is only "for those
outside" (exeivo«; 8t -rote; e�co). In 3:31-32 - just before the sower
parable begins - it is Jesus' relatives who stand "outside" (e�co).168
It is Jesus' relatives in particular, and by extension the Jews, who
are destined not to understand.169 This interpretation based on
the connection to Romans fits perfectly with the fact that Jesus'
relatives are standing "outside" because they do not understand
Jesus, having come to cart him away as a madman.

167
Romaniuk acknowledges Romans as a source but does not specify details ("Le
Problerne des Paulinismes," 274).
168
For a thorough examination of the connection between these passages, see Goulder,
"Those Outside."
169 John R. Donahue (The
Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative, and Theology in the
Synoptic Gospels [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988], 44) refers also to 14:68-71 and
suggests that "outside" is where those scandalized by the cross are found.
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 133

The Parable ofthe Wicked Husbandmen

The second major parable in Mark is the story of the wicked
husbandmen. Its importance is evident in that it introduces the
passion story, which itself is the denouement of the entire book.
That the parable is about Jesus being rejected and killed is clear
enough, in part because the term "beloved son" occurs only here
and in 1: 11 and 9: 7, where God himself speaks the words:

. . . and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son;

with thee I am well pleased." (Mark 1: 11)

And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the

cloud, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him." (Mark 9: 7)

He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them,
saying, 'They will respect my son.' (Mark 12:6)

The parable is sometimes interpreted as being about the Jews

rejecting Jesus and being replaced by the Gentiles.'?" However,
the parable differentiates between the vineyard, which in Old
Testament scripture symbolizes Israel, and the wicked group
tending the vineyard, which would then symbolize Israel's
leaders. The vine tending group that will be brought in to
replace the wicked group is likewise not the vineyard itself but
those who will tend it.

A man planted a vineyard ... When the time came, he sent a

servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the
vineyard. And they took him and beat him, and sent him away
empty-handed .... He had still one other, a beloved son; finally
he sent him to them, saying, "They will respect my son." But
those tenants said to one another, "This is the heir; come, let llS
kill him, and the inheritance will be ours." And they took him and

° From as early as John Chrysostom.

17
134 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What will the owner
of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give
the vineyard to others .... (Mark 12: 1-11)

When read in the light of Old Testament symbolism, the

parable is about the behavior of the leadership of God's
community and a changing of the guard at that level, not about
Jews or Gentiles generally. The parable condemns the behavior
of one set of leaders and foretells a changing of the guard to a
different set.

To make the theme of leadership and authority clear, Mark

puts the controversy about the authority of John the Baptist and
Jesus (11:27-33) immediately before the parable, has Jesus
address the parable to "the chief priests, the scribes, and the
elders" in the Jerusalem temple (11:27), and immediately after the
parable tells us that these listeners "perceived that he had told the
parable against them" (12: 12). Therefore, the immediate context
establishes that the parable is about Jesus, his rejection by the
Jerusalem Jewish leadership of his day, and the impending
establishment of a whole new leadership for "God's vineyard."

Aaron Milavec has pointed out a sticking point in this

otherwise straightforward interpretation. He observes that
nowhere else in the Old Testament or any contemporary Jewish
literature is the messiah ever called the heir (tl11pov6µ0<;), and so
he concludes that, "it is doubtful that Mark's hearers would have
associated 'the son' with the expected Messiah."171 However,
precisely this anomaly is what points out a Pauline connection in

171
"A Fresh Analysis of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in the Light of
Jewish-Catholic Dialogue," in Parable and Story in Judaism and Christianity (New
York: Paulist Press, 1989), 81-120, 100.
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 135

this parable, for that link between "inheritance" and the messiah
can be found nowhere else but in Galatians:

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It

does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many; but referring
to one) "And to your offspring," which is Christ. . . . For if the
inheritance (KA11povoµia) is by the law, it is no longer by promise ..
. (3:16-18)

In the context of Galatians, the "inheritance" is the content of

the promises, and if Christ along with Abraham is the recipient
of the promises, then the "heir" is Christ. 172 Actually, as Tarazi
points out, the phrase "beloved son" also provides evidence of a
literary link to Galatians:

The impression that Galatians was a source for Mark is

strengthened by another phrase Mark uses at this point: "My
beloved Son" (ho huios mou ho agapetos). This appears three times,
exclusively in reference to Isaac, in the entire Old Testament (LXX
Gen 22:2, 12, 16), all in the story about God's command that
Abraham sacrifice him. It can hardly be a coincidence that in
Galatians Paul discusses Isaac, presenting him as the image of true
sonship to God and of innocent suffering ( 4:28-29). Since Paul
viewed himself as a son of Abraham and of God after the manner
of Isaac, and since this sonship to God was both made possible
and put into effect through the agency of Christ (4:4-7), Mark
presented the sonship of Jesus, the unique Son of God, in the
same terms. The scene was thus set for the suffering of this unique
son, which is a - if not the - central theme of Mark's gospel.173

172 Paul develops the inheritance theme further in 4:1-7. There are, of course other
indications that Jesus is meant, such as the quotations from Ps 118 at the end of the
parable. See Timothy C. Gray, The Temple in the Gospel of Mark: A Study in Its
Narrative Role (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2010), 46-93.
173 Paul and Mark, 138-39.
136 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The message conveyed by the symbolism of the wicked

husbandmen parable can be carried a step further in a direction
that Mark may have intended. If in Jesus' day a whole corps of
disobedient leaders based in Jerusalem needed to be replaced by
new ones, it is no great leap to conclude that if Christian leaders
based in Jerusalem in Paul's day (such as James the Lord's
brother) also disobey, they too will need to be replaced. In the
latter case, "disobedience" would mean opposition to the Pauline
interpretation of the gospel, and the replacement leaders would
be the Pauline school.

The Apparently Inconclusive Ending

The effect, of course, is a startling, and to many an offensive,
suggestion that the disciples never received the angel's message,
thus never met the resurrected Lord, and, consequently never were
commissioned with apostolic rank after their apostasy. . . . I
conclude that Mark is assiduously involved in a vendetta against
the disciples. He is intent on totally discrediting them. He pain ts
them as obtuse, obdurate, recalcitrant men who at first are
unperceptive of Jesus' Messiahship, then oppose its style and
character, and finally totally reject it. As the coup de grace, Mark
closes his Gospel without rehabilitating the disciples.
Theodore Weeden 174

A well-designed narrative ends in a way that fits with its main

themes, ties up any remaining loose ends, and helps it achieve its
main purposes.175 People who believe that Mark's purpose is

174 Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict, 50.

175 As Marxsen (Mark the
Evangelist, 208-9) puts it, the ending must express «the inner
goal of the entire Gospel."
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 137

evangelistic naturally find its original ending disconcerting, for

the oldest manuscripts end abruptly:

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might
go and anoint him .... And entering the tomb, they saw a young
man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they
were amazed. And he said to them, '<Do not be amazed; you seek
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here;
see the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and
Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him,
as he told you." And they went out and fled from the tomb; for
trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said
nothing to any one, for they were afraid. (Mark 16: 1-8)

Many English Bibles print a section labeled as verses 9-20 after

this, with a note explaining that this only appears in later
manuscripts. Some also print another, shorter alternate ending,
with a similar note. Only in these later additions do the
resurrected Jesus and the restored disciples appear. The original
ending of the earliest gospel has no resurrection appearance, no
bestowal of the spirit on the disciples, and no "great
commission" directing the disciples to spread the word. Some
who find this difficult to accept have suggested that the original
ending somehow got lost, or that one or other of the alternate
endings was original. 176

However, the Gospel's ending as it appears in the earliest

manuscripts fits the themes and purposes of Mark as I have
explained them here. Throughout the Gospel, Mark consistently
follows the Pauline theme of emphasizing the cross over the

176A vast literature on the subject has arisen. For an introduction to some of the main
issues by scholars who have reached contradictory conclusions, see David Alan Black,
ed., Perspectives on the Ending ofMark: Four Views (B & H Academic, 2008).
138 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

resurrection; a sharp focus on the resurrection at the end could

have undone what the rest of the text was trying to do with its
focus on the crucifixion. A mere hint at the resurrection fits
perfectly with the "Christ crucified" theme.

Another theme the Gospel returns to again and again is the

question of authority.177 More specifically, Mark is interested in
demonstrating the disciples' lack of leadership character and
their failure to earn a right to the authority offered to them.
Omitting any final restoration of these men fits perfectly with
the portrayal of the disciples as "rocky ground."178 Just as the
final and resonant image of Christ in Mark is that of the
crucified Christ, the final and resonant image of the disciples is
that of apostate failures. As Tolbert puts it, "The saga of Peter
and the disciples ends, as did that of the rich man (10:17-22), in
grieving failure." 179

At the same time, an ending may introduce something new,

and this one does. The failure is not necessarily final: the text
gives Peter and the others a11 opportunity to respond outside the
text ofMark to the invitation to follow Jesus to Galilee. Galilee in
Mark symbolizes the integrated Jewish-Gentile community. So
the implication is that Christian leaders in Mark's day who
"follow Jesus to Galilee" are those who endorse Paul's view of a
united Jewish-Gentile community. If Peter or any of the other
men Paul calls "the apostles before me" accept Paul's view of the
gospel, they will have shown their faithfulness to Jesus. Those

177
Tolbert (Sowing, 136) points out that even the healings are ultimately about
authority.
178 A few who call attention to this include Tolbert,
Sowing the Gospel, 302; Weeden,
Mark: Traditions in Conflict, 44, 50; Brenda Deen Schildgen, Power and Prejudice:
The Reception of the Gospel ofMark (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1999), 21-2; Telford,
Theology ofMark, 150.
179 Tolbert,
Sowing the Gospel, 218.
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 139

who oppose Paul are refusing to "follow Jesus to Galilee" and in

so doing have forfeited their apostolic authority.

Mark's original audience within the Pauline communities may

not have known which of "the twelve" ultimately proved faithful
and which didn't, but they did know who followed this
blueprint perfectly: Paul himself. Without explicitly mentioning
Paul, the ending of Mark reveals that the Apostle to the Gentiles
- who called himself the least of the apostles because Jesus
appeared to him last (1 Cor 15:8-9), and who had to defend his
authority vis-a-vis those apostles!" - was in reality the first and
greatest and most authoritative. It was Paul who first "followed
Jesus to Galilee" by establishing the kinds of inclusive
communities that Galilee symbolizes in the Gospel of Mark. 181

Some might object that this interpretation is a weak "argument

from silence." However, in reality it is more than that. It is based
in part on the evidence that Mark knew well at least some of the
Pauline corpus, which means his audience also was familiar with
Paul and his claims to apostolic authority. More specifically,
Mark knew 1 Corinthians, with its explicit mention of
resurrection appearances of Jesus - which means Mark knew
about such traditions but deliberately omitted them. An
alternative explanation of Mark's ending would have to account

180
As discussed earlier; see 1 Cor 9:5;2 Cor 11:5, 12-13; 12:11; Gal 1:17-19.
181
Tolbert points out that if the disciples are rocky soil and the women are rocky soil,
then as a matter of fact, everyone in the Gospel who is actually named is rocky soil.
She asks: if the women fail, who else is there? Her answer is that the readers themselves
must follow Jesus on their own (Sowing, 295). However, this does not fit a book that is
about church leadership, or a husbandmen parable that is about leaders of the flock. It
is more likely that Mark's Gospel is mainly intended to call upon readers to choose
carefully which church leaders they will follow, rather than to encourage them to act as
though each individual is a separate leader with no need for actual leaders.
140 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL
• •
for such deliberate omission, and none of the proposed
alternatives do that.

What the ending of Mark would make clear is that no apostle,

neither Paul nor any of the others, was the first to see the
resurrected Lord at the tomb or anywhere near Jerusalem. 182 No
resurrection sighting whether by Paul or Peter or James or John
could thus bestow the Lord's authority more effectively than any
other. Moreover, for a resurrection appearance to be valid it
would have to happen "in Galilee," that is, by an apostle who
was committed to the combined Jewish-Gentile messianic
community. 183 In this way the "last" and "least" of the apostles
tru1y b ecame the "fjirst" an d the " greatest. "

In addition, the ending at 16:8 effectively brings the reader full

circle back to the beginning. David Aune suggests that the Greek
word apxil (as in "the beginning of the gospel" in 1: 1) is a
technical term meaning that a "complete examination of a
historical phenomenon must be based on its origins."184 When
the hearer of Mark first hears apxil in 1: 1 at the start of the book,
it can be taken as a reference to the beginning of the book itself.
But then upon hearing the book a second time, it becomes clear
that the word applies to the entire literary work as a unit. This
impression would be enhanced by the fact that the hearer gets to
the end without ever having heard any sayings or teachings that

182 See Giblin, "The Beginning of the Ongoing Gospel," 978.

183
See Telford, Theology of Mark, 149-151. This interpretation addresses Werner's
argument that Mark is not Pauline because I Cor 15 lists resurrection witnesses that
Mark does not. Mark's text does not preclude later appearances; he just ensures that if
they happen, they are no more authoritative than Paul's, and if they don't happen "in
Galilee," that is,. if they are not interpreted as pro-Gentile, they are invalid. (Werner
1923, 178)
184 Cited in Adela Yarbro Collins, Is Marks
Gospel a Life ofJesus? A Question of Genre
(Marquette UP, 1990), 28-29.
Alluding to Paul in the Main Parables and the Ending 141

are actually identifiable as "the gospel" anywhere in the text. The

natural conclusion is that the book as a whole is about the origin
of "the gospel."185 The way Mark uses the title "son of God"
contributes to this impression. The phrase occurs only in 1: 1,
3: 11, and 15:39. In the opening it states what the whole book is
about, and at the end the Centurion becomes the first human
being to recognize Jesus as the son of God.

Given the Pauline emphases throughout Mark and Paul's own

unique use of the word "gospel,"186 the entire book of Mark then
comes to be seen as a narrative presentation of how Paul's gospel
came into being. It functions, then, to solidly establish the
authority of the one apostle who proved to be good soil rather
than rocky soil. 187 As for the actual content of the gospel, Mark
points beyond itself to the teaching of that "last" yet "greatest"
apostle preserved in the epistles written in his name.

LB5 Van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary, 90. See Giblin, "The Beginning
of the Ongoing Gospel."
186
See especially Phil 4: 15, where Paul uses the very same phrase "beginning of the
Gospel" (arkhe tou euangeliou) that Mark uses in I: I.
187
As Kealy observes, only Mark and Paul use the noun "gospel" frequently (Matthew
uses it only from his source): seven times in Mark, four in Matthew, none in Luke,
John, or Acts; and sixty in Paul. Mark normally uses it absolutely (except I: 1 and
I: 14), which is another indication of Pauline origin. Jesus Christ and the Gospel are
equivalent in Mark: the gospel "is not the message which Jesus proclaimed but 'the
form in which Jesus is made present. Jesus is the content of the Gospel in the sense
that he is preached'" (History ofInterpretation, 2: I: 230).
 8
Appropriating Paul's Language and
Example
f Mark was trying to defend the Gentile mission and validate
I the authority of the Pauline literary corpus, and if in doing so
he developed themes from the epistles into narrative episodes,
you would expect to find not more than just "narrativization" of
broad Pauline themes. You would also expect to find traces of
Pauline language and echoes of Pauline autobiographical
narrative. Such expectations are not disappointed - Mark has
both in abundance.

Pauline Language
Ironically, one of the cornerstones of Manin Werner's
arguments against considering Mark to be Pauline is that Mark's
language is not Pauline. Werner cites a table of statistics where
he lists individual Greek words and the number of times each
word appears in Paul's epistles versus how frequently it appears
in Mark's Gospel. Here are some examples from his list: aya7t11
(love) - 52 times in Paul, none in Mark; 8tKatocruv11
(righteousness) - 51 times in Paul, none in Mark; 86�a (glory) -
60 times in Paul, 3 in Mark; vouot; (law) - 115 times in Paul,
none in Mark; and xaptc; (grace) - 74 times in Paul, none in
Mark.188

Statistics such as these are not helpful in analyzing literary

relationships. In the first place, just counting instances is
misleading because the volume of text in the Pauline epistles far

188
Werner, Der Einfluss, 207-8.
143
144 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

exceeds that of Mark. Percentages would have been a better

comparison than numbers, and adjusting the figures to a
proportion of total text would make these differences less
impressive. Even more important, though, is the fact that this is
simply not a valid way to establish or disprove a literary
relationship. The author of Mark might have grown up with a
very different vocabulary than did Paul, and if so much or most
of what he wrote would reflect his own vocabulary rather than
Paul's. This would remain true even if Mark relied heavily on
Paul's epistles for ideas and thematic content. Even if Mark
frequently copied words and phrases from Paul, much of Paul's
wording and text would remain foreign to Mark.

In addition, the genre and purpose of a work affects its

language. For Paul, ayam, (love) and 8tKatO<ruY11 (righteousness)
were at the heart of his gospel and he had to repeat them
frequently. If Mark's purpose were to elucidate the content of
Paul's gospel, it would have been hard to avoid such words. But
as I showed in the Introduction to this book, Mark is not
interested in delivering an exposition of the gospel. And if his
purpose led him in a different direction - such as to validate
Paul's authority - he had no need to repeat the discussions of
ayam, in 1 Corinthians 13 or 8tKatocruv11 in Romans. If he was
successful in validating Paul's authority, the hearers of his Gospel
would go to Paul's epistles themselves and would find these ideas
at the heart of "the gospel" there.

On the other hand, if Mark was using Paul's epistles as his

inspiration and source, you would expect to find distinctive
usages of terms in scattered instances where the borrowing was
relatively more direct. And that is precisely what we see. I have
pointed out some instances already, where in developing a
Pauline theme Mark used distinctive Pauline language. Examples
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 145

are the combination of "grief" and "anger" with respect to the

Jews' rejection of Paul's gospel, which links Mark 3: 1-5 to
Romans 9-11; the expression "making all foods clean," which
links Mark 7:19 to Rom 14:20;189 the reference to Jews seeking
"signs," which links Mark 8:11-12 to 1 Cor 1:22;190 the phrase
"those supposed to be" in reference to community leaders whose
leadership is to be taken with a grain of salt, which links Mark
10:42-43 to Gal 2:6-9; 191 the words "gain" and "loss" in
reference to the gospel versus worldly goods, which links Mark
8:35 to Phil 3:7-8; 192 the words "shame" and "glory" in reference
to judgment day, which link Mark 8:38 to typical Pauline
usage; 193 "children" as a metaphor for Gentiles linked to anger
about hindrances to their reception) which links Mark 9:36-
10: 14 to 1 Thess 2:10-12;194 the words au�av6µ£Va (increasing)
and Kapnocpopoi3crtv (bear fruit), which link Mark 4:8 and 20 to
Col 1 :6 and 1 O; 195 and the phrase "beloved son," which links
Mark 1:11, 9:7, and 12:6 to Gal4:28-29.196

M. E. Boismard and Paul Benoit discovered other instances of

typically Pauline language in Mark, by comparing passages in
Mark with parallels in the other synoptic gospels. One example is
Mark 4: 11 and parallels (the beginning of the explanation of the
sower parable). In the quotations below, the differences are
italicized:

189
See also chapter 4.
190
See Jesus Rejects Jewish Exclusivism in chapter 4.
191 See The
Irony of the Cross in chapter 5.
19·2 See The
Irony of the Cross in chapter 5.
193 See The
Irony of the Cross in chapter 5.
194
See The Twelve in chapter 6.
195 See The Parable of the Sower in
chapter 7.
196
See The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in chapter 7.
146 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret (uuornpiov)
of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in
parables; (Mark 4: 11)

And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the
secrets (uuotnptc) of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not
been given .... This is why I speak to them in parables ... (Matt
13� 11, 13a)

he said, "To you it has been given to know the secrets (uuornpic) of
the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables ... (Luke
8: 10)

In Mark µua1:11p1.ov (" secret") is singular, as it is most of the time

in Paul ( 18 singular versus 3 plural), -ra mrvru (" everything" in
Mark 4: 11) reflects Pauline usage (29 times in Paul, only 3 times
elsewhere), 197 and "those outside" (tot<; i�w or npo<; roix; i�w)
occurs elsewhere only in Paul. 198 In the Pauline texts, "those
outside" refers to people who are outside the Pauline Christian
community, which fits the interpretation I offered earlier in this
book, according to which that phrase alludes to Jews who reject
Christ.

Another example Boismard cites is Mark 1: 14b-15 and its

parallel in Matthew 4: 17. In the quotations below, the italicized
words are unique in Mark and are distinctively Pauline:

Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying,
cc The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent,

and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1: l 4b-15)

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt 4: 17)

197 In Acts 17:25 it appears in a speech of Paul; it also appears in Heb 2: 1 O; Rev 4: 11.
198
1 Thess 4:12; 1 Cor 5:12-13; Col 4:5.
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 147

The phrase "gospel of God" appears five times in Paul and once
in 2 Peter;199 phrases like "the time is fulfilled" appear only in
Paul;200 and phrases like "believe in the gospel" appear only in
Paul. 201 In Mark 1: 14, the term "gospel of God" is the ending
part of an inclusio in the Gospel's prologue, beginning with
"gospel of Christ" in verse 1:

The beginning of the gospel ofJesus Christ, the Son of God.... Jesus
came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, "The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and
believe in the gospel." (Mark 1: l, I 4b- l 5)

"The gospel of Christ" is another unique Paulinism, occurring

only in Paul and nowhere else in the New Testament.r'"

In fact, it is around the word '(gospel" - a distinctively Pauline

expression - that the entire book of Mark revolves. As I
explained in the Introduction, the whole book points to "the
gospel" as the message its hearers must believe and obey, and the
book as a whole tells the story of "the beginning of the gospel,"
yet the book offers no distinctive gospel teaching other than the
narrative image of the crucified Christ. For the teachings at the
heart of the gospel the hearer of Mark must go elsewhere - to
Paul's epistles. 203

Presentingjohn the Baptist as an Image ofPaul

It is not difficult to see that there are some parallels between
John the Baptist and Jesus in Mark, on the one hand, and Paul
the Apostle and Jesus, on the other hand. John preached

199
Rom 1:1; 15:16; 1 Thess 2:2, 8, 9; 2 Pet 4:17.
200
Gal 4:4; Eph 1: 10.
201
Eph I: 13 ("you have believed in him"); cf. Phil 1 :27; Rom 1: 16; 10: 16
202
Rom 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; 2 Cor 2:12; 9:13; 10:14; Gal 1:7; Phil 1:27; I Thess 3:2.
203
See Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 115-19; 140.
148 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

(1cr1pu00ro) a Jesus who was to come after him. Paul preached

(jcnpucoto) a resurrected Jesus who was to come in judgment
after him. 204 John preached repentance and baptism as a
preparation for meeting the coming Lord; Paul preached
repentance and baptism as preparation for meeting the coming
Lord.205 John's work as a baptizer began "in the wilderness,"
which implies that it was a non-Jewish land; Paul's was
commissioned by God as the apostle to the Gentiles and began
his apostolic work in the wilderness of Arabia, a non-Jewish
land. 206 John proclaims he is "not worthy" of Jesus in exactly the
same way that Paul proclaims he is "not worthy" of Jesus:

And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier

than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy (oinc siui
iKavoc;) to stoop down and untie. (Mark I :7)

For I am the least of the apostles; I am not worthy (ou« c:iµi

iKavoc;) to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of
God. (I Cor 15:9)

The 1 Corinthians passage is the same one that contains the "last
will be first" and "least will be greatest" theme, which as I
showed earlier is another way that Mark alludes to Paul. 207

It is also significant that Jesus explicitly defends John's

authority in Mark, and that he does this right after he cleanses
the temple so that it can become a place of prayer for "the

204 Mark 1:4; Gal 2:2; 5:11; Rom 10:8; 1 Cor 1:23; 15:11-12; 2 Cor 4:5; 11:4. In
Mark, John is also presented as a new Elijah, and Tarazi (Paul and Mark, 192) points.
out some parallels between Elijah and Paul.
205 Mark 1:4; Rom 2:4; 6:4; 2 Cor 7:9-10;
Eph 4:5; Col 2:12. Of course, there is a
difference in that John actually does the baptizing, while Paul says "Christ did not
send me to baptize but to preach." ( 1 Cor 1: 17).
206 Mark 1:4; Gal 1:16-17. SeeTarazi, Paul and Mark, 136-38.
207 See The
Irony of the Cross in chapter 5.
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 149

nations." In fact, Mark makes sure that the passage about John's
authority begins in a way that directly ties it to the temple
cleansing:

And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the

temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to
him, and they said to him, "By what authority are you doing these
things, or who gave you this authority to do them?" Jesus said to
them, "I will ask you a question; answer me, and I will tell you by
what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from
heaven or from men? Answer me." And they argued with one
another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why then did you
not believe him?' But shall we say, 'From men'?" - they were
afraid of the people, for all held that John was a real prophet. So
they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And Jesus said to them,
"Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."
(Mark 11 :27-33)208

The dilemma of the "the chief priests and the scribes and the
elders" is the same as that of the "pillars" of the church in
Jerusalem: if Paul's authority did not come from God, why did
they make an agreement with him ( Gal 2: 1-10)? And then if
Paul's authority did come from God, why did they renege on
that agreement with him (Gal 2:11-14)?

ModelingJesus' Life after Paul's

On the other hand, much of what I've already presented
amounts to suggesting that Mark deliberately created a literary
Jesus whose words and actions parallel the words and actions of
Paul. Mark's Jesus defends the Gentile mission before the fact, in
the face of opposition from his disciples, just as Paul defended
his Gentile mission in the face of opposition from the "pillars,"

208
See also T arazi, Pau! and Mark, 2 04-6.
150 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

some of whom were reputed to have been among those disciples.

To make this connection Mark portrayed Jesus leading reluctant
disciples to Galilee, visiting other Gentile lands, interacting
positively with individual Gentiles, performing miracles of
feeding for mixed Jewish-Gentile crowds, insisting that
recalcitrant disciples stop preventing children from reaching him,
narrating parables, and so forth. There are also parallels to the
core content of the gospel that Paul preached: the outline of
Jesus' life is a veritable image of the "Christ crucified" that was so
central to Paul's proclamation. These are thematic parallels, but
I've also pointed out some parallels to specific events in Paul's
life - such as Jesus' rebuke of Peter for rejecting the cross, which
parallels Paul's rebuke of Peter for implicitly rejecting what the
cross meant in practice in Paul's Gentile community.

The Pauline source for these Jesus versus Peter stories is

Galatians 2: 1-12, and there is another equally striking case in
which Mark's inspiration appears to have come from the same
text. In Mark 3:22, scribes who "came down from Jerusalem"
accuse Jesus of demon possession.

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is
possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out
the demons." And he called them to him, and said to them in
parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? ... Truly, I say to you,
all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies
they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never
has forgiveness, but is gt1ilty of an eternal sin" - for they had said,
"He has an unclean spirit." (Mark 3:22-30)

These "scribes who had come from Jerusalem" appear again in

7: 1. They criticize Jesus' disciples for eating without washing
their hands, and this leads up to Jesus' proclamation that what
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 151

one eats does not matter, it's how one speaks and behaves that
matters.

Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of

the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of
his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the
Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their
hands, observing the tradition of the elders ... ) And the Pharisees
and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live
according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands
defiled?" And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you
hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.' You leave the
commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men." And
he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the
commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition! ... And
when he had entered the house, and left the people, his disciples
asked him about the parable. And he said to them, "Then are you
also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes
into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters, not his
heart but his stomach, and so passes on?" (Thus he declared all
foods clean.) And he said, "What comes out of a man is what
defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil
thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting,
wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man."
(Mark 7: 1-23)

The parallels between Mark chapter 7 and Galatians 2: 11-14 are

too dense to be coincidental. In Mark, the scribes come "from
Jerusalem"; in Galatians, the men who cause the strife come
''from James," who is based in Jerusalem. In Mark, Jesus'
opponents attack him for engaging in table fellowship with men
who are ritually unclean; in Galatians, Paul's opponents convince
152 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Jews to stop table fellowship with Gentiles, who are considered

ritually unclean. In Mark, Jesus calls the scribes "hypocrites"
(u1t0Kpt-c&v, the only use of that word in Mark); in Galatians,
Paul accuses Peter and the Jews who also quit eating with
Gentiles of acting hypocritically ( ouvunsxpillnccv ... unoxpicet).
In Mark, "the commandment of God" or "the word of God"
contrasts with something variously called "the tradition of the
elders," "the precepts of men," "the traditions of men," and
"your tradition"; in Galatians the gospel that is "not man's
gospel" contrasts with "the traditions of my fathers" that Paul
was zealous for before he began preaching the gospel. 209 In Mark,
Jesus criticizes the scribes for "nullifying" (a8£-c£tte) and
"annulling" ( aKDpouv-ce<;) God's commandment; in Galatians,
Paul warns that the Law cannot nullify (a8e-c£t, 3: 15) or "annul"
(aKDpo'i, 3: 17) God's promises to Abraham. In Mark, the story
leads to the conclusion that what matters is how one speaks and
acts, and ends with a catalog of evils; in Galatians the epistle
leads to the conclusion that the Law boils down to "love for the
neighbor," followed by a catalog of evils. 210

This story and the ones about Jesus versus Peter clearly hark
back to Paul's confrontation with the "pillars" in Galatians 2: 1-
12, which means the Galatians text was prominent in Mark's
mind as he wrote his gospel. Other parallels point in the same
direction. As I pointed out, Mark chapter 7 picks up a thread
that began in 3:22-30. The chapter 3 story in turn is sandwiched
inside one about Jesus' family setting out to abduct him because

209
In Mark: 't'llV napa8ocnv 'CO)V npc<J�U'tepcov, (tv1:alµa1:a avepconcov, 'CT]V
napa8ocnv 'CO)V avepconcov, and 'CT]V napa8omv uµ&v. In Galatians: 't(I)V na'tptKO)V
µou napa86crccov.
210
These parallels are discussed in Tarazi, Paul and Mark, I 77-8. See also Goulder,
Five Stones, 96.
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 153

they think he's gone mad; in 3:20-21 they set out, and in 3:31-
35 they arrive:

And the crowd came together again, so that they could not even
eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for
people were saying, ''He is beside himself." (Mark 3:20-21)

And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they
sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him;
and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside,
asking for you." And he replied, "Who are my mother and my
brothers?" And looking around on those who sat about him, he
said, ''Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the
will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother." (Mark 3:31-
35)

In the middle part of the sandwich (3:22-30), the scribes who

"came down from Jerusalem" in order to attack Jesus and
question his authority parallel the men from James in Galatians
(Gal 2:11-14). The visit of Jesus' relatives in Mark parallels the
visit of the men from James in Galatians. In Mark the scribes say
that "by the prince of demons he casts out the demons," and in
response Jesus points out that a house divided cannot stand. This
image of a split within a community parallels the split that
resulted in Paul's community when Peter's actions caused the
Jews to separate themselves from the Gentiles. The whole scene,
in which the accusers are themselves guilty parallels that of
Galatians, which starts with an allusion to accusations against
Paul (Gal 1:8-10; cf. 5:11), and ends with the proclamation that
Paul's opponents are "severed from Christ ... fallen away from
grace" (Gal 5:4; cf. 1:8-9). The finality of those last two phrases
sounds like Jesus' proclamation that "whoever blasphemes
against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an
eternal sin." (Mark 3:29).
154 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The outer parts of the sandwich are related. In Mark we read

about Jesus' mother and brothers; in Galatians we read about
Jesus' brother James. In Mark we find an allusion to the special
status of a family relationship; in Galatians we find an allusion to
the special status of Peter, James, and John who are "reputed to
be pillars." In Mark we hear that special status rejected; in
Galatians we hear that special status rejected. Jesus' words in
Mark are functionally identical to Paul's assertion in Galatians
that "what they [the so-called pillars] were makes no difference
to me; God shows no partiality":

And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And

looking around on those who sat about him, he said, "Here are
my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my
brother, and sister, and mother." (Mark 3:33-35)

Like- the internal part of the sandwich in Mark, this external

part also carries the same theme of the accusers being guilty
themselves. 111 the first part, the word that implies that Jesus'
relatives think he's gone mad is t�ecr-r11, which literally means "to
stand outside. "211 Then when they arrive, they are the ones who
stand "outside" (e�ro) asking about Jesus. As I explained earlier,
the whole idea of being "outside" carries special significance as a
bad place to be in this part of Mark, since it surfaces again just a
few verses later in the famous conclusion to the sower parable:

And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
kingdom of God, but for those outside (exetvou; oe roiz; e�ro)
everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not
perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand.; lest they
should turn again, and be forgiven." (Mark 4:11-12)

zu There is also an interesting link here to 2 Cor 5: 13, where Paul reports that he is
sometimes subjected to the same accusation: "For if we are beside ourselves
(e�ecrTilµev), it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you."
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 155
In Galatians, people who want to force Gentiles to obey the
Jewish Law accuse Paul of hypocrisy and consider non-Law-
observant Gentiles to be standing outside the pale of the
Messianic community. Their side is led by James the Lord's
brother, who in a face-to-face meeting acknowledges Paul's
authority but later undercuts Paul by urging Peter to disassociate
himself from non-Law-observant Gentiles. In Galatians, Paul
proclaims the frightening verdict that anyone who takes this
stand is outside the pale of the Messianic community, outside of
grace, cut off from Christ. Here too Mark's narrative parallels
Galatians. The Lord's brothers and mother believe he is
"standing outside" the pale of the Jewish community and come
to take corrective action. In doing so it turns out that it is
actually they who are "outside." And in 4:11-12, it turns out that
those who stand "outside" are destined to be deaf and blind to
the gospel word, with the frightening verdict that they will not
be forgiven. That verdict sounds very much like Paul's dire
warning, "You have been severed from Christ, you who are
seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace" (Gal
5:4).212

All of this evidence makes a very strong case that Mark was
drawing on the scenario described in Galatians 2: 1-12. In other
instances similar evidence is present but less overwhelming. 213
One example is the way Mark repeatedly has Jesus expounding
his teachings to the disciples "privately" (xor ' tOtav):

... he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately (xor'
i8iav) to his own disciples he explained everything. (Mark 4:34)

212
For more on the parallels between these texts, see Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 154-57.
213
See also Tarazi's exposition of parallels to Gal 2:1-12 in Mark 2:1-17; see pp.146-
148.
156 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John,
and led them tip a high mountain apart by themselves (Kut' i6iuv);
and he was transfigured before them ... (Mark 9:2)

And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter

and James and John and Andrew asked him privately (Kat' i8iuv),
"Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these
things are all to be accomplished?" (Mark 13:3-4)

This imagery of the teacher privately laying out his teaching to

a select group of leaders of his community is precisely what Paul
does in Galatians:

I went up by revelation; and I laid before them (but privately [ Kat'

i8iuv] before those who were of repute) the gospel which I preach
among the Gentiles ... (Gal 2:2)

"Those who were of repute" in Galatians are Peter, James, and

John, the same three named in Mark 9:2 and the same ones with
the addition of Andrew in Mark 13:3-4.214

If the narrative reworks events from Paul's epistles into events

in Jesus' life, it stands to reason that it might rework other
elements from Paul's epistles into the narrative. For example,
there may be a Pauline source for Mark's identification of Jesus'
as a 't£K'tCDV in 6:3. That word is often translated "carpenter" but
it means more generally "builder," and that is the meaning
typically ascribed to it in 1 Corinthians 3: 10, where Paul likens
himself to an apxt't£K'tCDV, often translated "master builder." The
words are the same except for the prefix in 1 Corinthians.

214
Tarazi argues that the occurrences of xor' i8i.av in 6:31 and 7:33 also parallel Gal
2: 1-14. «Thus, all occurrences of the expression <privately' can be accounted for on the
basis of its use in Gal 2:2." (Paul and Mark, 163)
Appropriating Paul's Language and Example 157

Is not this the carpenter (texrcov), the son of Mary and brother of
James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here
with us?" And they took offense at him. (Mark 6:3)

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master

builder (apXJ,'C£K1:rov) I laid a foundation, and another man is
building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. (I
Cor 3: 10)

By itself this could be a coincidence, but considering all the other

clear cases where Mark used 1 Corinthians and adapted Pauline
material to make it into Jesus material, there seems a good
chance that this is not just a coincidence. 215

2 i5
Tarazi also points out that these are the only places in the New Testament where
the root rsxrcov appears, besides the parallel in Matt 13:55.
 Part III

The Genre of Mark

 9
Why Genre Matters
any modern readers of scripture find it difficult to accept
M the idea that Mark wrote his Gospel by recasting material
he found in the Old Testament, Paul's epistles, and the Homeric
epics into a story about Jesus. However, the reason for their
difficulty is not inherent in the idea of a written gospel; it is
shared only by modern readers who classify a gospel as an
instance of the modern literary genre of nonfiction. Those who
classify a gospel as a work of fiction have no difficulty accepting
any sources of inspiration for Mark's creativity. Most people
today fall into one of these two groups, yet neither classification
is appropriate. Mark wrote his Gospel before anyone had
conceived of our present system of fiction and non-fiction as
top-level genres.

The question of genre is thus more than an academic

classification scheme; it has a bearing on how we interpret the
text. Many biblical scholars do try to determine the gospels'
genre, but the way they answer the question typically has little or
no impact on how they interpret the text, which shows that they
are treating genre as no more than an academic classification
scheme. This state of affairs results from a fundamental error in
methodology. The root of the problem is that the way biblical
scholars typically ascertain the gospels' genre does not reflect the
way in which real authors and readers determine genre in the real
world. The result is that scholars typically pay lip service to the
idea of genre as key to interpretation while in reality they assume
that interpretation is the key to genre. Applying a more realistic
methodology leads to an understanding of the gospels' genre that

161
162 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

makes sense of Mark's use of Paul's epistles to write a story about

Jesus.

If most people today tend not to take the question of genre

very seriously, it is because whenever they pick up a book to read
it they take for granted their knowledge of its genre and what
that entails. They don't think about it explicitly, but it's there in
the background profoundly molding their interpretation of what
they read. It's like the air we breathe, which constantly moves
into and out of us without notice until and unless that
movement is restricted, at which point our utter reliance upon
air suddenly takes center stage in our conscious attention. In like
manner, assumptions about genre become evident only when we
meet a book that contradicts those assumptions, and then they
make themselves known with surprising force.

Contemporary Americans are accustomed to taking for granted

the broad generic distinction between fiction and nonfiction.
The depth of this belief is evident in the fact that the most
controversial book to be published in America in the relatively
recent past excited passions because it straddled this generic
boundary. Many books on the fringes and extremes of various
political and religious spectrums have been published over the
last few decades, but none of them excited such nation-wide
anger and alarm as Edmund Morris's Dutch: A Memoir ofRonald
Reagan.216 Although marketed as Ronald Reagan's official
biography, and written in corresponding nonfiction style
complete with footnotes, Dutch is suffused with fictional
elements throughout. The author writes from the viewpoint of a
fictional character who was a contemporary of Reagan's and
participated in the events of his life. Morris not only injected his

216
Random House, 1999.
Why Genre Matters 163

fictional persona into real events but also made up conversations

and documents, and even footnoted some of the imaginary
documents. A reader of the book would be alerted to the genre
mix-up on the dust cover blurb, but within the book's text
nothing gives a clue to the fictional character of the author's
persona and much of his narrative. It was not just the general
public that saw this mix of genres as sacrilege - many historians
were just as incensed at the book's blatant transgression against
the norms of one of their own genres. One professor, aghast at
the thought that someday a reader might pick up the book
without the dust jacket and never realize that this nonfiction text
included fiction, exclaimed in outrage: "Let's call it biofiction or
biofantasy or bioimaginings, but not biography, which has a
venerable tradition. "217

Consider the contrasting reception experienced by another

book identical in form insofar as the text reads like nonfiction
and comes complete with footnotes, many of which cite
imaginary sources: Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead, which
later was made in to the movie, The ] 3th Warrior. The text of
Crichton's novel claims to be an actual manuscript written in the
tenth century as the memoirs of an Arab traveler to the Vikings,
published and annotated by modern scholars. No controversy
attended this book's debut; indeed it was met with widespread
critical approval although it, like Dutch, mixes fiction and
nonfiction without informing the reader which is which. The
difference in reception between these two books illustrates a
fundamental presupposition that people today apply to the
modern genres of fiction and nonfiction: in the genre of fiction,
nonfictional material can freely mix with the fictional material,

217
Joyce Appleby, quoted by Kate Masur in Perspectives, December 1999. Online:
http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/l 999/9912/9912new l .cfm.
164 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

but in the genre of nonfiction, no fictional material at all is

allowed unless it is explicitly marked as such.218 If Morris's book
had been marketed as fiction, it would not have generated a
controversy. The nonfiction versus fiction generic distinction is a
deeply ingrained expectation that profoundly influences how
people interpret what they read, though the ways in which this
expectation operate are rarely thought about explicitly.

The first century knew nothing of our distinction between

fiction and nonfiction as genres, but ancient authors and readers
had just as deeply entrenched yet unspoken beliefs about the
genres of their own culture. If our understanding of Dutch is so
profoundly affected by our view of it as fiction or nonfiction, it
stands to reason that ancient readers' understanding of the
gospels, and the way the evangelists went about writing them,
was profoundly affected by the way they saw these texts fit into
their own culture's system of genres. And since the Gospel of
Mark is generally seen as the earliest gospel, Dennis MacDonald
does not exaggerate when he calls the search for Mark's genre
"the elusive Holy Grail of gospel studies. "219

Biblical Scholarship on the Gospels' Genre

Modern scholars generally assume that the genre of a text can
be determined by comparing its form and content to genres
current in that text's contemporary culture. Since nothing quite
like a gospel existed before the first gospel was written, different

218
The difference in the way the Morris and the Crichton books were received is also,
of course, because few people really care that much about getting right what happened
in the tenth century, but even medieval historians didn't object to Crichton's book.
No one objected because mixing nonfiction and fiction in a fictional narrative is
deemed to be normal.
219
Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale UP, 2000), 3.
Why Genre Matters 165

ways of looking at form and content lead in different directions.

Before the late twentieth century, scholars generally saw the
gospels as an essentially new genre. Later came recognition that
this stand is untenable: new genres can develop out of existing
ones, but no author can create a genre from scratch, as if he were
writing in a generic vacuum. As Michael Vines puts it, "Genre
functions as a conventional bridge between author and reader,
therefore an utterly new genre would be either
incomprehensible, or at least seriously prone to
misinterpretation. "220

Once recognition of this fact of literary life took hold, the

search was on for the genre or genres that most likely gave birth
to the gospel genre. Depending on which aspects of the text's
form and content any given scholar considers most important, a
wide variety of genres from contemporary Greco-Roman and
Jewish culture have been advanced as candidates, including
aretalogy, encomium, memorabilia, Socratic dialogue, Greek
tragedy, Homeric epic, apocalyptic Jewish Novel, and Greco-
Roman biography. 221

Over the last couple of decades, the last of these - Greco-

Roman biography - seems to have become the majority view.
That view is vigorously championed by Richard Burridge, and

220
Michael E. Vines, The Problem ofMarkan Genre: the Gospel ofMark and the Jewish
Novel (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 8. Richard Burridge states this
more strongly: "any idea of the gospels as unique, sui generis works is a nonsense:
authors cannot create, and readers cannot interpret, a total novelty." (What are the
Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2004], 247) See also Tolbert, Sowing, 50.
221 For an excellent
survey of scholarly literature on the subject, see Vines, Markan
Genre, 1-31. Some in-depth examinations of the gospels' genre include Burridge, What
are the Gospels, Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 50-60; Collins, Is Marks Gospel a Life of
Jesus and Collins, "Genre and the Gospels," Journal of Religion 75 (1995): 239-246.
166 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

for him it leads to the conclusion that the gospels must have
been intended to be historically accurate in the same sense that
we today think of historical accuracy:

So we may conclude that the authors of the gospels were aware of

the Bio<; nature of their work. Similarly, their audiences must have
realized this; as Hengel says, "The ancient reader will probably
have been well aware of the differences in style and education, say,
between Mark and Xenophon; but he will also have noticed what
the gospels had in common with the literature of biographical
'reminiscences' - and unlike the majority of German New
Testament scholars today, he did not mind at all regarding the
evangelists as authors of biographical reminiscences of] esus which
went back to the disciples of Jesus themselves. "222

Another way of looking at Burridge' s line of thought here is to

recognize that he is essentially assigning the gospels to the
modern genre of nonfiction, and he is applying to them the
modern belief in the sacrosanct character of that genre as free
from the contamination of fiction. Biography cannot mix with
biofiction, biofantasy, or bioimaginings. Burridge' s point of view
is understandable, for the belief that the genre of biography is
necessarily a sub-genre of nonfiction runs deep in modern
readers' minds. Even an academic ostensibly trying to
understand the ancient world on its own terms would find it
hard to break free from this presupposition. However, seen in
these terms, the revolution in scholarly thinking about the
gospels' genre, in which the majority view made a transition
from classifying the gospels as sui generis to classifying them as
biography, turns out to be no revolution at all. In both cases, the
vast majority of scholars implicitly interpret the gospels as if they
are instances of the broad modern genre of nonfiction. This is

222
Burridge, What are the Gospels, 246.
Why Genre Matters 167

what governs their interpretation of the works, and this makes

any interpretation of Mark that sees him reworking Pauline
epistles into a narrative about Jesus unacceptable. 223

The view of ancient biography as conforming to modern

presuppositions about the nonfiction genre is itself
questionable,224 but that is not what I want to address here. Nor
do I in tend to cover in detail the great mass of evidence that has
been adduced by Burridge and others in defense of their various
conclusions about the gospels' genre. Instead, I will render most
of that evidence irrelevant by calling into question key
assumptions which have led scholars to look for evidence in the
wrong places. 225

How Authors and Readers Actually Determine Genre

What tends to be missing in modern biblical scholarship is a
realistic consideration of how authors and readers actually
determine genre. Burridge's approach is typical, insofar as his

223
This is often implicit and sometimes even explicit as an unquestionable assumption.
A symposium about intertextual relationships in the Bible, for example, introduces its
subject with these words: "The exegete analyses texts which are demonstrably non-
fictional, whereas the literary scholar only analyses fictional texts. Since biblical texts
are non-fictional, it is only natural that questions both as to the context in which those
texts originated and as to their history and origin should be crucial in biblical research.
At the same time the question comes up what the biblical text has to do with the
events that preceded it and led to the writing of it. These questions are not discussed in
the same way in literary studies." (Sipke Draisma, ed., Intertextuality in Biblical
writings [Kampen: Kok, 1989], 9)
224
See the discussion in Vines, Markan Genre, 4.
225
I will add, however, that even for those who share the assumption that the most
important determinant of genre is a text's content and form, the conclusion that the
gospels fit the genre of Greco-Roman biography is suspect; Burridge's is the most
thoroughly developed version of these arguments, and for an excellent summary and
critique of them see the blog by Neil Godfrey at http://vridar.wordpress.com (posts on
1/17, 1/20, and 1/29/2011). The author is not a scriptural scholar per se but is a
thorough researcher and a trenchant critic of the scholarly literature he reviews.
168 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

argument is based exclusively on characteristics of the text, and

often on characteristics that require statistical analysis to see their
significance. The data cited by Burridge include such things as
the percentage of sentences that have Jesus as the subject of the
verb, 226 the relative amount of the text that is focused on Jesus,
the relative number of settings in the narrative which follow
Jesus, similarities to popular literature in the language style, and
so forth. Mary Ann Tolbert reaches a different conclusion but
bases her analysis on the same kinds of evidence: she finds that
the style and content of the Markan story is more similar to
popular novels of the ancient world than it is to biographies. 227
Michael Vines divides his predecessors into those who focus on
form and those who focus on content, while he asserts that he
looks at both, but he too focuses on internal characteristics of the
text, for his argument is that what matters most is the
apocalyptic understanding of history expressed in the text.

The list could be extended with any number of additional

examples, and the problem with all of them is that the form and
content of a text is not the primary determinant of genre. In
other words, the typical approach to this question in modern
scholarly literature doesn't reflect the actual processes by which either
authors or readers determine the genre of a work. The typical
approach taken by scholars implicitly assumes that the reader of

226
An appendix in Burridge' s book presents a long series of computer-generated pie
charts tallying the percentage of times verbs refer to various subjects in various ancient
works of literature. (Burridge, What are the Gospels> 308-21)
227
Phrases like "popular literature" or "popular novel" are inherently misleading. As
Gamble has pointed out, there really was no such thing as popular literature in
anything remotely like the sense we think of today when we use such terms. The
closest corollary in the ancient world was "light reading for the small minority who
could read and those who also read the more serious literature available to them."
(Harry Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church [New Haven: Yale UP, 1995],
39)
Why Genre Matters 169

a literary work would have to read the entire text before figuring
out what its genre is. It is as if that task could be done only by
carefully analyzing the entire text for statistically significant
differences and similarities compared to other works whose genre
was already known.

One way to gain some insight into why this is problematic is to

think carefully about your own experience with literary genre.
There are two fundamentally different perspectives to consider:
that of the author and that of the reader. If you are the writer,
you typically decide upon the genre before you begin writing:
you know right at the start if you' re writing an email or a novel,
a greeting card or a technical support web page.228 Genre is a
function of your intention. While writing, you would typically
follow the conventions associated with the chosen genre - most
of the time you don't sprinkle smileys in the technical support
page text, and in an email you use informal language that would
be inappropriate in an academic article.

If you are the reader - and this is where the typical scholarly
analysis of the gospels departs from real life - you likewise
determine genre before you begin. When you select a text to
read, you generally have a reason to read it; you know something
about it before you begin, and part of what you know is its
genre. When you read an email you know it's an email. When
you pick up a book from the nonfiction book stacks of the
library, you know it's a nonfiction book. When you open the

228
As with all general rules there are exceptions. You could, for example, start writing a
blog post and turn it into an academic article or a novel later, but then when you made
the change you would be aware of what you were doing. It would be a very rare
situation for someone else to publish your blog post as a novel without your
knowledge and consent and without revisions to make it suitable for the change in
genre.
170 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

pages of a scholarly journal, you know you are going to read a

scholarly article. You do not read through the whole text,
thinking to yourself about all the ways in which the text is
similar to or different from genres you know, and determine the
genre only when you' re done reading and have analyzed the data.
If you find first-person and second-person informal style in an
academic periodical, it might strike you as strange because that is
contrary to academic article conventions in the discipline of
biblical studies, but you do not as a result decide you' re reading
an email or a blog.

The point is that there is no such thing as a free-floating text,

no such thing as letters and words floating through the ether
without physical presentation, such that you can only determine
genre by the character of the text itself. It is the context in which a
text is presented that is the primary determinant of generic
expectations and assumptions. What made the difference in the
reception of Dutch and Eaters of the Dead is the way they were
marketed and presented, not in the generic conventions of the
text. If Dutch had been marketed as fiction there would have
been little or no controversy. There is no evidence that this
principle was any different in the ancient world than it is today.
Relatively few scholars who examine the question of the gospels'
genre recognize this. One biblical scholar who does acknowledge
the importance of the way a text is presented is Harry Gamble:

... genre is presupposed in the act of writing and in the act of

reading> and though they may not correspond absolutely, the aims
of writing and reading can meet only if recognizable generic signs
are provided either in the text or in the situation where the text is
received and read, or both. A sense of the genre of any particular
Why Genre Matters 171

text is essential to its comprehension: the reader must be able to

judge what sort of writing is being read.229

A few recognize not just the importance but the priority of

evidence pertaining to "the situation where the text is received or
read." K. L. Noll states plainly that "Social situation of reception
is the primary consideration in the determination of a genre of
communication. "230

Applying Different Generic Criteria to the Gospels

Gamble asserts that scholars have generally not paid enough
attention to the actual ancient manuscripts and their physical
characteristics:

The failure to consider the extent to which the physical medium

of the written word contributes to its meaning - how its outward
aspects inform the way a text is approached and read - perpetuates
a largely abstract, often unhistorical, and even anachronistic
conception of early Christian literature and its transmission.231

Just as today it makes a difference whether one finds a text on

the nonfiction shelf of the library, in an email, or in a blog, the
manner in which an ancient text was preserved and presented
matters:

All aspects of the production, distribution, and use of texts

presuppose social functions and forces - functions and forces that

229
Gamble, Books and Readers, 38.
°
23
K. L Noll, "The Evolution of Genre rn the Book of Kings: The Story of
Sennacherib and Hezekiah as Example," in Patricia Kirkpatrick and Timothy Goltz,
eds., The Function of Ancient Historiography in Biblical and Cognate Studies (T&T
Clark, 2008), 30-56; here: 45 n.56. See also p.43.
231
Gamble, Books and Readers, 42.
172 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

are given representation, or inscribed, in the design of the text as a

concrete, physical object. 232

Moreover, what we learn about the production and

distribution of the text does tell us about the author's intention,
for as Gamble points out, each of the gospel authors

. . . was self-consciously engaged in literary composition and

therefore sensible not only of his own compositional techniques
and theological aims, but also of the prospects for the valuation,
circulation, and use of his work. 233

Therefore, a more realistic approach to the determination of

genre would result in giving priority to a very different kind of
evidence than the internal text characteristics that scholars
typically analyze. The physical evidence of how the gospel texts
were preserved should be central, not incidental, to the search for
their genre.

To date, the most insightful investigation into aspects of the

physical evidence that may have a bearing on genre is the one
that David Trobisch presents in his book The First Edition of the
New Testament.234 From a broad survey of the earliest
manuscripts that preserve New Testament books, Trobisch
concludes that a spontaneous and haphazard process could not
have resulted in the uniformity of certain characteristics that we

232
Ibid.
233 Gamble, Books and Readers, 101.
234 Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. A German edition
preceded the English edition: Die
Endredaktion des Neuen Testaments: Eine Untersuchung zur Entstehung der christlichen
Bibel (Cottingen: Vandenhoeck, 1996). For a summary of the evidence presented in
this book, see my review article, "David T robisch and David Parker on the Origin of
the New Testament, the Historical Jesus, and How Manuscripts Can Reveal What
Texts Conceal" in JOCABS 2(2009): 1. Online: http://www.ocabs.org/journal/
index. php/jocabs/article/view/ 41/ 16.
Why Genre Matters 173

find in the manuscripts. This leads to the conclusion that the

manuscripts derive from a single archetype, which in turn
suggests that a single editor or publisher deliberately created the
en tire package at some very early date. 235 In other words, the
earliest evidence we have that witnesses to how the New
Testament texts were presented to their readers indicates that
they were presented as scripture, in a New Testament
counterpart to what was destined to become seen as the Old
Testament. Trobisch's theory turns the entire field of canon
history on its head: instead of a long history of independent
writings gradually being assembled into a whole, the whole is
promulgated at once, and there's a long history of ultimately
failed attempts to dispute parts of it.

Such a wholesale rethinking of canon history has

unsurprisingly failed to take the conservative world of biblical
scholarship by storm, but the evidence is too strong to be
dismissed out of hand. Since even the earliest surviving
manuscripts of the gospels share the common characteristics that
Trobisch cites, 236 in effect we have no clear evidence that any of
them originally circulated independently before being assembled
into the canonical collection we now know as the New
Testament. Even if one chooses to reject the package-publication
theory, the picture that best fits the actual physical evidence is of
a unified church leadership that produced this literature and
tightly controlled its propagation over an extended period of
time.
•

23
5 For a project of this scale multiple editors and copyists would most likely be
involved, but I am using the words "editor" and "publisher" in the singular to reflect
the idea that the project was led by one person or undertaken by a single team with a
clearly-defined set of goals.
236
This is not the place to present Trobisch's evidence in detail, but parts of it, the
nomina sacra and codex format, are discussed below.
174 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

The nature of the physical evidence does not just indicate that
a single group controlled the production and distribution of the
gospels; it also indicates that these texts were specifically aimed at
Christians, rather than being intended for broad evangelistic
purposes. As Gamble observes, the system of abbreviations called
the nomina sacra is found fully developed already in the earliest
surviving manuscripts, and it witnesses to the intention that only
readers familiar with the system would be reading the
•
manuscripts:

The system of nomina sacra, though not an esoteric code, stands

out as an in-group convention that expressed a community
consciousness and presumed a particular readership. 237

In-group conventions in works whose production and

distribution was carefully controlled suggests an intention to
write and publish authoritative scripture, for scripture is aimed at
a religious community, not at people outside that community. 238

Another distinctive feature of the earliest surviving New

Testament manuscripts compared to other works of literature is
their codex (book) format which replaced the scroll format that
was the universal standard at the time. As Gamble observes, this
too could be indicative of an intent to publish the New
Testament texts as scripture, since the scroll format for non-
scriptural texts persisted for a period of time:

The existence of a late second-century roll of lrenaeus' s Against

Heresies (P. Oxy. 405) could suggest that works of scholarship, as

2 7
3 Gamble, Books and Readers, 75, 78.
238
Outsiders might read it, but it would not be scripture to them and would not be
aimed at them.
Why Genre Matters 175

distinct from scriptural texts, persisted for a while in roll form in

Christian scholastic circles.239

Against Heresies may be taken as a representative kind of text

aimed at the Christian community yet not intending to function
as authoritative scripture. Such texts characteristically identified
their author and cited other individuals or texts as authorities for
the theological points they tried to make. By contrast, the gospel
texts do not identify their authors and do not appeal to any other
authority than the Old Testament. In other words, they speak
with an authoritative voice aimed at the Christian community,
and this authority was bolstered by the editors who attached to
these texts the names of individuals whose personal authority
would be unimpeachable due to a direct connection to Jesus.

Once you understand that scripture is first of all authoritative,

the content of the text itself confirms the conclusion you reach
by examining the material evidence of how it was preserved. The
text was written to be scripture because it was written to be
authoritative, to substantiate a particular view of who and what
is authoritative. As I pointed out earlier, Mark's Gospel was

239 Ibid., 80. Elsewhere Gamble notes that "There is no justification in bibliographic
terms, for example, for an a priori discrimination between scriptural and nonscriptural
texts, not only because the scriptural canon had not yet been determined, but also
because the methods of producing and circulating texts were the same for all texts."
(p.94) The words "scriptural" and "canonical" are not interchangeable, and the
statement on p.94 does not necessarily contradict the statement on p.80. A work may
well have been intended as scripture, and received by some for a while as scripture,
without necessarily making it into the final form of the canon. Indeed, even if
Trobisch's theory is correct and the New Testament was a unitary publication by a
single church leadership group, that does not preclude there being other groups who
endeavored to produce and get acceptance for their own scriptural works. For another
study that shows that early Christians differentiated between scriptural and non-
scriptural texts and preferred the scroll for scriptural texts, see Larry W. Hurtado, The
Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).
176 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

written as a treatise on authority, not to convey any special

teaching of Jesus, which is conspicuous by its absence. Even the
teaching about Jesus that Mark conveys - that is, the centrality of
the crucified Christ over the resurrected Christ - is about
authority insofar as it, like everything else, is oriented toward
backing up Paul's authority in this view of what Jesus was all
about.

In addition, the text of Mark explicitly identifies itself as "the

beginning of the gospel." For the Pauline churches, "the gospel"
meant not only Paul's preaching but Christ himself as well, so a
claim like that could only be authoritative or sacrilegious.

As Tarazi points out, Mark's authoritative status can also be

detected in a unique address to "the reader" in chapter 13:

Another indication that Mark intended to write a "scripture" is

the remark ". . . let the reader understand . . . " in 13: 14. That
reference to one reader is telling. Nowadays, being children of the
post-printing press era, our understanding of the meaning of
"books" and even "reading" is quite different from that of the first
century A.D. At that time, copies of any given manuscript were
very few and their "reading" was done usually in gatherings. This
is borne out by the meaning of the Hebrew verb qara' and the
corresponding Greek anaginsoko; both meant <to read aloud," and
not just for oneself, as we understand it today. Thus, the very
notion of reading implied that it would be done aloud by one
person, the "reader," in an official gathering at which the others
present were the "hearers." Rev 1 :3 offers another witness to this:
"Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and
blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein;
for the time is near." Two things in this text are especially
significant: a) the RSV translates the same Greek word once
without and once with "aloud": b) the original Greek of
Revelation has "Blessed is the reader and the hearers of the words of
Why Genre Matters 177

the prophecy." Therefore, if Mark was addressed to one reader,

that person was "the official, public reader" of the gathered
community. And since scripture was read and commented upon at
these gatherings, the reader or commentator is the one who had to
understand the text, in order to explain it to the others. 240

On the basis of internal evidence alone Tarazi concludes that

... in Mark we have a "story" intended to be read in the Pauline

gatherings as a prophecy would, a "story" being offered as a
"word," and more specifically as the "word of God." This is
exactly how the "stories" of the Patriarchs, the exodus, and the
kingdoms of Israel and ] udah, are handled in the Old Testament.
In other words, Mark was conceived as scripture.r"

Therefore, both internal and external evidence suggests that

the genre originally intended by the authors, editors, and
publishers, and the genre indicated by the way in which the texts
were presented, and thus the genre as received by the original
audience, was that of authoritative scripture.

240
Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 125-26.
241
Ibid., 126.
 10
Scripture as a Genre
ost scholars are looking f�r fine��grained. literary categories
M when they use the word genre, but scripture versus non-
scripture is just as important a generic starting point for the first-
century Christian community as fiction versus nonfiction is for
present-day Americans. It is true that when the gospels were
written, the New Testament canon had not yet been fixed, but
this has no bearing on whether any individual work was intended
by its author to function as scripture or was received by its
original audience as scripture. Different communities could have
differing views about which specific writings should be
considered scripture, while agreeing on the essential
characteristics of scripture per se.

What is clear from the use of the word ypacpit within the
earliest Christian texts is that scripture is a class of literature that
is invested with divine authority by those who see it as scripture.
The essential characteristic of scripture is its authoritative voice.
Scripture is not read simply so that the reader might become
more knowledgeable about something, or to learn the truth
about something in order to satisfy curiosity; it is read with a
view to finding out how God decrees that one should think and
behave.

A given work might or might not be written with express

intent that it function as scripture. In some cases (such as,
perhaps, some of the Psalms), a work written for other purposes
might be appropriated by a community as scripture. However,
when an author consciously writes scripture, the primary
purpose would not be to inform or entertain but to influence,

179
180 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

with intent to use scriptural authority to shape a community in

some way.

Paul's epistles clearly fit this description, and they were

apparently received as scripture from the beginning,242 which
means they were most likely intended to function as scripture
from the beginning. Regardless of who wrote them, their
authoritative status depended on the personal authority of the
apostle who was credited with authoring them. Because the
authors of these letters could depend on the name of Paul for
authority, they were free to adapt a non-scriptural genre (that of
literary epistle) to the exigencies of the early Christian
community's situation. But the text of Mark is anonymous, and
an author setting out to create scripture without the benefit of an
authoritative name would be in a different situation. An author
composing a new work in such a situation would not break out
in a totally new literary direction but would follow the precedent
of what worked in similar situations in the past. Such precedents
would be readily found in the Old Testament, which provided
examples of what worked in the past and which dominated the
literary world of early Christianity, as Harry Gamble notes:

The force of Christian dependence on Jewish scripture for the

question of the literary culture of early Christianity is not much
appreciated, and its implications have been neglected under the
influence of form criticism's preoccupation with oral tradition. 243

242
As discussed earlier, the manuscripts of the epistles and those of the gospels share
the same characteristics. See also 2 Peter 3: 16, in which Paul's epistles are classified as
scripture.
243
Gamble, Books and Readers, 23. See also my conclusion below, which points out
that viewing the gospels as a scriptural genre undermines the foundations of oral
tradition theory and form criticism methodology.
Scripture as a Genre 181

Within the genre of scripture as represented by the Old

Testament, there was a limited range of sub-genres, such as
historical narrative (comprising the Torah, the Former Prophets,
and works such as Chronicles), prophetic oracles (the great
prophets and the twelve), psalms, and wisdom literature. Of
these sub-genres, the gospels best flt into the historical narrative
category.

More specifically, insofar as the gospel narrative constitutes a

story about the origin of the Christian faith, the closest parallel is
to the Torah and to the Former Prophets (joshua, Judges, and
the books of Samuel and Kings). The latter are often called
"historical" books while the Torah is not, but this distinction is
the result of modern generic sensibilities. Genesis is sometimes
seen to be more myth or legend than history, but in fact the texts
themselves present the whole story starting with creation as a
single continuous historical story. Within this body of literature
are sections that parallel in many ways what we flnd in the
gospels, most notably the Elijah-Elisha cycle of stories, which, as
will be seen later, may have been a model for the gospels.

Some scholars do recognize the gospels' character as historical

narrative, and categorize them generically within a broad genre
of historiography rather than biography. Eve-Marie Becker
categorizes Mark as historiography244 but observes that while the

244
"The framework within which the Gospel literature is situated can be referred to as
'historiography' in the broader sense: the Gospel of Mark reports the Apx11 -cou
euayys11.iou [Beginning of the gospel] by way of a narrative of the events
(ereignisgeschichtlich) at the beginning of the proclamation of the Gospel. In the
frame of the macro-genre of Hellenistic historiography the Gospels represent a special
early Christian form of literature (euayye11.tov) closely related to 'historical
monography."' (Eve-Marie Becker, "The Gospel of Mark in the Context of Ancient
Historiography," in Patricia Kirkpatrick and Timothy Goltz, eds., The Function of
Ancient Historiography in Biblical and Cognate Studies [T&T Clark., 2008), 124-134,
182 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

evangelist can be compared to historians he isn't one because he

"does not give any explicit references concerning his authorship
nor concerning his methodology in working with literary
sources. "245 This. is a problem only if Mark is judged by the
standards of non-scriptural historiography. Other scholars who
opt to view Mark as creating a new "gospel" sub-genre of
"historiography" acknowledge that there is no need to look to
Greco-Roman models. In their commentary on Mark, John
Donahue and Daniel Harrington observe that Mark's only pre-
texts are the Hebrew scriptures - the earliest gospel contains no
quotation from any Greco-Roman author and no significant
public figure is even mentioned except Herod and Pilate.
Therefore they conclude that the secular Greco-Roman literature
is really irrelevant:

Although study of the proposed Greco-Roman models is

intrinsically interesting and helpful for a broader understanding of
the world that may have been confronted by early Christian
preaching, it is more fruitful to view Mark as a 'gospel,' not a
unique but at least a distinctive genre of literature, which presents
the Pauline Christ-event (also called "gospel") in a narrative form,
and which weaves together diverse traditions (including the Old
Testament) to create a unified story of saving significance of the
public life, death, and raising up of Jesus of Nazareth. 246

Donahue and Harrington propose that the genre one needs to

know when one reads Mark in order to interpret it as intended is
simply biblical narrative:

here: 127) Adela Yarbro Collins takes a similar line (ls Marks Gospel a Life of]e$US,
28-29).
245 Becker,
"Gospel of Mark," 130.
246 John R. Donahue and Daniel J.
Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002), 16.
Scripture as a Genre 183

If awareness of genre is a necessary entree to proper interpretation,

then potential readers of Mark may be lost in the welter of
proposals. Even if there may have been no single model that Mark
followed, his work is most at home in the realm of biblical
narrative. 247

An understanding of the character of historical narrative in the

Old Testament texts is thus critical to understanding the
gospels. 248

Fiction versus Nonfiction in Scriptural Historiography

As noted earlier, few generic assumptions are more powerful in
our own culture than those underlying the modern conceptions
of fiction and nonfiction. Consequently, few scholars can resist
the temptation to flt ancient literature into that system. One of
the best ways to see why that does not work in the case of
scriptural historiography is to observe the dispute between
biblical scholars Robert Alter and Meir Sternberg over whether
scriptural historiography is fiction, fictional history, historical
fiction, or history.

247 Ibid.
248 Some scholars caution
against assuming that all of the gospels are the same genre;
see, for example: Willi Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction-History
of the Gospel (New York: Abingdon, 1968), 212, and Vines, Markan Genre, 25.
However as a practical matter the other gospels are not different in their "social
situation of reception," and not sufficiently different in their form or content to reach
a significantly different conclusion about their genre. As for their form and content,
each shows evidence of having been modeled after Mark (or vice versa if one considers
Mark to be later), and having been modeled after Old Testament scriptural
historiography. The warning about considering the possibility of different genres
applies only to genre at the level of an academic classification scheme, a level that the
original author was not interested in, had no impact on the original audience, and is
outside the scope of this book.
184 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

For Robert Alter, 249 the Bible (to both of these scholars, "the
Bible" means what Christians call the Old Testament) is a mix of
fiction and history, with the parts set in earlier times more like
historicized fiction, and the parts covering relatively recent
periods more like fictionalized history.

Under scrutiny, biblical narrative generally proves to be either

fiction laying claim to a place in the chain of causation and the
realm of moral consequentiality that belong to history, as in the
primeval history, the tales of the Patriarchs, and much of the
Exodus story, and the account of the early conquest, or history
given the imaginative definition of fiction, as in most of the
narratives from the period of the Judges onward. 250

How does one know that biblical narrative is fiction? For Alter,
one indicator is the fact that the authors write as though they
know things no historian could know:

What a close reading of the text does suggest ... is that the writer
could manipulate his inherited materials with sufficient freedom
and sufficient firmness of authorial purpose to define motives,
relations, and unfolding themes, even in a primeval history, with
the kind of subtle cogency we associate with the conscious artistry
of the narrative mode designated prose fiction. 251

Narratives set in more recent times do the same thing with a

slightly more historical base. King David did exist, says Alter, but
no historian would know what the author of the David stories
purpons to know:

. . . these stories are not, strictly speaking, historiography, but

rather the imaginative reenactment of history by a gifted writer ...

249 Robert Alter, The Art ofBiblical Narrative (San Francisco: Basic, 1981).
250
Ibid., 32-33.
251 Ibid., 32.
Scripture as a Genre 185

He feels entirely free . . . to invent interior monologue for his

characters; to ascribe feeling, intention, or motive to them when
he chooses; to supply verbatim dialogue (and he is one of
literature's masters of dialogue) for occasions when no one but the
actors themselves could have had knowledge of exactly what was
said.252

Biblical narrative in fact offers a particularly instructive instance of

the birth of fiction because it often exhibits the most arresting
transitions from generalized statement, genealogical lists, mere
summaries of character and acts, to defined scene and concrete
interaction between personages. Through the sudden
specifications of narrative detail and the invention of dialogue that
individualizes the characters and focuses their relations, the
biblical writers give the events they report a fictional time and
place.253

The biblical author is thus neither more nor less a historian than
Shakespeare:

The author of the David stories stands in basically the same

relation to Israelite history as Shakespeare stands to English history
in his history plays. Shakespeare was obviously not free to have
Henry V lose the battle of Agincourt, or to allow someone else to
lead the English forces there, but, working from the hints of
historical tradition, he could invent a kind of Bildungsroman for
the young prince Hal; surround him with invented characters that
would serve as foils, mirrors, obstacles, aids in his development;
create a language and a psychology for the king which are the
writer's own achievement, making out of the stuff of history a
powerful projection of human possibility. That is essentially what
the author of the David cycle does for David, Saul, Abner, J oab,

252
Ibid., 35.
253 Ibid., 42.
186 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Jonathan, Absalom, Michal, Abigail, and a host of other

characters. 254

Everything Alter says fits the facts we know about the biblical
narratives, and it is not difficult to see that everything he says
about Old Testament historiography applies equally to the
gospels.

However, Meir Sternberg255 has what he thinks is a radically

different viewpoint. He argues that in fact there is no fiction at
all in biblical historical narrative. That doesn't mean he thinks it
is all factually accurate. No "historical" work is completely
accurate, and no "fictional" work is completely imaginary.
Sternberg asserts that you label a literary work's genre based on
what the author's intention is, not on its degree of accuracy.
History is "a discourse that claims to be a record of fact."
Fiction is "a discourse that claims freedom of invention."

... what makes fictional and breaks historical writing is not the
presence of invented material - inevitable in both - but the
privilege and at will the flaunting of free invention.256

Thus, even if the account of David is shown to be a product of

the author's imagination, that does not affect its genre; it may
still be nonfiction. Indeed, in the case of the Bible, the authors
by no means intended the narrative to be read as fiction:

Were the narrative written or read as fiction, then God would turn
from the lord of history into a creature of the imagination, with
the most disastrous results. The shape of time, the rationale of
monotheism, the foundations of conduct, the national sense of

254 Ibid., 35-36.

255 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the

Drama ofReading (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1987).

256 Ibid., 29.
Scripture as a Genre 187

identity, the ve1y right to the land of Israel and the hope of
deliverance to come: all hang in the generic balance. . . . [The
Bible] claims not just the status of history but, as Erich Auerbach
rightly maintains, of the history - the one and only truth that,
like God himself, brooks no rival. 257

Suppose, Sternberg wonders, someone were to tell the biblical

narrator that the Babylonians have a different story that's just as
valid. The response is easy to guess:

Would the biblical narrator just shrug his shoulders, as any self-
respecting novelist would do? ... This way madness lies - and I
mean interpretive, teleological, as well as theological madness.258

In other words, the biblical author did not intend the text to be
received as fiction. As for Alter's assertion that the omniscience
of the biblical narrator is a mark of fiction, Sternberg counters
that the claim of inspiration explains this feature of the narrative:

. . . the narrator's claim to omniscience dovetails rather than

conflicts with his claim to historicity. It is no accident that the
narrative books from Joshua to Kings fall tinder the rubric of
Former Prophets .... But if as seekers for the truth, professional or
amateur, we can take or leave the truth claim of inspiration, then
as readers we simply must take it - just like any other biblical
premise or convention, from the existence of God to the sense
borne by specific words - or else invent our own text. And to
take it means to read the Bible on its own historiographic terms,
suspending all the 'how do you know?' questions one would
automatically address to a historical narrative playing by
documentary rules. 259

257 Ibid., 32.

258 Ibid., 32.
259 Ibid., 33-34.
188 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Yes, of course, agrees Sternberg, there is made-up stuff in the

Bible, but that does not mean it's fiction or that the writers were
deceivers. The Bible comes from an ancient world where
different conventions ruled.

But if it is convention that renders Jane Austen immune from all

charges of fallacy and falsity, it is convention that likewise puts the
Bible's art of narrative beyond their reach. . . . Herein lies one of
the Bible's unique rules: under the aegis of ideology, convention
transmutes even invention into the stuff of history, or rather
obliterates the line dividing fact from fancy in communication. So
every word is God's word. The product is neither fiction nor
historicized fiction nor fictionalized history, but historiography
260
pure and uncompromising.

Therefore, Alter' s use of the word "fiction" is simply wrong,

dead wrong.

. . . it is doubly surprising to find him in the camp of fiction. This

line having once been adopted, however, it is not at all surprising
that he comes to grief. The case has never been stated so well, and
the parts abound in shrewd observation, but the whole suffers
from the same fatal flaw as all the previous arguments for the
Bible's fictionality. 261

Both Alter and Sternberg are brilliant scholars, and neither

suffers from the common tendency to religious bias that colors
much if not most biblical scholarship. But both have stumbled
over the rock of modern generic assumptions, and their attempt
to understand an ancient culture ends up in a quibble over the
meaning of emotion-charged words.

260
Ibid., 34-35.
261 Ibid., 24.
Scripture as a Genre 189

Both agree that much of the content of scriptural

historiography is, pure and simple, made up, the product of the
authors' imagination. Both agree that the authors' intent,
however, was to link their message to historical reality. Neither
asserts that readers were meant to think of the content of the
narrative as just the imaginary world created by a novelist.
Essentially the scholars differ only in the language they use.

Alter uses the terms "fiction" and "historiography" with the

meanings that they have today he is classifying
"historiography" as a sub-genre of nonfiction. Sternberg uses the
same terms but assigns to them the meanings that he imagines
they would have had at the time the Bible was written. Of the
two approaches, Sternberg's is certainly more artificial since
people did not use terms like fiction or nonfiction in the ancient
world. What he accomplishes by using them in this artificial
manner is to assert what Alter never disputes: the biblical writers
intended to write an absolutely authoritative narrative, unlike
modern fiction which the reader can take or leave as one likes.
Both agree that in writing this authoritative narrative that
purports to present history, the authors felt under little
constraint to "stick to the facts."

History versus Myth in Scriptural Historiography

The Alter versus Sternberg impasse is resolved by recognizing
that "scriptural historiography" is a genre of ancient literature
that simply does not fit in the present-day generic system of
"fiction" and "nonfiction." Calling the genre of biblical narrative
"historical narrative" or "historiography" creates similar
problems. Here again, reviewing some of the debates among
scholars can help clarify not only the terminology but the
character of the Old Testament genre.
190 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

K. L. Noll can serve as an example of one who refuses to apply

the word "history" to biblical narrative because of what the word
implies in modern culture, like Sternberg rejecting the word
"fiction" for similar reasons. Noll correctly observes that the
word "history" carries different connotations in ancient cultures
than it does in our own:

In common modern parlance (whether we like it or not), a

"history" is a factual account and balanced interpretation of real
events, a definition that will apply to very few ancient narratives.
(Not even every passage in Thucydides will pass muster.)262

For some scholars, the Torah is the prime example of scriptural

historiography par excellence, 263 but for Noll it is not
historiography at all because it was not written in order to
accurately represent the past:

The narrative [of Deuteronomy] is a deliberate lie cleverly

rationalized (and sometimes even willfully believed), a strategy
especially motivated by the need for a past that fits present
formulations of identity. Occasionally, the narrative goes beyond
this to a full-fledged myth, a religiously constructed moral
universe that parallels and replaces the mundane physical
universe. 264

For Noll, this contravenes the generic standards of what we

today call historiography so drastically that we should not use the
word to describe the biblical narrative: "To call a biblical
narrative a history or historiography is to say nothing useful at
all, because it implies nothing with respect to the text's function

262 Noll, "Evolution of Genre/' 32.

263
John Van Seters, "The Pentateuch as Torah and History: In Defense of G. Von
Rad," in Erhard Blum et al., eds., Das Alie Testament: Ein Geschictsbuch? (Munich: Lit,
2005), 47-64; here: 51.
264 Noll, "Evolution of Genre," 31.
Scripture as a Genre 191

in its ancient context."265 Biblical narrative should not even be

called "malleable history" as Ehud Ben Zvi does with respect to
the narrative about King David:

Rarely does one encounter a scholar who seems to be aware of the

anomaly that is created by positing an ancient scribe who both
freely invented details and believed that, by doing so, he was
presenting an accurate narrative about the past .... Therefore, if
the genre is history as Ben Z vi assumes and if these narratives are
the product of malleability one reasonable hypothesis would be
that the authors were liars who knowingly falsified their account
of the past .... I can see no alternative, given Ben Zvi' s categories,
but to conclude that the authors of the Kings account were
religious fanatics incapable of distinguishing between fact and
fantasy. If that fantasy is intended by its author to be received as
an accurate account of a real event, the author is either a liar or
delusional. 266

The assumption here is that the label "historiography"

.
necessarily assumes an intent to present '' an accurate narrative

265 Ibid., 32.

266 Noll, "Evolution of Genre," 40-41. Noll wants to avoid calling the scriptural author
a liar and finds a way out of this dilemma by arguing that the original intent was not
to deceive, but over time the text was understood differently: "What began as self-
consciously fictional narrative ended as a tale of origin or, to invoke the most common
scholarly label, a Heilsgeschichte. This shift in genre was a shift in readers' response to
the text, not something intended by the authors of that text, another representative
example of the Darwinian process of generic evolution .... Since the tale was not
circulated., there is no external evidence to indicate how readers received it. In fact,
there is no evidence that readers received it. (The manuscript may have been preserved
unread for several human generations at a time prior to the Hellenistic period.)" (ibid.,
46-47) « •.. texts constructed for religious purposes often employ hyperbole without
any indication that the text in question attempts to portray the real world. In short,
the author of S-C/S-K [Sennacherib Story in Chronicles, Sennacherib story in Kings]
did not believe his narrative really happened, nor did he expect his reader to believe it,
but he probably believed his narrative was true." (ibid., 51) This is also the case with
Ps 2: "This is the realm of myth - it is true but not factual." (ibid., 50)
192 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

about the past. "267 But that attributes to the word a technical
meaning it does not necessarily always have even in the modern
world. In fact, the word "historiography" does apply well to
biblical narrative if a more basic meaning is applied to it, as is
done by Eve-Marie Becker: " ... historiography can be defined
as a literary narrativization of at least partially historical material
(traditions, motifs, etc.)."268

Baruch Halpern also wants to avoid applying the term

"historiography" to biblical narrative, for a slightly different
reason: he argues that if we use that term we would have to
consider the biblical texts to be either ''bad history" or
"fraudulent history." He assumes no great difference in the
meaning of the word "history" as used today and as used by the
•
ancients:

But it is a common property of histories throughout the ages that

they claim to be true in detail, in specifics - they claim not to
contain invented details or events, rather than reconstructed ones,
except as metaphorical vehicles for the presentation of the
uninvented details. . . . That is, a history lodges claims to
trustworthiness - the contrast is to romance? which may
sometimes lodge claims to trustworthiness at a moral level, but
does so only during the reading at the level of specifics. 269

Then and now, a history can fail to live up to the claim to be

true in specifics and still be considered a history:

267 Noll states this explicitly in his conclusion: "One text evolved through several
species of literary genre. But at no point can this tale be described accurately as a work
of history, for the story remembers a war in a radically inaccurate way, and always was
intended to do so." (author's emphasis; ibid., 56)
268 Becker,
"Gospel of Mark," 127
269 Baruch
Halpern, "Biblical versus Greek Historiography: A Comparison," in Erhard
Blum et al., eds., Das Alie Testament: Ein Geschictsbucb? (Munich: Lit., 2005), 101-
128; here: 102.
Scripture as a Genre 193

There are serviceable histories, average histories, and bad histories.

There are even fraudulent histories, whose authors know at some
level that they are twisting the evidence from the past . . . So,
while accuracy is not a defining property of historiography, the
reader's assumption that the author was attempting to be accurate
is.270

By these standards, if biblical narrative is classified as

historiography it must be either bad or fraudulent because it
doesn't even try to be historically accurate. 271 He avoids that
conclusion in part by the expedient of assuming that wherever
authors wrote imaginary content into apparently historical texts,
they weren't intending their texts to be received as history; they
intended to write a different genre, such as poetry or "romance"
(which for Halpern essentially means fiction). As examples of
narratives that were written as romance and mistakenly read as
history, he cites the book of Jonah and the Yahwist narrative:272

Likewise, the J sot1rce seems to transpose into a vertical, or

historical, dimension the relations among Israel sections (or,
tribes), or among a larger group of populations with which its
author was familiar, at least at second hand. Thus, it expresses
certain relationships among Aramean peoples in terms of a
network of eponymic kinship relations. In this respect, it is poetic
rather than prosaic, analogical rather than historical. Later, it was

270Ibid., 103.
271
It is a common thing, of course, not to want to label scripture as fraudulent, but it
often ends up leading to theories that are strained at best. Adela Yarbro Collins, for
example, accepts Mark's gospel as history but asserts that it's not fraudulent because
Mark believed the miracle stories (Is Marks Gospel a Life ofJesus, 45). This approach to
solving the problem assumes that only miracles are ahistorical and discounts the
possibility of the kind of authorial freedom that we know pervades biblical narrative.
Later I will point out other ways to deal with this conundrum.
272
The Yahist narrative is also called the J source and is one of several postulated
sources that together became the books of Genesis through Kings in the Old
Testament. Another of these sources is the P (Priestly) source.
194 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

taken to be historical, even by the redactor responsible for the

combined text. That it originated as historiography, however,
seems improbable. 273

He offers no evidence to back up his assertion that it "seems

improbable" the author intended the text to be received as
historiography. One might reasonably suppose that things seem
this way because for Halpern the only alternative is to accuse the
scriptural author of perpetrating a fraud.

Another way Halpern exculpates the author of a narrative that

would otherwise have to be considered fraudulent is to assume
that the author was writing for an "insider" audience, and only
"outsiders" were deceived:

[The priestly source] P certainly represents a revisionist historical

reconstruction, whether the vehicle of its presentation is history or
romance. And it presents itself as authoritative about details in the
past. So it may in places be regarded as a piece of bad or even
fraudulent historiography, like Deuteronomy. More likely,
however, its author will have argued to colleagues that the
narrative was roughly, rather than specifically, accurate. The
insider audience (see below) will not have taken it to be
274
historiographic.

The "insiders" in this conjectural scenario correspond to what in

New Testament days one might refer to as the church leadership:

273
Ibid., 105. The same reasoning is applied to the Priestly source. Before introducing
the outsider/insider dichotomy that I discuss next, Halpern writes: "Most of all, P is
more a vehicle for delivering a corpus of law and doctrine than it is a work evincing
serious antiquarian interest. So, assuming that the author himself invented some of the
variants, the work is at best more historical romance than history, more a docudrama
than a documentary."
274 Ibid., 108.
Scripture as a Genre 195

The insider audience hangs together in the Near East, and despite
internal dissent presents a common face to the outsider audience.
These are thus a canon elite, a group of people who mediate the
interpretation of official texts to others, and who do so as a group.
This is the basis on which Judaism, and Catholicism thereafter,
became religions of tradition, rather than of individual reflection
on the text. 275

For the culture and age in which scripture was written, when few
were literate and most depended on hearing scriptural texts read
to them in a community gathering, such a conjecture carries a
good deal of verisimilitude. 276 However, it skirts the issue insofar
as the author and his insider audience are already in agreement
and there is no need to write for the insiders. Halpern's own
analogy to explain the insider versus outsider distinction makes
this clear:

The whole exercise was not very different from the formulation of
government or other political press releases today, and the outsider
audience was not very different from uncritical journalists who
parrot government releases in the press. 277

Government press releases are not written to influence the

government insiders; if there were only insiders there would be
no need for slanted press releases. Likewise, the scriptural author
and his insider collaborators are writing for the "outsiders" in the
sense of the entire religious community other than themselves.
The purpose is to influence the behavior of the community, and

275
Ibid., 113.
276 See Gamble on
literacy rates among early Christians. He notes that " ... throughout
the early centuries of the church only a small minority of Christians who were not
clerics were literate." (Books and Readers, 10) and observes that « ••• it is difficult to
imagine any Christian community where either no one could read or no authority
accrued to those who could." (emphasis added; ibid., 9)
277
Halpern, "Biblical versus Greek Historiography," 112.
196 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

thus it is really the "outsiders" within the community who are the
intended audience, Therefore asserting that the "fraudulent"
adjective does not apply because insiders knew what the author
was doing is misleading and misrepresents what the authors were
doing.

It is evident then, that there are some pitfalls to labeling the

gospels' genre as "historiography." However, the phrase
"scriptural historiography" indicates a very specific kind of
historiography. The author's goal is not to present an accurate
record of the past, and the reader's goal is not to learn an
accurate record of the past. The author's goal in scripture is to
influence the community. An audience that receives scripture as
it was intended would be influenced by it, would internalize the
author's vision of the past without trying to find - or without
being influenced differently by - an alternative "accurate" vision
of the past. The search for an "accurate" version of the past
involves a completely different approach to the text than the
conventions of the scriptural genre expect. Scriptural narratives
are not written with intent to satisfy the reader's curiosity. This
is why Halpern's concerns are misplaced and why Meir
Sternberg can say that, "if it is convention that renders Jane
Austen immune from all charges of fallacy and falsity, it is
convention that likewise puts the Bible's art of narrative beyond
their reach. ''278 The purpose of scriptural historiography is well
described by John Van Seters' remarks about the Deuteronomic
historian:

The past was used in many different ways and by means of many
distinct forms to exercise an authority over institutions, customs,
rights, and behavior. An expansive portrayal of the past, however,
could embody the explanation and the legitimation of all of these

278
Sternberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 34.
Scripture as a Genre 197

in one complex genre. The prestige of a dynasty, the primacy of a

temple and its priesthood, the question of territorial rights and
boundaries, civil and religious laws - all could be integrated and
supported by one 'history,' instead of using a variety of forms,
such as king lists, temple legends, priestly genealogies, treaty
'histories,' and law codes. The genius of the Dtr [DeuteronomicJ
history is that it attempted such a wide-ranging integration of
forms in order to set forth within one work the whole foundation
of Israelite society.279

Scriptural historiography, then, is not quite like modern

historiography, modern fiction, or modern non-fiction. Nor can
it be equated with what moderns call "myth" although its
purpose may be to do what myth is said to do: construct a moral
universe. Unlike myth, the moral universe of scriptural
historiography is anchored in historical reality: the word "myth"
might apply to the book of Job, but it is misleading if applied to
the historical narratives of the Torah and the Former Prophets.

Within the historical sections of the Old Testament, the Court

History of King David in 2 Samuel is often celebrated as one of
the finest instances of historiography from the ancient world.
But upon closer examination, Van Seters determined that it was
almost entirely composed from scratch centuries after the fact in
the Persian era.280 The author of that history was constrained by
the name "David," but that might be the only thing in the
narrative that anchors it to historical reality in the modern sense
of historical reality. 281 Earlier biblical scholars who attributed

279 John Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the
Origins ofBiblical History (New Haven: Yale UP, 1983), 357.
280
John Van Seters, "Uses of the Past: The Story of David as a Test Case," in
Kirkpatrick and Goltz, Function ofAncient Historiography, 18-29; here: 29.
281
Another example is the story of Hezekiah and Sennacherib, in which the author was
apparently constrained only by the names of the two kings and the fact that there was
198 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

historical reality to this narrative essentially found what they

wanted to find:

What must be avoided at all cost in such discussion is the danger

of anachronism; for instance, the notion that ancient scribes could
engage in archival research and retrieve ancient documents for
their historical accounts, or that copious records were meticulously
kept by scribes for future use by historians. Such notions about
annals and official records stored in palace and temple archives
were introduced into biblical studies in the seventeenth century
for apologetic purposes and have persisted ever since. 282

Van Seters concludes that the narrative "is a pseudo-history of

David with a strong moral and political purpose, to discredit the
institution of the monarchy and any messianic hope for the
future."283 This example illustrates the main points about
scriptural historiography: the narrative is anchored to known
historical facts, it is written to achieve a practical political or
religious purpose, and in the furtherance of that purpose the
author is free to invent whatever does not unreasonably
transgress the bounds of plausibility.

Actually, the author of scriptural historiography is not just free

to invent, he is compelled to invent whatever is necessary to
achieve his purpose. He is not constrained by what can be
established reliably or even by what he knows to be factually
true. He is constrained by the necessity to get his message across
to his readers without presenting to them something they would

a military campaign. See Ehud Ben Zvi, "Malleability and its Limits: Sennacherib's
Campaign against Judah as a Case Study," in Lester L. Grabbe, ed., "Like a bird in a
cage": The Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE (Continuum International Publishing
Group, 2003), 73-105.
282
Van Seters, "Uses of the Past," 18. What happened with oral tradition theory and
the New Testament is somewhat similar to this process.
283
Ibid., 29.
Scripture as a Genre 199

recognize as patently false. Thus, in scriptural historiography, the

veneer of historicity in the modern sense of that word may be
exceedingly thin, and historical facts may be - must be -
misrepresented if that is what it takes to get the intended
284
message across.

284
This can be seen in the gospels, for example, by observing how stories adopted from
Mark by later evangelists are manipulated to suit the purposes of the new situation in
which the later evangelists were writing.
 11
Mark as Scriptural Historiography
f, then, Mark and the other gospels were written and
I published with intent to function as scriptural historiography,
we should not expect historical accuracy in details to have been
particularly high on the evangelists' list of literary goals. Yet that
is precisely what most scholars who study the gospels do assume,
and such assumptions have a profound effect on which
interpretations of the gospels gain broad acceptance in biblical
scholarship.

The literary relationship between Mark and Paul's epistles that

I have documented in Part 2 of this book, is but one example of
relatively new approaches to intertextuality285 in the gospels
which have faced an uphill battle for acceptance partly because of
unrealistic generic expectations. Traditionally, research on
relationships between texts focused on a limited number of ways
in which an author used earlier texts in the composition of a new
one. These ways were typically categorized into a hierarchy
consisting of quotations, allusions, and echoes. The first two
terms mean for scholars what they do for everyone else: a
quotation is a more or less word-for-word replication or
paraphrase of part of an earlier text in a later text, while an
allusion involves just enough similarity in wording or theme to
show that the author of the later text meant to evoke part of an
earlier text in the reader's mind. An "echo" is essentially a
harder-to-identify form of allusion; the similarity between the

285
At the end of this chapter I will discuss ways in which this word applies more
broadly to my analysis of Mark than it does in many recent books about New
Testament literary relationships.
201
202 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

earlier and the later text might be enough to imply that the
author of the later text was familiar with the earlier one, but not
enough to reliably indicate a conscious intention to evoke the
earlier one. 286 More recently, the approach to intertextual
relationships in the gospels has expanded dramatically in scope,
with some scholars discovering patterns in all four gospels similar
to what I am finding in Mark: whole episodes and major
features of their overall literary structure were inspired by Old
Testament texts, the Pauline epistles, and extra-biblical literature.

Among the pioneers in this relatively new approach to

intertextuality in the gospels, sometimes called mimesis or
narrative intertextuality, are Thomas Brodie, Dennis
MacDonald, and Michael Goulder. 287 Brodie characterizes this

286
"Intertextual echo" has been proposed as an umbrella term for all of these kinds of
intertextual relationships. See Moyise, "Intertextuality," 419.
287
See Thomas L. Brodie, The Questfor the Origin ofjohns Gospel: A Source-Oriented
Approach (New York: Oxford UP, 1993); The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah-Elisha
Narrative as an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a Literary Model for the
Gospels (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000); The Birthing of the New
Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2004); Proto-Luke: The Oldest Gospel Account: A Christ-
Centered Synthesis of Old Testament History Modeled Especially on the Elijah-Elisha
Narrative: Introduction, Text, and Old Testament Model (Limerick: Dominican
Biblical Institute, 2006); Brodie, MacDonald, Porter, The Intertextuality of the Epistles;
MacDonald, Homeric Epics; Dennis R. MacDonald, ed., Mirnesis and Intertextuality in
Antiquity and Christianity (Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press Internarional., 2001);
Dennis R MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer. Four Cases From the
Acts of the Apostles (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2003); Dennis R MacDonald, "My
Turn"; Michael D. Goulder, Luke: A New Paradigm (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1989); St. Paul vs. St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions (Westminster John Knox
Press, 1994); Five Stones and a Sling: Memoirs of a Biblical Scholar (Sheffield Phoenix
Press Lrd., 2009).
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 203

kind of relationship by citing one of the most well-known

intertextual relationships in the world of ancient literature:

... the kernel of ancient writing was not in allusions; it was in

taking hold of entire books and transforming them systematically.
Virgil did not just allude to Homer; he swallowed him whole.288

Brodie observes that the case of the Aeneid mimicking the

Odyssey was not an isolated example; the bulk of Roman
literature was built upon Greek literature; within the Old
Testament the books of Chronicles rework the material in
Genesis through Kings; and within the New Testament each
gospel reworks the contents of earlier gospels.289 An author who
was building upon or imitating earlier literature would not
always do so in a way that would be easily recognizable today,
that is, by borrowing words, phrases, or sentences. As
MacDonald observes,

Because imitative strategies in antiquity were protean, they resist

tidy taxonomies and defy detection. Authors felt free to borrow
whatever they wished from any models whatever and to transform
what they borrowed as they saw fit. 290

In ancient narratives such imitations usually obtain to

characterizations, motifs, and plot-seldom to wording." 291

288
Brodie, Birthing of the New Testament, 7 4. For details on the results of, and
evidence for, this "swallowing whole" process, see Adam Winn, Mark and the Elijah-
Elisha Narrative: Considering the Practice of Greco-Roman Imitation in the Search for
Marean Source Material (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2010), chapter 1.
289 See the lists of precedents in Thomas L. Brodie, "Towards Tracing the Gospels'
Literary Indebtedness to the Epistles," in MacDonald, Mimesis, 104-116 (here: 107)
and Brodie, Birthing, 23ff.
290
MacDonald, Homeric Epics, 172.
291 MacDonald,
"My Turn," 1. A few of the typical patterns include elaboration
(taking an idea from the source text and expanding on it); compression or synthesis
204 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

In fact, it is easier to define mimesis by what it is not than by

how it is done:

Simply stated, a mimesis critic assesses a text for literary influences

that one might classify as imitations instead of citations,
paraphrases, allusions, echoes, or redactions. 292

Identifying such imitations is often difficult and requires a

different methodology from the focus on wording similarity
typically employed for the traditional approach to intertextual
relationships. To use the Odyssey and the Aeneid again as an
example, one cannot read portions of them and find direct
allusions in the latter to the former; by reading the whole of both
of them one can recognize that the latter was inspired by the
former, but proving that would be a difficult enterprise indeed.

Nevertheless, several scholars have proposed objective criteria

that might help in identifying instances of mimesis. Their
approaches vary but boil down to an attempt to establish three
things: availability, similarity, and intelligibility.293

(taking a section of the source text and shortening or altering it); fusion or conflation
(combining elements from multiple sections of the source text into a different
context); substitution of images (using different images or metaphors to express the
same idea expressed in the source text); positivization (repeating a theme that the
source text treats negatively but giving it a positive spin, or vice versa); internalization
(change what is expressed as an external reality into an internal feeling or attitude); and
form change (take content from one literary form such as an epistle, and. express the
same ideas in a new form such as historiography). This list is from Brodie, Birthing,
10-12. See also the longer list and survey of other scholars' lists in Brodie,
Intertextuality, 288-292.
292
MacDonald, "My Turn," 1.
293
See Dennis R. MacDonald, "A Categorization of Anterextualiry in the Gospels and
Acts: A Case for Luke's Imitation of Plato and Xenophon to depict Paul as a Christian
Socrates," in Brodie, Intertextuality, 211-25.
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 205

Establishing availability verifies that mimesis is plausible by

showing the historical likelihood that the source text was
available to the author who wrote the postulated imitation text.
Plausibility is strengthened if it can be shown that other authors,
ideally contemporaries of the one in question, also borrowed
from the same source text.

Establishing similarity is the crux of the matter, of course, and

no formula can guarantee success in this endeavor. The best that
can be done here is to create a way to roughly gauge varying
degrees of similarity. Thus, Dennis MacDonald cites the
importance of determining the density and order of parallels
between a text and its postulated source, with extra weight
applying to distinctive traits. In other words, a large number of
parallels (greater density) between two texts is more significant
than one or two would be. A sequence of parallels that happens
in the same order in both texts increases the probability that the
source text was used. And if any given parallel with a source text
involves textual characteristics that are so unique or distinctive as
to rarely be found elsewhere, that can carry substantial weight by
itself.

Establishing intelligibility is the final test: does it make sense

that the author in question would borrow from the source text,
and does his use of the source text make sense in the context of
what we know he is trying to accomplish in his own text?

As an example of how the methodology works, consider

Dennis MacDonald's proposal to view the transfiguration

212; MacDonald, Homeric Epics, 172ff.; Stanley E. Porter, "Further Comments on the
Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament," in Brodie, Intertextuality, 98-110
(here: 103); Brodie, Birthing, 44-46; Brodie, Intertextuality, 292.
206 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

episode in Mark as an imitation of a transfiguration episode in

the Odyssey. Availability is readily established. The Homeric
epics were not only widely known in the ancient world, they
were universally used in ancient Greek education, and
consequently they were also widely used as literary examples to
be followed. Similarity is also readily established, as the parallels
to Mark are dense:

The combination of motifs in Odyssey 16.172-303 and Mark 9:2-

10 are too close to be accidental. In both a god transforms the
hero into glory befitting a deity, including the transformation of
clothing: a 'well-washed cloak' and 'clothes . . . dazzling white,
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.' The transformation
produces terror and the offering of gifts in order to appease the
one who was transformed. The gifts offered in both accounts were
refused, the recipients of both transfigurations were scolded for
making mortals divine, and the heroes in both accounts insist on
total secrecy. 294

As for intelligibility, MacDonald argues that the Homeric

"transfiguration" scene plays a role in a secrecy-revelation theme
in the Odyssey just as the Markan transfiguration scene plays a
role in Mark's "Messianic secret" theme.

The nature of the evidence does not permit certainty even

where the methodology can be applied very effectively, as it can
be in this example. On the other hand, the practice of mimesis
was so widespread that it should not be ruled out when the
evidence is weak. The infinitely varied patterns of mimesis "resist
tidy taxonomies and defy detection," and it is quite possible that

294Dennis R MacDonald, "Secrecy and Recognitions in the Odyssey and Mark:

Where Wrede Went Wrong," in Ronald F. Hock, et al., eds., Ancient Fiction and
Early Christian Narrative (Atlanta: Scholars Press., 1998), 139-153; here: 152.
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 207

that mimesis did happen even where it is difficult or impossible

to apply the established criteria.

Mimesis in Mark
In books published in 2000 and 2004, 295 Thomas Brodie
presents his thesis that the main narrative model for Mark is the
cycle of Elijah-Elisha stories in 1 Kings 17 through 2 Kings 13.
Among the evidence he cites: parallels at the beginning, middle,
and end of the two narratives; similar overall length; similar
narrative character of short episodes at the start spiraling into
longer ones later in the narrative; similar abrupt and enigmatic
endings; and similar motifs, such as juxtaposition of north and
south geographical references with symbolic meanings. He also
finds parallel episodes, such as the healing of a leper which recalls
the healing of the leper N aaman in 2 Kings 5 and the
multiplication of loaves which recalls 2 Kings 4:42-44. 296

More recently, others have developed this thesis at greater

length: Wolfgang Roth in Hebrew Gospel.· Cracking the Code of
Mark (2009)297 and Adam Winn in Mark and the Elijah-Elisha
Narrative (2010).298 Roth identifies John the Baptist and Jesus
with Elijah and Elisha. Winn points out that the Elijah-Elisha

295 Crucial Bridge and Birthing.

296
Brodie, Crucial Bridge, 88ff. See also Birthing, 154-188, in which Brodie suggests
that Mark used an early version of Luke that was modeled on the Elijah-Elisha
narrative. He presents that thesis in a concise manner along with the proposed text of
proro-Luke in Proto-Luke: The Oldest Gospel Account: A Christ-Centered Synthesis of
Old Testament History Modelled Especially on the Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Introduction,
Text, and Old Testament Model (Limerick: Dominican Biblical Institute, 2006).
297
Wolfgang Roth, Hebrew Gospel: Cracking the Code of Mark (Wipf & Stock
Publishers, 2009).
298
Adam Winn, Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Considering the Practice of
Greco-Roman Imitation in the Search for Markan Source Material (Eugene, Ore.:
Pickwick, 2010).
208 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

cycle is unique in the Old Testament in its density of miracle

stories, which corresponds to what we find in Mark. In addition
to the Elijah-Elisha parallels that Brodie cited for the healing of
the leper in Mark 1 :40-45 and the multiplication of loaves
episodes, Winn finds a parallel between Jesus' journey to the
Gentile areas of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24-30) and 1 Kings
17:7-6, in which the Lord sends Elijah to Zarephath.299

What none of these authors have done, however, is advance a

plausible reason for why Mark chose to model his Jesus narrative
after the Elijah-Elisha narrative cycle. Thus, a reviewer of
Winn's book laments:

Finally, what is the pt1rpose of the imitation? Winn does not say.
Through this omission, the work proves ultimately unsatisfying,
since the author refuses to deal with the issue of the significance of
Mark's literary dependence upon the Elijah-Elisha cycle (60).
However, the reader surely benefits from a review of the important
interconnections between these two sections of scripture as well as
through his critique of other works that consider Markan
imitation. 300

The interpretation of Mark's literary purpose that I have

presented in this book solves this conundrum. In the Old
Testament, Elijah and Elisha are the prophets that are sent
outside Israel to minister to Gentiles: that narrative cycle was
made to order for a narrative that would defend and promote

299
Others have also noticed individual plot elements that may have come from the
Elijah-Elisha cycle, such as the "withered hand" which appears in 1 Kings 13:4 and
Mark 3: 1-5. See K. Hanhart, "Son, Your Sins .are Forgiven," in Frans Van Segbroeck,
et al., eds., The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (Leuven: Leuven
University Press, 1992), 997-1016; here: 1003.
300 Dean Deppe, book review in Review of Biblical Literature, online:
http://bookreviews.org/pdf/8056_8809.pdf.
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 209

Paul's Gentile mission. 301 Roth's interpretation of John the

Baptist as corresponding to Elijah and Jesus as corresponding to
Elisha also fits perfectly insofar as Elijah was in effect a
forerunner to Elisha, who then completed the work begun by
Elijah.302

Tarazi points out broader or more basic parallels between how

the message and symbolism of the Old Testament deals with
Gentiles or outsiders and how the message and symbolism of
Mark takes on the same theme. An example is in the prologue to
the centerpiece of Mark's narrative prior to the passion. A literal
rendering of the Greek helps make this apparent:

Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd
gathered toward (npoc;) him, so that he got into a boat and sat in
the sea (Ka91icr9ai ev 'tfi 9UA<icron); and the whole crowd was toward
(npoc;) the sea on the land. And he taught them many things in
parables, and in his teaching he said to them ... (Mark 4: 1-2)

Tarazi asserts that the symbolism here sets the stage for a
teaching that supports the Gentile mission, insofar as the Sea of
Galilee represents the Mediterranean Sea, or the center of the
Roman Empire at large:

We have seen this terminology before (2: 13; 3:23; 3:9), but this
time Jesus sits in the. sea and the people on the land turn toward
him. That is to say, Jesus' new center from which he teaches his
entire Messianic community has moved out of Jerusalem and into

301
My thanks to Paul Tarazi for pointing this out to me. Once it is proposed it seems
obvious, but until then it easily escapes notice.
302 Winn
objects that he sees some correspondences between Jesus and Elijah, but as
Brodie and MacDonald have shown, no ancient author would feel constrained to
always use the same literary model for any given character in a narrative. The pattern
in this case is what matters.
210 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

the Roman empire at large; it is from there, and not Jerusalem

that his teaching (4:2), which carries divine authority, originates.
But this is just a new example of the New Testament following the
pattern and example set by the Old: it was from the wilderness of
Sinai that God's word in the torah was carried into Canaan, and it
was from the foreign land of Babylonia that God's prophetic word
was addressed to Jerusalem. 303

Thus, Mark uses mimesis of Old Testament texts on many levels

in support of Paul's Gentile mission.

At first glance, this picture is complicated by Dennis

MacDonald's thesis that much if not most the Gospel of Mark is
an artfully crafted reformulation of characters and themes from
the Homeric epics:

Mark seems to have borrowed from Homer the motifs of disguise,

testing, signs, recognitions, disclosure, and silence, and, as in the
Odyssey, the use of these motifs permits situational irony in which
the reader, knowing the identity of the stranger, enjoys the
narrative at a level inaccessible to the characters themselves. 304

MacDonald's evidence fits the criteria for mimesis remarkably

well. The Homeric epics were widely available and widely
copied, the density of the parallels is often striking, and Mark's
purposes in reworking Homeric material are intelligible.

It is not necessary to choose between Elijah-Elisha and

Homeric epic as sources for Mark; in some cases, the evangelist
may have drawn on both. From the fact that the multiplication
of loaves episodes resemble both 2 Kings 4 and the feast of
Nestor for 4,500 men at the shore of Pylos, MacDonald

3o3 Tarazi, Paul and Mark, 157.

304 The most
complete exposition of this theory is in MacDonald, Homeric Epics. This
summary statement is from MacDonald, «Secrecy," 153.
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 211

concludes that, "Like many ancient narratives, the earliest gospel

was eclectic in its dependence on literary models; Mark was an
equal-opportunity imitator. Nonetheless, the bulk of the
narrative issues from emulation of Greek epic."305

As an "equal-opportunity imitator," Mark also had available to

him another body of scripture to draw upon as his source: Paul's
epistles. In Part II, I presented many instances of similarity and
intelligibility. Other scholars have already made the case for
availability, and Thomas Brodie summarizes a simple common-
sense approach to this matter:

It is a commonplace of New Testament research that many of the

epistles were written almost a generation before the Gospels and
Acts. It is a further commonplace that within the Roman Empire
communications were good. If the evangelists were interested in
gaining copies of some epistles they had ample time to do so. In
fact, it is difficult to imagine a credible scenario in which no
evangelist ever had access to a copy of an epistle. 306

Those who doubt that Mark knew the epistles generally assume
that various individual New Testament books or groups of books
were produced by separate theological "schools." The only
evidence for this is in apparent disagreements between the New
Testament writings. But such evidence is inconclusive:

30> MacDonald, Homeric Epics, 177-178, 189.

306 Brodie,
Intertextuality, 87. See also Brodie, "Towards Tracing the Gospels' Literary
Indebtedness to the Epistles," in MacDonald, Mimesis, 104-116 (here: 108-109, 116);
Brodie, Birthing, 21, 75, 132-146; Kealy, History, 2: 2: 404. Even Romaniuk,
acknowledges the possibility ("Le Problerne des Paulinisrnes," 271). Not everyone
agrees, of course; Bart Ehrman asserts that "There is little to suggest that the
anonymous author of Mark's Gospel had actually read the writings of the apostle Paul
God's Problern. How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -
••• « (

Why We Suffer (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 86.

212 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

disagreements can exist within one school or group as well as

between schools.

In the case of Mark versus Paul, any disagreements are

relatively trivial while the agreements are fundamental. As Joel
Marcus asserts, "Claiming that Mark is a Paulinist does not
require that he agree with Paul about everything . . ."307
Although this may seem to be self-evident, Martin Werner's
entire book Der Einfluss paulinischer Theologie im
Markusevangelium - which continues to be regarded by many as
proof of Mark's anti-Pauline status - revolves around the
assumption that anything less than complete agreement makes
Mark non-Pauline.

For example, Werner cites vocabulary statistics to show Mark's

language is not Pauline. The implicit assumption is that a
disciple of Paul would necessarily write with the same
vocabulary. But in fact, a disciple of Paul might have grown up
in a different environment and have a different literary style, or
adopt a different style for a different literary genre. And in many
cases of direct borrowing Mark does use Pauline vocabulary that
Werner missed. 308

Werner also cites instances where Mark doesn't mention

something from the epistles, such as Mark's omission of a
reference to the non-divine source of the Law, which Paul asserts
in Galatians 3: 17. 309 The implicit assumption is that if Mark
were a disciple of Paul he would carefully make sure he did not
omit any detail from any Pauline epistle when writing his

307
Marcus, "Mark," 473. He develops this further in 476-8.
308 See
chapter 8. See also Boismard and Benoit, Synopse, 24 and Tarazi, Paul and
Mark, 111-236.
309 Werner, Der
Einfluss, 84, 203-9.
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 213

Gospel. But in fact, Mark will have borrowed only what he

needed to accomplish his purpose and was under no
compunction to take every little detail from every Pauline
epistle. 310

Moreover, even if it were possible to reliably establish the

existence of independent schools, that would not mean such
schools were unaware of writings produced by the others. The
belief in an early Christianity separated into multiple
hermetically sealed units that were unaware of what the others
were doing does not flt what we know about travel and
communication in Greco-Roman society in this period. Richard
Bauckham and Michael Thompson have presented convincing
arguments against the belief that early Christians lived in such
hermetically sealed communities.311

All of the evidence that points to Mark's use of other texts to

provide ideas for the creation of details in his own text makes
sense when one sees Mark as an instance of scriptural
historiography. Mark's approach to crafting an ostensibly
historical story is similar to the approach taken by the author of
the Court History of King David. In other words, judging from
Mark's use of several sources including the Elijah-Elisha cycle,
Homer, and Paul's epistles, Mark may have been in a similar

310
If one were to apply Werner's methodology to a deutero-Pauline epistle, one might
conclude that it too is not Pauline. Marcus implicitly chastises scholars who consider
Mark to be Pauline but do not address Werner's arguments in detail, but if Werner's
basic assumptions are invalid, the time and effort required for detailed refutation is not
worthwhile.
311
See Bauckham, "For Whom Were Gospels Written," in The Gospels for all
Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences ( ed. Richard Bauckham: Grand Rapids:
Eerdrnans, 1998), 9-48 and Thompson, "The Holy Internet: Communication
Between Churches in the First Christian Generation," in Bauckham, Gospels for all
Christians, 49-70.
214 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

situation where he had little actual historical data to go on for

creating a historical narrative. He may have had little more actual
historical information than the names of some of the primary
characters in the story. He used scriptural sources to come up
with motifs and a framework for the story that would accomplish
his literary purpose. In doing so, he borrowed from what we now
call Old Testament scripture, from what we now call New
Testament scripture (the epistles), and from what we might call
secular Gentile scripture.

Homeric epic was used in Mark's day as a kind of secular

scripture, forming the educational framework of his day.
Borrowing motifs from Homeric epic was a way to make what
Mark was writing more relevant as scripture to his Gentile
audience who grew up with Homeric epic as the normative
standard of Greek literature. In other words, all of the examples
of mimesis in Mark substantiate the conclusion that Mark's
genre is best labeled "scriptural historiography" and follows the
standards and conventions of that genre as found in the Old
Testament.

Mimesis in the Other Gospels

Mark does not stand alone in having been composed in this
manner. The other gospels follow the same pattern. The New
Testament Introduction series by Paul Tarazi is dedicated to
showing that not only Mark but also the other three gospels
made extensive use of Paul's epistles. 312 Brodie notes that Luke-
Acts can be seen as an imitation of the entire Old Testament but
finds that it too is more particularly based upon the Elijah-Elisha

312
Vol. 2, Luke and Acts (Crestwood: SVS Press, 2001); vol. 3, Johannine Writings
(Crestwood, SVS Press, 2004); vol. 4, Matthew and the Canon (St. Paul, Minn.
OCABS Press, 2009).
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 215

cycle of stories. In Luke-Acts this extends to the literary

structure: two balancing parts centered on the assumption into
heaven of the central character of the first part, a structure
unique in all of ancient literature. 313 Brodie also cites a number
of specific parallels in Luke-Acts to literary techniques and
episodes in the Elijah-Elisha stories, and concludes that "Luke's
use of the Elijah-Elisha text is systematic, complete."314 He goes
on to say that the evangelist also used the entire book of] udges,
and "As with the Elijah-Elisha narrative, Luke's transformation
of] udges is systematic, complete, essentially non-repetitive, and
maintaining aspects of the original order."315 He also details
somewhat less extensive use of other sources, such as the books of
Chronicles. 316

One of the best commentaries on Luke to have been written in

modern scholarship is the two-volume Luke: A New Paradigm by
Michael Goulder. One of Coulder's primary goals in the book
was to substantiate the theory that Luke employed extensive
authorial creativity in his crafting of the story about Jesus.
Goulder concludes, for example, that Luke made up virtually all
of the narrative in Lk 1 :5-2:40, inspired by stories he found in
the Torah and the Former Prophets. 317 Some seven years after
the book was created, Mark Goodacre published his own critical
examination of Coulder' s arguments, 318 finding some of them
convincing and some less so. What is interesting about this
scholarly debate is the starting point that both begin from: they

313
Brodie, Crucial Bridge, 83; see also Brodie, Birthing, 83-86.
3 4
t · Brodie, Birthing, 86.
315 Ibid., 86.
3 t6 Ibid., 87.
31
7See Goulder, Luke, 289.
318
Mark S. Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels: An Examination of a New Paradigm
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).
216 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

assume that Luke is "innocent unless proven guilty" of inventing

stories for his narrative. However, for a work of scriptural
historiography the assumption should be the opposite: Luke
should be considered "innocent unless proven guilty" of trying to
create a literally accurate history as a modern historian might. In
other words, the burden of proof should fall on those who would
argue against extensive authorial creativity. If one were to
approach the subject from this standpoint, that is, from a
realistic assessment of the generic models for Luke, more of
Goulder' s evidence would have been evaluated positively.

Goulder's arguments for Lucan creativity are largely based on

distinctive features of the author's style, and he draws similar
conclusions from distinctive features in the other gospels as well.
In his memoir Five Stones and a Sling, Goulder recalls coming to
the realization that each of the synoptic gospels had its own
character of parables:

Mark's parables were mostly agricultural: the Sower, the Seed

Growing Secretly, and Mustard Seed. This was rather in line with
Old Testament parables, which are said often to be about trees,
"from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the
wall." Matthew's parables are about people, mostly kings or
wealthy merchants. Luke's parables, on the other hand, are about
more down-to-earth characters: a prodigal son, an unjust steward,
a widow, a beggar, a Samaritan .... I therefore had a theme ready
made for my Oxford seminar: the parables in the Gospels were not
the parables of Jesus, as was assumed by almost everyone ...
rather they were the creation of the evangelists, each of whom has
produced instances in his own style. So I went well armed to
Oxford, and as I hoped the paper was a great success .... I had
noticed. a whole row of things which other scholars had missed,
because they had assumed that the parables were Jesus' own
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 217

handiwork, and had not thought of attributing them to secondary

figures. 319

Goulder continued to follow up on this discovery and noticed

that these unique characteristics were not limited to parables:

For instance, the Gospels contain a number of double animal

images: "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves"; "You
strain out a gnat but swallow a camel"; "Give not that which is
holy to the dogs and cast not yot1r pearls before swine." There are
ten of these double animal images in the Gospels, and all of them
are in Matthew; this seems cogent evidence that they were created,
not by Jesus, but by Matthew himself.F''

This sort of authorial freedom is precisely what one would expect

of the scriptural historiography genre, and it is surprising and
difficult to accept only when one imposes on the text
presuppositions borrowed from the modern genres of nonfiction,
history, or biography.

The evidence of intertextual relationships in Matthew lead in

the same direction as what we find in Mark and Luke. Aside
from Mark as a source, Brodie finds that Romans was the source
for much of the material in Matthew 1-17: "Matthew has taken

319
Goulder,
. Five Stones,
. 58-59.
320
Ibid., 62. For an extended analysis of Goulder's arguments for the evangelists'
creativity especially in the case of Luke, see Goulder, Luke; and for an analysis of those
arguments, see Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels. In general, Goodacre expresses
some agreement with Goulder: "Goulder has successfully isolated several Lucan
features, the pervasiveness of which suggests that in L material Luke is particularly
creative. This is Lucan creativity on the kind of scale which would necessitate the
abandonment of any theory on which the evangelist draws conservatively on a written
L text. Goulder has not, however, given adequate attention to the possibility that Luke
has creatively written up stories which he received from oral traditions; much of the
data he presents makes best sense on such a view." (Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels,
291)
218 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

the difficult text of Romans and in chapters 1-17 of his Gospel

has rendered it into a form that is vivid, positive, and
practical. "321

As for the fourth gospel, in The Quest for the Origin ofJohns
Gospel· A Source-Oriented Approach, Brodie proposed that John's
sources were the synoptic gospels and Ephesians. 322 Here too,
part of the reason why this view has not won over the majority of
biblical scholars has to do with assumptions about genre -
particularly the assumption that an evangelist would feel
constrained to keep as close to his sources as possible. A more
realistic understanding of scriptural historiography would lead to
a realization that John would not have felt bound to slavishly
copy any sources he had at hand but could freely manipulate
them to suit his purposes. In that case, John can readily be seen
as having been inspired by and modeled loosely after the
.
synoptics.

Goulder observes of Matthew and John that ''Their methods

are in each case the same: to follow the thread from the Torah
where it leads, weaving in threads from the prophets and
writings as they suggest themselves, and filling in the remaining
gaps from their imagination. "323

This picture fits perfectly the literary character of scriptural

historiography. Following the example of the writers of the Old
Testament scripture before them, the evangelists had little need
for "biographical reminiscences."324 Their primary aim was to

321
Brodie, Birthing, 204-253. He also finds that sections of Deuteronomy are behind
much of the material in Matthew 17:22-28.
322
In Birthing (254-257t he suggests the Lucan source for John was the postulated
Proto-Luke rather than the canonical Luke-Acts.
323
Cited in Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels, 19.
324
Contra Burridge; see What are the Gospels, 246.
Mark as Scriptural Historiography 219

influence a religious community by telling a story; the story had

to tie in to the community's perception of its own history but
once the tie was established the structure and details of the story
depended more on its rhetorical purpose than on a perceived
need for what we today would call historical accuracy.

A Broader View ofTntertextuality in Mark

In Mark's case the rhetorical purpose was to influence the
community's perception not just of its history, but of another
body of literature - the Pauline epistles. In this book I have
mainly focused on the ways in which the Pauline literature
influenced Mark's Gospel, but the relationship between them is
a two-way street. A term that captures the multi-faceted
character of this literary relationship is "inrertextualiry." Scholars
of literature ascribe a broad range of meanings to this term, most
of which fit along a spectrum that has a focus on authorial
intention at one end and reader reception at the other end. In
other words, different texts are related to one another either
because authors have other texts in mind when composing a text,
or because readers have other texts in mind when reading a
text. 325 There can be a vast difference between the ends of the

325
This is a simplified explanation. In much recent scholarship that revolves around
the word intertextuality, the word "text" itself is redefined so broadly that it means
anything at all in human culture that can carry some kind of meaning. See Steve
Moyise, "Inrertextuality and Biblical Studies: A Review," Verbum et Ecclesia 23: 2:
418-31; Draisma, lntertextuaiity; and Richard Hays, Stefan Alkier, and Leroy Andrew
Huizenga, eds., Reading the Bible Intertextually (Waco, Texas: Baylor UP., 2009).
Some scholars go so far as to take umbrage against other scholars who would dare to
use "intertextuality" in the more narrow sense of an author using prior texts while
composing a text; see, for example, Thomas R. Hatina, "Intertextuality and Historical
Criticism in New Testament Studies: Is there a Relationship?" Biblical Interpretation
1 :28-43.
220 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

spectrum, since any given text might call to a reader's mind other
texts that the author didn't even know about.

In the case of Mark and the Pauline epistles, both ends of the
spectrum apply. On the one hand, Mark knew the Pauline
epistles and reworked material from them into his own text. On
the other hand, the epistle authors had no knowledge of Mark's
Gospel, but after Mark's Gospel was created, it profoundly
influenced the readers' understanding of the epistles. In effect,
Mark canonized the Pauline epistles. This too reflects a common
function of scripture in general: what Mark does for Paul the
New Testament as a whole does for the Old Testament.

In the case of the New Testament and the Old Testament the
relationship is clearly between a later body of literature and an
earlier one. However, some of the Pauline epistles were written
or edited after Mark was written. In that case we might expect to
find in the epistles allusions to a person named Mark, allusions
that would be intended to confirm the relationship between the
Gospel of Mark and the epistles. That is indeed what we find in
Col 4:10; 2 Tim 4: 11; and Philemon 1:24.326 These references
reinforce the canonization process by making it circular: Mark
canonizes the epistles, and the epistles canonize Mark by
confirming the role of a person named Mark among Paul's
disciples. In some cases the references to Mark may have been
added by the epistle's author who was writing in Paul's name,
and in other cases Mark's name may have been added by an
editor.

326See also 1 Peter 5: 13 and the repeated references in Acts, all of which serve the same
function. On this use of names in the New Testament see also Trobisch, First Edition,
48-51 and T arazi, Colossians and Pbilemon, 101-102.
 Part IV

The Historical Jesus in Mark

 12
Conservatism and Curiosity
Scholars who have assumed a position over many years do not
quickly recant it and publicly admit their error; nor can a novel
hypothesis expect to carry the day at once i11 a conservative
profession. It may be particularly difficult to shift opinion over
texts which are fundamental to the faith of the critic. With time
scholars came to treat sympathetically my arguments for the
evangelists' creativity: their freedom to create Nativity stories out
of Old Testament types, and their ability to create or develop
parables in line with their own stylistic and doctrinal concerns.
They have been less willing to accept Matthew and Luke as
embroiderers of earlier Gospel traditions, because there is a
hankering after putative lost sources and oral traditions which
would take us back to the historical Jesus .... I believe that in the
long run the arguments which I have advanced will persuade a
new generation of scholars. But this will take time.
Michael Goulder327

A Homeric-mimetic reading of the Gospels is a seismic paradigm

shift with enormous implications. As is the case with all paradigm
shifts, one must expect resistance from those who have benefited
frorn business as usual. I no longer expect scholars of my
generation to accept my work with open arms; if acceptance
occurs at all, it will come from future generations.
Dennis MacDonald328

f Mark built his narrative mainly by reworkin� tradit!ons from

I the Old Testament, Homer, and the Pauline epistles, the
historical Jesus is even more out of reach than many scholars

327
Goulder, Five stones and a Sling, 134-35.
328
MacDonald, "My Turn," 23.
223
224 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

have supposed. Goulder alludes to Mark when he speaks of

Matthew and Luke as "embroiderers of earlier Gospel
traditions," and in that case even the "earlier traditions"
themselves for the most part do not go back to the historical
Jesus. For many scholars as well as rank and file Christian
believers, this view of the Gospel is difficult or impossible to
accept.

Goulder refers to three impediments to recognition of the

gospels' character as scriptural historiography: conservatism of
professional scholars, conservatism of religious belief, and
curiosity about "the historical Jesus." As far as academic
conservatism is concerned, paradigm shifts come about slowly
and with great reluctance in all fields of scholarship. This is true
even in the hard sciences where obvious and irrefutable proof can
often be marshaled by the leaders of change. 329 In a delightful
essay, Mark Twain asserts that accepting scholarly consensus as
the final word on something is the mark of youth and
• •
1nexper1ence:

I wish I could be as young as that again. Although I seem so old,

now, I was once as yot1ng as that. I remember, as if it were but
thirty or forty years ago, how a paralyzing Consensus of Opinion
accumulated from Experts a-setting around, about brother experts
who had patiently and laboriously cold-chiseled their way into one
or another of nature's safe-deposit vaults and were reporting that
they had found something valuable was a plenty for me. It settled
•
lt.

But it isn't so now - no. Because, in the drift of the years I by and
by found out that a Consensus examines a new thing with its
feelings rather oftener than with its mind. You know, yourself,

329The most well-known treatment of this phenomenon is Thomas Kuhn's Structure

ofScientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
Conservatism and Curiosity 225

that that is so. Do those people examine with feelings that are
friendly to evidence? You know they don't. It is the other way
about. They do the examining by the light of their prejudices -
now isn't that true?330

A consensus among scholars is even more resistant to change

than one that petrifies among the general public because of a
phenomenon that Goulder laments: a field's "professors have
made their reputations by assuming and extending it, and will
not lightly abandon it." That is why "[s]hifts of paradigm do not
come from professors; they come from young men, and from
those on the margin of the subject."331 And that is why those
who are most prominent in a given field and most forcefully
defend its established views may be the least in tune with reality,
as Dean Koontz laments about another field of science:

Scientists and animal behaviorists have written libraries full of

nonsense about the emotions of dogs, suggesting that they do not
have emotions as we know them, or that their exhibitions that
appear to be emotionally based do not mean what we interpret
them to mean in our sentimental determination to see a fellowship
between humanity and canines. Like too many specialists in every
field, they are educated not out of their ignorance but into
ignorance, because they are raised to an imagined state of
enlightenment - which is actually dogmatism - where they no
longer experience the light of intuition and the fierce brightness of
common sense. They see the world through cloudy windows of
theory and ideology, which obscure reality. 332

330 Mark Twain, "Dr. Loeb's Incredible Discovery," in The Complete Essays of Mark
Twain (ed. Charles Neider; Da Capo Press, 1991), 590-593; here: 590.
331
Goulder 1989, Luke: A New Paradigm, 4.
332 Dean Koontz, A
Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog (New York: Hyperion,
2009), 81. Although his assessment here is of specialists in dogs, it applies, as he says,
to specialists in every field.
226 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Dennis MacDonald's thesis that Mark created some of his

narrative by adapting stories from the Homeric epics offers a case
study of how scholars tend to react to an attempt to introduce a
new paradigm. 333 MacDonald is an accomplished biblical
scholar; his thesis is well argued; he established a set of objective
criteria for identifying literary relationships; and he amassed a
wealth of evidence that admirably support those criteria. And
yet, at least two of the most comprehensive commentaries on
Mark to appear in recent years reject his thesis out of hand, one
by ignoring it altogether and one by writing it off as "purely
gratuitous."334 That leading scholars who specialize in Mark's
Gospel could treat one of their distinguished colleagues so
dismissively reflects more on their own prejudices than it does on
the validity of MacDonald's evidence and arguments.

Nevertheless, paradigms can change, and eventually "those on

the margin of the subject" who can make a case get heard.
Generations have passed since ideas about the evangelists'
authorial creativity were first proposed, and acceptance of the
idea has been gradually building over that time. Goulder wrote
the selection at the head of this chapter just 23 years ago, and
MacDonald wrote his comments just 6 years ago, and already
the landscape of scholarship has shifted in their direction. It is

333 The Homeric Epics and the Gospel ofMark (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000).
334 Camille Focant,
Leuangile selon Marc (Paris: Cerf, 2007), 30. The other is Joel
Marcus, Mark 8-16 (New Haven: Yale UP, 2009). Marcus mentions one trivial point
from MacDonald's book but never even alludes to the thesis that point was intended
to support (763). See also Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2007), which does not mention MacDonald at all. Biblical scholarship
is a vast field and things can be overlooked; however, MacDonald's was truly a
landmark book that evoked much debate, and Collins' commentary appeared seven
years after it.
Conservatism and Curiosity 227

just a matter of time before the shift Telford tentatively

predicted 13 years ago becomes a reality:

With the development . . . of narrative-critical tools and an

increasing sensitivity on the part of scholars to the nuances of
narrative theology, Volkmar's original suggestion that Mark's
Gospel is an allegorical presentation of Pauline teaching in the
form of a narrative may be due, therefore, for a comeback. 335

Goulder also alludes to the conservatism of religious faith, a

force that is even stronger for many people than the desire to
preserve and advance reputation is for scholars. Ironically, this
conservatism stems from unsupportable presuppositions about
the character of God and the nature of truth in the Christian
tradition. On the one hand, the Christian tradition - especially
Eastern Orthodox tradition - insists that God cannot be
described or circumscribed: you can say what God is not, but it is
beyond human powers of understanding and comprehension to
definitively say what he is. On the other hand, many individual
Christians implicitly circumscribe God by assuming that he
would only communicate his will by means of literally true
rather than metaphorically true scripture. On the one hand,
Christian tradition insists that Jesus Christ is himself "the way,
the truth, and the light," which means that Christian "truth" is
not a simple matter of accurately representing what is physically
going on around us in the world. On the other hand, many
individual Christians assume that scripture must be true in just
that way, an accurate record of what actual people saw and heard
physically going on around them in the world. A "conservative"
view of scriptural interpretation is in reality out of tune with the
essence of Christian tradition. A view of Mark as an author
creatively using available sources to convey a message in a work

335 Telford, Theology ofMark, 169.

228 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

of literature is fully compatible with a view of God as free to act

through human beings however he sees fit. And such a view of
Mark is fully compatible with a view of "truth" as something
that scripture defines. Actually, if for people today knowledge of
Jesus and what it means for him to "be" truth is preserved in
Christian scripture, it is all the more important to set aside
preconceived notions and find out what the authors of scripture
really meant their original readers to understand. In other words,
viewing Mark as a narrativization of the Pauline gospel is fully
compatible with genuine Christian faith, while rejecting that
view a priori is incompatible with genuine Christian faith.

The third impedimen t to shifting the reigning paradigm in

gospel interpretation is curiosity about the historical Jesus. Since
Mark is generally seen as the earliest gospel, it is naturally the
focus of such curiosity. There are, however, many things in
history which we are curious about and will never get an answer
to, and this is one of them.
 13
Historical Implausibilities
The implausible stage management testifies to the artificiality of
the scene .... it is suspicious that, throughout this section of the
Gospel, whenever jesus is doing something a bit questionable, the
Pharisees and/ or their allies the scribes always seem to
conveniently turn up, even in very unlikely places.
Joel Marcus336

The extraordinarily unrealistic settings of many of the conflict

stories should be realized: Pharisees did not organize themselves
into groups to spend their Sabbaths in Galilean cornfields in the
hope of catching someone transgressing.
E. Sanders337

hose who want to find a historical record in Mark face an

T even greater obstacle than the ambiguous evidence for
Mark's literary borrowing of non-Jesus material to create Jesus
stories. This obstacle is the fact that if Jesus' earthly ministry
actually happened as Mark portrays it, the history of Paul's Gentile
mission and the opposition it encountered would be
incomprehensible. How could it be that neither Paul nor anyone
who worked with him, nor his opponents, knew about Jesus'
determined endorsement of a mixed community sharing table
fellowship together? How is it that everyone somehow forgot
that Jesus explicitly "declared all foods clean" (7:19)? In the
pitched battles Paul waged against his J udaizing opponents in his
epistles, any one of the many stories about Jesus' conflicts over

336 Marcus? Mark 1-8, 227; see also 240, 260.

337 E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 265.
229
230 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Law observance would have been devastating evidence of the

rightness of Paul's side, yet none are ever mentioned.

It's as if before Mark was written, nobody had ever heard of

any of Jesus' sayings or parables, even those directly related to the
very controversies that Christian leaders were grappling with. Why?
As Goulder puts it: "The obvious answer is, They had not been
made up yet. "338

Even scholars who desperately want to believe that Mark has a

historical core acknowledge how unrealistic many of the stories
in Mark are. Some of the most blatant "artificiality,"
"implausible stage management," and "extraordinarily unrealistic
settings" occur in stories that bear remarkable resemblances to
Paul's experiences as recounted in Galatians. 339 A common
interpretive strategy that conservative scholars engage in is to
suggest that yes, there may have been some exaggeration here
and there, but there's a historical core. Here's an example of this
line of reasoning as it occurs in Jerome Murphy O'Connor's
book, Jesus and Paul· Parallel Lives:

The moneychangers can plausibly be located in the basilica at the

south end of Herod's vast enclosure. The animals and birds for
sale as sacrificial victims must have been at the opposite end; the
north wall of the Temple had the only gate communicating with
the open countryside ... How could Jesus get away with
disturbances at two such widely separated parts of the Temple?
Why did the Temple police not intervene at the first and so block
the second? Moreover, it is inconceivable that one man could
expel the hundreds of people in the basilica, or that a single

338 Goulder, "Pauline," 874. See also Heikki Raisanen, Jesus, Paul and Torah:
Collected Essays CTSNTSup 43: Sheffield: Sheffield Academic., 1992), 127-48;
Telford, Theology, 151.
339 See
chapter 8.
Historical Implausibilities 231

individual could herd a mass of frightened animals. All of this,

however, is bur an example of the condensation and hyperbole
integral to a good story. 34o

Why should we assume that an author would engage in

"hyperbole" but not outright invention? In fact, as I have
endeavored to show throughout this book, much of Mark's
gospel can be identified as having been adapted from non-Jesus
sources or made up or manipulated to accomplish the author's
literary purpose. And this fact begs the question: would an
author who in some places chooses to write allegory rather than
"history" necessarily feel bound to strive for "historical accuracy"
everywhere else? In other words, if Mark consciously wrote
allegorical text anywhere, why should we assume that he would
not do it everywhere? Why should the temple cleansing story not
be an outright fiction rather than "condensation and
hyperbole"?341

There is no dearth of evidence that whatever Mark's literary

purposes were, reporting on what the actual historical Jesus said
and did was not very high on the list. He appears to have
reworked Old Testament stories into Jesus stories.342 His

340 Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Jesus and Paul: Parallel Lives (Collegeville, Minn.:
Liturgical Press, 2007), 44-45.
341 Or as Michael Goulder
puts the same thought in a slightly different context, "If so,
a less modern attitude to historical accuracy is already conceded, and it seems arbitrary
to allow Lucan creativity in ch. 1 and to deny it in ch. 7 or 15 a priori" (Luke: A New
Paradigm, 78).
342See, for example, Farrer, Mark and Matthew, 14-15; Van Iersel, Mark, 40, 62, 66;
Kermode, Genesis, 60-61; Brodie, Birthing. Even Collins, who generally adopts the
position that Mark is a conduit of traditions, doubts the historicity of Judas, citing, for
example, the language and actions of betrayal by a friend as a scriptural theme (Mark,
224). Marcus links the temptation story to the biblical story of Adam ("Mark,'1 475).
Mark may also have reworked Homeric stories into Jesus stories; see MacDonald,
Homeric Epics; MacDonald, "Imitations of Greek epic in the Gospel," in Levine et al.,
Historical Jesus, 372-375.
232 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

geographical references reflect the logic of symbolism, not of

geographical reality.343 His scenarios where Jesus disputes with
Jewish authorities often simply do not make sense historically. 344
His constantly recurring doublets call into question how many
times he found one story in his sources and duplicated it. 345 And
if his authorial method would permit him to create the second of
a pair, it hardly seems likely that it would prevent him from
creating both parts. 346 The evidence is sufficient to make this not
just possible but likely. Ultimately, one can say of every chapter

343 Willi Marxsen was the first to point this out. Malbon notes that "Historical critics
have searched in vain for a mountain in Galilee" but those who know scripture know
the mountain is where God meets his people, ("Narrative Criticism," 37) The "sea" of
Galilee symbolizes the Mediterranean but is just a lake; as Marcus observes, sleeping
on a boat through a storm on the Sea of Galilee is "not at all credible." (Mark 1-8,
337) The improbable detour through the Decapolis reflects an intention to show
Jesus in Gentile lands. (Focant, "Doublets," 1049; Marcus, Mark 1-8, 492; Tarazi,
Paul and Mark, 165, 179)
344 How and
why did antagonistic scribes get into a little house that was so packed that
a crowd formed around the door and four men had to climb in through the roof; and
how is it that they found room to sit down there? (2: 1-17)
345 On the function of
repetition in Mark, the classic text is Frans Neirynck, Duality in
Mark. Contributions to the Study of the Markan Redaction. Revised Edition with
Supplementary Notes (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988). See also Alter, Art, 181
on the use of repetition in general in scripture.
346 A
prime example is the two feedings of the thousands. If they so effectively
symbolize a progression from an exclusive community to an inclusive community, it is
hardly necessary to assume that they must have been modeled on some actual historical
event. Even those who assume Mark mainly reports earlier traditions observe that the
similarities in this case are too striking for Mark to have simply "juxtaposed two
traditions." See Focant, "Doublets." Repetition applies even to the passion narrative,
for scholars have also noted the striking parallels between Paul's martyrdom and that
of Jesus. Farrer observes that the episode of Barabbas "is thrown into a form which is
historically puzzling and it constitutes the very point in the passion of Christ where the
parallel with John's martyrdom is most striking." He concludes one cannot know
which story influenced the other (Mark and Matthew, 15). Tolbert also comments
about how John's death anticipates Jesus' death, and how Herod's behavior anticipates
chat of the disciples (Sowing, 196).
Historical Implausibilities 233

in the book of Mark something similar to what Goulder says of

chapter 13:

The only section of the chapter which does not have a lot of
Daniel and Thessalonians behind it is the persecution paragraph,
13:9-13; and here the details are strongly reminiscent of Paul and
his friends .... The cumulative effect of these parallels is to
suggest strongly that Mark has little or no tradition of what Jesus
actually said about the future. He has a tradition, and it is the
Pauline tradition ... 347

347
Coulder, Paul vs. Peter, 88.
 14
Historical Plausibilities
f the historical picture in Mark is implausible, how can a
I plausible one be constructed? It is possible to do so by starting
with the picture of two Christian missions as described in Part I.
The Gentile Christian mission was established not by various
disconnected groups but by a single school in the sense of a
network of leaders probably led at first by a charismatic leader.
The leader and school came to be known by the name Paul.
Their mission could not make progress if Gentiles were forced to
follow Jewish traditions, especially circumcision. But they came
up against opposition from people who wanted just such
traditions followed and who could claim authority for their views
by referring to personal or family relationships with Jesus.

Paul's school could write epistles in his name even if he were

no longer able to lead this effort, but they would eventually
realize that such letters were weapons with limited effectiveness.
Opponents of Paul who could cite personal or family ties to
Jesus, or links to the holy city of Jerusalem or the temple, could
still claim higher authority than Paul, and some in Paul's
communities might be inclined to follow their lead (as is evident
already from the epistle to the Galatians). What was needed was
a higher authority than Paul who would support Paul's version
of the gospel against that of his rivals. The only higher human
authority would be Jesus, and so the idea of a narrative about
Jesus arose, though so far as we can tell, Paul's school knew
virtually nothing about him other than the crucifixion and
.
resurrection.

235
236 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Such a narrative had to present its message with some subtlety.

If written by a known partisan of Paul - and it seems likely that
a person or persons with the literary skill to put together a book
like Mark would be well known - such a text would have to be
anonymous or it would lose authority among its most important
target audience: people potentially influenced by Paul's
opponents. 348 There may have been other reasons for concealing
the connection to Paul also. Through his apparently arrogant
behavior Paul made his own name odious in many quarters.
Jerome Murphy-O'Connor has described the apostle to the
Gentiles in terms that help explain why he inspired so much
opposition: Paul "had few scruples about the way he attacked
those who disagreed with him"; he was "less than honest" when
it came to presenting his credentials in the most forceful way to
others, and his "lack of empathy" for other people caused him to
attribute "the most uncharitable explanation" for any opposition
to him. His "tunnel vision" and '(self-absorption" were so intense
that he did not care about anyone or anything peripheral to his
central vision. He showed "contempt" for those who disagreed
with him and in fighting them wrote "brutal slashes,'' threw
"tantrums," displayed '(childishness," was "manipulative,"
employed "moral blackmail," and engaged at times in a "cruel
. 11ectual game, " " crueI I aughter, " an d « sarcasm. "349
inte

A new narrative about Jesus also had to have basic

verisimilitude, so the author could not have Jesus openly
initiating a Gentile mission that everyone knew Paul had created.
The disciples could not be completely discredited for it was
known that they retained leadership positions. But their

348
Sternberg (Poetics, 33) notes another reason for anonymity: "Anonymity in ancient
narrative validates supernatural powers of narration ... "
349
Paul. His Story (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), 59, 110, 136, 145, 146, 151, 166,
167, 180, 185, 220. See also Goulder, Paul vs. Peter, 9, 184.
Historical Plausibilities 237

understanding of what Jesus was actually all about could be

questioned, their aura of spiritual authority that came from mere
membership in "the twelve" could be undermined, and their
continued authority could be made contingent on their
acceptance of Paul's approach to the conversion of Gentiles.

In the absence of information about what Jesus actually said

and did, the natural sources for the framework and contents of
such a narrative would be the framework and contents of the
scripture already venerated by the Gentile mission: the Old
Testament and Paul's epistles. And a Greek author would be
thoroughly familiar with the Homeric epics and would have
been raised in an environment where it was customary to imitate
them.

In creating a mostly allegorical yet ostensibly historical story,

Mark was following the pattern set by the scripture he already
knew so well, for this is the pattern followed by the Old
Testament. As the prophets before him knew, a message that
cannot be effectively delivered in straightforward language has to
be couched in allegorical language. 350 And as I showed in
Part III, that is what they were typically doing in narrative texts.

A cautionary note is in order regarding this historical

reconstruction, however. The scenario is plausible based on the
assumption that the Pauline epistles are themselves more or less
historical, but that assumption is itself not necessarily a safe one.
In his examinations of the epistles, Thomas Brodie finds as much
evidence that they are essentially reworking of earlier scriptures
as he finds in the gospels. This leads him to ask the question,
"To what extent, if any, is the historical Paul distant from the
Pauline corpus as the historical Moses is from the

35
° Kelber, Oral and Written Gospel, 64.
238 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Pentateuch?"351 This raises the question of whether the historical

situations we find in the epistles are themselves real. In some
cases they may be, but maybe not as much as commonly
assumed.

The need to think twice in assessing the epistles is particularly well

illustrated in Paul's autobiographical passages. These texts appear
to be thoroughly spontaneous and realistic, springing directly from
his personal experience, prime material for reconstructing history.
But comparison with other ancient authors shows that Pauline
autobiography is part of a larger literary practice and that the
epistles deliberately t1se material which appears autobiographical
for pedagogical purposes. 352

Brodie quotes a book by George Lyons about the character of

Pauline autobiography:

Since we have only Paul's autobiographical remarks and not his

opponents' accusations, which the consensus assumes provoked
them, it is necessary to exercise restraint in asserting too
confidently that specific charges actually existed, much less what
they may have been. Even the existence of 'opponents' in the usual
sense of the word is far from certain . . . What he says is
determined by his rhetorical approach and not by his opponents'
reproaches. 353

In this book I have suggested that much of Mark is a

reworking of Galatians, but much of Galatians is in turn a
reworking of Genesis. Paul doesn't explicitly cite Genesis in

351Thomas L. Brodie, "The Triple Intertextuality of the Epistles: An Introduction" in

Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis Ronald MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter, eds., The
Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice (Sheffield: Sheffield
Phoenix Press, 2006), 71-89; here: 72.
352 Ibid., 74.
353 Ibid., 75. The quotation is from George Lyons, Pauline Autobiography: Towards a
New Understanding.
Historical Plausibilities 239
chapters 1 or 2, but "the story of Abraham is a remarkable
parallel at its earliest point to Paul's own story and to the pattern
which the Galatians have followed and to which Paul writes to
exhort them to remain constant."354 So even the "historical"
aspects of Galatians start to look like rhetorical strategy:

The conclusion regarding Galatians is similar to that of Hays

concerning Romans: while engaging a specific audience Paul is
also engaging specific writings. Furthermore, it often appears
difficult or even impossible to distinguish what is historical from
what is scriptural .... The overall impression, from Romans to
Jude, is that as a whole the New Testament epistles involve
deliberate reworkings of the older Scriptures. They are not just
occasional documents. In a basic, constitutive, way, their nature is
scriptural - literary, in the most serious sense. 355

354 Ibid., 80, quoting Carol Stockhausen. Brodie also cites key terminology in chs.3
and 4 to show how the story of Abraham was in Paul's mind throughout Galatians.
355 Ibid., 83.
 Conclusion
... it seems likely to me that the historical authors of all four
Gospels assumed that a literal acceptance of the historicity of the
events they reported would be a prerequisite for appreciation of
the metaphorical sense those events were intended to convey. It
also seems likely that the first audiences for these Gospels did in
fact read them in this way, accepting the literal historicity of the
accounts in ways that assisted them in accepting the startling
metaphorical claims .... [Therefore] the evangelists were lying or,
at least, were passing on misinformation that they had foolishly
come to believe themselves. Indeed they were spreading falsehood
of a most insidious sort: they were encouraging people to make
extreme commitments that could, and often did, cost them their
honor, their families, or their lives and they were offering as surety
for those commitments historical testimony regarding events that,
in fact, had never occurred. . . .

We might even say chat by grounding their theological claims

about Christ in outlandish and unsustainable claims about history,
they have laid the framework for a version of Christianity that is at
least absurd and possibly fraudulent.
Mark Allan Powell356

t is a commonplace in some circles to decry Paul as a perverter

I of the original purity of Christianity founded by Jesus. Yet
Jesus in Mark offers no new teaching but rather points back to
the Torah and the Old Testament scriptures, the same sources
that Paul cites. And one of Mark's literary goals was to validate

356Mark Allan Powell, "Authorial Intent and Historical Reporting: Putting Spong' s
Literalization Thesis to the Test," journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1,2:225-
249; here: 243.
241
242 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Paul as the premier apostle, and consequently Paul's epistles as

the scripture in which the true gospel can be found. The author
of Mark expects his readers to not only accept Paul's epistles as
scripture but to go there in order to find the gospel teaching
which is so obviously missing from the text of his Gospel.

But what about the perspective that Mark Allan Powell

articulates so clearly in the above quotations? For Powell, the
problem is not just that Mark's text contains some inadvertent
historical inaccuracies. The problem is that the historical
inaccuracies are extensive and are not "inadvertent." The
common assumption that Mark was trying as much as possible
to report literally true facts about Jesus simply cannot withstand
a dispassionate review of the evidence. Not even the assumption
that Mark himself believed what he was writing to be literally
true stands up to the evidence. 357 Consequently, Powell asserts
on the one hand that Mark's intentions were dishonorable and
on the other hand that the result was necessarily evil. In his view,
the gospels are "fraudulent" because they report things that did
not happen as if they were historical; and a faith based on
fraudulent reporting must be "absurd."

Powell correctly understands the facts, but his interpretation of

them, and the appropriateness of his value judgment concerning
them, is open to question. In effect he canonizes his own
presuppositions about appropriate ways to guide a community,
and then he judges Mark by that standard. But that standard is

357A fairly typical expression of this assumption is in Collins, Question of Genre, 45: "I
would like to suggest that the primary intention of the author of Mark was to write
history .... The presence of miracles and other mythic elements in the narrative do not
refute the hypothesis since for the author of Mark these elements were simply true and
real." See also Collins, Mark, 1. For a summary of where various scholars stand on this
issue, see Kealy, History, 2:2:631.
Conclusion 243

foreign to Mark's own culture. As I clarified in Part III, Mark

was immersed in a culture in which storytelling was the tried and
tested and accepted way of guiding a community. He was
faithfully following a centuries-long tradition. In his social
environment, creating an extended parable-like story was the
only way he could have gone about getting Jews and Gentiles to
unite in a community with full acceptance of each other's
differences.

Another possible reaction would be to condemn the aspect of

Mark's culture which appears to promote an "end justifies the
means" approach to influencing people. Certainly that principle
has engendered much evil in the history of the world. But it's
always a risky leap from general principle to specific application.
Given a moment's reflection, any one of us can recall difficult
situations when our options were limited and in order to
accomplish something good we had to employ means that were
not entirely harmless. We do not know all of the specific
circumstances in which a culture developed or which each
evangelist faced, and we are thus in no position to pass judgment
on them or on the culture they lived in.

So Mark's intentions are in effect unimpeachable. As for

whether the result of what he did was to lay a foundation for
Christianity that is "at least absurd and possibly fraudulent," that
depends on how you define Christianity. A Christian faith that
demands literal truth from the gospel narratives is indeed like the
proverbial house built on sand; sooner or later the rain will fall,
and the floods will come, and the winds will blow, and the house
will fall (Matt 7 :27). A Christian faith that accepts scripture as
the Word of God and seeks to understand its message without
restricting that message to preconceived notions can adapt to
244 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

cultural changes and find endless reservoirs of good in

Christianity as a religious tradition.

2 Samuel chapters 11-12 relate a story about the prophet

Nathan and King David. David had taken the wife of one of his
military commanders and arranged military affairs so that the
commander would be killed. The narrative explains that God
brought the matter to David's attention by indirect means:

And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to
him, «There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the
other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the
poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had
bought, And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with
his children; it used to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup,
and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there
came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one
of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come
to him, but he took the poor man's lamb, and prepared it for the
man who had come to him." Then David's anger was greatly
kindled against the man; and he said to Na than, "As the Lord
lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; and he shall
restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because
he had no pity. Nathan said to David, «You are the man. Thus
says the Lord, the God of Israel, ' ... Why have you despised the
word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? ... You have
smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife
to be yot1r wife, and have slain him with the sword of the
Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from
your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the
wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' ... David said to
Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Sam 12: 1)

In this story, Nathan let David believe that he was telling him a
literal truth, but in fact he was conveying to him a deeper truth.
Conclusion 245
Nathan's method of presenting his message was no accident - it
was effective precisely because David at first took it to be literally
true although it wasn't. After the parable's purpose was achieved,
Nathan did not explicitly tell David that literally speaking there
was no "lamb," but the king could easily have figured that out.
By then, that fact made no difference either to Nathan or to
David.

The story of Mark and his Gospel over the millennia of

Christianity parallels the story of Nathan and David. Mark used
a literary device to convey a deeper truth just as Nathan did in
the story he told to David. Mark let his readers believe that he
was telling them a literally true history, and his story was all the
more effective for that reason.

The David and Nathan story is itself a parable - it's part of the
Davidic Court History which was composed centuries after King
David reigned in Judah, just as Mark was composed decades
after Jesus preached in Galilee and Judea. Whether we conceive
of Nathan as a parable teller or as a character within a parable,
Mark continued that tradition of conveying a deeper truth by
means of a story that does not necessarily have to be literally true
to accomplish its purpose. Our relationship to Mark's Gospel is
now similar to that of David's relationship to Nathan' s parable
after the purpose of the parable was revealed. The appropriate
reaction for David was not to condemn Nathan for misleading
him but to take to heart his intended message. The appropriate
reaction to Mark for us is not to condemn what Mark did but to
take to heart his intended message and to read the Pauline
epistles to learn what the Christian gospel is all about.
 Bibliography
Entries marked with an asterisk are especially recommended as
sources to start with for further reading.

Journal name abbreviations follow Society of Biblical Literature

standards.

Alkier, Stefan. "Intertextuality and the Semiotics of Biblical

Texts." In Hays, Alkier, and Huizenga, Reading the Bible
Intertextually, 3- 21.

Allison, Dale C. "The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels.

The Pattern of the Parallels." NTS 28(1982):1-32.

*Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. San Francisco:

Basic, 1981. Excellent discussion of "fiction" in scripture.

Alter, Robert, and F. Ker mode, eds. The Literary Guide to the
Bible. London: Fontana, 1997.

*Anderson, Janice Capel, and Stephen D. Moore. Mark and

Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2008. A sampling of various methodological
approaches to understanding the text of Mark.

Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in

Western Literature. Introduction by Edward W. Said.
Princeton: Princeton UP) 2003.

Aus, Roger David. Feeding the Five Thousand: Studies in the

Judaic Background of Mark 6:30-44 par. and John 6:1-15.
Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2010.

247
248 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Auwers, Jean-Marie, and Henk Jan de Jonge, eds. The Biblical

Canons. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum
Lovaniensium 163. Leuven: Peeters, 2003.

Avalos, Hector. The End of Biblical Studies. Amherst, N.Y.:

Prometheus Books, 2007.

Bacon, Benjamin W. The Gospel of Mark: Its Composition and

Date. New Haven: Yale UP, 1925.

Barnett, Paul. "The Existence of Jesus." Quadrant May,

2006:35-36.

Barrett, C. K. The New Testament Background: Selected

Documents. New York: HarperCollins, 1987.

Bartholomew, Craig G., et al. Canon and Biblical Interpretation.

Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.

Bauckham, Richard. "For Whom Were Gospels Written." In

Bauckham, Richard, The Gospels for all Christians, 9-48.

__ . The Gospels for all Christians: Rethinking the Gospel

Audiences. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.

__ . The Jewish World Around the New Testament: Collected

Essays 1. Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.

Becker, Eve-Marie. "The Gospel of Mark in the Context of

Ancient Historiography." In Kirkpatrick and Goltz, The
Function ofAncient Historiography, 124-134.

Ben Zvi, Ehud. "Malleability and its Limits: Sennacherib's

Campaign against Judah as a Case Study." In Grabbe, Like a
bird in a cage, 73- l 05.
Bibliography 249

*Best, Ernest. "Mark's Readers: A Profile." In Van Segbroeck, et

al., The Four Gospels 15)92, 839-858. An excellent survey of the
evidence in Mark that indicates who its originally intended
readers were.

__ . "The Role of the Disciples in Mark." NTS

23(1977) :377-401.

Betz, Hans Dieter. Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to

the Churches in Galatia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979.

Black, Clifton. "Christ Crucified in Paul and in Mark:

Reflections on an Intracanonical Conversation." In Lovering
and Sumney, Theology and Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters,
184-206.

__ . Mark: Images of an Apostolic Interpreter. Minneapolis:

Fortress Press, 2001.

Black, David Alan, ed. Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four

Views. B & H Academic, 2008.

Blum, Erhard, et al., eds. Das Alie Testament: Ein Geschictsbuch?

Munich: Lit, 2005.

Boismard, M. E., and Paul Benoit. Synopse des quatre Euangiles

en franfais avec paralleles des Apocryphes et des Peres. Paris: Cerf,
1972.

Borg, Marcus. The Lost Gospel Q· The Original Sayings ofJesus.

Berkeley: Ulysses Press, 1996.

Boring, M. Eugene. Mark: A Commentary. New Testament

Library. Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.
250 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Boyarin, Daniel. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity.

Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1994.

Breytenbach, C. "Vormarkinische Logientradition. Parallelen in

der urchristlichen Briefliteratur." In Van Segbroeck et al., The
Four Gospels 1992, 725-750.

Broadhead, Edwin K. Prophet, Son, Messiah: Narrative Form and

Function in Mark 14-16. Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.

"Brodie, Thomas L. The Birthing of the New Testament:

The
lntertextual Development of the New Testament Writings.
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2004. Essential reading
for anyone interested in understanding the New Testament.
The amount of detailed literary analysis in the main body of
this large book may be daunting for many readers, but the
background material in the first nine chapters is very accessible
and is itself worth the price of the book.

__ . The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah-Elisha Narrative as an

Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a Literary Model for
the Gospels. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000 .

-- . "Greco-Roman Imitation of Texts as a Partial Guide to

Luke's Use of Sources." In Talbert, Luke-Acts, 17-46.

__ . Proto-Luke: The Oldest Gospel Account: A Christ-Centered

Synthesis of Old Testament History Modelled Especially on the
Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Introduction, Text, and Old Testament
Model. Bible as Dialogue, New Testament Series, 3A.
Limerick: Dominican Biblical Institute, 2006.

__ . The Quest for the Origin of John's Gospel· A Source-

OrientedApproach. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.
Bibliography 251

* __ . "Towards Tracing the Gospels' Literary Indebtedness to

the Epistles." In MacDonald, Mimesis and Intertextuality in
Antiquity and Christianity, 104-116. Concise exposition of
some of the evidence for concluding that the evangelists read
the epistles.

* __ . "The Triple Intertextuality of the Epistles: An

Introduction." In Brodie, MacDonald, and Porter, The
Intertextuality of the Epistles, 71-89. Presents the evidence for
seeing the epistles as carefully crafted literary creations rather
than occasional and spontaneous letters. See also Trobisch,
Pauls Letter Collection.

*Brodie, Thomas L., Dennis Ronald MacDonald, and Stanley E.

Porter, eds. The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of
Theory and Practice. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006.
One of the best symposia about literary relationships between
texts of the New Tes tam en t.

Brooke, George John, and Thomas Romer, eds. Ancient and

Modern Scriptural Historiography. Peeters, 2007.

Bryan, Christopher. A Preface to Mark: Notes on the Gospel in its

Literary and Cultural Settings. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.

Burke, Trevor J ., and J. K. Elliott, eds. Paul and the Corinthians:

Studies on a Community in Conflict: Essays in Honour of
Margaret Thrall. Supplements to Novum Testamenturn,
v.109. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003.

Burkett, Delbert. The Son of Man Debate: A History and

Evaluation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.
252 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Burridge, Richard A. What are the Gospels? A Comparison with

Graeco-Roman Biography. Foreword by Graham Stanton.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004.

Byrne, Brendan. A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of

Mark's Gospel. Liturgical Press, 2008.

Cameron, Ron, and Merill E. Miller, eds. Redescribing Christian

Origins. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004.

*Camery-Hoggatt, J. Irony in Marks Gospel: Text and Subtext.

SNTSMS, 72. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. In-depth
analaysis of the use of irony in Mark.

Capes, David B., Rodney Reeves, and E. Randolph Richards.

Rediscovering Paul: An Introduction to His World, Letters, and
Theology. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2007.

Casey, Maurice. An Aramaic Approach to Q: Sources for the

Gospels of Matthew and Luke. New York: Cambridge UP,
2002.

Castelli, Elizabeth, and Hal Taussig. Reimagining Christian

Origins. A Colloquium Honoring Burton L. Mack. Valley Forge,
Penn.: Trinity Press International, 1997.

Castelli, Elizabeth. Imitating Paul: A Discourse ofPower. Literary

Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 1991.

Charlesworth, James H., and Lee Martin McDonald. Jewish and

Christian Scriptures: The Function of "Canonical" and 'Won-
Canonical" Religious Texts. New York: T & T Clark, 2010.
Bibliography 253

Chilton, Bruce. Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography. New

York: Doubleday, 2004.

Chilton, Bruce, General Editor. The Cambridge Companion to

the Bible. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Clark, Timothy. "Recent Eastern Orthodox Interpretation of the

New Testament." CBR 5(2007):3:322-340.

Cohen, Shaye J. D. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Library

of Early Christianity. Wayne E. Meeks, General Editor.
Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Collins, Adela Yarbro. "Genre and the Gospels." JR

75(1995):2:239-246.

__ . Is Marks Gospel a Life of Jesus? A Question of Genre.

Marquette UP, 1990.

__ . Mark: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,

2007.

Collins, John J. The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a

Postmodern Age. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.

__ . Does the Bible Justify Violence? Minneapolis: Fortress

Press, 2004.

Conzelmann, Hans. Die Mitte der Zeit. Studien zur Theologie des
Lukas. Tubingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1954.

__ . The Theology of St. Luke. Trans. Geoffrey Buswell. New

York: Harper and Row, 1960.

Craig, William Lane, and Bart D. Ehrman. Is There Historical

Evidence for the Resurrection ofJesus? A Debate between William
254 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman. Worcester: College of the

Holy Cross, 2006.

Crossan, John Dominic. "Earliest Christianity in Counterfactual

Focus." Biblnt 8(2000): 1/2: 185-193.

__ . "Mark and the Relatives of Jesus." NovT 15(1973):81-

113.

Crossan, John Dominic and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus.

Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 2001.

Crossley, James G., and Christian Karner, eds. Writing History,

Constructing Religion. Ashgate, 2005.

*Culley, Robert C. "Oral Tradition and Biblical Studies." Oral

Tradition 1(1986):1:30-65. A concise yet complete account of
how the modern conception of oral tradition and form
criticism developed.

DeLorem, Jean. lntertextualities about Mark. Draisma, Sipke,

ed., Intertextuality in Biblical Writings, 35-42.

deSilva, David. Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking

New Testament Culture. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
2000.

Diest, Ferdinand. The Material Culture of the Bible: An

Introduction. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.

Donahue, John R. "Jesus as the Parable of God in the Gospel of

Mark." Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology
32(1978):369-386.
Bibliography 255

Donahue, John R. The Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative,

and Theology in the Synoptic Gospels. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1988.

Donahue) John R. "Windows and Mirrors: The Setting of

Mark's Gospel." CBQ 57(1995):1-26.

Donahue, John R., and Daniel J. Harrington. The Gospel of

Mark. Sacra Pagina series. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002.

Draisma, Sipke, ed. Intertextuality in Biblical writings. Kampen:

Kok, 1989.

Drury, John. "Understanding the Bread: Disruption and

Aggregation, Secrecy and Revelation in Mark's Gospel." In
Rosenblatt and Sitterson, Not in Heaven, 98-119.

Drury, John. "Mark." In Alter and Kermode, The Literary Guide

to the Bible, 402-417.

Dungan, David L. Constantine's Bible : politics and the making of

the New Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.

__ . A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text,

the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels. New
York: Doubleday, 1999.

Dunn, James D. G. "Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisaging

the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition." NTS
49(2003): 139-175.

__ . The Cambridge Companion to Saint Paul. New York:

Cambridge UP, 2003.

__ . Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians.

London: SPCK, 1990.
256 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Dunn, James D. G., and Scott McKnight, eds. The Historical

Jesus in Recent Research. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns,
2005.

Duran, Nicole Wilkinson, Teresa Okure, and Daniel Patte, eds.

Mark. Texts@contexts. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.

Dykstra, Tom E. "From Volkmar to Tarazi and Beyond: Mark

as an Allegorical Presentation of the Pauline Gospel."
Forthcoming.

__ . "The Gospels' Genre as Scriptural Historiography:

Applying Lessons Learned from Ronald Reagan's Biography,"
Journal of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical
Studies QOCABS), 4(2011): l:n.p.

__ . '"New, Unfounded, Unworkable, and Unnecessary':

Thomas Brodie's Critique of Oral Tradition," JOCABS
3(2010):1:n.p.

Ehrman, Bart. D. God's Problem. How the Bible Fails to Answer

Our Most Important Question - Why We Suffer. New York:
HarperOne, 2008.

__ . Jesus, Interrupted· Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in

the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them). New York:
HarperOne, 2009.

__ . Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene. The Followers ofJesus in

History and Legend. New York: Oxford UP, 2006.

Elliott, J.
K. The Language and Style of the Gospel of Mark
(Supplements to Novum Testamentum). Brill Academic
Publishers, 1993.
Bibliography 257

Elliott, Neil. Liberating Paul. Augsburg Fortress Pub, 1994.

Ellis, Edward Earle. "The Date and Provenance of Mark's

Gospel." In Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels 1992, 801-
816.

Evans, Craig A., and H. Daniel Zacharias, eds. Early Christian

Literature and lntertextuality. London: T & T Clark, 2009.

Farrer, Austin. "Loaves and Thousands." ]TS 4(1953): 1-14.

__ . St. Matthew and St. Mark. London: Dacre, 1954.

Fenton, J. C. "Paul and Mark." In Nineham, Dennis E., ed,

Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H Lighifoot, 89-
112.

Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Christianity. Third edition.

Grand Rapids: Eerdrnans, 2003.

Fewell, Danna Nolan, ed. Reading Between Texts: lntertextuality

and the Hebrew Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1996.

*Focant, Camille. "Les Doublets dans la Section des Pains.'' In

Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels 1992, 1039-63. An in-
depth examination of the symbolic significance behind the two
feedings of the multitudes in Mark.

__ . L 'euangile selon Marc. Comm en taire biblique, Nouveau

Testament, 2. Paris: Cerf, 2007.

__ . Marc, un evangile etonnant : recueil d'essais. Bibliocheca

Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium, 194. Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2006.
258 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Focant, Camille, and Andre Wenin, eds. Analyse narrative et

Bible: deuxieme Colloque international d'analyse narrative des
textes de la Bible, Louvain-la-Neuve, avril 2004. Bibliotheca
Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium, 191. Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2005.

Foster, Paul. "Is it Possible to Dispense with Q?" Nov T

45(2003):4:313-37.

Fowler, Robert. "Reader-Response Criticism. Figuring Mark's

Reader." In Anderson, Janice Capel, and Stephen D. Moore,
Mark and Method· New Approaches in Biblical Studies, 59-93.

Fuller, Reginald H. "Baur Versus Hilgenfeld: A Forgotten

Chapter in the Debate on the Synoptic Problem." NTS
24(1978) :35 5-370

Furnish, Victor Paul. "The Jesus-Paul Debate: From Baur to

Bultmann." In Wedderburn, A. J. M., ed, Paul and Jesus:
Collected Essays, 17-50.

Gager, John G. Reinventing Paul. New York: Oxford UP, 2002.

*Gamble, Harry. Books and Readers in the Early Church. New

Haven: Yale UP, 1995. Provides essential context for
understanding the literary environment in which the scriptural
authors worked and the physical evidence (manuscripts) that
remains of what they produced. See also Parker, An
Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts.

Garcia, Martinez, F. The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. Leiden: E.

J. Brill, 1994.
Bibliography 259

Gasque, W. Ward, and Ralph P. Martin, eds. Apostolic History

and the Gospel Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F F
Bruce. Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1970.

*Giblin, C. H. "The Beginning of the Ongoing Gospel (Mk 1 :2-

16:8)." In Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels 1992, 975-
986. Proposes that the first verse of Mark indicates that the
book as a whole is an account of how oral tradition about Jesus
began.

Gillmayr-Bucher, Susanne. "Intertextuality: Between Literary

Theory and Text Analysis.'' In Brodie, MacDonald, and
Porter, The Intertextuality ofthe Epistles, 13-23.

*Goodacre, Mark. The Case Against Q· Studies in Markan

Priority and the Synoptic Problem. Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity
Press International, 2002. One of a few books especially
important for presenting the case for doubting the existence of
Q.
* __ . Goulder and the Gospels: An Examination of a New
Paradigm. JSNT 133. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1996. Detailed examination of the arguments in
Goulder's Luke: A New Paradigm. Neither book is easy reading
but worth the effort for anyone looking for an in-depth
analysis of Luke and its literary relationship to Mark.

* __ . The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze

(Understanding the Bible and its World). Sheffield Academic
Press, 2001. Excellent introduction to the study of the
relationships between the synoptic gospels. The entire text is
available online at http://www.markgoodacre.org/maze.
260 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

*Goodacre, Mark, and Nicholas Perrin, eds. Questioning Q· A

Multidimensional Critique. Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 2004. Another book that should be read by anyone
tempted to accept Q as a working hypothesis.

*Goulder, Michael D. Five Stones and a Sling: Memoirs of a

Biblical Scholar. Sheffield Phoenix Press Ltd, 2009. Worth
reading as an enjoyable memoir written with a sense of humor.
Especially valuable for what it reveals about the character of
modern biblical scholarship. Essential reading for anyone who
reads books produced by modern biblical scholars.

*__ . "Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins: A Response

to N. T. Wright." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus
3(2005):187-195. Part of a series in which biblical scholars
debate the historicity of Jesus' resurrection.

* __ . Luke: A New Paradigm. JSNTSup. 20. Sheffield:

Sheffield Academic Press, 1989. An in-depth examination of
Luke and its literary relationship to other scriptural books
including Mark. See also Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels.

__ . "Mark XVI.1-8 and Parallels." NTS 24(1978):235-40.

* __ . "Those Outside (Mk. 4.10-12)." NovT 33(1991):289-

302. Argues that the phrase "those outside" in Mark 4:10-12
refers to Jesus' family.

__ . "A Pauline in a Jacobite Church." In Van Segbroeck et

al., The Four Gospels 1992, 859-76.

*__ . St. Paul vs. St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions.

Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Presents Goulder' s thesis
that the early church was divided between two main factions,
one following Paul and one following Peter.
Bibliography 261

__ . Type and History in Acts. London: S.P.C.K, 1964 .

-- . "Visions and Revelations of the Lord." In Burke and

Elliott, Paul and the Corinthians, 303-12.

Gowler, David B. "The Chreia." In Levine, Allison, and Crossan,

The HistoricalJesus in Context, 132-148.

Grabbe, Lester L., ed. "Like a bird in a cage": The Invasion of

Sennacherib in 701 BCE. Volume 363 of Journal for the Study
of the Old Testament: Supplement Series. Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2003.

Gray, Timothy C. The Temple in the Gospel ofMark: A Study in

Its Narrative Role. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2010.

Griffith-] ones, Robin. The Gospel According to Paul: The

Creative Genius who Brought Jesus to the World. HarperOne,
2005.

Gundry, R. H. Mark: A commentary on his Apology for the Cross.

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

Halpern, Baruch. "Biblical versus Greek Historiography: A

Comparison." In Blum et al., Das Alte Testament: Ein
Geschictsbuch, 101-128.

Hanhart, K. ''Son, Your Sins are Forgiven." In Van Segbroeck et

al., The Four Gospels 1992, 997-1016.

Hanson, K. C., and Douglas Oakman. Palestine in the Time of

Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1998.
262 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

*Harrington, Daniel J. What are they Saying About Mark? Second

edition. New York: Paulist Press, 2004. A good survey of what
"reputable biblical scholars" have written about Mark.

Harris, H. The Tubingen School. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1975.

"Harina, Thomas R. "Inrertextuality and Historical Criticism in

New Testament Studies: Is there a Relationship?" Biblnt
1 (1999):28-43. The word "intertextuality" is controversial in
biblical scholarship, and this article explains some of the
reasons why.

Hays, Richard. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New

Haven: Yale UP, 1989.

Hays, Richard, Stefan Alkier, and Leroy Andrew Huizenga.

Reading the Bible Intertextually. Waco, Texas: Baylor UP,
2009.

Helmer, Christine, and Christof Landmesser, eds. One Scripture

or Many? Canon from Biblical Theological and Philosophical
Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.

Helms, Randel. Gospel Fictions. Buffalo: Prometheus Books,

1989.

__ . Who Wrote the Gospels? Altadena, CA: Millennium Press,

1996.

Hengel, Martin.The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish

Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D.
Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989.

Hengel, Martin. The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000.
Bibliography 263

__ . The Pre-Christian Paul. Trinity Press International,

1991.

Hock, Ronald F ., et al., eds. Ancient Fiction and Early Christian

Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.

Hoffmann, Paul, John S. Kloppenborg, and James M. Robinson,

eds. The Critical Edition of Q· A Synopsis Including the Gospels
of Matthew and Luke, Mark, and Thomas with English,
German, and French Translations of Q and Thomas.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

Hooker, Morna D. The Gospel According to Saint Mark. Black's

New Testament Commentary. Hendrickson Publishers, 2009.

Horsley, Richard A. Archeology, History, and Society in Galilee:

The Social Context ofJesus and the Rabbis. Harrisburg: Trinity
Press International, 1996.

__ . Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance

in Roman Palestine. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.

Horsley, Richard A., with J. S. Hanson. Bandits, Prophets, and

Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time ofJesus. New York:
Seabury Press, 1985.

Huggins, R. V. "Matthean Posteriority: A Preliminary

Proposal." NovT34(1992):l-22.

Hurtado, Larry W. The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts

and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.

Kealy, Sean P. A History of the Interpretation of the Gospel of

Mark. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
264 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Kee, Howard Clark The Beginnings of Christianity. Context and

Controversy. T &T Clark, 200 5.

Kelber, Werner H. Mark's Story ofJesus. Philadelphia: Fortress

Press, 1979.

__ . The Oral and the Written Gospel· The Hermeneutics of

Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul,
and Q. Indiana UP, 1997.

-- . The Passion in Mark. Studies on Mark 14-16.

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 197 6.

Kenyon, Frederic G. Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and

Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.

Kermode, Frank. The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of

Narrative. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2006.

Kim, Seyoon. Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman
Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2008.

Kirkpatrick, Patricia, and Timothy Goltz, eds. The Function of

Ancient Historiography in Biblical and Cognate Studies. T &T
Clark, 2008.

Kloppenborg Verbin, John. Excavating Q: The History and

Setting of the Sayings Gospel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2000.

Koester, Helmut. Paul and His World· Interpreting the New

Testament in its Context. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.

Koontz, Dean. A Big Little Life: A Memoir ofa Joyful Dog. New
York: Hyperion, 2009.
Bibliography 265

Kugel, James. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then

and Now. New York: Free Press, 2007.

Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1962.

Leidner, Harold. The Fabrication of the Christ Myth. Tampa:

Survey Books, 1999.

Levine, Amy-Jill, Dale C. Allison, and John Dominic Crossan,

eds. The Historical Jesus in Context. Princeton: Princeton UP,
2006.

Lewis, David H. "Escaping the Gravitational Pull of the

Gospels." Quadrant May, 2005:54-57.

Lindemann, Andreas. "Paulus im altesten Christentum: Das

Bild des Apostels und die Rezeption der paulinischen
Theologie in der friih-christlichen Literatur bis Marcion."
BHT 58(1979): 151-4.

Loisy, A. L 'Euangile selon Marc. Paris, 1912.

Lovering, Eugene H., Jr., and Jerry L. Sumney, eds. Theology and
Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters. Essays in Honor of Victor
Paul Furnish. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Maccoby, Hyam. The Mythmaker. Paul and the Invention of

Christianity. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1986.

MacDonald, Dennis R. "A Categorization of Antetextualiry in

the Gospels and Acts: A Case for Luke's Imitation of Plato
and Xenophon to depict Paul as a Christian Socrates." In
Brodie, MacDonald, and Porter, The Intertextuality of the
Epistles, 211-25.
266 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

-- . Does the New Testament Imitate Homer. Four Cases From

the Acts of the Apostles. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2003.

*__ . The Homeric Epics and the Gospel ofMark.New Haven,

Conn.: Yale UP, 2000. Presents evidence that some of the
stories in Mark were composed by imitating stories in the
Homeric epics.

* __ . "My Turn. A Critique of Critics of 'Mimesis Criticism'"

2006. Online at http://iac.cgu.edu/drm/My_Turn.pdf. A
response to critics of MaDonald' s book The Homeric Epics and
the Gospel ofMark. Like Goulder' s Memoir, an important text
for understanding the state of biblical scholarship.

__ . "Secrecy and Recognitions in the Odyssey and Mark:

Where Wrede Went Wrong." In Hock, Ronald F., et al., eds,
Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, 139-153.

MacDonald, Dennis R., ed. Mimesis and Intertextuality in

Antiquity and Christianity. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press
International, 2001.

Mack, Burton L. The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy.

Continuum, 2003.

__ . The Lost Gospel. The Book of Q and Christian Origins. San

Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993.

__ . A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins.

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1991.

Malbon, Elizabeth Struthers. "Narrative Criticism. How Does

the Story Mean?" In Anderson, Janice Capel, and Stephen D.
Moore, Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies,
29-57.
Bibliography 267

Malet, Andre. The Thought of Rudolf Bultmann. Trans. Richard

Strachan. Preface by Rudolf Bultmann. Shannon: Irish
University Press, 1969.

Malina, Bruce J. Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology:

Practical Models for Biblical Interpretation. Atlanta: John Knox
Press, 1986.

__ . "Jesus People: Scholars Search for the Early Church."

ChrCent 120: 15:28.

__ . Windows on the World ofJesus: Time Travel to Ancient

Judea. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993.

Malina, Bruce, and John J. Pilch. Social-Science Commentary on

the Letters ofPaul. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.

*Marcus, Joel. "Mark, Interpreter of Paul." NTS

46(2000):4:473-487. Ways in which Mark can be seen as
Pauline. Not entirely superseded by the later commentary.

"Marcus, Joel. Mark 1-8. The Anchor Bible. New Haven: Yale
UP, 2002. For a verse-by-verse commentary of Mark, this one
and the second volume by the same author, Mark 8-16, is a
good place to start.

"Marcus, Joel. Mark 8-16. The Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven:
Yale UP, 2009.

Marguerat, Daniel, and Adrian Curtis. Intertextualites: La Bible

en ecbos. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2000.

Marxsen, Willi. Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction-

History of the Gospel. Trans. James Boyce et al. New York:
Abingdon, 1968.
268 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Mason, Steve. Josephus and the New Testament. Peabody:

Hendrickson Publishers, 1992.

__ . Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and

Categories. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009.

Mattill, A. J. The Jesus-Paul Parallels and the Purpose ofLuke-Acts:

H H Evans Reconsidered. NovT, 1975.

__ . "The Purpose of Acts: Schneckenburger Reconsidered."

In Gasque, Ward, and Martin, Apostolic History and the Gospel,
108-122.

McDonald, Lee M. The Formation of the Christian Biblical

Canon. Foreword by Helmut Koester. Peabody: Hendrickson
Publishers, 19 9 5.

McDonald, Lee Martin, and James A. Sanders, eds. The Canon

Debate. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002.

McNicol, Allan J., ed. Beyond the Q Impasse: Luke's Use of

Matthew: A Demonstration by the Research Team of the
International Institute for Gospel Studies. With David L.
Dungan and David B. Peabody. Valley Forge: Trinity Press
International, 1996.

Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus.

Anchor Bible Reference Library. New York: Doubleday,
1991, 1994, 2001.

Meijboom, Hajo U den. A History and Critique of the Origin of

the Marean Hypothesis, 1835-1866. A contemporary Report
Rediscovered, a Translation with Introduction and Notes. John J.
Kiewiet, trans. and ed. Mercer UP, 1993.
Bibliography 269

Mettinger, T. The Riddle of the Resurrection: "Dying and Rising"

Gods in the Ancient Near East. Coniectanea Biblica 5 9.
Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2000.

Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament. Its Origin,

Development, and Significance. New York: Clarendon, 1987.

Miller, John W. How the Bible Came to Be. New York: Paulist
Press, 2004.

__ . The Origins of the Bible. New York: Paulist Press, 1994.

Mitchell, M. M. "Homer in the New Testament?" JR

83(2003):2:244.

Monteflore, C. G. The Synoptic Gospels Edited With an

Introduction and a Commentary. London: MacMillan, 1927.

Moreland, Milton C., managing ed. The Critical Edition of Q:

Synopsis Including the Gospels ofMatthew and Luke, Mark and
Thomas with English, German, and French Translations of Q
and Thomas. Ed. James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann, and
John S. Kloppenborg. Leuven: Peeters, 2000.

Morgan, Robert. "Can the Critical Study of Scripture Provide a

Doctrinal Norm?" JR 76(1996):2:206-232.

*Moyise, Steve. "Intertextuality and Biblical Studies: A Review."

Verbum et Ecclesia 23:2:418-31. This and the following two
articles by Moyise provide an excellent introduction to the
history of the study of intertextuality and its application to
biblical studies.
270 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

*__ . "Intertextuality and Historical Approaches to the use of

Scripture." In Hays, Alkier, Huizenga, Reading the Bible
lntertextually, 23-32.

* __ . "Intertextuality, Historical Criticism, and

Deconstruction." In Brodie, MacDonald, and Porter, The
Intertextuality ofthe Epistles, 24-34.

Moyise, Steve, ed. The Old Testament in the New Testament:

Essays in Honour ofJ L. North. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 2000.

Murphy-O'Connor, Jerome. Jesus and Paul· Parallel Lives.

Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press> 2007.

__ . Paul A Critical Life. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.

__ .Paul. His Story. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.

Neirynck, Frans. Duality in Mark. Contributions to the Study of

the Markan Redaction. Revised Edition with Supplementary
Notes. Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium,
31. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988.

Neufeld, Dietrnar, and Richard E. DeMaris, eds. Understanding

the Social World of the New Testament. New York: Abingdon,
2010.

Nineham, Dennis E., ed. Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory

ofR H Lightfoot. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955.

Noll, K. L. «The Evolution of Genre in the Book of Kings: The

Story of Sennacherib and Hezekiah as Example." In
Kirkpatrick and Goltz, The Function ofAncient Historiography
in Biblical and Cognate Studies, 30-56.
Bibliography 271

Oden, Thomas C. and Christopher A. Hall. Mark. Ancient

Christian Commentary on Scripture 2. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1998.

"Orton, David E., comp. The Synoptic Problem and Q· Selected

Studies from Novum Testamentum. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999.
Several of the articles in this collection provide incisive
critiques of the Q hypothesis.

Outler, Albert C. "The Gospel According to St. Mark." PST]

33(1980):3-90.

Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline

Letters. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975.

Painter, John. Marks Gospel: Worlds in Conflict. London:

Routledge, 1997.

*Parker, D. C. An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts

and their Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. Aimed at
scholars or university students rather than the general non-
specialist reader, but should be one of the first books to read
for anyone getting started in New Testament studies.

Parris, David P. "Imitating the Parables: Allegory, Narrative and

the Role of Mimesis." ]SNT25(2002):1:33-53.

Patterson, Dilys Naomi. "Re-rnembering the Past: The Purpose

of Historical Discourse in the Book of Judith." In Kirkpatrick
and Goltz, The Function of Ancient Historiography in Biblical
and Cognate Studies, 111-123.

Patterson, Stephen J. "Paul and the Jesus Tradition: It's Time

for Another Look." HTR 84(1991): 1 :23-41.
272 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Paulien, Jon. "Elusive Allusions in the Apocalypse: Two

Decades of Research into John's Use of the Old Testament."
In Brodie, MacDonald, and Porter, The Intertextuality of the
Epistles, 61-68.

Perrin, Norman. Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom: Symbol

and Metaphor in New Testament Interpretation. Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 197 6.

Peterson, Norman. "Can One Speak of a Gospel Genre?"

Neotestamentica 28:3:137-158.

Petrie, Stewart. '"Q' is Only What You Make It." Orton, The
Synoptic Problem and Q, 1-6.

Porter, Stanley E. "Further Comments on the Use of the Old

Testament in the New Testament." In Brodie, MacDonald,
and Porter, The lntertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of
Theory and Practice, 98-110.

__ . The Pauline Canon. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004.

Powell, Evan. The Myth of the Lost Gospel. Las Vegas:

Symposium Press, 2006.

*Powell, Mark Allan. "Authorial Intent and Historical

Reporting: Putting Spong' s Literalization Thesis to the Test."
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus l ,2(2003):225-249.
Although in my conclusion I question one aspect of Powell's
argument, for the most part this is one of the most insightful
articles available on the issue of historicity in the gospels.

__ . What is Narrative Criticism? A New Approach to the

Bible. London: SPCK, 1993.
Bibliography 273

Price, Robert M. Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable

Is the Gospel Tradition? Prometheus Books, 2003.

Quesnell, Quentin. Mind ofMark. Loyola Press, 1969.

Raisanen, Heikki. Jesus, Paul, and Torah: Collected Essays.

JSNTSup 43; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992.

Rau, G. Das Markusevangelium: Komposition und Intention der

ersten Darstellung christlicher Mission. ANRW, 1985.

Reicke, Bo. The New Testament Era; The World of the Bible from
500 B. C to A.D. 100. Trans. David Green. Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1968.

__ . Re-examining Paul's Letters: The History of the Pauline

Correspondence. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001.

Reventlow, Henning Graf, and William Farmer. Biblical Studies

and the Shifting of Paradigms, 1850-1914. Sheffield Academic
Press, 1995.

__ . History of Biblical Interpretation. Leiden: E. J. Brill,

2010.

Reynier, Chantal. Saint Paul sur les routes du monde romain:

Infrastructures, logistique, itineraires. Paris: Cerf, 2009.

Rhoads, David M., Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie. Mark as

Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel. Second
Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.

Robbins, Vernon K. Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical

Interpretation of Mark. Revised edition. Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1992.
274 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Robinson, James M. Jesus: According to the Earliest Witness.

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.

Robinson, J ., P. Hoffmann, and J. Koppenborg. Documenta Q:

Reconstructions of Q Through Two Centuries of Gospel Research:
Excerpted, Sorted, and Evaluated. Leuven: Peeters, 1996.

Rolland, Philippe. "Marc, lecteur de Pierre et de Paul." In Van

Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels 1992, 775-78.

Rollston, Christopher A., ed. The Gospels According to Michael

Goulder: A North American Response. Trinity Press
International, 2002.
,.
Romaniuk, K. "Le Probleme des Paulinismes dans l'Evangile de
Marc." NTS 23(1977):266-274.

Rosenblatt, J. P., and J. C. Sitterson, eds. ''Not in Heaven:"

Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1991.

Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., trans. Rabbinic Stories. Preface by Shaye

D. Cohen. New York: Paulist Press, 2002.

Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press,

1985.

Sanders, E. P., and Margaret Davies. Studying the Synoptic

Gospels. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989.

Sandnes, Karl Olav. "Irnitatio Homeri? An Appraisal of Dennis

R. MacDonald's 'Mimesis Criticism."' ]BL 124:4:715-32.

Schenk, Wolfgang "Sekundare Jesuanisierungen von primaren

Paulus-Aussagen bei Markus." In Van Segbroeck et al., The
Four Gospels 1932, 877-904.
Bibliography 275

Schildgen, Brenda Deen. Power and Prejudice: The Reception of

the Gospel ofMark. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1999.

Schmithals, W. "Kritik der Formkritik." ZTK77(1980):149-85.

Schnelle, Udo. Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology. Trans.

Eugene Boring. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2005.

Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York:

MacMillan, 1910.

Sim, David C. "Matthew and the Pauline Corpus: A Preliminary

Intertextual Study." JSNT31(2009):4:401-422.

Smith, Stephen H. A Lion with Wings: A Narrative-Critical

Approach to Marks Gospel. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1996.

Stanton, Graham. Jesus and Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

2004.

Stegeman, Wolfgang, Bruce J.Malina, and Gerd Theissen. The

Social Setting ofJesus and the Gospels. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2002.

Stegemann, Ekkehard, and Wolfgang Stegemann. The Jesus

Movement: A Social History of Its First Century. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1995.

Stern, David. Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in

Rabbinic Literature. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991.

*Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological

Literature and the Drama of Reading. Bloomington: Indiana
UP, 1987. An interesting discussion of whether the word
"fiction" can be applied to scriptural historiography.
276 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

Still, Todd D., ed. Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways
into an Old Debate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.

Stowers, Stanley. Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity.

Library of Early Christianity. Westminster Press, 1986.

*Svartvik, Jesper. Mark and Mission: Mk 7:1-23 in its Narrative

and Historical Contexts. Coniectanea Biblica New Testament
Series, 32. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2000. Presents
evidence for seeing Mark as a narrative presentation of the
Pauline gospel.

Talbert, Charles H. Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the

Genre ofLuke-Acts. Society of Biblical Literature, 1975.

Talbert, Charles H., ed. Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the

Society of Biblical Literature Seminar. New York: Crossroad,
1984.

*Tarazi, Paul Nadim. The New Testament: an Introduction. Vol.

1. Paul and Mark. Crestwood: SVS Press, 1999. Presents
Mark as a reworking of traditions from the Pauline epistles .

-- . The New Testament: An Introduction. Vol. 2. Luke and

Acts. Crestwood: SVS Press, 2001.

__ . The New Testament: An Introduction. Vol 3. ]ohannine

Writings. Crestwood: SVS Press, 2004.

__ . The New Testament: An Introduction. Vol 4. Matthew

and the Canon. St. Paul: OCABS Press, 2009.

__ . Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary. The

Chrysostom Bible. St. Paul: OCABS Press, 2010.
Bibliography 277

* __. Galatians. A Commentary. Crestwood: SVS Press, 1994.

Provides background for understanding the Pauline themes in
Mark; see also Romans by the same author.

__ . Romans: A Commentary. The Chrysostom Bible. St. Paul:

OCABS Press, 2010.

Taylor, Vincent. The Gospel According to St. Mark. Reprint of

1966 edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981.

Telford, William R. The Theology of the Gospel of Mark.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.

Theissen, Gerd. The Gospels in Context: Social and Political

History in the Synoptic Tradition. Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1992.

Thoma, Clemens, and Michael Wyschogrod. Parable and Story

in Judaism and Christianity. New York: Paulist Press, 1989.

*Thompson, Michael B. "The Holy Internet: Communication

Between Churches in the First Christian Generation." In
Bauckham, The Gospels for all Christians, 49-70. Presents
evidence that helps make the case for rejecting the view that
the evangelists might have been unaware of the Pauline
epistles.

Thompson, Thomas L. The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern

Roots ofJesus and David. New York: Basic Book, 2005.

"Tolbert, Mary Ann. Sowing the Gospel: Marks Work in Literary-

Historical Perspective. Augsburg Fortress, 1989. One of the
most insightful works on Mark that has been produced by
modern scholarship.
278 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

*Trobisch, David. The First Edition of the New Testament. New

York: Oxford UP, 2000. Most scholars believe that many
New Testament books were produced by independent
Christian groups and were gathered into a single collection
haphazardly over centuries. Trobisch presents evidence that a
single publisher deliberately assembled and edited the New
Testament books and published them as a cohesive literary
whole. This is one of the foundational books that anyone who
wants to understand the New Testament should read, along
with Trobisch' s Paul's Letter Collection.

*__ . Pauls Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins.

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994. Presents evidence that
Paul's epistles are carefully crafted, edited, and published
literary creations rather than occasional letters spontaneously
written, collected, and preserved.

Trocme, E. The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark.

Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963.

Tull, Patricia. "Intertextuality and the Hebrew Scriptures."

CurBS 8(2000):59-91.

Twain, Mark. The Complete Essays of Mark Twain. Ed. Charles

Neider. Da Capo Press, 1991.

Tyson, J. B. "The Blindness of the Disciples in Mark." ]BL

80(1983):261-268.

Van Iersel, Bas M. F. "Kai ethelen parelthein autous. Another

Look at Mk 6:48d." In Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels
1992, 1065-76.

__ . Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary. JSNTSup 164.

Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.
Bibliography 279

Van Oyen, G. "Intercalation and Irony in the Gospel of Mark."

In Van Segbroeck et al., The Four Gospels 1992, 949-974.

Van Segbroeck, Frans, et al., eds. The Four Gospels 1992:

Festschrift Frans Neirynck. BETL 100. Leuven: Leuven
University Press, 1992.

Van Seters, John. In Search of History: Historiography in the

Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History. New Haven:
Yale UP, 1983.

__ . "The Pentateuch as Torah and History: In Defense of G.

Von Rad." In Blum et al., Das Alte Testament: Ein
Geschictsbuch, 47-64.

* __ . "Uses of the Past: The Story of David as a Test Case."

In Kirkpatrick and Goltz, The Function of Ancient
Historiography in Biblical and Cognate Studies, 18-29. On the
Court History of David as composed in the Persian period. See
also the earlier book In Search ofHistory.

"Vines, Michael E. The Problem of Markan Genre: the Gospel of

Mark and the Jewish Novel. Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature, 2002. Although I am not convinced by the book's
conclusion about Mark's genre, it is an excellent introduction
to the subject.

Volkmar, Gustav. Die Evangelien oder Marcus und die Synopsis

der kanonischen und ausserkanonischen Evangelien nach dem
altesten Text mit historiscb-exegetischem Commentar. Leipzig:
Fues' s, 1870.

__ . Marcus und die Synopse der Evangelien nach dem

urkundlichen Text und das Gescbichtliche vom Leben ]esu.
Zurich: Schmidt, 1876. Available online
280 MARK, CANONIZER OF PAUL

*__ . Die Religion Jesu. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1857. The

earliest scholarly text that interprets Mark as a narrative
representation of the Pauline gospel. The theme is developed
further in the author's later books.

Vorster, William. "Intertextuality and Redaktionsgeschichte." In,

Sipke, Intertextuality in Biblical writings, 15-26.

Walter, Nikolaus. "Paul and the Early Christian Jesus-

Tradition." In Wedderburn, Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays,
51-80.

Wedderburn, Alexander J. M. "Paul and Jesus: The Problem of

Continuity." In Wedderburn, Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays,
99-115.

__ . "Paul and the Story of Jesus." In Wedderburn, Paul and

Jesus: Collected Essays, 161-190.

Wedderburn, A. ]. M., ed. Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays.

Sheffield: ]SOT Press, 1989.

Weeden, Theodore J. Mark: Traditions in Conflict. Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1971.

Werner, Martin. Der Einfluss paulinischer Theologie im

Markusevangelium; eine Studie zur neutestamentlichen Theologie.
Giessen: Topelmann, 1923.

Wildemann, B. Das Evangelium als Lehrpoesie. Leben und Werk

Gustav Volkmars. Kontexte, 1. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1983.

Wilder, Terry L. Pseudonymity, the New Testament, and

Deception: An Inquiry into Intention and Reception. University
Press of America, 2004.
Bibliography 281

Willits, Joel. "Presuppositions and Procedures in the Study of

the 'Historical Jesus'. Or, Why I Decided Not to Be a
'Historical Jesus' Scholar." Journalfor the Study of the Historical
Jesus 3(2005): 1:61-108.

Wills, Garry. What Paul Meant. New York: Viking, 2006.

Wills, Lawrence Mitchell. The Quest of the Historical Gospel:

Mark, John, and the Origins of the Gospel Genre. New York:
Routledge, 1997.

Winn, Adam. Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Considering

the Practice of Greco-Roman Imitation in the Search for Markan
Source Material. Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2010.

Winter, Paul. On the Trial of Jesus. 2nd ed. Berlin: Studia

Judaica, Band I, 1974.

Witherington, Ben, III. The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical

Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

__ . The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of

Nazareth. Downers Grove: Inter'Varsity Press, 1995.

Wrede, William. The Messianic Secret. Greenwood: Attic Press,

1971.

Zetterholm, Magnus. Approaches to Paul: A Student's Guide to

Recent Scholarship. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009.