Subject: Mark: Two narrative composition? |
Bible Note: Angel In response to your inquiry to my initial thread I am sending this one response written in two parts. Like most, I hold to the primacy of the Gospel of Mark. Matthew and Luke used Mark, along with other source documents, to compose their narratives. However, the gospel of Mark as we now have it are not single creations out of a whole cloth anymore than Matthew or Luke are. Like Matthew and Luke, Mark consists of collections of material. The final selection and arrangement of which we owe to the composers themselves. Mark is here the primary influence; and Matthew and Luke both follow him and use his material. The material now presented in the Gospels have a previous history of use in the Church, largely a history of oral transmission. It circulated in the Church in the form of individual units or small collections of related material and in this form it served definite functions in the life of worship in the church, in preaching and apologetic, in exhortation and instruction. The smallest units of tradition, the individual story, saying, dialogue, et cetera, have definite forms which can be defined and studied. Each of these forms served a definite function in a concrete situation in the life of the early church. The main purpose for the creation, the circulation, and the use of these forms was not to preserve the history of Jesus, but to strengthen the life of the Church. Thus these forms reflect the concern of the church, and both the form and the content have been influenced by the faith and theology of the church, as well as by the church's situation and practice. The Gospel of Mark is a composition of two source communities. 1. The Jesus people of the Jesus movement (as in 4.35-8.26) 2. The Christ people of the Christ cult (as in 11.1--16.8) As my outline will show, Mark is a combination of two narratives - one being the narrative of the Jesus people, the other being the Christ-community. Between the two narratives, there is a weaving together of the two narratives in a transition section (Mark 8.31-10.52). I will now outline the narrative(s) of the first community – the Jesus people, and then move on to the transition section. THE JESUS PEOPLE NARRATIVE Whereas the Christ cult emphasized a narrative story of a dying martyr, the Jesus people emphasized a retelling of their story with miracle stories that retold the Israelite epic to include people like themselves. Mark includes two sets of their five miracle stories in the first half of his narrative. Each cycle probably stood on its own before his composition. Notice the pattern: first a sea crossing miracle, then a combination of one exorcism and two healings, ending with an account of a feeding of a multitude: FIRST CYCLE Stilling the Storm (Mark 4.25-41) The Gerasense Demoniac (5.1-20) Jairus' Daughter (5.21-23, 35-43) The woman with a hemmorage (5.25-34) Feeding the 5000 (6.34-44, 53) SECOND CYCLE Walking on the sea (6.45-51) The Blind Man at Bethsaida (8.22-26) The Syrophonecian woman’s daughter (7.24-30) The deaf mute (7.32-37) Feeding the 4000 (8.1-10) Each story begins with a water crossing and a feeding of the multitude, evoking the Israelite epic of Moses and the people. Each story has at its center the miracle worker, evoking the miracle working power of Elijah. In this way, the story of Jesus is told in such a way as to include those who were excluded from the Israelite Epic because of their ritual purity. Jesus is redefining holiness in terms of mercy, love, and compassion (Moses prophesied, “Be ye holy, even as I am holy” Jesus proclaimed “Be ye merciful, even as your father is merciful “ - Luke 3.36). Continued next... |