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(This page updated November 12, 2018)
PDF Version for easier reading I also suggest adding Chrome extension Clear Read https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clear-read/kpipjgdapccmpkgipfikeajoopjbcgam?hl=en-GB
In a previous work, Mark: Servant of God, I looked at Mark in the context of its Jewish background. In the current study, I want to look at Mark more extensively in relation to its history, scholarship, and literary components. In posting this, I am well aware that no work on Mark can ever really be said to be complete, and my intent will be to continue work on these pages as I have time.
Since an interpretive approach always reveals itself, this study should be guided by some preliminary remarks. Much of what follows anchors itself in a historical approach, meaning simply that what is historical has a beginning and end within eternity. No historical person can step outside the existing historical box to make definitive statements about Truth, the Absolute, God; history works within its own boundaries using the tools of reason and logic, observation and science. The Bible comes to human beings within their historical setting, and in that context, like any other book, it must be read and interpreted, hopefully with every tool that can be brought to careful study; this, however, does not reduce the Bible to being "just a book or books." Rather, within history the Incarnate Word reveals everything and all that the finite mind can understand, and unaided by faith, interpretation of God's Word encounters severe boundaries in its understanding of God and the eternal. What God reveals of eternity and the wonder and awe of what lies beyond the grasp of human cognition will always require humble submission of that which is natural to the presence of the Supernatural. The limits of reason and science force the inevitable conclusion that existence itself points to and suggests a dependence upon what is outside itself. Beyond simple knowledge, the Bible always invites individuals into relationship and not relationship with the Transcendent but into the person of God. The writer of Mark asks the quintessential question about the Jesus of history: "But who do you say I am?" History presents the man while faith humbly and gratefully responds, "You are the Christ."
Much of what has been written here can be considered an investigation. As with any investigation, conclusions derive from a sifting of information. While conclusions will remain to be drawn only after investigation has ended, I am ready at this point to begin with some conclusions I have reached in other papers:
"Son of Man: the Story of Jesus in Mark" states the Gospel of Mark has gained unprecedented and growing importance for both theology and literature. Acknowledged as one of the great pieces of world literature, Mark has come across time and space to give us Jesus the man in a connected, if periscopic, narrative, however brief, stark, and oracular, absent of birth stories and resurrection. This image has vividly affected modern culture, and it is the image of “the Son of Man” that becomes the focus of this paper. Scholarship, granting the possibility that Jesus may not have said the words attributed to him, seems to have settled on three possible interpretations of “Son of Man”: a present, earthly Son of Man, a suffering Son of Man, and a future coming Son of Man. At the heart of most of the ambiguity and controversy lies a question of authority: whether Jesus got his power from heaven or from earthly origins. Jesus refused to answer this question: “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” Instead, Jesus then, as now, asks another question about identity: “But who do you say that I am? This paper concludes the following: Readers today will encounter Mark the storyteller as he tells the story of Jesus, a man who came into history, lived in history, and died as a man in history; they will encounter a metaphorical narrative in which ultimately the quest for factuality vanishes. They will hear again the familiar words, “Who do you say I am?” and hear Jesus’ own words, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
"The Messiah Has Done It: A Structural Approach to Jesus’ Identity in Mark" identifies an overall structure in Mark that climatically satisfies the question of who Jesus says he is.” The paper focuses on Mark 14:61-62 as the climactic and pivotal point of the Gospel: “Jesus’ actions in leaving the temple, speaking of its destruction and a coming future, lead directly into the actual climatic chapter 14, where Jesus, before the council, is asked by the high priest whether He is ‘the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One’ (61). Jesus not only accepts the title but speaks to its fulfillment in a future when people ‘will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’” (62). "The Longer Ending of Mark" takes up another question—whether Mark’s account ends with verse 8 or includes the last twelve verses. The longer ending, readers will recall, contains the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalen early on the first day of the week, who relates this to those who have been with Jesus only to have them not believe he is alive (9-11); included, also, is an appearance to two disciples, who went back and told the rest, only to be met with disbelief on their part (12); Jesus commissions the disciples (14-18); and finally, the account ends with the ascension of Jesus. If, in fact, Mark can be understood structurally as building to the point of Jesus’ own identity of himself as Messiah, with this question satisfied, why should Mark continue on past Jesus’s final Messianic cry from the cross:’Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (15:34). Crain declares: “The final chapter serves as Mark’s dénouement; readers find themselves left to contemplate all that has
(This page updated November 12, 2018)