15

THE GOSPEL OF MARK:

EVOLUTIONARY OR REVOLUTIONARY DOCUMENT?

L.W. Hurtado

Dept of Religion, University of Manitoba

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2

Introduction
The commonly accepted view that the Gospel of Mark was the
first attempt to produce a written narrative portrait of Jesus’
ministry, and that it was the major narrative source used by
the writers of Matthew and Luke obviously makes Mark a
historically significant document that had immediate and far-
reaching acceptance and influence. Mark’s distinction as the
apparently pioneering Gospel makes important the question of
the relationship of this document to the rest of first-century
Christian.ity.
My purpose in this paper is to evaluate a couple of recent
attempts to portray Mark as radically disjunctive in its first-
century context. In brief, both works to be discussed offer a
view of Mark as a revolutionary text, although they differ
considerably from each other in what it is about Mark that
was revolutionary. I refer to Werner Kelber’s The Oral and
the Written Gospel,’ and Burton Mack’s A Myth of Inno-
cence.2 Because each of the authors rests his case for Mark on
a larger conceptual framework, and not primarily on an exe-

gesis of Mark, it will be necessary to interact with these wider

issues. I shall argue that neither of these major attempts to
portray Mark as a revolutionary text is successful and that an
evolutionary model, which allows for ample continuity and
significant developments, best serves us in grasping the rela-
tionship of’Mark to its early Christian setting.

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16

Mark, the Creator of ’Textuality’

Although Kelber’s programmatic study, The Oral and the
Written Gospel, has already received some criticism, his por-
trayal of Mark as the revolutionary emergence of ’textuality’3
in the Jesus tradition has received acceptance among others.3
The problems in Kelber’s case, however, are so major that his
proposal must be judged to be a failure.
His rather over-strict distinction between ’orality’ and
‘textualit~, the conceptual basis of his case, is perhaps the first
major problem that can be addressed from several points.’
Kelber uses this distinction to argue that Mark constituted a
veritable and probably deliberate revolution in the Jesus tradi-
tion, which had previously been transmitted in an oral mode
with very different features. In defining the distinctive nature
of oral tradition, he invokes the research by students of oral
poetry such as A.B. Lord, but has failed to take seriously Lord’s
emphasis that his characterization of oral poetry applied only
to societies that were pre-literacte. Lord makes it clear that
once literacy appears in a society things change considerably.

Thus, Lord’s characterization applies to situations of what we

may call ’pure orality’.5 And, in spite of Kelber’s attempt to
minimize the extent of literacy in the Greco-Roman world, it
is evident that in Gentile and Jewish circles the preparation
and reading of texts was a pervasive part of the culture.’ We
are still developing the means of defining and measuring

literacy in contemporary societies such as North America,

and any precise claims about literacy rates in ancient societies
amount to little more than guess-work. But it is clear that a
great deal of ’textuality’ characterized the Greco-Roman
world, both among the highly educated elite and among many
from more humble circles. The thousands of surviving,Greek
letters from antiquity alone, which come from a broad range
of cultural levels, testify to a widely distributed, though
variegated, literacy competence:77
It is not necessary for everyone, or even a majority of people,
in a group to have sophisticated literacy competence for the

group to be heavily influenced by ’textuality’. Kelber fails to

recognize that even if only some of the leaders, the opinion
formers, the activists, have some literacy competence, the

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 17

group will be exposed to, and be influenced (perhaps. domi-

nated) by, texts and ’textuality’. Certainly, all evidence indi-
cates that early Christianity was from the first a fervently
writing and reading movement, and comparisons drawn with
illiterate circles of oral poets do not seem particularly valid.
Kelber’s attempt to make earliest Christianity a rural phe-
nomenon and his characterization of rural areas as essentially
uninfluenced by ’textuality’ are unpersuasive.1
Furthermore, as others have already indicated, Kelber has
not adequately allowed for the interplay and influence of
orality and textuality in the Greco-Roman era.9 Although he
grants this interplay in general statements, in practice he
writes as if Greco-Roman-era appreciation for oral communi-
cation means a lack of influence of textuality. Students of
Greco-Roman literature regularly point out that many of the
techniques and characteristics which originated’ with oral
communication and were meticulously analyzed and catego-
rized in the ancient study of rhetoric, influenced the nature of
texts as well.10 In addition, most texts of Greco-Roman antiq-
uity were prepared to be ’performed’ before a group, read
aloud, with all the techniques of oral communication available
to the reader So, in the Greco-Roman world, we have a rich
mixture of oral and written communication, with each mode
of communication affecting the other, and the sharp distinc-
tions Kelber tries to make between oral and written compo-
sitions seem extreme and inappropriate. The Greco-Roman
world prized effective oral communication, to be sure, but
Greco-Roman orality existed side by side with, influenced and
was influenced by, widespread literacy. And the influence of

textuality is revealed in various forms (high. literature, pop-

ular literature, letters, commercial documents, inscriptions,
etc.) in all levels of the society.l2 The. ’orality’ of the Greco-
Roman world was not that of a pre-literate or newly literate
culture, but was the orality characteristic of cultures with
heavy influence of textuality. Therefore, Kelber’s characteri-
zation of Greco-Roman orality is inappropriately based.
Moreover, Kelber’s characterization of texts as fixed and
frozen is too simplistic and anachronistic. Kelber has failed to
recognize that there was no such thing as a fixed, frozen text
prior to Gutenberg.l3 So long as a text had to be copied one

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18

character at a time. by a. human..hand, there was always the

opportunity to introduce all sorts of changes, accidentally and
deliberately-deletions, additions, rearrangements, and
rewordings in the interests of style and preferred meaning.
Ancient writers were certainly aware of this, as is indicated
for example by the stern warning in Rev. 22.18-19. Greater
familiarity with the textual tradition of the NT might have
spared Kelber from assuming that the fixed nature of modern
printed texts can be attributed to ancient manuscript textual-
ity.14 As far as his understanding of ancient textuality is con-
cerned, he seems to commit the kind of anachronism he char-
acterizes in others as marching along ’the Gutenberg
galaxy’. 15
But even without an acquaintance with the NT manuscript
tradition (terra incognita to far too many NT scholars today),
the major modifications of their Markan .source by the writers
of Matthew and Luke demonstrate that the contents of
ancient texts were by no means automatically sacrosanct and
fixed. The adaptive renditions of Markan material in
Matthew and Luke are major evidence that Mark did not
’freeze’ the Jesus tradition but that it remained fluid and
adaptive in its written mode as well as in oral form.
As for Kelber’s breach between .Mark and the pre-Markan
tradition, this seems far too overdrawn.16 We do not know
what exact sort of oral narratives of Jesus’ ministry circulated
in the pre-Markan decades, but there is good evidence that
there. were such narratives. For example, R.B. Hays has
shown that Paul’s argument in Galatians 3 presupposes a
familiarity with a story of Jesus, that the Pauline kerygma
included ’a basic narrative pattern similar to that which
informs the canonical gospels’, and that ‘Paul’s letters mark a
point within a historical development towdrds the formulation
of &dquo;gospels&dquo;, i.e.,, explicit literary :articulations of the Jesus-
story’ .17
From another quarter, Kloppenborg has criticized Kelber’s
assumption that Mark can be distinguished from Q, portrayed
by Kelber as ’an oral genre’ with contemporizing interests
rather than Mark’s historicizing tendency. Kloppenborg
insists that Q was, like Mark, a literary work, and that Kelber
has mistakenly read his distinctions between Markan

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 19

’textuality’ and Q ’orality’ into the evidence. Indeed, Klop-

penborg finds in Q historicizing and bios-oriented features,
concluding that the movement from Q to the Synoptic Gospels
was a development of ’inner dynamisms’ within Q and char-
acteristic. of the ancient instructional genres to which Klop-
penborg likens Q.18
Given the focus of the earliest. Christian tradition on the
figure of Jesus, and given the Greco-Roman interest in bios lit-
erature, it is not at all surprising that Gospels were Written.
Mark is notable as the first, but it is hardly the revolutionary
development Kelber asserts. The Gospels are organically con-
nected to the oral tradition about Jesus and reflect wider tastes
and trends in Greco-Roman cultures
In short, and without going further into other problems. in
Kelber’s views of Mark and other early Christian writers,
Kelber’s case for Mark as a revolutionary development in
early Christianity rests upon an inaccurate description of the
oral and written culture of the Greco-Roman era and upon an
inaccurate grasp of the nature of the pre-Markan Jesus tra-
dition. He is right to underscore the importance of Mark and
to focus attention on the question of why the text was written,
but his own answer to this question must be rejected and his
case for a revolutionary Mark must be judged to have failed.
As I will indicate briefly .in the final section of this paper, the
evidence suggests that Mark is. much more organically con-
nected with pre-Markan tradition.

Burton Mackf Macrh the Inventor of Mytlt

Even more daring in thesis and more ambitious in scope,
Burton Mack’s 1988 large volume aims to re-orient the entire
investigation of Christian origins. Mack’s book bristles with
controversial assertions and positions, some of them simply
long-outdated, many others inconsistent with the evidence or
resting on unsubstantiated assumptions. It would take -a. much
longer paper than is possible here to detail all the problems in
the book. I shall restrict myself to matters directly relevant to
the central question of whether Mack’s view of the origin of
Mark stands up under critical analysis. :I think it does not, and

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20

I shall provide some reasons for this judgment by way of

examining major components of Mack’s case.
For Mack, the. revolutionary thing about Mark is not its
’textuality’ but its content. In Mack’s view, Mark succeeded in
single-handedly redrawing the nature of Christian faith and
consciousness, influencing all subsequent views of Christian
origins with its mythic picture of Jesus as the eschatological
redeemer figure. Thus, the crucial event for subsequent
Christianity was not Jesus’ ministry and execution, or the
fl£aster’ events and religious activities of the early decades, or
the career of Paul and the success of the Gentile. mission.
Instead, it was the composition of Mark. 20,
In brief, Mack sees Mark as a novel achievement that
combined imaginatively ’two ,distinctively different types of
written material representative of two major types of early
sectarian formation’: one type was ’movements in Palestine
and southern Syria that cultivated the memory of Jesus as a
founder-teacher’, and the other type was ’congregations in
northern Syria, Asia Minor and Greece wherein the death
and resurrection of the Christ were regarded as the founding
events’.21
The first major problem is in Mack’s portrayal of earliest
Christian history, upon which his presentation of Mark rests.
Mack sees the historical Jesus as a teacher of aphorisms,
likening him to a wandering Cynic sage, and rejects the
widely shared view that Jesus’ message involved an eschato-
logical orientation.’ After Jesus, the earliest Christian groups,
’Jesus movements’ located in Palestine, were essentially
’synagogue reform movements’ in which Jesus was seen as
the ideal teacher of a preferred form of Jewish practice.23 The
true nature of Jesus’ ministry and the earliest forms of the
Jesus movements, however, have been lost, and subsequent
Christianity derives from Mark’s adaptation of the kerygma
of the ’Hellenistic Christ cult’, an ’aberration’ which developed
in Antioch at a sufficient distance from ~hasidic’ influences in
Jerusalem.24 The christology of this Christ cult, into which
Paul was converted, developed in two major stages: first a
’martyr myth’ (’the earliest &dquo;christology&dquo;’),25 then a more
developed kerygma of Christ as dying/rising savior-god with
attendant .features of a cultus (‘mythic ritualization of the

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 21

meal’, baptism and its symbolic associations, the notion of

’spiritual presence’, and ’liturgical materials, including
acclamations, doxologies, confessions of faith, .and hymns’). 26
Mark’s distinctive and revolutionary creation was the use of
the kerygma of this ’Christ cult’ as a framework to reinter-
pret ’the ministry of Jesus and present it in narrative form.
In his picture of Jesus the sage, Mack is able to point to a few
others who are attempting to overthrow the notion that Jesus’
ministry should be seen in the context of ancient eschatological
thought.&dquo; But the basis for the. wholly non-eschatological
Jesus offered by Mack does not seem to me sound, leaving far
too much unexplained to be plausible. Mack is simply not able
to explain satisfactorily how a teacher of simple aphorisms
about daily life became the object of a new religious movement
so devoted to him as the center of attention. It is even more
difficult to see how this Cynic-sage Jesus became the focus of
the proliferation of the ’Jesus movements’ Mack portrays..
That there is no fully analogous .development focused on any
other wandering teacher of aphorisms in Greco-Roman
antiquity is surely further reason to treat Mack’s proposal as
dubious
Although Mack describes as new this picture of Jesus as a.
simple teacher of wisdom, it is questionable that the basic
picture is really new. There is -a somewhat quaint lustre,
reminiscent of nineteenth-century views such as Harnack’s.~
Occasionally, older views have been discarded without ade-
quate reason, but there were and there remain good reasons
for finding inadequate and tendentious the picture of Jesus as
the simple teacher of ethics. 30
There is even more of the old-in-new-dress in Mack’s
sketch. Mack reflects the currently fashionable emphasis
upon the ’social settings’ of early Christian groups;31 but, with
allowance for some cosmetic retouching, the basic two-stage
schema of Palestinian Jesus movements and the ’Hellenistic
Christ cult’ appears to be an adaptation from BQusset’s’ Kyrios
Christos, published in 1913 .32 However, instead of an apoca-
lyptic~ Ur-Gerrieinde focused on ’the Son of Man’, Mack offers.
a ’synagogue reform movement’ with a non-eschatological
view of Jesus the sage.

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22

But neither Bousset’s two-stage schema nor .Mack’s takes

adequate account of other evidence. Early Christianity was by
no means uniform, but the roots of the cultic reverence of the
exalted Christ go right back into the earliest observable circles
of Christianity; and the basic conceptual categories of early
christology do not derive from pagan mythology and religios-
ity but are attested in Jewish sources of Palestinian prove-
nance. The ’mutation’ in Jewish monotheistic praxis and

thought represented in early Christianity,. which I have ana-

lyzed elsewhere, cannot be written ofI’ so easily as Mack sup-
poses as an ’aberration’ distinctive of the Antioch church or
other circles of ’Hellenistic Christianity’ under the influence of
pagan religioSity,,;33
Methodologically, it should give us pause that Mack’s
schema of earliest Christian groups rests upon the assump-
tions (never justified but relentlessly employed especially in the
first eight chapters) that the various forms of material in the
Synoptics (e.g. miracle stories, parables, wisdom sayings)
reflect differing circles of the Jesus movement and that these
formal categories correspond directly to the beliefs and social
characteristics of these hypothetical groups. This assumption,
on which some so-called ’sociological’ investigation of the New
Testament is based, is, unfortunately,‘.a major example .of .a
’referential fallacy’ and has already been cogently criticited.1
In a setting of cultural mixture . such as the Greco-Roman
world, it would have been natural for any one religious group
to reflect various rhetorical forms and various emphases.
Mark’s heterogeneous incorporation of Jesus material con-
firms that. various types of collections of Jesus tradition were
common property of many early Christian groups.
In Mack’s case for early ,Jesus movements with a non-
kerygmatic aphoristic message, he invokes some recent
investigations of Q, but here too there are problems, both of a
general methodological nature and in more specific matters.
With great respect for the painstaking studies of the Q mate-
rial of recent years, it is not clear that one can build so elabo-
rate a case as Mack does on this work. 35 The Q source remains
a hypothesis, useful primarily for explaining the curious
’double tradition’ in Matthew and Luke, not the only hypoth-
esis, but the most widely accepted one, which I too find suffi-

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 23

ciently plausible to use for this purpose. But inherently less

plausible is, the hypothesis that Q is the product of a circle of
Christians who held a view of Jesus as merely a teacher, for
this simply assumes without corroboration what in, fact has to
be demonstrated: that a Q document (or earlier sayings collec-
tion) without a passion account was the fully representative
expression of the beliefs and religious pattern of the group(s) in
which this hypothetical document might have been composed
and used. Instead, that Tdatthew’ and ‘Luke’ have apparently
incorporated much or all of the. Q material into texts which
are governed by the kerygma of Jesus’ death and resurrection
makes it evident that Q circulated among groups which
espoused that form of Christian message, and makes it plau-
sible that it was; among such groups that the sayings collec-
tions ’originated. 36
To move fromgeneral methodological qualms to a . more
specific matter, although Mack claims that the most recent
work on Q justifies his notion of early non-kerygmatic Jesus
movements that espoused an essentially aphoristic wisdom
message, even this is not so clearly the case. 31 Mack refers to
Kloppenborg, who hypothesizes two stages of Q tradition, the
earlier stage exhibiting aphoristic emphases and the later
stages characterized by a ’deuteronomistic&dquo; theology and a
more eschatological tone. But Kloppenborg, emphasizes that
his analysis applies only to the literary history of the Q docu-
ment in Greek and does not allow one to construct a tradition-
-
of
history pre-literary material or a religious history of Chris-

tian groups, such as Mack offers. Indeed, Kloppenborg sug-

gests that some of the eschatologically oriented sayings in his
second stage of Q probably reflect Jesus’ teaching and that at
least some of the aphoristic sayings of his first stage of Q are
perhaps younger and less authentic as representations of the
message of,Jesus and the earliest Christian circles,’
Another major problem with Mack’s case for Mark’s origi-
nality is the way the evidence from Paul is mishandled.
Mack’s attempt to limit Paul to an acquaintance with the
message of the ‘Hellenistic Christ cult’ is no more persuasive
than Bousset’s attempt of seventy-five years ago. 39 In the
decades since Bousset, surely several things about Paul have
become clear. 40 He was authentically and thoroughly at home

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24

in his Jewish tradition prior to his calling/conversion to apos-

tleship. His Christian contacts, both before and after his
calling/conversion included the Jewish Christians in Palestine,
Diaspora Jewish Christians of various leanings, and Gentile
Christians of various persuasions. His own emphases and ori-
entation were not as influential or as broadly shared as some
have assumed, but his acquaintance with Christian circles
(’from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum’, Rom. 15.19)
was hardly narrow. Thus, in principle, we simply cannot
marginalize his explicit statements and the implicit evidence
he offers about the nature of early Christian faith, as Mack
tries to do. Nor can Mack sensibly describe Paul as a ’second
generation’ Christian, given that the probable date of this con-
version/calling is sometime in the first few years of the Chris-
tian movement.41
The letters of Paul are full of indications that early Chris-
tianity had its differences, and Paul certainly espoused a
somewhat distinctive program of Gentile mission.42 But even
the most bitterly contested differences between Paul and
others, including Palestinian-based Jewish Christians, such as
the ’false brethren’, and the ’certain men from James’ men-
tioned in Galatians 2, seem to have involved basically three
things: the legitimacy of his own apostleship, the importance
and legitimacy of his Gentile mission, and what we may call
various implications of the kerygma of Jesus’ death and res-
urrectioii/exaltation which Paul considered crucial. Paul
knew of Jewish Christans who did not share his views about
these implications of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ
for Gentile salvation, but there is no hint that Paul knew of
’Jesus movements’ in which a basic kerygma of Jesus’ death
and resurrection/exaltation formed no part of their beliefs.
Given the importance of this kerygma to Paul, his readiness to
criticize Christians whose theology he found seriously defi-
cient, and his wide-ranging acquaintance with early Chris-
tian groups, Paul’s silence about ’Jesus movements’ with no
kerygma ,of Jesus the crucified Messiah is much more dam-
aging to Mack’s case than he grants.
In fact, in 1 Cor. 15.1-11 Paul makes the unambiguous
claim that a kerygma of Jesus the Christ’s death and resur-
rection was the common tradition of his Gentile mission and

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 25

the Palestinian Jewish churches. Mack’s desperate attempt to

avoid the force of this and other such passages in Paul which
reflect the beliefs and cultic practices of Jewish Christian
groups, probably including Palestinian groups (e.g. Rom. 1.3-4;
Phil. 2.5-11; 1 Cor. 16.22), is not persuasive.41
I have dealt at length with problems in Mack’s basic
characterization of early Christian history and beliefs because
he makes his scheme so important for his thesis of Mark as An
imaginative and revolutionary rewriting of Christian faith.
His view of Mark does not seem to have arisen from an
inductive exegesis of the text; instead, it seems to be a hypo-
thetical ’What if’ (to use Mack’s own words, p. xii). Thus, to
cite another example, his claim that Mark invented the idea
that Jesus fulfilled an eschatological divine plan is not justified
by any Markan evidence and flies in the face of Pauline refer-
ences indicating that such a view of Jesus was commonly

accepted in Christianity several decades earlier than Mark

(e.g. 1 Cor. 15.3-5; Gal. 4.4; 1 Thess. 1.10).
It appears then that, although Mack attempts a revolu-
tionary redrawing of Christian origins, his case for Mark as a
revolutionary document does not stand up to critical
scrutiny.44

Evolutionacry Mark
Examination of the works of Kelber and Mack, the major full-
scale attempts to portray Mark as a revolutionary document,
indicates that neither attempt succeeds, and suggests that the
revolutionary model for understanding the appearance of
Mark is not promising. The alternative, an evolutionary
model for understanding Mark’s relationship to first-century
Christianity, therefore remains preferable.
Although this, apparently first, attempt to produce a written
portrait of Jesus’ ministry in narrative mode was a significant
step in, the literary history of early Christianity and a signifi-
cant influence upon subsequent Jesus tradition, it was also
dependent upon and reflected the narrative presentations of
Jesus’ ministry already in use orally in pre-Markan Christian
circles. Mark represents a notable development, but hardly a
revolution.

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26

Mark itself clearly reflects the presupposition that the

preached ’gospel’ includes. narrative(s) of Jesus’ ministry, as
indicated in the pericope :about the anointing in Bethany
(14.9), and in allusions to figures and events the author expects
his readers to know already, such as the mention of the father
of Alexander and Rufus (15.21), and Pilate, who likewise
appears without introduction or identification (15.1).
Moreover, the casual way the author opens the book by
linking the narrative with ’the gospel of Jesus Christ’ (1.1)
suggests that he expects his audience to recognize his work as
in fundamental continuity with previous Christian tradition.
,Nothing in Mark itself reflects, the tension of an author
making a revolutionary step in the Jesus- tradition. There are
emphases in his presentation distinctive in comparison with
the other Synoptics, but there is no justification or overt
defense of his work, such as one would expect from an author
imposing a radically new construction on his ~subject. 41
The great gulf Kelber fixes between the pre-Markan oral
tradition and written Mark seems far too exaggerated. As
Joanna Dewey has shown recently, Mark’s narrative is full of
the imprints of oral structuring of narrative, which also sug-
gests something considerably less than the radical break with
pre-Markan orality that Kelber asserted. 46
Likewise, Mack’s attempt to make the content of Mark
revolutionary seems falsified by the data. I have already indi-
cated that the rigid distinctions between the beliefs of Mack’s
’Jesus movements’ and the ’Hellenistic Christ cult’ do not rest
on solid footings. I suggest also that Mack’s claims about
Mark’s provenance and purpose are based on faulty analysis
of the text.
Although the material in Mark contains many hints that
the tradition derived from Palestinian Jewish Christian cir-
cles, there are clear indications that Mark itself was written
for churches of the Gentile mission, not a failed ’synagogue
reform movement’: for example, the numerous explanations
of the Palestinian background and Jewish customs and terms
(e.g. 5.41; 6.17-29; 7.1-13, 3~4; 12.18), and the implicit and
explicit affirmations of the Gentile mission (e.g. 13.10).
Recently, Hengel has shown that a possible Roman prove-
nance, for example, is still an attractive option.4’

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 27

Mack’s claim that Mark was intended to reconstitute the

message of a failed ’synagogue reform movement’ by embed-
ding their Jesus tradition in the mythic framework of the
Hellenistic Christ cult is surely off course by 180 degrees. The
dynamics in Mark are the opposite.48 Writing for Christians
of the Gentile mission already familiar with the kerygma of
Jesus the Son of God, Mark drew upon the Jesus tradition to
emphasize Jesus’ ministry and fate as the basis of, and model
for, the confession and discipleship of these Christians. This
accounts for such things as the emphases that allegiance to
Jesus requires one to ’follow’ Jesus (e.g. 8.34-38), and that
Jesus’ crucifixion is the pattern of discipleship as well as the
redemptive basis of the elect (in the central section, 8.27-
10.45, esp: 10.42-45). As another indication of Mark’s purpose,
note the distinctive Markan combination of the cultic imagery
of ‘baptism’ and the ’cup’ to describe Jesus’ mission and fate, in
the pericope about the request of James and John for special
honors (10.35-40). This indicates an audience already familiar
with the cultic meal, and suggests that the author was trying
to deepen and make specific the meaning of familiar cultic
actions.49
Other evidence for this view of the author’s provenance and
purposes could be given. As a final example, it seems likely that
the author’s desire to make Jesus. both the basis and model of
Christian life best accounts for the overall shape of the
Markan narrative,which begins with Jesus’ baptism, portrays
Jesus in mission and in conflict with opposition, and culmi-
nates in his obedient death and vindication by resurrection. As
Mark 13 indicates, the themes of mission, opposition and
mortal threat, and the hope of ultimate vindication, all of
which correspond to the story of Jesus, characterize the
author’s hints about the situation of his audience (see esp. w.
9-27).50
There is still much to learn about the Gospel of Mark and
about the relationship of this book to first-century Christianity.
Nothing in this essay is intended to minimize the importance
of this document or its distinctives, and the discussion will no
doubt continue about the exact nature of Mark’s originality
and dependence upon other Christian tradition. But the recent
attempts to portray Mark as a revolutionary document do not

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28

commend themselves under critical scrutiny. It seems clear,

therefore, that a basic evolutionary model best enables us to
approach the question of why and how this important
document was written. An evolutionary model does not imply
any particular development as inevitable or insignificant, nor
does it simply a unilinear development. The evolutionary
model does, however, allow us better to take into account the
complexity of the evidence concerning the Gospel of Mark and
its relationship to the rest of early Christianity. 51

NOTES

1. W.H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics
of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).
2. B. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).
3. See the discussion of Kelber’s views in Semeia 39 (1987), esp. T.E.
Boomershine, ’Peter’s Denial as Polemic or Confession: The Implica-
tions of Media Criticism for Biblical Hermeneutics’, pp. 47-68. The
somewhat uncritical acceptance of Kelber’s position is reflected, e.g. in
E. Richard, Jesus, One and Many; The Christological Concept of New
Testament Authors (Wilmington: Glazier, 1988), p. 100.
4. This distinction underlies the whole of Kelber’s book, but is
expressed explicitly in, e.g., pp. 14-34.
5. A.B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1960); see, e.g., pp. 20, 129-35.
6. See, e.g., C.H. Roberts, ’Books in the Graeco-Roman World and in
the New Testament’, in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1, ed.
P.R. Ackroyd and C.F. Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), pp. 48-66. Cf. Kelber, e.g. p. 17, who quotes a statement by
D.J. Wiseman out of context here. See also M. Hengel, Judaism and
Hellenism (London: SCM, 1974), I, pp. 78-83 (on Jewish schools in
Palestine), and I, pp. 110-15 (on Jewish literature). For surveys of
Jewish literature, see R.A. Kraft and G.W.E. Nickelsburg (eds.), Early
Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986);
M.E. Stone, Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).
7. For an introduction to the literary background of early
Christianity, see D.E. Aune, The New Testament in its Literary
Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987). On the epistolary
materials, see S.K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).

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8. Kelber, pp. 17-18, relying on Walter Ong’s work.

9. Boomershine, ’Peter’s Denial’.
10. See, e.g., G.A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through
Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina
Press, 1984).
11. For a relevant discussion of Greco-Roman reading techniques, see
now M.A. Beavis, ’The Trial Before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14.53-65):
Reader Response and the Greco-Roman Readers’, CBQ 49 (1987), pp.
581-96; and idem, Mark’s Audience. The Literary and Social Setting of
Mark 4.11-12 (JSNTS, 33; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989). Note, e.g., the
little comment directed to the public reader of Mark in 13.14.
12. See, e.g., W.W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation (rev. edn; Cleveland:
World, 1952), pp. 268-94.
13. I develop this point in my essay, ’Greco-Roman Textuality and the
Gospel of Mark: A Critique of Werner Kelber’ (forthcoming).
14. For an introductory survey of the changes that affected the NT
texts, see e.g. J.N. Birdsall, ’The New Testament Text’, in The
Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1 (ed. P.R. Ackroyd and C.F.
Evans; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 332-57.
15. Cf. Kelber’s critique of previous study of the pre-canonical
tradition, pp. 1-43.
16. Cf. Kelber, pp. 90-139.
17. R.B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ (SBLDS, 56; Chico: Scholars
Press, 1983); see e.g. pp. 256-58.
18. J. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient
Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).
19. On the origins of bios literature, see e.g. A. Momigliano, The
Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1971). On the relation of the Gospels to Greco-Roman
bios literature, see e.g. Aune, pp. 17-76; C.H. Talbert, ’Biographies of
Philosophers and Rulers as Instruments of Religious Propaganda in
Mediterranean Antiquity’, ANRW 2.16/2, pp. 1619-57; H. Cancik, ’Die
Gattung Evangelium: Das Evangelium des Markus im Rahmen der
antiken Historiographie’, in Markus-Philologie. Historische, liter-
argeschichtliche und stilistische Untersuchungen zum zweiten Evan-
gelium (ed. H. Cancik; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [P. Siebeck], 1984); A.
Dihle, ’Die Evangelien und die griechische Biographie’, in Das Evan-
gelium und die Evangelien (ed. P. Stuhlmacher; WUNT, 28; Tübingen:
J.C.B. Mohr [P. Siebeck], 1983), pp. 383-411. On the distinctions
between the Jesus tradition and ancient Jewish rabbinic traditions
about sages, see J. Neusner, Why No Gospels in Talmudic Judaism?
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); P.S. Alexander, ’Rabbinic Biography
and the Biography of Jesus: A Survey of the Evidence’, in Synoptic
Studies: The Ampleforth Conferences of 1982 and 1983 (ed. C.M.
Tuckett; JSNTS, 7; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), pp. 19-50. For a
general review of the question, see R. Guelich, ’The Gospel Genre’, in
Stuhlmacher, Das Evangelium, pp. 183-219.

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20. Mack, e.g. pp. 8-9. And it is clear that in Mack’s view the alleged
revolutionary influence of Mark’s picture of Jesus was unfortunate
and distasteful (e.g. p. 245). Indeed, Mack attributes to Mark an even
wider negative influence, blaming the author for several bad features
of Western culture, including modern imperialism (pp. 368-75).
21. Mack,
Myth, p. 11.
22. Mack, pp. 53-77, esp. pp. 63-74.
23. Mack, pp. 78-97.
24. Mack, e.g. pp. 276, 315-24.
25. Mack, p. 109 n. 8. Mack’s portrait of the ’Christ cult’ is in pp. 98-
123.
26. Mack, p. 100 n. 21.
27. For another non-eschatological portrait of Jesus, see M.J. Borg,
Jesus, a New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).
28. Especially relevant are the studies by Neusner and Alexander,
cited above, of biographical traditions in other Jewish groups.
29. A. Harnack, What is Christianity? (New York: Harper & Row,
1957 [German, 1900]).
30. For recent studies of Jesus, see e.g. E.P. Sanders, Jesus and
Judaism (London: SCM, 1985); R. Leivestad, Jesus in his Own Per-
spective (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1987).
31. See e.g. Mack, pp. 15-24.
32. W. Bousset, Kyrios Christos (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1913, 1921). The English translation is cited in this essay
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1970). See e.g. pp. 31-56, 119-52. For criticisms of
several major aspects of Bousset’s work, see my essay, ’New
Testament Christology: A Critique of Bousset’s Influence’, TS 40
(1979), pp. 306-17.
33. See my book, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and
Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress; London: SCM,
1988).
34. See e.g. E.S. Malbon, ’Galilee and Jerusalem: History and
Literature in Marcan Interpretation’, CBQ 44 (1982), pp. 242-55; the
review of G. Theissen by B.J. Malina in CBQ 41 (1979), pp. 176-78; R.L.
Rohrbaugh,’"Social Location of Thought" as a Heuristic Construct in
New Testament Study’, JSNT 30 (1987), pp. 103-19.
35. Cf. Mack, pp. 85-87 nn. 6-7.
36. See similar observations in G.N. Stanton, ’On the Christology of
Q’, in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. B. Lindars and S.S.
Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 27-42.
37. See Mack, e.g. pp. 84-87 and nn. 6-7.
38. J.S, Kloppenborg, e.g. p. 262 (on the biographical tendencies of Q),
p. 324 (on the distinctions between the Q wisdom material and Cynic
thought), pp. 244-45 (on the distinction between the literary history of Q
and the tradition history of earliest Christianity). As for Kloppenborg’s
sketch of the history of Q, he assumes too easily that the complexity in
Q material requires a developmental process, and that differing forms

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of material require, and can furnish the basis for, a theory of different
provenances for the different forms. Cf. A.D. Jacobson, ’The History of
the Composition of the Synoptic Sayings Source, Q’, in Society of Bib-
lical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers (ed. K.H. Richards; Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 285-94. R.A. Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradi-
tion : The Aphoristic Teaching of Jesus (SNTSMS, 61; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), analyzes the tradition history of Q,
arguing that, though at least some of the sapiential sayings may go
back to Jesus, the collections of such material lying behind the Q doc-
ument were later than Jesus and may have come from a particular
circle of early Christians. However, unlike Mack, Piper does not
attribute to this group a distinctive, non-kerygmatic christology.
39. Cf. Mack, pp. 98-100; W. Bousset, p. 119.
40. As representative of Pauline studies in recent decades, see e.g. K.
Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1976); J.C. Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); E.P.
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977);
W.A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1983).
41. Cf. Mack, e.g. p. 121. In references to Paul, Mack repeatedly
places him in the fifties, the time of Paul’s letters, suppressing the fact
that Paul’s calling/conversion and acquaintance with Christian faith
took place in the first few years of the Christian movement. On the
importance of chronology, see M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul
(London: SCM; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), pp. 30-47.
42. For discussion of Paul’s relationship with various early Christian
circles, see B. Holmberg, Paul and Power (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1978).
43. Cf. e.g. Mack, p. 113 n. 11.
44. See L. Cope’s appraisal of Mack’s book in RSR 15 (1989), p. 160:
’the creative imagination on display here is Mack’s, not Mark’s’.
45. Cf. Josephus’ clear indication that he wishes to set the record
straight concerning the Jewish people in Contra Ap. 1.1-5. Even Lk.
1.1-4 is closer to being a hint that the author is trying to present a more
correct or suitable picture of Jesus than in other accounts.
46. J. Dewey, ’Oral Methods of Structuring Narrative in Mark’, Int 43
(1989), pp. 32-44.
47. M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCM, 1985),
pp. 1-30. See also D. Senior, ’"With Swords and Clubs"... The Setting
of Mark’s Community and his Critique of Abusive Power’, BTB 17
(1987), pp. 10-20.
48. See K.G. Reploh, Markus—Lehrer der Gemeinde (SBM, 9;
Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1969).
49. Mk (10.35-40) alone joins the ’cup’ and ’baptism’, the two chief
cultic actions associated with participation in early Christian groups,
as symbols for Jesus’ coming fate and the discipleship for which the

disciples must be prepared. Mt. 20.20-23 mentions only Jesus’ ’cup’.

The images of ’cup’ or ’baptism’ are found separated in other sayings;

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see Mk 14.36/Mt. 26.39/Lk. 22.42; Lk. 12.49. Note also Mark’s use of
eucharistic language in the account of the feeding of the 4,000 (Mk 8.6-
7).
50. The author systematically denies that any of the events listed in
Mk 13.5-23 is the sign of the end, even the ’desolating sacrilege’ of v. 14.
The events are all ’historicized’, made events within history, not
markers of the end, and the hearers are given various practical
instructions about how to cope with these events, emphasizing the
dangers of being led astray by false eschatological claims (e.g. vv. 5, 7,
8, 10, 13, 14-23). The primary eschatological condition for the end is the
spread of the gospel to ’all nations’ (v. 10), and the eschatological
appearance of the Son of Man is only ’after that tribulation’ (v. 24) and
the ’all things’ warned of in vv. 5-23. See Hengel’s discussion of Mark
13 in the light of Roman history, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, pp. 14-
28.
51. After this essay was in press, there appeared the stimulating
essay by P.J. Achtemeier, ’Omne Verbum Sonat: The New Testament
and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity’, JBL 109 (1990),
pp. 3-27, which confirms further the close connection between ’orality’
and ’textuality’ in the Greco-Roman world. Also worth noting is the
major study by W.V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1989), though I am not sure that all his
assumptions about the necessary social conditions for widespread
competence are correct.

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